I met Paul Atkins, around this time last year. One of his biggest problems (like anyone running a federal department) was that he's not allowed to hire or increase his budget, yet the demand for work that needs SEC attention is not going down. And that's after his dept, and all others, were required to perform layoffs under DOGE.

Article works when I click on it from Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=One%20person%20is%20now%20a%...

The rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/02/2026-20...

Extremely cheeky to skip out on APA rulemaking requirements

I believe it was CFTC that had a rule that no two members of its governing body could ever be in the same private space at the same time.

The idea being that they could not discuss important matters privately but only when in the official committee discussions.

This included elevators so if one of them was about to get on and the other one was already there, the first person had to let the elevator go without them.

Reminds me of what the USA did a few years ago with the WTO Appellate Body (the "supreme court of world trade"). Since all new appellate judges would need US approval, the US (starting under Obama) just refused to approve judges, until the number of judges fell below the needed quorum, and then there could be no appeals.

The solution? A bunch of the other countries in the WTO just got together and made their own appellate body without the US, and presumably with blackjack and hookers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_Body#History

To this day the WTO is still partially nonfunctional and the stop-gap is still being used.

We are sitting in an uncanny valley regarding law.

Once independent agencies are no longer independent, partly due to the expansion of the unitary executive viewpoint in both the Supreme Court and the current executive branch, and the rather obsequious Congress we have that instead of being “jealous to protect its power” is kowtowing to anything the Trump administration wants.

The supreme courts ruling on presidential immunity, chevron deference, and the dismantling of the ideas of an independent agency have all come together to create a dangerous situation for all of us.

The Supreme Court, whether because the of their own alignment with partisanship or some other more nefarious reason, have gutted the idea of an independent agency (except for the Federal Reserve, which is special, but not for any legal reason, but rather because even conservative SCOTUS is not willing to risk the fallout of logically applying their unitary executive view of government to the Fed).

So Congress put a lot of regulatory power in these once independent and non-partisan agencies, and that’s gone. Combine that with a president that is overtly partisan and vindictive, and you have a problem where SCOTUS has created a situation that has elevated the whims of a president above the law Congress created.

We will be feeling the affects of this decision for generations, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the catalyst for the failure of the American form of government.

Our system cannot sustain when coequal branches of government kowtow to politics.

The key change seems to be innocuous:

> The Commission is modifying 17 CFR 200.41, which establishes the Commission's quorum requirement. Three commissioners will continue to constitute a quorum of the Commission, with two important exceptions. First, consistent with the current rule, if the number of commissioners in office is two or one, that number is sufficient for a quorum. Second, if the number of commissioners in office minus the number disqualified from consideration with respect to a matter is two or one, then that number of commissioners constitutes a quorum for purposes of that matter.

This is really bad. Now you can have one puppet, and no dissent.

The FCC is set up for this same tactic. 2 vacancies, so down to the minimum quorum there right now. They can change the rule and let Anna Gomez's term expire. Suddenly we'll be reviewing everyone's licenses and seeing all the TV and radio content becoming more right-wing.

"This rule is effective on October 2, 2026."

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/02/2026-20...

Corruption is so much easier now!

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