I met Paul Atkins, around this time last year. One of his biggest problems (like anyone running a federal department) was that he's not allowed to hire or increase his budget, yet the demand for work that needs SEC attention is not going down. And that's after his dept, and all others, were required to perform layoffs under DOGE.
LastTrain 19 minutes ago [-]
Well he has a plan to cut his department's work in half!
I believe it was CFTC that had a rule that no two members of its governing body could ever be in the same private space at the same time.
The idea being that they could not discuss important matters privately but only when in the official committee discussions.
This included elevators so if one of them was about to get on and the other one was already there, the first person had to let the elevator go without them.
Extremely cheeky to skip out on APA rulemaking requirements
skinfaxi 2 hours ago [-]
The key change seems to be innocuous:
> The Commission is modifying 17 CFR 200.41, which establishes the Commission's quorum requirement. Three commissioners will continue to constitute a quorum of the Commission, with two important exceptions. First, consistent with the current rule, if the number of commissioners in office is two or one, that number is sufficient for a quorum. Second, if the number of commissioners in office minus the number disqualified from consideration with respect to a matter is two or one, then that number of commissioners constitutes a quorum for purposes of that matter.
dghlsakjg 1 hours ago [-]
Its a naked power play when placed in context, despite how inoccuous it may seem. Commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. They can be fired by the president unilaterally.
This new rule means that the president only have to get one of "his" guys in, and now you can own all of the SEC decisions if you want by just firing any dissenting commissioners.
In the past, that is the sort of norm that would not be broken. We are now in a world where the president trying to fire fed bankers is real, and that is arguably a much, much, more serious norm to have broken. I don't think this administration will have any issues playing to the letter of the law instead of the spirit.
So with this rule change, the effect is that a president only needs one commissioner and a lack of regard for norms to completely control SEC decisions.
datsci_est_2015 56 minutes ago [-]
“Seems to be innocuous” is genuinely funny. It must be true for almost all types of corruption and evil that if you zoom in enough, and rob the action of all surrounding context, that it could be described as “innocuous”. How aptly technocratic.
estearum 23 minutes ago [-]
This has been an excellent method to detect high-IQ but actually-retarded people. MAGA actions are distilled to their most procedural possible conception, isolated from all relevant context, and then assessed.
May as well go the full nine yards: "The Enabling Act 2026 appears to actually just be an edit to a .docx file. Hmm... My aloofness is a sign of my intelligence."
datsci_est_2015 3 minutes ago [-]
Indeed. Highly correlated (but not strictly) with Great Man syndrome, and Elon Musk fanboyism.
This is why we need the humanities. I remember one of my application essays to my university was on the merits of a “Liberal Education”[1] and I’m very grateful that I was able to properly receive one from my institution.
Removing a requirement for quorum makes the bipartisan-intended commission into a singular role appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the president, like an agency head.
nxobject 1 hours ago [-]
> First, consistent with the current rule, if the number of commissioners in office is two or one, that number is sufficient for a quorum.
Luckily enough, the Supreme Court has given the administration the green light to fire members of commissions at will... save the Fed, because mumble mumble history and tradition mumble.
ceejayoz 22 minutes ago [-]
> because mumble mumble history and tradition mumble
Definitely has nothing to do with SCOTUS's retirement accounts, no sir.
boothby 1 hours ago [-]
Not that innocuous when the commission is intended to be bipartisan but the two Democratic seats are vacant. This change formalizes uniparty rule.
pdonis 28 minutes ago [-]
From what I can tell, the only actual change is that the current rule says "two" instead of "two or one" in the last part about what happens if some Commissioners are disqualified with respect to a matter.
sagarm 36 minutes ago [-]
It's hard to tell if someone's oblivious or engaging in bad faith these days.
devin 32 minutes ago [-]
Totally. My first reaction was: "This person must not be from around here."
But my second was: "Oh, no, maybe this is just more targeted ignorance"
SpicyLemonZest 1 hours ago [-]
You're missing important background here. Federal law requires the commission to be non-partisan, defined as no more than three of the five commissioners being from the same party. But the Trump regime has subverted this rule by simply refusing to appoint more than three commissioners. That's why these quorum shenanigans are necessary. The proponents of this rule are acting in bad faith and will immediately file a lawsuit when the next administration tries to apply it in the other direction.
someonebaggy 24 minutes ago [-]
Reminds me of what the USA did a few years ago with the WTO Appellate Body (the "supreme court of world trade"). Since all new appellate judges would need US approval, the US (starting under Obama) just refused to approve judges, until the number of judges fell below the needed quorum, and then there could be no appeals.
The solution? A bunch of the other countries in the WTO just got together and made their own appellate body without the US, and presumably with blackjack and hookers.
To this day the WTO is still partially nonfunctional and the stop-gap is still being used.
Spivak 14 minutes ago [-]
Am I wrong or is this whole story super dumb? If the US isn't going to respect the WTO then boot them out, change the rules and move on. This is a human institution by and for other humans. Rule lawyering when one of your players is shitting on the board is madness. I get that that's what happened in effect but just do it in the regular WTO.
gortok 31 minutes ago [-]
We are sitting in an uncanny valley regarding law.
Once independent agencies are no longer independent, partly due to the expansion of the unitary executive viewpoint in both the Supreme Court and the current executive branch, and the rather obsequious Congress we have that instead of being “jealous to protect its power” is kowtowing to anything the Trump administration wants.
The supreme courts ruling on presidential immunity, chevron deference, and the dismantling of the ideas of an independent agency have all come together to create a dangerous situation for all of us.
The Supreme Court, whether because the of their own alignment with partisanship or some other more nefarious reason, have gutted the idea of an independent agency (except for the Federal Reserve, which is special, but not for any legal reason, but rather because even conservative SCOTUS is not willing to risk the fallout of logically applying their unitary executive view of government to the Fed).
So Congress put a lot of regulatory power in these once independent and non-partisan agencies, and that’s gone. Combine that with a president that is overtly partisan and vindictive, and you have a problem where SCOTUS has created a situation that has elevated the whims of a president above the law Congress created.
We will be feeling the affects of this decision for generations, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the catalyst for the failure of the American form of government.
Our system cannot sustain when coequal branches of government kowtow to politics.
estearum 27 minutes ago [-]
I'm just excited for the next POTUS to use SEAL Team 6 to quell his political opposition as "an official act" and then I'm sure SCOTUS and Congress start reevaluating some things.
mcherm 22 minutes ago [-]
I genuinely believe that once the current administration is out of office the new President should strongly campaign in favor of the strongest possible changes to prevent dictatorship: constitutional amendments to reverse some of the most egregious harm done by the Supreme Court and the general inaction in response to fascism. Then if the opposition party isn't supportive, the new President should set a date after which they threaten to abuse their powers in exactly the same ways Trump has abused his. Surely that would motivate the opposition party, right?
estearum 19 minutes ago [-]
IMO just start with SEAL Team 6's "official actions" and then you can start proposing changes. That way you just need to motivate the people who didn't already attempt a coup.
Amezarak 16 minutes ago [-]
Very little of what has happened is novel.
someonebaggy 27 minutes ago [-]
Congress still has the power here. It could write a law saying the executive can't do XYZ. It chooses not to, for obvious reasons.
estearum 20 minutes ago [-]
If Congresspeople can be pushed out of the party or out of the party's favor (and therefore office) by POTUS, then they de facto do not have power.
The best distillation of our current conundrum I've heard is that our framers architected a system where the branches of government would compete (i.e. protect their power) against each other. Today, we have people in each branch willing to forego their own branch's power in exchange for greater party power.
Amezarak 17 minutes ago [-]
Where did the constitutional idea of an independent agency come from and what was its justification? I’ve heard a lot about the “unitary executive” but I never see what the counter argument is except for “it would be good to have independent agencies because sometimes democratic input produces bad outcomes and experts do better.” Which yeah, makes sense, nobody argues that democracies make sane decisions - but it’s always an outcome-based argument instead of a legal one.
goatlover 9 minutes ago [-]
It came from Congress creating those agencies as is their right to do so, and they were created with the idea of not being weaponize for partisan purposes. We really don't want the DOJ to be the personal enforcement of the president's whims against his political enemies.
Amezarak 6 minutes ago [-]
It seems controversial that Congress could create independent executive agencies. Could they make the entire executive independent except for the military? Why or why not?
And while I agree we don’t want the DoJ treated that way, that’s how it’s been operated since its beginnings! If anything the past few decades have been relatively not so bad. And regardless of what I want that doesn’t answer whether it would be within Congresses power to make it independent of the President.
crumpled 29 minutes ago [-]
This is really bad. Now you can have one puppet, and no dissent.
The FCC is set up for this same tactic. 2 vacancies, so down to the minimum quorum there right now. They can change the rule and let Anna Gomez's term expire. Suddenly we'll be reviewing everyone's licenses and seeing all the TV and radio content becoming more right-wing.
nielsbot 23 minutes ago [-]
> all the TV and radio content becoming more right-wing
Already happening. Also, I support diversity in media without regards to ideology because diversity in media increases the peoples' power and freedom against the ownership and political power classes.
The idea being that they could not discuss important matters privately but only when in the official committee discussions.
This included elevators so if one of them was about to get on and the other one was already there, the first person had to let the elevator go without them.
Extremely cheeky to skip out on APA rulemaking requirements
> The Commission is modifying 17 CFR 200.41, which establishes the Commission's quorum requirement. Three commissioners will continue to constitute a quorum of the Commission, with two important exceptions. First, consistent with the current rule, if the number of commissioners in office is two or one, that number is sufficient for a quorum. Second, if the number of commissioners in office minus the number disqualified from consideration with respect to a matter is two or one, then that number of commissioners constitutes a quorum for purposes of that matter.
This new rule means that the president only have to get one of "his" guys in, and now you can own all of the SEC decisions if you want by just firing any dissenting commissioners.
In the past, that is the sort of norm that would not be broken. We are now in a world where the president trying to fire fed bankers is real, and that is arguably a much, much, more serious norm to have broken. I don't think this administration will have any issues playing to the letter of the law instead of the spirit.
So with this rule change, the effect is that a president only needs one commissioner and a lack of regard for norms to completely control SEC decisions.
May as well go the full nine yards: "The Enabling Act 2026 appears to actually just be an edit to a .docx file. Hmm... My aloofness is a sign of my intelligence."
This is why we need the humanities. I remember one of my application essays to my university was on the merits of a “Liberal Education”[1] and I’m very grateful that I was able to properly receive one from my institution.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
Luckily enough, the Supreme Court has given the administration the green light to fire members of commissions at will... save the Fed, because mumble mumble history and tradition mumble.
Definitely has nothing to do with SCOTUS's retirement accounts, no sir.
But my second was: "Oh, no, maybe this is just more targeted ignorance"
The solution? A bunch of the other countries in the WTO just got together and made their own appellate body without the US, and presumably with blackjack and hookers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_Body#History
To this day the WTO is still partially nonfunctional and the stop-gap is still being used.
Once independent agencies are no longer independent, partly due to the expansion of the unitary executive viewpoint in both the Supreme Court and the current executive branch, and the rather obsequious Congress we have that instead of being “jealous to protect its power” is kowtowing to anything the Trump administration wants.
The supreme courts ruling on presidential immunity, chevron deference, and the dismantling of the ideas of an independent agency have all come together to create a dangerous situation for all of us.
The Supreme Court, whether because the of their own alignment with partisanship or some other more nefarious reason, have gutted the idea of an independent agency (except for the Federal Reserve, which is special, but not for any legal reason, but rather because even conservative SCOTUS is not willing to risk the fallout of logically applying their unitary executive view of government to the Fed).
So Congress put a lot of regulatory power in these once independent and non-partisan agencies, and that’s gone. Combine that with a president that is overtly partisan and vindictive, and you have a problem where SCOTUS has created a situation that has elevated the whims of a president above the law Congress created.
We will be feeling the affects of this decision for generations, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the catalyst for the failure of the American form of government.
Our system cannot sustain when coequal branches of government kowtow to politics.
The best distillation of our current conundrum I've heard is that our framers architected a system where the branches of government would compete (i.e. protect their power) against each other. Today, we have people in each branch willing to forego their own branch's power in exchange for greater party power.
And while I agree we don’t want the DoJ treated that way, that’s how it’s been operated since its beginnings! If anything the past few decades have been relatively not so bad. And regardless of what I want that doesn’t answer whether it would be within Congresses power to make it independent of the President.
The FCC is set up for this same tactic. 2 vacancies, so down to the minimum quorum there right now. They can change the rule and let Anna Gomez's term expire. Suddenly we'll be reviewing everyone's licenses and seeing all the TV and radio content becoming more right-wing.
Already happening. Also, I support diversity in media without regards to ideology because diversity in media increases the peoples' power and freedom against the ownership and political power classes.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/02/2026-20...