Podbit · The Bulwark Podcast
The Supreme Court preserved Federal Reserve independence in Cook not through airtight constitutional logic but through 'reliance interests' — an entire global economy is built around the Fed's structure. Kavanaugh's concurrence essentially said: we cannot introduce uncertainty into world markets. That's the real argument, and it's time to own it.
Where this was said
At 17:48 · chapter starts 13:50
Trump's exultant tweets about Slaughter — 'greatest increase in presidential power in 100 years,' '90 years of precedent overruled' — frame the conversation, but French urges listeners not to rely on the president for Supreme Court analysis. The ruling's core logic is that any executive branch agency exercising lawmaking or law enforcement powers must be accountable to an elected official — the president, not an independent commission with staggered terms. [1] — David French "The Slaughter ruling gives the president full control over independent agency heads — but simultaneously shrinks what those agencies can ac…" 13:50 But here's the twist French keeps returning to: the ruling simultaneously diminishes what those agencies can do. A future Democratic president can sweep out every Trump appointee at the FTC, FCC, and NLRB on day one — no lingering loyalists. That's the silver lining Miller identifies. The dark cloud is that decades of post-Watergate oversight architecture — inspectors general, special counsels, independent watchdogs — was built with an expectation of independence the Court has now withdrawn. And a Congress that has abdicated all its own power made this exponentially worse.
The Slaughter ruling gives the president full control over independent agency heads — but simultaneously shrinks what those agencies can actually do. The next Democratic president can sweep out Trump's appointees on day one. The tradeoff: the post-Watergate regulatory architecture is mostly gone.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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