White House nixes NASA unions amid budget uncertainty Happy Labor Day. The US administration has removed union recognition from NASA as budget cuts and layoffs loom. The White House issued an executive order at the end of last week that added NASA to the National Security Exclusions list. Being on the list means that NASA employees no longer have the same protections under US …
>If only this could be applied to all businesses across America.
It might be that many people will agree with you, but not the people you might think or for the reasons you might think. Such actions make scientific, technological and business workplaces less attractive and the gradual loss of high-level skills and expertise will lead to a long, slow, demise.
Making America Weak Again, red hat by red hat.
Perhaps Putin is proud of his little baby boy.
The village idiot of Mar Lago speaks on data collection:
The number of Covid cases will go down if we stop testing. This is just one of a continuous stream of examples with new ones just announced and newer ones just over the horizon.
Trump has continued his assault on the collection of data critical to the health and well being of all US citizens in a host of government agencies mainly to hide the fact that what he wants to do with/to those agencies is insanely stupid.
The article refers to unions and rights of staff. I wonder if there are any other consequences. The term 'National Security' implies to me that activities and data gathered and analyses would also be subject to some constraints, such as no longer being available to the general public, which would be a disaster for so many people in the USA and elsewhere. What happens to all the collaborations with ESA, JAXA etc, which are not AFAIK 'security organisations'?
In the UK we had the ridiculous fact that every government building and piece of information used to be classified, so the location of the Post Office (now BT) Tower was actually a state secret, even though it is visible for miles and a set of postage stamps was issued to celebrate its opening. Will this sort of thing happen in the USA now?
"The term 'National Security' implies to me that activities and data gathered and analyses would also be subject to some constraints, such as no longer being available to the general public, which would be a disaster for so many people in the USA and elsewhere. "
Public disclosure is written into NASA's charter so that would have to be modified to seal the agency up. They do have access to some military developed tech that they can't talk about and there's a lot of contention of that already since many of the engineers and scientists that work at NASA are opposed to their contributions being used in military and State projects.
Goddard houses some of the assistant directors (top level department heads) at the facility so that's an issue. It may also come to pass that many people will leave stranding a bunch of projects and wait for a change in administration to return or find work at any one of numerous aerospace companies that are out there now. I'm sure Blue Origin would enjoy being flooded with loads of resumes from people experienced in building rovers and satellites meant to operate around other plants or in free-space.
... I was under the impression that Executive Orders were supposed to be for national emergencies and such - things that require immediate action for the safety of the country and it's people.
Trump appears to be using them to give himself dictatorial powers, routinely bypassing Congress to do whatever he wants with no democratic control.
Urgent bipartisan action should be taken to lock down the rules on EO's to prevent such abuse.
> The founding fathers had assumed that Congress and the Senate would prevent the president acting as dictator/king, sadly they had not foreseen the spineless swivel-eyed toads
I wonder the type of men who wrested the nation from the King, could have even imagined the entire representative structure filled with a gaggle of cowards, with the consistency of day old diarrhoea.
It would be very helpful if some knowledgeable American citizen, or one of El Reg's resident Vultures for that matter, could post an article or comment saying exactly what limits the US Constitution places on the President's powers.
I'm asking because, from where I'm sitting it seems that the Orange Coconut seems to be riding roughshod over the Constitution with little or nothing being done by Judiciary, Senate or Congress to reign him in.
I thought Nixon got his knuckles firmly rapped for doing less unconstitutional stuff. I'm also fairly certain that sitting Members of both the UK and NZ Governments would loose their seats for less harmful activities than Trump and his unelected appointees are and have been carrying out.
Did you try searching for anything of the sort? Because there's a Wikipedia article (as well as write-ups elsewhere) about precisely this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the_United_States
There's no simple answer because it's wrapped up not just a few things listed in the constitution, but specified in the past two centuries of laws passed by Congress. As well as Supreme court rulings, because there are often ambiguities subject to interpretation.
Trump is able to exhibit more authority than the President actually has, because the current Congress has mostly ceded its authority at present, failing to override or contradict the president's declarations where they clearly have the authority to do so.
Many thanks for that link - it explains a lot.
It also shows that the President seems to have considerably more power than I expected would be the case since there seems to be nothing except the Constitution to hold that office in check, whereas in NZ and other Commonwealth members the country's Governor General, and in the UK the Monarch, holds this power.
I prefer this arrangement because it means the power to restrain governmental misdeeds resides in a predesignated person who can act immediately to correct any abuses as they occur, rather than in a document that can only be consulted to provide guidance for whoever might be eventually selected to take corrective action.
"It also shows that the President seems to have considerably more power than I expected would be the case since there seems to be nothing except the Constitution to hold that office in check"
It's like a kid that keeps pushing the boundaries their parents have set. If there are no consequences, they'll push even further until they get their hand burnt. So far, Congress isn't swatting the President down. That's the whole of Congress that are too busy bickering amongst themselves and not just one side. The entire lot of them are useless.
And when was the last time when the monarch or monarch-appointed representative overruled the democratic government by decree? Because if that actually happened, I'm not sure the results would be as obvious as you claim. The last one I can think of was fifty years ago when the powers were used to remove the Australian PM, which was rather unpopular including an unsuccessful, but close attempt to make Australia a republic. Written documents can be the subject of court rulings, which frequently tell leaders that what they tried to do is not allowed. That happens in the US frequently, although if the Supreme Court there was showing a desire to do that, that would be a more convincing argument. Still, a document which is clear which can be interpreted by independent people is something I'd feel a bit more confident about than hoping a person who did nothing to earn power would take reasonable action with mostly untested authority.
>I prefer this arrangement because it means the power to restrain governmental misdeeds resides in a predesignated person who can act immediately to correct any abuses as they occur
Did you spot the weakness in that statement?
Hint: Consider the implications when the power to restrain resides with the Perpetrator in Chief, the Abuser in Chief...
Hint: consider that you are creating a counterfactual which does nothing to refute or demonstrate a weakness in the previous statement.
Because the provision of ability to restrain does not imply that the holder of that provision is necessarily in a position to be "the Perpetrator in Chief, the Abuser in Chief...". And in the case of the UK Monarchy, most certainly is not and hasn't been for a long time; there was this pesky Parliament, you see...
Compared to Trump, Nixon appears to be a veritable saint!
Sure Nixon got up to a few dodgy things, as did Clinton.
But they did it smart, not taking people for fools, which I personally can get right on board with.
Trouble with Trump is he always thinks he's the smartest in the room while being the dumbest.
"Trouble with Trump is he always thinks he's the smartest in the room while being the dumbest."
He keeps getting away with it so he isn't that dumb.
There's intelligent people that know science, engineering and medical things and there are also people that have skills in manipulating the system for their own benefit and we call those people "politicians". What we may be seeing here is the most accomplished one of those that we've seen in some time. I expect there have been others in times when the press had a gun to their head or could be kept from seeing behind the curtain. They may have been less inclined to be as public about their actions too.
Trump is no genius politician. What he has is a lot of billionaire supporters who are happy to pay Think Tanks, political strategists, and hire plenty of lawyers whose only job is to figure out how the Republicans can weasel their way around laws and regulations. They do this in order to get rules that benefit them and their cronies pushed through...
There are plenty of examples of this.
Popular catch-phrases Trump hated but reluctantly repeated, worked well enough to get him into office.
Trump's first term was filled with examples of Trump's executive orders being overturned by the courts, because he couldn't keep his mouth shut and supidly said something that made it clear his motivations were illegal.
It was Republicans in congress before Trump ever entered politics that obstructed Democratic administrations from nominating judges, including to the Supereme court, which left vacanies for Trump to fill, with loyal judges who later ruled in his favor in violation of decades of judicial precident.
"Project 2025" is the playbook Trump is operating from this time around, but he had no involvement in creating it.
Trump only has free reign because he happened to get a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.
Indeed so. And both have a final safeguard.
All laws need Royal Assent.
It would cause a constitutional crisis, but Charlie III could in theory refuse to sign something into law if his conscience dictated it.
That would require the Lords to overrule him.
The safeguard is the *massive* publicity and scrutiny such an event would cause.
Even the most arrogant politicians are wary of that.
Which is a very good thing.
>I'm also fairly certain that sitting Members of both the UK and NZ Governments would loose their seats for less harmful activities than Trump and his unelected appointees are and have been carrying out.
In NZ (lacking an upper house) there is nothing legal stopping this happening.
The real difference is we don't elect the PM. The MP's elect the PM, and they can throw it out and replace it, and they can do so without losing power. (and do it every month or so, if they are in Canberra)
The PM usually has more immediate power over MP's than a president might, but at the same time is immediately vulnerable to being an incompetent twat and making them nervous.
I was under the impression that Executive Orders were supposed to be for national emergencies
No, it was never anything to do with emergencies.
"Executive orders are written instruments through which a President can issue directives to shape policy." "an executive order or other written instrument issued by the President may have the force of law as long as it is issued pursuant to one of his granted powers."
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46738
1937 Franklin D. Roosevelt Executive Order EO 7784: Establishing the Aransas Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, Texas
https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/franklin-d-roosevelt/1937
Skimmed the links and they all seem to be trying to sort out local problems where statute or local laws were a bit hazy.
Quite right, good and sensible for the most part.
I very much doubt they were ever meant to be used as a way to start international trade-wars!
"Skimmed the links and they all seem to be trying to sort out local problems where statute or local laws were a bit hazy."
A big reason a President had the authority to hand out Executive Orders was that early on, Congress only met once or twice a year and getting them back fast enough to seat a quorum could take too long in the case of an emergency. That's long since been made irrelevant through better communications, air travel and a Congress that is in the Capital far more often. The use of the Executive Order needs more guardrails put around it for the modern age, but I expect that both sides want it nice and loose so they have it when it's their turn to abuse it.
The whole concept of an executive order isn't structured because it's not a specific process. It's just a command from the President to do something. If that's within the President's powers: "Send some of the diplomats from the embassy to negotiate with that country", it works. If it's not: "Find that guy I don't like and have someone shoot him", it's illegal. While the term "executive order" suggests a neatly packaged process, and the existence of numbered documents helps to imply that, there isn't really that obvious a process.
The only question is whether the power to declare tariffs is the President's. By the Constitution, the answer is no, but neither is it explicitly denied to the executive. Congress, however, did grant the executive emergency control over tariffs. Trump has decided to argue that the US is in an emergency, so he can use that emergency control. So far, two courts have decided that he is wrong and can't, but there are some more courts, so he is appealing this in the hopes that it will be overturned. If enough members of Congress wanted, they could remove this power because they granted it in the first place. They are not trying.
In the example of NASA, it seems that membership in the group where national security restrictions apply is something the President can decide on his own. Again, that would have to be a power granted to him by Congress, and if he just made it up, he should lose in court. The original structure of most of this was that Congress was supposed to have most of the power, but for some time, Congress has decided that various parts of the executive, whether the President directly or someone who follows the President's commands, should be able to take action without them, so they have been voluntarily relinquishing some of their powers. When presidents asserted other powers, that has often gone unchallenged as well. This empowers the executive without having been the initial design or necessarily being permanent.
Can you show me where in the US Constitution (or Amendments) where Executive Order is mentioned ????
… given that SCOTUS have gone into the extreme pedant mode on many decisions claiming there is ‘no reference to it in the Constitution’ - just like Electricity, radioactivity, abortion, wind power or vaccines - so it has no legal standing - despite years of precedent - so can just be struck down as we don’t like it.
Presidential powers are definited in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Executive Orders aren't specifically in there, the president just needs to put his wishes (within the bounds of his powers) in writing and have them published. Executive Orders happen to have become the preferred way to do so.
See:
"Executive orders are written instruments through which a President can issue directives to shape policy." "an executive order or other written instrument issued by the President may have the force of law as long as it is issued pursuant to one of his granted powers."
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46738
Originally they were but there has been a constant erosion of the safeguards by administrations going back to at least St. Nixon (/s). The current Supine Court and Trump suck up congress has taken the erosion to landslide proportions and in the process made a headlong plunge toward eliminating democracy in the US. This is NOT hyperbole, national guard and full military deployments in cities, with more to come, under the "emergency" pretense of crime waves is not a warning shot across the bow. It is a full broadside to the US constitution and the rule of law. Unsurprisingly only cities run by Democratic mayors, black mayors greatly prefered, are being targeted despite "emergency" crime rates being higher in multiple "Republican" cities. There is a lawsuit filed in California against the blatant disregard of the Posse Comitatus act which will make it to the Supine Court. However it a complete crap-shoot as to how they will rule and if it is in favor of Trump the coup d'état over the Constitution of the United States will be complete. All hail great leader.
I can't help but picture 'They Live" everything time I have to contemplate the Great Orange Floridian Fuck. The scenes of the itinerant workers camp being raided by a militarised police force (California, DC and next Chicago?)
I had for decades wanted to visit the States, the great national parks and scenery. Now I physically shudder when I think about my old dream of going and send myself to sleep by imagining Trump dying and allowing the world to breathe a great collective sigh of relief (closely followed by Vance et al.)
The Divided States of America has become a rather dangerous joke and a parody of immense proportions. This nasty, bullying and dictatorial nation, with a thing in charge that believes itself to be a king or emporer should be completely isolated and treated as a tantrum-riddled child that will not, ever, learn to behave correctly, nicely and fairly.
Right before Labor Day. I hope all the union members stupid enough to vote for the orange pedo will enjoy the consequences of their vote. They are even stupider than their vote indicates if they think he's going to stop at NASA, or public sector unions. He'll be coming for yours before he's done. And as the first post here indicates, the MAGA nutjobs will cheer him on.
"And this will be tied up in the courts for a while, they'll decide he overreached like they just did with his tariffs, and the unions will be back."
Win some, lose some.
Timing can be a big factor. Just look at how the doggies blitzkriegged agencies and had the buildings assigned to another entity before the court judges could be roused from their naps. Even IF it was ruled that everything had to be put back, it could be too late as too much damage had been done, driver erased, people found new jobs or just retired to Greece. The thought process might have been "I know they'll spank me for this, but if I do it, the time it takes to reverse means the action will have accomplished what I want it to accomplish".
And the Supreme Court is in on it.
There are some things they know they can't decide his way and maintain even a fig leaf of legitimacy, but they can delay and delay. They can take a case, sit on it until they announce a decision in June and that decision doesn't even have to be a final decision. They could decide it on some narrow grounds and send it back to the lower courts, then repeat to add another year.
In the meantime they can let stand his orders, so employees lose the protections of unions for a couple years. If they're fired unfairly they might be able to get a little money out of the government (which Trump doesn't care about in the least since it isn't his money) but they've probably found another job or retired by that time so they wouldn't want their job back even if they could get it back. Employees won't have unions collective bargaining so they won't get raises to keep up with inflation, making it more attractive to quit and go to the private sector so some of the best people who can more easily do that will be lost.
If enough critical people leave existing efforts like keeping Voyager going Trump won't even have to cut it. NASA will have no choice because it will become non-viable if too much institutional knowledge is lost. People who can patch 50 year old machine code in something flying a light day away without making a mistake that bricks it don't exactly grow on trees.
"We are working to quickly implement this and align with the President's vision for our agency."
I would have thought it was patently obvious that Trump is incapable of harbouring a vision for anything.
Behind those corpse eyes of his there is a void that is probably deficient in even vacuum fluctuations.
Any idea of vision is delusional other than perhaps Make America [a] Great Abyss.
Apparently Trump has just awarded debarred lawyer Mr brain leak, Rudi Giuliani, the US' highest civilian order. The order of the Brown Tongue wilth bar?
Trump maybe not - but the Heritage Foundation & C. behind the plan is delivering are. And they look to have a support that goes far beyond the pure MAGA people.
It's clear that among the Democrats there are people too who like part of that project - i.e. neutering or utterly eliminating unions, and other rules enacted to protect people from the greed of a few. Look at the FTC - how many Democrats were against Lina Khan? They happily voted for her replacement, with her dangerous "laissez-faire" attitude.
It happend already - in 1920s Italy many (without being fascists) believed Mussolini would have been useful to quash the requests of those workers who after the war asked for better work conditions. They just hoped to keep their privileges, letting someone else to do the "dirty wortk", and that Mussolini would vanish in a few years, and they would regain power. He stayed there twenty years and fell because ihe joined a war he couldn't win.
I'm afraid is happening again - many Democrats and their lobbies are happy to let Trump destroy many rules they don't like, and which they could not destroy themselves without removing their masks. They believe Trump will then go away, but they won't re-instate the same rules anytime soon, hoping people get used to that. They will have a hard awakening.
I was wrong about the FTC, it was about the DoJ antitrust head:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/us/politics/senate-confirms-gail-slater-as-justice-depts-antitrust-lead.html
Do Republicans have 78 senators? Or many Democrats voted for her? Why? Because they like her lame approach to anti-trust? "Let them do damages, then maybe, perhaps, we'll try to do something, but only after, we can't be like those pesly Europeans who attempt to identify issue before they cause great damages!"
Lobbies paying politicians have their agenda - unions and antitrust rules are among their targets
Why? They are still workers and citizens.
It's funny in US team sport players have more powerful unions than simple citizens. Because if they setup up a strike people weep because they haven't their weekly circenses.
Probably then they deserver that an "emperor" deny them the right to unionize.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/02/immigration-hiring-push-trump-private-army
One place where US Government is hiring
But he's a really revealing element.
What's the fucking point of a union that doesn't have a few lawyers waiting to put a (metaphorical) lead pipe to a kneecap for shit like this, an injunction on standby at a courthouse or something? You gonna collect one more round of dues before shrugging and saying "nothing we can do?"
The venal short-sightedness of the owners (CEOs) and managers (Congress) of this country is also massively impressive. They really think there's going to be no consequences for it. They might be right.
Americans are a bunch of suckers. Not even sympathetic hard-done-by ones either. A bunch of scheming shitheads who thought they'd get a cut out of stealing from their brother's house.
Yeah, because you've got as much power as your employer and all negotiations are always done on a level playing field with no power imbalance whatsoever, nosiree Bob..
When I hear things as either naive or blatantly stupid as what you've said I can't help but assume you've a mild amount of brain damage.
We are a bunch of spineless cowards who don't give a monkey's about NASA or its mission or the fate of anybody we might have been working with for years, in fact we only came to work here because the chairs looked comfy.
