Friday, November 29, 2024

Rescission Is Not A Magic Scissor

The Grey Lady analyzes the news:
Mr. Musk has solicited employees on X, saying the job would involve more than 80 hours of work per week. “This will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero,” he wrote. 
The spokeswoman for the effort did not answer questions about how many staff members the group has now, and who — if anyone — is paying them. 
In their [WSJ] op-ed, Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy also said that in slashing regulations, they would rely on a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions that limited federal agencies’ power to issue rules. 
They plan to compile a list of regulations that they believed stemmed from agencies having exceeded their legal authority. 
“DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission,” the men wrote.
Not mentioned in this article is the Anti-Deficiency Act, which will keep DOGE from being anything but some tech bros in Silicon Valley playing out Masters of the Universe fantasies in their heads.

And they’re reading the Supreme Court ruling the way Fitton taught Trump to read the PRA.
Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said that many of the ideas mentioned by Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy would be ripe for legal challenges and noted that many of Mr. Trump’s previous efforts to expansively use executive powers had been struck down by courts. 
Mr. Trump’s advisers have suggested that the Supreme Court’s ruling in a landmark case involving Chevron earlier this year will make it easier for the executive branch to nullify rules and regulations that appear to go beyond the legislative intent of laws. 
However, Mr. Adler noted that the ruling actually means that agencies should not be able to make such determinations, suggesting that it would require litigation and court rulings to quash the regulations. Ignoring or eliminating rules without following the proper procedures is also likely to trigger lawsuits from those that benefit from the status quo. 
“There’s litigation risk that they’re not adequately accounting for,” Mr. Adler said, adding that the Trump administration would have to be extremely strategic if it tries to take legally creative steps to rescind regulations or shrink agencies.
In short, Elmo is not a Master of the Universe, and Trump is not a king. And rescission is not a pair of scissors:
Still, Mr. Kovacev said, the process of rescission — formally removing a rule from the books — can take years, because it requires the government to solicit and respond to public comment.
Trump can’t fire civil service employees at will unless he moves them to Schedule F. He tried that the first time around, but couldn’t do anything with it until Biden took over and rescinded his efforts. (EO’s are easier to rescind.)

All of this is “what could happen,” which, frankly, I’ve had enough of. Fear of the future is the fuel of the internet outrage engine. I’m fine being better informed than the voters who ignored Trump’s promises but misremembered his administration. But permanent outrage is just another “system of control” that keeps you reading the people selling it. I can’t do anything about Elmo or Trump, except enjoy watching them run into the buzz saw of reality. Trump already “truthed” his intentions towards Mexico, and the Mexican president responded with a letter. Which put Trump in his place so hard he dropped the subject.

She taught the world how to play him. Watch the world learn. And relax, and focus on what you can control.

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