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607 points givemeethekeys | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.459s | source
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sgnelson ◴[] No.44992267[source]
Everyone is talking about "bailouts" and "owning a company that the government funds."

This isn't about that at all. This is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government.

If you don't think there was an "or else" as part of this deal, you're largely mistaken. If you don't think that there will be other questionalbe demands placed on Intel in the future from this government, you are largely mistaken.

But y'all go ahead and can keep arguing over whether we should "get something back" from this deal. Because that's really going to maker ameraica graet agian.

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rayiner ◴[] No.44992508[source]
Unfortunately, this ship sailed quite some time ago. For example, after the 2008 financial crisis, the Senate rejected a proposed bailout of GM. But Bush approved it anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_2008%E2%80%9320...

> However, it had been argued that the Treasury lacked the statutory authority to direct TARP funds to the automakers, since TARP is limited to "financial institutions" under Section 102 of the TARP. It was also argued that providing TARP funds to automaker's financing operations, such as GMAC, runs counter to the intent of Congress for limiting TARP funds to true "financial institutions".[79] On December 19, 2008, President Bush used his executive authority to declare that TARP funds may be spent on any program he personally deems necessary to avert the financial crisis, and declared Section 102 to be nonbinding.

Also, “unitary executive” doesn’t mean overriding other branches. It just means that whatever powers the executive branch does or does not have are exercised by the President, just like the 535 members of Congress exercise all the powers of Congress, and the 9 Justices exercise all of the powers of the Supreme Court. It means that executive branch employees don’t have independent powers, just as House staffers and Supreme Court law clerks don’t have independent powers.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._70 (“Federalist No. 70 emphasizes the unitary structure of the executive. The strong executive must be unitary, Hamilton says, because ‘unity is conducive to energy...[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.’”).

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cma ◴[] No.44993258[source]
> Also, “unitary executive” doesn’t mean overriding other branches. It just means that whatever powers the executive branch does or does not have are exercised by the President,

And then you find the executive is what chooses to enforce rulings against the executive. They were not trying to set up something like the UN security council with a defacto veto on all passed law.

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1. rayiner ◴[] No.44996304[source]
> And then you find the executive is what chooses to enforce rulings against the executive

Correct. But this is true in almost any conceivable system. The entity charged with enforcing the law will be charged with enforcing the law against itself. “Who watches the watchers?” The founders thought of that and their solution to that was elections and a relatively short 4-year term.

Conceiving of the executive as having subparts independent of the elected executive actually breaks the system. Because now, whatever subpart you assign the law enforcement function is unelected and insulated from political accountability. Now, nobody can watch the watchers!

It turns out the founders were smarter than the current facility of Harvard Law School.

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2. cma ◴[] No.45019223[source]
> Because now, whatever subpart you assign the law enforcement function is unelected and insulated from political accountability.

Justices can be impeached by congress. The supreme court can also be diluted with new appointments by the elected branches acting together, even if justices serve for life.