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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

What is it that you think this EO says? The first Trump administration went all the way to the Supreme Court to establish that he could coerce ALJs. There are already extensive internal checks on FTC, SEC, and FCC --- places where to exercise independent power those agencies still need the cooperation of DOJ.

There's a clear norms violation happening here, but I don't see the power grab everybody else is seeing. These are powers the Presidency already had.

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> These are powers the Presidency already had.

Then what, in your mind, is the purpose of this EO?

To serve notice to the FCC, FTC, SEC, and CFTC that Trump intends to override their internal legal interpretations.

But that ... is a power grab...

No, the President already has that power. The norm of the previous institutions was, largely, to let the agencies do their thing. This administration is not going to do that.

This was a live question in Trump's last administration, but I don't think it is anymore after cases like Lucia?

Great analysis. By your logic you don’t think that the Enabling Act of 1933 was a power grab, correct?

You are dying on the hill of a pedantic point. A president also has the power to declare an emergency and deploy the military domestically. Doing so would still be a power grab. The term just doesn't have the precise narrow definition you seem to be arguing for. Its colloquial understanding encompasses the use of heretofore unused powers.

Yes, because deploying the military domestically and overriding an FTC ALJ's legal interpretation are clearly comparable.

They are comparable in that they are both an increasing exercise of power wrt what had been previously done.

I concur with GP; you are arriving at the conclusion through your own logic but somehow not seeing the conclusion. See intermerda's point below.

This is one of these situations where my immediate instinct is to clarify my own politics, but then I catch myself and conclude that my comments should stand on their own whether or not you feel like you have a partisan affinity to me. Mostly: this is why the threads on these stories are just wretched. You could say I'm wrong and nerd your way out to whether that's the case --- that's what this site is for --- but instead we're all just reflexively venting emotions.

You don't need to clarify anything. It's simple. Everyone here agrees with your logic, your comments do stand on their own. The point of debate is "but I don't see the power grab everybody else is seeing". Which is fine if you don't see it, that's just how you see it. Others see it differently.

You really can't see how they are both powers that presidents (arguably) technically have but which they do not execute? And that a president actually exercising such a power is thus a power grab?

Nothing in my comment is comparing them or suggesting they are comparable.

The terrifying thin i learned recently is that norms are how laws work.

This i learned from a discussion between a magistrate and legal scholar.

This means that a norm violation, practically speaking, is a law violation. Which i guess is a crime. But that has to go to the courts to be judged.

Uncommon tptacek L. "extensive internal checks" that's laughable given what's been going on lately with the executive overreach.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying those internal checks are a good thing; I mean that the President already has extensive mechanisms to control what these agencies do.

He seems to be optimizing and polishing his ability to do so, which is very dangerous even if technically the reach is the same.

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