Daily Archives: 6 July 2026

Eroding Foundational Checks and Balances

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Greg Ip is worried that the checks and balances built into our Federal government by our Constitution are rapidly eroding due to President Donald Trump’s (R) unilateral actions. He’s badly mistaken. The erosion began long ago, and it accelerated starting in 2008. Trump has been resisting the erosion, for all the discomfort he’s causing a Leftist press too used to and too comfortable with that washing away.

FDR then tried to pack the Supreme Court; his own party revolted.

Ip ignored the rest of that story and its impact. Roosevelt didn’t get the additional Justices he wanted, but by 1943, he’d succeeded in getting appointed to the Court 8 Justices of his choice ou of the 9 comprising the Court. Our nation has been paying the price of that ever since, from Wickard which increased Federal economic power at the direct expense of the States, through Kelo, which increased Federal power at the direct expense of individual citizens and our property rights, and Chevron deference, which increased the power of Executive Branch agencies at the direct expense of both Congress and the President.

Shortly after taking office, he [Trump] fired the Democratic members of several independent agencies, including the FTC, effectively transforming them into executive departments.

On the contrary, this was Trump executing his constitutional authority as the head of the Executive Branch, and exercising his control over all of the Agencies and Departments of the Executive Branch. The Supreme Court, only recently restored to a body that adheres to what our Constitution actually says rather than what a Liberal, Roosevelt-esque-dominated Court want it to say, acknowledged that constitutional authority. The erosion here is from Congress, with its creation of an “independent” Federal Trade Commission in 1914 and subsequent further “independent” Agency creations. These creations were Congress’ unconstitutional attempt to create a fourth Branch of government by masquerading these creations as part of the Executive Branch.

The Supreme Court also took a step toward restoring Constitutional order in our Federal government by—finally—eliminating the knee-jerk deference to those so-called independent Agencies, and others properly constituted as subordinate to the President, when it rescinded that misbegotten Chevron deference and emphasized the importance of and constitutional requirement that Congress do its own legislative work, work it cannot pass off to those Agencies.

Regarding Trump’s unilaterality in particular, in one sense, he’s only following the examples set by ex-President Barack Obama (D), who infamously bragged about—and used—his pen and telephone to ignore or override Congress, and ex-President Joe Biden (D) who ignored so many of our nation’s laws in his attempt to virtually erase our southern border.

That unilaterality also is being reined in by a constitution-supporting and -applying Court. Trump can fire those Agency personnel. His unilateral application of taxing, via tariffs, has been severely curtailed. His efforts to cancel already-committed Federal grants have been successfully blocked.

Other of his unilateral actions, though, actually are moves back toward Constitutional order. His moves to greatly reduce Department of Education employment and to closely circumscribe DoEd authorities are aimed at getting rid of the Department altogether. This would be entirely appropriate, since the Department is a relatively recent Congressional creation done at the direct expense of the States, taking as it does, control over the education of our nation’s children away from the States, and in many ways away from the parents, and centralizing that control within the Federal government.

The erosion of our government’s checks and balances has been vast, but it’s not only due to a President overstepping his authorities or deliberately ignoring his duties. It’s also been due to Congress shirking its legislative duties and to a Court ignoring its own duties. At present, though, it appears as though the erosion is being slowed, and an increasing move back toward order is in progress.

Who’s Responsible for Corporate Security?

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The headline raised the question:

Wars Are Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security

The article dealt primarily with physical security of critical items and areas, and it touched on cyber security. There are other areas, though, where responsibility among corporate management teams, police forces, and government, whether military or civilian agencies need to be sorted out.

There’s the question of supply chain security, an enemy nation embargoing Critical Items in the supply chain of a nation’s important corporation, whether that corporation is economically important or is an important defense establishment supplier. Even here, the responsibility is mixed. It’s on the military to defeat the embargo (and the political leadership to engage in the related diplomatic engagements while giving the military the tools with which to act). It’s on the corporate management, though, to adjust its supply chain to eliminate the embargo and to do anticipate other high-risk dependencies and make the adjustments necessary to preempt those dependencies. Where the dependency can be eliminated through domestic production, vis., of raw materials, it’s on the nation’s political leadership to remove regulatory and other roadblocks so that domestic production can be done.

There’s also the question of cyber security. Here, a breach of a corporation’s cyber security should be taken as evidence, though not of proof, of corporate management’s criminal negligence. This sort of thing is too obvious an area of weakness for corporate managers to miss or to decline to commit the resources either to block proactively, or to fight and repair successfully and promptly a breach. Here, also, it’s on those managers to make public the breach, what was affected, and who was affected, in fine to spread the word for the benefit of others.

Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage.

To which I add: vital functions of communications and financial systems, inserting sleeper malware, to be triggered during a crisis or in association with a direct attack to shut down critical nodes in those systems’ infrastructure and erase the data in financial systems, as well inserting the sleeperware into water distribution, national electricity grids, fuel pipelines, with a view to shutting those down or causing their catastrophic failure.

Addressing the question of primary responsibility, Marc Glasser, ex-DHS Chief of Chemical Security US Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security:

The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity[.]

Not entirely. That’s all true as far as it goes, but it only goes to reactivity. It’s the responsibility of corporate managers, military leadership, and politicians to act proactively in their spheres to anticipate and move to protect avenues of attack and to block attack attempts.