The Supreme Court ruling that the president can fire heads of independent agencies without cause may not seem like a big deal to most people. It certainly isn't getting a big reaction from the corporate media or even, as far as I have noticed so far, Democratic politicians. But it's disastrous.
The world is complicated. Making rules and regulations requires expertise, and it has to be reality based. People and businesses need to be able to put reasonable faith in the agencies that make those rules, and they need to know that the rules are going to be reasonably stable.
The reason Congress established independent regulatory agencies is to shield them to some degree from political interference. No, it doesn't work entirely but it works well enough. These agencies are not under a cabinet secretary and are not part of the Executive Office of the President. Here they are:
The SC exempted the Federal Reserve from today's ruling but I think you can see why Congress didn't want the rest of these agencies, along with the Fed, to be apolitical. Sure, the president nominates their directors, but they have to be confirmed by the senate. If the president can just fire any of them, at any time, for no reason, and the president happens to be an intellectual and moral idiot, whose main goal in office is to accept extravagant bribes, I think you can see right away why our society will be in big trouble.
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