Dan Walters

Bringing new meaning to "bargaining in the shadow of the law."

One of those (Roberts) was based on standing, which should not be an issue in the inevitable challenge to this action. I'd place a big bet on Roberts/Kavanaugh/Barrett joining Kagan/Sotomayor/Jackson to refuse to upend Mass v. EPA.

Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

Not once does this story mention that the Supreme Court in 2007 rebuked the argument that EPA lacks authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Let's not let SCOTUS off the hook here: it will need to decide whether to change course, because otherwise this is likely dead in the water.

The new Washington Post should start a reader poll for what other ideological opinions they want the Trump administration to spoonfeed the Post’s editorial board.

Impossible for me to fathom how a publication like the @washingtonpost.com could survive the revelation that propagandists in the administration literally feed it the stories and opinions they want it to print--and the Post just does it.

Breaking: Washington Post gutting its climate team Clean energy dies in darkness. Courtesy of Jeff Bezos.

Correct:

I see we're back to being concerned about clear legal authorization for major agency action. I wonder what could explain that.

Trump to direct Pentagon to buy coal to revive industry, Bloomberg News says U.S. President Donald Trump is set to direct the Pentagon to use government funding and Pentagon contracts to sustain U.S. coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing a White H...

Taxpayers are going to keep the dirty, dying coal industry alive for a bit longer.

a bald man in a white shirt and black tie is sitting in a chair holding a hammer . ALT: a bald man in a white shirt and black tie is sitting in a chair holding a hammer .

...

These people are completely incompetent.

I will say, it's also very possible that somebody in El Paso did something "woke" that pissed off Trump and this is the retaliation. This is just how our government works now.

Announced by social media post, no less.

The common denominator: very, very stupid.

F.A.A. Halts All Flights at El Paso Airport for 10 Days

Well this is weird. For whatever reason, I suspect this is not good.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/u...

So what do we think: does Sage exist?

There will never not be an existential threat to Texas's fragile self-conception.

The Opposite of Smart Regulation | The Regulatory Review The federal government is moving backwards in its regulatory analysis and decision-making.

"The agency claims that in the past it had offered only point estimates—that is, single numbers—for the monetized value of reduced ozone and particulate matter, obscuring uncertainty around the agency’s estimates. . . . But zero, alas, is a point estimate, too."

www.theregreview.org/2026/02/09/c...

"The nearby Ambassador Bridge, one of the busiest border crossings on the continent, has been privately owned for decades by a Detroit trucking industry billionaire and his family, the Morouns."

The what?

Have at it, it's great imagery!

Looks great! And you're also in prime position to write a follow-on article on primordial administrative law.

Ring getting us to help train their facial recognition algorithm (that they'll probably use to help ICE) by claiming to help find lost puppies is some sick, cynical stuff.

This is amazing.

So, first of all, of course it was Trump.

But even if they were telling the truth, "We give staffers who post videos of the Obamas as apes access to the agenda-setting, decree-sending, market-moving account of the president of the United States" is not the exculpatory statement they think it is.

"The current reality is that the federal government is no longer a reliable source of widespread data collection."

Which is really convenient when you want to just make stuff up that helps you politically.

Someone needs to challenge this rule on arbitrariness grounds just for the principle that political science matters.

Relatedly, what in the world is this theory that the patronage system got away from the president, necessitating reforms to help the president reassert control? I've never seen this revisionist history before.

What that means is that if the courts find that OPM misinterpreted the civil service laws, there might still be a defense from the administration that this is an inherent Article II power with essentially no limits that we know of.

The theory seems to be that the civil service laws' language allowing reclassification for employees "of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating character" is just superfluous. Presidents always had plenary removal authority that included this power.

In order to execute his Article II duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, the vast expansion in the scope and complexity of Federal law has required the President to delegate such authority to thousands of career civil servants involved in policy formulation.

OPM's Schedule Policy/Career rule just dropped, and apparently OPM is under the impression that the President makes a constitutional decision about whether to "delegate" his Article II authority to career civil servants. They think all he's doing now is reclaiming that constitutional authority.

Deeply shocked.