When it comes to Trump, the rhetoric and contradictory fire-hose of sound bites can be distracting and divisive. They also create the impression of impulsive and capricious chaos. Let’s look at his actions instead, which show an alarming degree of consistency. His actions that can be discerned, follow an increasingly pro-Russian position.
1) Voting with Russia in both the UN General Assembly and Security Council
2) Vetoing statement by the G7 that seek to condemn Russia and create consensus
3) Vetoing G7 proposal for a task force to combat Russian shadow oil fleet
4) Cutting off military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, including F16 data
5) Halting offensive cyber operations against Russia
6) Dismantling American logistics base in Poland – military insurance for allies
7) Undermining NATO by casting doubt on commitment to Article 5
8) Perpetuating and amplifying Russian talking points in America’s legislatures
Scholars have long debated the degree to which the Framers intended to consolidate executive power in the President. The “unitary executive theory”—the theory, in its purest form, that, under our tri-partite constitutional framework, executive power lodges in a single individual, the President, who may thus exercise complete control over all executive branch subordinates without interference by Congress—has been lauded by some as the hallmark of an energetic, politically accountable government, while rebuked by others as “anti-American,” a “myth,” and “invented history.” Both sides of the debate raise valid concerns, but this is no mere academic exercise. The outcome of this debate has profound consequences for how we Americans are governed. On the one hand, democratic principles militate against a “headless fourth branch” made up of politically unaccountable, independent government entities that might become agents of corrupt factions or private interest groups instead of the voting public. Additionally, at least theoretically, empowering a President with absolute control over how the Executive branch operates, including the power to “clean house” of federal employees, would promote efficient implementation of presidential policies and campaign promises that are responsive to the national electorate. On the other hand, the advantages of impartial, expertdriven decision-making and congressional checks on executive authority favor some agency independence from political changes in presidential administrations, with the concomitant benefits of stability, reliability, and moderation in government actions. No matter where these pros and cons may lead, the crucial question here is, what does the U.S. Constitution allow? To start, the Framers made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king—the President included—and not just in name only. Indeed, the very structure of the Constitution was designed to ensure no one branch of government had absolute power, despite the perceived inefficiencies, inevitable delays, and seemingly anti-democratic consequences that may flow from the checks and balances foundational to our constitutional system of governance. The Constitution provides guideposts to govern inter-branch relations but does not fully delineate the contours of the executive power or the degree to which the other two branches may place checks on the President’s execution of the laws. As pertinent here, the Constitution does not, even once, mention “removal” of executive branch officers. The only process to end federal service provided in the Constitution is impeachment, applicable to limited offices (like judges and the President) after a burdensome political process. This constitutional silence on removal perplexed the First Congress, bedeviled a President shortly thereafter and a second President after the Civil War during Reconstruction (leading to condemnation of the former and impeachment proceedings against the latter), and has beset jurists and scholars in our modern era. Yet, in assessing separation of powers, the Constitution itself is not the only available guide. Historical practice and a body of case law are, respectively, instructive and binding. (“In separation of powers cases this Court has often ‘put significant weight upon historical practice.’” (quoting NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513, 524 (2014))). Both make clear that textual silence regarding removal does not confer absolute authority on a President to willy-nilly override a congressional judgment that expertise and insulation from direct presidential control take priority when a federal officer is tasked with carrying out certain adjudicative or administrative functions. As Justice Louis Brandeis eloquently opined, “checks and balances were established in order that this should be ‘a government of laws and not of men,’” observing further that the separation of powers was not adopted “to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.” A President who touts an image of himself as a “king” or a “dictator,” perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. In our constitutional order, the President is tasked to be a conscientious custodian of the law, albeit an energetic one, to take care of effectuating his enumerated duties, including the laws enacted by the Congress and as interpreted by the Judiciary. He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . At issue in this case, is the President’s insistence that he has authority to fire whomever he wants within the Executive branch, overriding any congressionally mandated law in his way. Luckily, the Framers, anticipating such a power grab, vested in Article III, not Article II, the power to interpret the law, including resolving conflicts about congressional checks on presidential authority. The President’s interpretation of the scope of his constitutional power— or, more aptly, his aspiration—is flat wrong. The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law.https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277129/gov.uscourts.dcd.277129.35.0.pdf
Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist
We introduce AI co-scientist, a multi-agent AI system built with Gemini 2.0 as a virtual scientific collaborator to help scientists generate novel hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the clock speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries.
Empowering scientists and accelerating discoveries with the AI co-scientist
Given a scientist’s research goal that has been specified in natural language, the AI co-scientist is designed to generate novel research hypotheses, a detailed research overview, and experimental protocols. To do so, it uses a coalition of specialized agents — Generation, Reflection, Ranking, Evolution, Proximity and Meta-review — that are inspired by the scientific method itself. These agents use automated feedback to iteratively generate, evaluate, and refine hypotheses, resulting in a self-improving cycle of increasingly high-quality and novel outputs.
