[wrs]

Note that the fee can be waived at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. So, just like the tariffs, one purpose of this change is to give companies the opportunity to come to the White House and ask what favors they can do in exchange for a waiver.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

I'm interested to see how >26% of the country thinks it's a good idea for the president to pick winners and losers, and how that doesn't seem like the planned economy of the Soviet Union that failed disastrously.

[yibg]

That 26% don’t see this as overreach, they see it as putting the corrupt radical left | greedy corporations | immigrants in their place.

[slg]

The rate the Trump administration is losing plausible deniability has been accelerating over recent months/weeks/days. The MAGA diehards flying Trump flags aren't going to change their ways because they are true believers in "putting the corrupt radical left | greedy corporations | immigrants in their place". But what about all the techno-libertarians that populate HN? Can you genuinely say this type of loophole that allows naked corruption is good? Do you agree with the FCC threatening to take away broadcast licenses for jokes? When does the water get too hot for all us frogs?

[yibg]

I hope majority of the voting population sees this for what it is. The question is is there anything that can be done about it. There is midterms but that's a long ways out, especially at the speed things are moving now. Congress isn't keeping the executive branch in check, neither is the judiciary.

[titzer]

As it turns out, power without accountability inevitably leads to corruption.

There is no functioning mechanism in operation today that forces the government to follow the law. Any law. Not even the constitution.

[jaybrendansmith]

Except their oath. They have no honor.

[readthenotes1]

Power doesn't corrupt; it reveals.

-- Robert Caro

[analognoise]

The techno-libertarians I’ve interacted with were always painfully naive, with a simplistic worldview (that they thought was extremely learn’ed - mistaking their technical skill for broad intellect that understood politics to be “simple”).

If they haven’t grown up thus far, I doubt yet another logical inconsistency will puncture their shallow and hermetic understanding.

Or as I read it somewhere, “We’ve created a group of technical people who can solve any technical problem but can’t explain why Nazism is bad.”

The only thing that might pierce that veil is this: they believed they were not workers, but more like a priestly class, “self made” but immune to the travails of “everyone else”. The massive spike in layoffs, the economic slump, our increased taxes (via tariff), the rights erosions - might get them to recognize their mistake in understanding, but only if it strikes them personally (this gets back to the naïveté mentioned above).

[macintux]

As we’ve learned from victims of pig butchering scams, denial of the obvious runs very, very deep. Pride and confidence and lack of self reflection will make it very difficult for Trump voters to change their minds.

[8note]

from the technolibertarian side its great - many of the web2.0 companies were about breaking the law in some way(eg. uber, airbnb) and getting away with it. now there's a very explicit way to do so. there's also lots of change happening, so theres plenty of opportunity to make a quick buck and develop oligarchs similar to russia

[duxup]

>waived at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Yeah that just seems like corruption by design.

[mapontosevenths]

This.

Their arbitrary nature is designed to consolidate executive branch authority that can be welded as a weapon against corporations that might consider supporting his opposition in the future.

It's a classic fascist ploy, and is further proof that executive orders should be banned. In America we do not have kings who rule by decree, or at least we should not..

[dragonwriter]

Banning executive orders is nonsense; you can’t have an executive branch with a head and prohibit the head from giving direction to the rest of the executive branch.

Executive orders that violate, or direct the violation of, existing law are illegal (or, at least, without legal effect) to the extent they do that, but whether or not a particular order meets that description is frequently a matter of dispute, which can end up in litigation.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Executive orders that violate, or direct the violation of, existing law are illegal

But now we run into the question of What is illegality without ethical-centric courts?

[mapontosevenths]

This actually misses the mark. They don't need simply to be legal, they need to have been based upon an existing law or the constitution to be enforceable. In the US the executive can not create law.

That's the theory anyhow. As you mention, the courts now just obey the executive rather than acting as a check and balance as intended.

[dllthomas]

I think we have that question regardless.

[mapontosevenths]

> Banning executive orders is nonsense; you can’t have an executive branch with a head and prohibit the head from giving direction to the rest of the executive branch.

Sort of. The executive order was originally used for routine administrative orders. Later their usage expanded, but they were still required to be based on either an expressed or implied congressional law, or the constitution itself.

Now, presidents use them to invent law from scratch as Kings once did. They often do so under the flimsiest of pretense, if they bother with pretense at all.

It is this type that should be banned, or more accuratly: existing laws should be enforced.

[BoredPositron]

The US worked pretty well without them before?

[dragonwriter]

> The US worked pretty well without them before?

The period between the inauguration of the first President under the US Constitution (April 30, 1789) and the first formal executive order (June 9, 1789) was 40 days, so I have no idea what you are thinking of.

EDIT: It’s worth noting that the first Act of Congress was only signed into law 8 days earlier than the first executive order was issued, so for most of the time before executive orders the executive had no actual laws to execute.

[8note]

i for one dont think that congress can delegate something like how big a fee can be for the executive to decide on its own.

[andrewinardeer]

If executive orders get banned, should presidential pardons as well? This instrument can also be used for leverage.

[wrs]

Both have necessary and legitimate uses, which is why they exist. Any institutional power can be used corruptly. The defense against that is not to try to predecide and constrain every action of the executive. It is for the people, directly or through their representatives, to recognize the corruption and remove that executive through election or impeachment.

[jjj123]

Genuine question: what are the legitimate uses of a presidential pardon? It always seemed strange to me, I don’t understand it.

[macintux]

Any judicial system is a source of injustice, hopefully just at the periphery, but there needs to be some way to recognize and correct grievous errors.

[linohh]

Yes.