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Power, Oversight and the Rule of Law
How the National Emergencies Act of 1976 Works and Why Congress Rarely Ends One From the 2019 border wall emergency back to a 1970s Senate discovery, how presidents declare national emergencies, how they are renewed, and why a veto blocks almost every attempt to end one. How a Congressional Subpoena Works and What Happens When Someone Ignores It Steve Bannon's 2022 conviction shows the three ways Congress can enforce a subpoena, why each is slow, and what a new majority can realistically do when witnesses refuse. How Senator Harry Truman's Committee Investigated Wartime Contract Waste A little-known Missouri senator drove to military bases in 1941, found waste, and built a bipartisan committee that became the model for policing defense spending. Humphrey's Executor, the 1935 Case Behind Independent Agencies Roosevelt fired a conservative FTC commissioner in 1933 and lost in the Supreme Court. How that case built independent agencies, and how Trump's 2025 FTC firings led the Court to undo it in 2026. Schedule F and the Plan to Make Career Civil Servants Easier to Fire Schedule F would move career federal employees in policy roles into at-will jobs. What the 2020 order did, how it returned in 2025, and what at-will status means for the public. Teapot Dome and the Supreme Court Case That Gave Congressional Subpoenas Teeth A 1920s oil-lease scandal, a stubborn Ohio banker and a 1927 Supreme Court ruling explain why Congress can force people to testify, and why that power matters again. The Church Committee of 1975 and the Secrets It Pulled Into the Light In 1975 a Senate committee exposed FBI campaigns against activists and CIA plots to kill foreign leaders. What it found, how it worked, and the reforms we still rely on. The Dismantling of USAID in 2025 and Whether a President Can Close an Agency How USAID went from a locked headquarters in February 2025 to a State Department remnant by July, and what courts said about closing an agency Congress created. The Friday Night Firing of More Than a Dozen Inspectors General in January 2025 On January 24, 2025, the White House dismissed about seventeen inspectors general by email. Here is the notice law it skipped, the precedents, and what the watchdogs did next. The Hatch Act of 1939 and the Line Between Government Work and Campaigning How a 1938 scandal over relief jobs and votes in Kentucky produced the Hatch Act, what federal workers may and may not do in politics today, and why enforcement depends on who is watching. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the Power of the Purse Why Richard Nixon's refusal to spend money Congress had approved led to the 1974 budget law, how GAO enforces it, and what the 2025 fights over frozen funds tested. The Inspector General Act of 1978 and the Watchdogs Inside Every Agency Inspectors general sit inside federal agencies but report to Congress too. What the 1978 law lets them investigate, whom they answer to, and how a president can remove them.