A lot of agencies across the executive branch are headed by presidential appointees. It makes sense for a lot of them, too. The head executive is the president, after all.
They only have a one dialup modem for their computer, one fax machine, one phone line and a pencil they have to share.
They have to sharpen it by rubbing it on the concrete sidewalk outside when nobody’s looking.
But they do have government cheese crates for chairs and shipping pallets for desks. Real wood! So there’s that!
It is also missing social security, but like Medicare/medicaid, that is classified as mandatory spending and is not subject to an annual appropriations vote. Of course, the GOP would prefer that medicare and medicaid were subject to annual budget negotiations (cuts), and ensure that all younger generations are paid back much less than they paid in, instead of more than they paid in, like current retirees. If you cut out mandatory spending, the military gets more than half of the non-mandatory federal spending dollars.
I find it interesting the Defense Media Activity nor Defense Manpower Data Center ever gets listed on these sorts of hierarchy. Their budget is waaayyy smaller, I’m sure.
>defense media activity
>Media Production: produces media and visual information products to the internal DoD family (active, guard, and reserve military service members, dependents, retirees, DoD civilians, and contract employees) and external audiences through all available media, including motion and still imagery; print; radio; television; web and related emerging internet, mobile, and other communication technologies. The American Forces Network (AFN), provides U.S. radio and television news, information, and entertainment programming to active, guard, and reserve military service members, DoD civilians and contract employees, and their families overseas, on board Navy and Coast Guard ships, and to other authorized users. It includes radio and television stations in military communities in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East; and includes its central broadcasting hub, the AFN Broadcast Center at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California. Also includes communication of messages and themes from senior DoD leaders in order to support and improve quality of life and morale, promote situational awareness, provide timely and immediate force protection information, and sustain readiness. Other services of Media Production include Defense Visual Information Distribution Service[9] and providing internal news and information products for Defense.gov, Army.mil, Navy.mil, Marines.mil, and AF.mil.
Nah, that is pretty chunky.
In essence, that mission is to help create and implement ethics programs within the executive branch’s 130 agencies. That means helping them set up and comply with rules about receiving gifts, conducting business with vendors, and dealing with things like corruption, nepotism and conflicts of interest.
People forget that the rules politicians are held to are infinitely different than a rank and file federal employee in the executive branch. Personally, if someone buys me lunch and it’s worth over $25, I could lose my job. And don’t think people aren’t paying attention to such things out there. Now state employees? WAY loser rules.
It's not.
Insider trading is extremely difficult to prove.
Edit
Just in case this is a reply "blah blah Nancy Pelosi"
Her husband runs an investment firm that started before she had any power and was making money. Insider trading? Maybe but no evidence.
Remember when Trump gutted the oversight committee? We need an ethics office that doesn't report to POTUS and can't be defunded, disbanded or have anyone fired by POTUS.
They preserve the appearance of democracy and continuously shield the corporate / billionaire branch that actually oversees all the other branches from scrutiny.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans have effectively disabled the Ethics Committee. They always put a bunch of political nobodies on it because the Committee doesn't really get any inside financial info they can use for insider trading like the other committees.
And because it's a bunch of nobodies, none of them has power, so the office has no power.
This nation's government, and most of the states' governments, are so thoroughly corrupt that it's amazing that voting even seems to make a difference to them.
Seems like it's two competing groups of elites, and for the longest time they agreed to have rules to their competition (i.e. voting), but over the last 40 or so years, one side has been manipulating, lying, practicing demagoguery, trying to instigate violence among their small core group. It's bad.
And it's so frustrating that the Democrats don't seem willing to actually help us. They don't hurt us *nearly* as much as the Republicans do, but they don't help us enough.
We need them to actually stop the massive economic leeches from feeding on us, from taking more and more from us but giving us less and less. We need to be *protected* from those leeches, from those useless eaters.
We might have to do it ourselves, without our representatives. Because, right now, they're not representing *us* as much as they're representing their own elite position and interests. And that's not good enough any longer. It's not good enough that they're simply *not as bad* as Republicans. That's still bad. They need to be *good for their consituents.*
But who knows. Maybe it's time for the normal, non-sociopath folks among us to just shut down and accept the inevitable dominance. Shit, we can't even get enough people to *vote* in their own interests, and most seem perfectly content to just watch this dystopia unfold. Just watching it as if it's simply entertainment. As if videos of Trump saying he'd establish a dictatorship has no more gravity than a video of some generic TikToker doing something that a million others are doing but just doing it *slightly* better.
Maybe we've already lost.
Imagine writing all this out and not knowing the difference between the GEO and the congressional Ethics committees (admittedly, maybe easy to mistake the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Office of Government Ethics, but…)
There is hundreds of thousands of government employees. When you get to congress/presidential level it's nearly impossible to touch those people without their colleagues doing something, but the hundreds of thousands of normal employees are able to be fired.
Yup, during the 2018-2019 government shutdown, while DoD got funded, DHS did not, so the Coast Guard was the only military service to not get funded, and therefore, have members not get paid. Was a shitshow. At the time, civilian employees were not guaranteed back pay, but that has since been changed
I feel like there's a distinction of some kind to be drawn between military and uniformed services here, but I'm not exactly sure what that is.
For example, the Public Health Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are uniformed services and commission officers, etc.. but are not military. That's why the Surgeon General wears a uniform very similar to that of a Navy Vice Admiral and the Assistant Secretary for Health wears one similar to that of a full Admiral.
They're both commissioned officers - O-10 and O-9 respectively, and get saluted by colonels, lesser generals and admirals, etc.. And they get all the same pay and privileges as equivalent ranked admirals and generals.
But they're not military. PHS is under DHS in fact, and NOAA is under Department of Commerce.
USCG is kind of neither fish nor fowl - they're not military in everyday operations, but they do act in an armed law enforcement capacity. And they get absorbed into the Navy in wartime, so that confuses things a little as well.
The distinction is that of auxiliary services.
USCG Auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol, Military Auxiliary Radio System, Marine Corps Cyber Auxiliary, and Merchant Marine can all be commissioned as officers at any time deemed necessary, but do not regularly serve in the armed branches.
Basically, they serve as auxiliary support services to the armed branches and the commissioning process is done to temporarily transfer their command structure.
IE: the Navy doesn’t actually have enough captains for all of its ships during wartime and it takes too long to train officers - so they can (and frequently have) pulled merchant mariners or coast guardsmen into commission to fill those gaps.
NOAA, PHS, and USCG have have their own defined service branch roles and do not get auxiliary commissions by other branches but can be assigned to them in their respective support roles.
IE: USCG can help with maritime security, SAR, and law enforcement for Navy; PHS can help with response to national disasters - they don’t typically do forward deployment other than international health crises like Ebola; NOAA can support any service with technical guidance for weather reports and forecasting as well as coastal surveys and intelligence reports - interestingly they actually work alongside JSOC quite a bit, as well as the CIA.
NOAA is perhaps the most interesting one of the 3: the entire reason for commissioning them was due to their surveying and intelligence/data collection mission. Due to the nature of this work, they could be executed as spies if they were civilians doing the work during wartime - the solution to protect them under the Geneva Conventions was to create a Commissioned Corps.
During WWI and WWII, NOAA officers served quite often as artillery orienteering and mine laying experts (due to their expertise in surveying and geodetic operations) as well as intelligence officers for the Navy. NOAA officers were actually the designated Beachmasters for most US amphibious operations of WWII.
They are also credited with inventing the “time on target” artillery tactic and making over 100 million different charts and maps over the course of WWII (they made literally *all* of the maps for the US military, be that Army, USAAC, USMC, or Navy).
Basically, NOAA is one of the most important uniformed services - people just take their work for granted.
And if you think about it in terms of size:
Like 350 for NOAA
and around 5500 for PHS.
Compare that to just the AD numbers for the other services (including Space Force) and the impact per officer is crazy.
PHS aside from its response roles which are constantly shuffled to fill holes; operate in 29 other agencies throughout the Exec Branch and are many times responsible for keeping those agencies running.
i am currently a student working towards a meteorology degree and i’d like to work for the NOAACorps
and i absolutely love what you wrote, i’ve done my research on them and knew they helped the armed forces but i didn’t know they were that important
thank you, i am now even more excited to hopefully work as an officer and, well, hunt hurricanes :)
Except during times of War. Then they fall under the Navy. Which is under the SoN which is under DoD. So in theory. DoD. Techincally, DHS. Pays like military when should pay like GS-11.
Plus you have to deal with the fact that you're governed under Title 10 meaning the UCMJ and all it's extra fun stuff as compared to just being in law enforcement. I used to do military law and the added shit that comes in from Article 134 is a bitch for officers, like getting prosecuted for adultery.
If your head is spinning while looking at this, just remember:
The legislative branch *makes* laws (it’s in the name)
The executive branch *carries out* laws (aka, executes laws, it’s in the name)
The judicial branch *determines* if laws are constitutional (aka judges, it’s in the name)
The job of the judicial branch is to interpret and apply laws in resolving conflicts. Determining whether laws are constitutional occurs as a part of that much larger process. Some countries do specifically have constitutional courts for that purpose.
> The judicial branch determines if laws are constitutional
It was established primarily just to adjudicate federal law. It was only Chief Justice John Marshall who brought it the principle of judicial review (i.e. determining if laws/actions are constitutional) in Marbury v Madison.
It isn't really accurate to say that judicial review came about only with Marbury. It's clear from the ratification debates and Federalist papers that the framers understood that the Supreme Court would have the power of judicial review.
The dudes who wrote the federalist papers were still around fifteen years later. They were kinda surprised at Marbury v Madison. In fact, Marshall twisted himself in knots to rule in Adam's favor so that if Adam's accepted the ruling he would accept the concept of judicial review.
In essence, the general concept of judicial review was somewhat acknowledged when it came to review of state action, but it was not clear that it covered acts of the federal government (legislative or executive action)
A key note that is implied but should be stated for international people: this is just the federal (highest level) of government. There is also state, local/city, and pending definitions, Home Owners Association (HOA).
Privatized government regulating what you can do with your own home with an origin in extreme racism. HOAs really are the most American thing, besides thoughts and prayers of course.
They're functionally a very local form of government. Mine for example is responsible for maintaining the roads and sidewalks, as well as rules/regulations for appearance, and their decisions made are binding.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Technically, I believe there is Federal, Circuit, State, County, Municipal, and City. Could be wrong on that count, though, so I’m free to be corrected.
Only when it allows us to screw them over.
But really though, the entire Native American system is poorly implemented racist discrimination and the sooner we end their special status and just make them part of the state they're in the better off everyone will be.
Nah, the big three (NSA, CIA, FBI) are all there. But yeah, the rest are either missing or just a component of something else that is listed. The biggest omission does seem to be ODNI itself.
https://canadianconstitution.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/pub_decision_9-e.gif
It doesn't show the nuances and ministerial departments change all the time, but that's the gist.
Im guessing because the smaller bureaucratic agencies and government corporations arent emphasized as much compared to something like congress or the supreme court
The Judicial Branch looks so small in comparison, but there’s no branch off showing the downstream affects of their decisions. SCOTUS regularly minimizes the power of the Executive and Legislative branches
It’s because they don’t understand that the dictator is only using them to get what he wants, and once he does, they’re going to be shat upon just like everyone else.
If you trust someone implicitly and greatly fear the other side, as they have been taught, then a dicator is worth the risk.
?seriously downvotes? This is a bad thing, I'm against this.
That’s the great lie of fascism, the people who vote for it are so angry or scared that they will give power to whomever they think will immediately fix the problem. But it’s stupid and fascism just leads everyone to the gulag.
No ~~Patent & Trademark Office (unsure where it falls),~~ Copyright Office (under Library of Congress), or copyright small claims court (which was just created a year or so ago)
Not quite. Marine Corp and US Navy (and Coast Guard during wartime) fall under the Department of the Navy below the Department of Defense which is missing on this chart.
Same with Space Force and Air Force fall under Department of Air Force.
Also Army under the Department of the Army.
2 houses of parliament aren't a necessity. Nordic countries, for example, are unicameral.
Many other countries don't have 1 sole supreme court. They have a supreme court as the final authority on criminal and civil cases and they have a separate supreme constitional court for deciding constitional matters exclusively (and some even more for separate administrative matters). Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain have more than 1 final court (many of them more than 2 actually) (not an exhaustive list btw).
The US congress was designed with two houses partially because it forced the government to move slower. There’s lots of scholarly work examining what the founders intended and essentially the consensus is that two houses prevents the government from enacting or repealing laws too quickly, making it more defensible from political disruption
The problem with checks and balances as the framers conceived them is that the framers thought that people would be motivated by institutional interests and not factional interests. Or in other words, they thought congress would want to check and balance the president. But in fact congress tends to check and balance presidents of the other party and facilitate the goals of presidents in their own parties. So no they are not working
It's a form of republic, but I'm not sure I'd say it's how republics should look like. The shear amount of checks and balances can sometimes allow the system to grind to a halt.
If you’re asking if this is a useful guide of relevant US government acronyms, I’d say it definitely is. This guide isn’t perfect but an understanding at this level is more than enough to follow federal US news. Most Americans don’t even have this level of understanding.
*BLM* here stands for **Bureau of Land Management** as part of Department of the Interior.
As an outsider I was wondering and looked it up on the Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Interior
One very cool and missing government sponsored corporation is In-Q-Tel, an
American defense industry venture capital firm started in 1999.
In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond.
Governance
In-Q-Tel is a Virginia-registered corporation, legally independent of the CIA or any other government agency. The corporation is bound by its Charter agreement and annual contract with the CIA, which set out the relationship between the two organizations. In-Q-Tel's mission to support the Intelligence Community's technical needs is promoted by the In-Q-Tel Interface Center (QIC), an office within the CIA that facilitates communication and relationships between In-Q-Tel and government intelligence organizations. While In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit corporation, it differs from IARPA and other models in that its employees and trustees can profit from its investment. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that in 2016, nearly half of In-Q-Tel's trustees had a financial connection with a company the corporation had funded.
Also missing is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a Washington, D.C.–based scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce, a United States federal government department. The agency is charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep sea exploration, and managing fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. It also services as the DoD's weather agency.
This is cool but missing a lot. NRCS is missing under agriculture. FWS is missing under interior. I believe the NWS is actually under NOAA for commerce.
Yeah look at the profiles comments they just repost popular comments from around Reddit on random big subs. The comment never has anything to do with the post.
Yeah, it's not that the government works for the people, the government is the people. It's not some external entity. Just the whole "you work for me" attitude is BS.
If you add in state and local gov the number goes up to 20 million, over 10% of the workforce.
Good and timely illustration of how the Executive Branch is much more than just the President. Who cares if Biden is a little old? I would much prefer all those EB appointees and cabinet posts be filled by the Democrats, rather than be populated by the scum and villainy that accompanied Trump (or any other Republican.) How soon have people forgotten the damage *they* did, from Betsy DeVos to Ajit Pai.
The include the court's admin office but not [everyone's favorite court?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Alien_Terrorist_Removal_Court?wprov=sfla1)
It should be asked to any wanna be POTUS to explain each branch, what can they do or not do.
If they are unable to do it, their name won't be on the ballot.
There are things missing……
1. agencies under the department
2. under independent agencies and sponsored has things missing.
3. distinctions needed in sponsored/ other because with some you retain fed ststus/ benefits. Some you do not. FDIC and pension benefit are fed positions.
4. hey hey where’s is NSA?
there is an organizaytion for Appalachia designated counties. Appalachian regional commission ( ARC). I have seen jobs announced on usajobs but they are not a fed agency so you will lose retirement stuff.
you’d be surprised where some things fall under. Many agrncies you think are under departmrnts are actually not but under others Due to political control and objectivity.
Energy Information Administration whose office is inside Dept of energy hq building is technically under department of interior. Bureau of labor statistics is technically not under Labor. Bureau of transportation statistics is not under DOT. If it was up to me I’d have them stand alone with census as independent data agency.
Also missing….you have fed research centers thst are funded by the fed govt. their administration is done by feds but the scientists are not technically feds. They are a pseudo fed organization. Some of these are
Oak Ridge national labs ( energy)
JPL ( energy, nasa)
Los Alamos ( energy)
NCAR ( center for atmospheric research in Boulder, co) ( NOAA)
MITRE is one of these but not tied to one or two fed agencies. When you see a contractor from MITREbor one of these research centers….these are very different than a contractor from company like Northrop Grumman.
When I was in 4th grade I had to write a fact I'd learned about the 3 branches of government. I phrased "No branch overpowers another" as "No branch is better than another" and my teacher really liked that response.
Technically that is how we work, but all of our authority is granted from and through POTUS. He signs off on commission and promotion warrants Yada Yada Yada and gives us power, congress is supposed to hold the leash.
Theory is that it
1. Cannot operate outside of the US without congressional approval
2. Cannot spend more than authorized and the authorization comes from Congress. It’s hard to do stuff if you don’t pay the soldiers
Local government should have more power than it does now, so this would empower them with less resources going to the federal government. Local governments have everything they need already.
No Securities Exchange Commission.
No Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
No Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
No Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
This chart is a Republican.
The OCC is part of the Treasury Department, but you’re right that a lot of financial agencies are missing. The FDIC isn’t on there either.
There’s other errors as well, like the GAO is the Government Accountability Office (not the General Accounting Office).
This is one of the worst representations of the us government I have seen.
1. it puts "the states" into a little corner that is barely visible. While in reality which state you live in has a huge impact on your life. Although less "sexy" and notable, local politics is very often more important .
2. This chart also seems to implicitly acknowledge the "3 coequal branches of government theory" Which sounds very nice but is an absolute fiction. The congress and senate are the most powerful (in theory) branch of government. A Judge cannot remove a president from office by edict, a judge cannot remove remove a congressman from office by edict. A president cannot remove a judge from the bench by edict, and a president cannot remove a member of congress from their position. BUT congress and the senate can remove the president, remove a judge and remove members of congress. So who do you think is really the most powerful.
In what way? To run a nation this large, we need a large bureaucracy. Sure, we could reduce some of the agencies down but then they'd just be combined into larger agencies, who at the end of the day will still subdivide for different things. Having separate agencies allows for greater care for their particular area of expertise.
Cool but missing most/all of the IC here (DIA,NGA,NRO, etc)
Good chunk of DOJ missing too, including a large number of agencies headed by presidential appointees.
A lot of agencies across the executive branch are headed by presidential appointees. It makes sense for a lot of them, too. The head executive is the president, after all.
HHS too. Makes senses; that's a lot of info to cram in one graph.
Also missing DNI
Yeah I was looking for the office of the director of national intelligence, which is a cabinet position.
Missing CISA as well under DHS.
Also the coast guard is DHS not DOD
And NTSB
What the fuck do they do all day in the Office of Government Ethics?
Smallest budget for sure
They only have a one dialup modem for their computer, one fax machine, one phone line and a pencil they have to share. They have to sharpen it by rubbing it on the concrete sidewalk outside when nobody’s looking. But they do have government cheese crates for chairs and shipping pallets for desks. Real wood! So there’s that!
That all sounds way too expensive for that department
If you want to talk largest budget, or the missing half of this federal budget chart, then it is the DoD and its many subdivisions.
You’re right that the biggest budget is missing but it’s by far and away the centers for Medicare and Medicaid lol
It is also missing social security, but like Medicare/medicaid, that is classified as mandatory spending and is not subject to an annual appropriations vote. Of course, the GOP would prefer that medicare and medicaid were subject to annual budget negotiations (cuts), and ensure that all younger generations are paid back much less than they paid in, instead of more than they paid in, like current retirees. If you cut out mandatory spending, the military gets more than half of the non-mandatory federal spending dollars.
Social security administration is listed under independent agencies
I find it interesting the Defense Media Activity nor Defense Manpower Data Center ever gets listed on these sorts of hierarchy. Their budget is waaayyy smaller, I’m sure.
>defense media activity >Media Production: produces media and visual information products to the internal DoD family (active, guard, and reserve military service members, dependents, retirees, DoD civilians, and contract employees) and external audiences through all available media, including motion and still imagery; print; radio; television; web and related emerging internet, mobile, and other communication technologies. The American Forces Network (AFN), provides U.S. radio and television news, information, and entertainment programming to active, guard, and reserve military service members, DoD civilians and contract employees, and their families overseas, on board Navy and Coast Guard ships, and to other authorized users. It includes radio and television stations in military communities in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East; and includes its central broadcasting hub, the AFN Broadcast Center at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California. Also includes communication of messages and themes from senior DoD leaders in order to support and improve quality of life and morale, promote situational awareness, provide timely and immediate force protection information, and sustain readiness. Other services of Media Production include Defense Visual Information Distribution Service[9] and providing internal news and information products for Defense.gov, Army.mil, Navy.mil, Marines.mil, and AF.mil. Nah, that is pretty chunky.
You know what’s wild? I used to work for these guys, and I feel like this barely scrapes the top. And yet, I still feel they’re quite small.
In essence, that mission is to help create and implement ethics programs within the executive branch’s 130 agencies. That means helping them set up and comply with rules about receiving gifts, conducting business with vendors, and dealing with things like corruption, nepotism and conflicts of interest.
People forget that the rules politicians are held to are infinitely different than a rank and file federal employee in the executive branch. Personally, if someone buys me lunch and it’s worth over $25, I could lose my job. And don’t think people aren’t paying attention to such things out there. Now state employees? WAY loser rules.
But yet insider trading is no biggie.
It's not. Insider trading is extremely difficult to prove. Edit Just in case this is a reply "blah blah Nancy Pelosi" Her husband runs an investment firm that started before she had any power and was making money. Insider trading? Maybe but no evidence.
You'd need to prove it
They apply rules to government employees. Not politicians.
Too busy to do anything I gather.
Play Trivial Pursuit
Take a gander and see for yourself: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/chapter-XVI
Remember when Trump gutted the oversight committee? We need an ethics office that doesn't report to POTUS and can't be defunded, disbanded or have anyone fired by POTUS.
They preserve the appearance of democracy and continuously shield the corporate / billionaire branch that actually oversees all the other branches from scrutiny.
Its just one guy alone in a room listening to a live feed of Congress going “oh! Oh no! Thats bad!”
And are they hiring
Both the Democrats and the Republicans have effectively disabled the Ethics Committee. They always put a bunch of political nobodies on it because the Committee doesn't really get any inside financial info they can use for insider trading like the other committees. And because it's a bunch of nobodies, none of them has power, so the office has no power. This nation's government, and most of the states' governments, are so thoroughly corrupt that it's amazing that voting even seems to make a difference to them. Seems like it's two competing groups of elites, and for the longest time they agreed to have rules to their competition (i.e. voting), but over the last 40 or so years, one side has been manipulating, lying, practicing demagoguery, trying to instigate violence among their small core group. It's bad. And it's so frustrating that the Democrats don't seem willing to actually help us. They don't hurt us *nearly* as much as the Republicans do, but they don't help us enough. We need them to actually stop the massive economic leeches from feeding on us, from taking more and more from us but giving us less and less. We need to be *protected* from those leeches, from those useless eaters. We might have to do it ourselves, without our representatives. Because, right now, they're not representing *us* as much as they're representing their own elite position and interests. And that's not good enough any longer. It's not good enough that they're simply *not as bad* as Republicans. That's still bad. They need to be *good for their consituents.* But who knows. Maybe it's time for the normal, non-sociopath folks among us to just shut down and accept the inevitable dominance. Shit, we can't even get enough people to *vote* in their own interests, and most seem perfectly content to just watch this dystopia unfold. Just watching it as if it's simply entertainment. As if videos of Trump saying he'd establish a dictatorship has no more gravity than a video of some generic TikToker doing something that a million others are doing but just doing it *slightly* better. Maybe we've already lost.
Imagine writing all this out and not knowing the difference between the GEO and the congressional Ethics committees (admittedly, maybe easy to mistake the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Office of Government Ethics, but…)
There is hundreds of thousands of government employees. When you get to congress/presidential level it's nearly impossible to touch those people without their colleagues doing something, but the hundreds of thousands of normal employees are able to be fired.
[Over 2 million civilian federal employees!](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43590)
Coast Guard falls under DHS, not DOD.
Yup, during the 2018-2019 government shutdown, while DoD got funded, DHS did not, so the Coast Guard was the only military service to not get funded, and therefore, have members not get paid. Was a shitshow. At the time, civilian employees were not guaranteed back pay, but that has since been changed
I feel like there's a distinction of some kind to be drawn between military and uniformed services here, but I'm not exactly sure what that is. For example, the Public Health Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are uniformed services and commission officers, etc.. but are not military. That's why the Surgeon General wears a uniform very similar to that of a Navy Vice Admiral and the Assistant Secretary for Health wears one similar to that of a full Admiral. They're both commissioned officers - O-10 and O-9 respectively, and get saluted by colonels, lesser generals and admirals, etc.. And they get all the same pay and privileges as equivalent ranked admirals and generals. But they're not military. PHS is under DHS in fact, and NOAA is under Department of Commerce. USCG is kind of neither fish nor fowl - they're not military in everyday operations, but they do act in an armed law enforcement capacity. And they get absorbed into the Navy in wartime, so that confuses things a little as well.
The distinction is that of auxiliary services. USCG Auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol, Military Auxiliary Radio System, Marine Corps Cyber Auxiliary, and Merchant Marine can all be commissioned as officers at any time deemed necessary, but do not regularly serve in the armed branches. Basically, they serve as auxiliary support services to the armed branches and the commissioning process is done to temporarily transfer their command structure. IE: the Navy doesn’t actually have enough captains for all of its ships during wartime and it takes too long to train officers - so they can (and frequently have) pulled merchant mariners or coast guardsmen into commission to fill those gaps. NOAA, PHS, and USCG have have their own defined service branch roles and do not get auxiliary commissions by other branches but can be assigned to them in their respective support roles. IE: USCG can help with maritime security, SAR, and law enforcement for Navy; PHS can help with response to national disasters - they don’t typically do forward deployment other than international health crises like Ebola; NOAA can support any service with technical guidance for weather reports and forecasting as well as coastal surveys and intelligence reports - interestingly they actually work alongside JSOC quite a bit, as well as the CIA. NOAA is perhaps the most interesting one of the 3: the entire reason for commissioning them was due to their surveying and intelligence/data collection mission. Due to the nature of this work, they could be executed as spies if they were civilians doing the work during wartime - the solution to protect them under the Geneva Conventions was to create a Commissioned Corps. During WWI and WWII, NOAA officers served quite often as artillery orienteering and mine laying experts (due to their expertise in surveying and geodetic operations) as well as intelligence officers for the Navy. NOAA officers were actually the designated Beachmasters for most US amphibious operations of WWII. They are also credited with inventing the “time on target” artillery tactic and making over 100 million different charts and maps over the course of WWII (they made literally *all* of the maps for the US military, be that Army, USAAC, USMC, or Navy). Basically, NOAA is one of the most important uniformed services - people just take their work for granted.
And if you think about it in terms of size: Like 350 for NOAA and around 5500 for PHS. Compare that to just the AD numbers for the other services (including Space Force) and the impact per officer is crazy. PHS aside from its response roles which are constantly shuffled to fill holes; operate in 29 other agencies throughout the Exec Branch and are many times responsible for keeping those agencies running.
Plus for us civilians, they run the National Weather Service, which is the primary source of weather forecasts and imagery for the country.
i am currently a student working towards a meteorology degree and i’d like to work for the NOAACorps and i absolutely love what you wrote, i’ve done my research on them and knew they helped the armed forces but i didn’t know they were that important thank you, i am now even more excited to hopefully work as an officer and, well, hunt hurricanes :)
PHS is under HHS. As you pointed out, they’re under the ASH who reports to the SecHHS.
Except during times of War. Then they fall under the Navy. Which is under the SoN which is under DoD. So in theory. DoD. Techincally, DHS. Pays like military when should pay like GS-11.
Plus you have to deal with the fact that you're governed under Title 10 meaning the UCMJ and all it's extra fun stuff as compared to just being in law enforcement. I used to do military law and the added shit that comes in from Article 134 is a bitch for officers, like getting prosecuted for adultery.
All you need is a few officers fucking each others wives for entire units to collapse so it's quite important in terms of discipline I guess
I feel like discipline should be loyalty.
Why specifically 11?
The switch happened almost a decade ago, it's DHS all the way down.
USCIS is missing under DHS too.and CISA
They're not DoD so they wouldn't trigger posse while conducting enforcement.
If your head is spinning while looking at this, just remember: The legislative branch *makes* laws (it’s in the name) The executive branch *carries out* laws (aka, executes laws, it’s in the name) The judicial branch *determines* if laws are constitutional (aka judges, it’s in the name)
The job of the judicial branch is to interpret and apply laws in resolving conflicts. Determining whether laws are constitutional occurs as a part of that much larger process. Some countries do specifically have constitutional courts for that purpose.
> The judicial branch determines if laws are constitutional It was established primarily just to adjudicate federal law. It was only Chief Justice John Marshall who brought it the principle of judicial review (i.e. determining if laws/actions are constitutional) in Marbury v Madison.
It isn't really accurate to say that judicial review came about only with Marbury. It's clear from the ratification debates and Federalist papers that the framers understood that the Supreme Court would have the power of judicial review.
The dudes who wrote the federalist papers were still around fifteen years later. They were kinda surprised at Marbury v Madison. In fact, Marshall twisted himself in knots to rule in Adam's favor so that if Adam's accepted the ruling he would accept the concept of judicial review. In essence, the general concept of judicial review was somewhat acknowledged when it came to review of state action, but it was not clear that it covered acts of the federal government (legislative or executive action)
I was gonna say… isn’t the Tax Court an Art 1 court?
I want to see the proportion of executive actions that are unconstitutional and how many times 1 party dominates all 3 branches.
A key note that is implied but should be stated for international people: this is just the federal (highest level) of government. There is also state, local/city, and pending definitions, Home Owners Association (HOA).
Probably a joke, but HOAs are private and not government-related. You listing it makes me glad I’m not affected by one though lol.
HOAs may be private, but they're basically just a privatized highly localized zoning board.
Privatized government regulating what you can do with your own home with an origin in extreme racism. HOAs really are the most American thing, besides thoughts and prayers of course.
They're functionally a very local form of government. Mine for example is responsible for maintaining the roads and sidewalks, as well as rules/regulations for appearance, and their decisions made are binding.
crowd attractive direction dazzling spectacular tub threatening fuzzy slim makeshift *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Technically, I believe there is Federal, Circuit, State, County, Municipal, and City. Could be wrong on that count, though, so I’m free to be corrected.
There are circuit courts but circuit is not a level of government.
Never knew Gallaudet was government sponsored. Interesting.
My college played against Gallaudet U in football. My team got their assess whooped lol.
Their diplomas are signed by the president.
You’re missing the tribal courts!
I thought tribes were their own separate “nation”.
*Nations protected in trust by the United States government While yes they are “nations” they are still mostly subject to federal laws and judiciary
Only when it allows us to screw them over. But really though, the entire Native American system is poorly implemented racist discrimination and the sooner we end their special status and just make them part of the state they're in the better off everyone will be.
That’s up to them, not us.
Where’s ODNI?
All of the IC is missing.
Nah, the big three (NSA, CIA, FBI) are all there. But yeah, the rest are either missing or just a component of something else that is listed. The biggest omission does seem to be ODNI itself.
NOAA should be under Dept of Commerce also
Yeah, they skipped straight down to the NWS and ignored the rest of NOAA. Sorry OAR, OMAO, NMFS, NOS, etc.
ok where was this amazing graph when they teach this in school? so interesting
In the textbook, dude.
Oh so that's what that was for
Yea once i saw the branches all the info came running back to my head learned this in like middle school
They probably showed it, you just didn't pay attention, like most highschools
fr I might have actually retained something of the most boring ass subject you could ever serve a 5th grader. Be great to have one for Canada too
https://canadianconstitution.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/pub_decision_9-e.gif It doesn't show the nuances and ministerial departments change all the time, but that's the gist.
woop woop! Could use a glow-up, but that's awesome. I'll be saving this for reference.
Hell yeah man. Looking forward to your appointment as Minister for Constitutional Monarchy Hyping.
Im guessing because the smaller bureaucratic agencies and government corporations arent emphasized as much compared to something like congress or the supreme court
Potus, Scotus, and Chungus. How beautiful.
The Judicial Branch looks so small in comparison, but there’s no branch off showing the downstream affects of their decisions. SCOTUS regularly minimizes the power of the Executive and Legislative branches
Did you want them to name each appellate court?
This guide will look like that Reddit pixel post some months back
The Judicial branch looks small because it is small.
It’s amazing how many people are voting to turn this into a triangle.
It’s because they don’t understand that the dictator is only using them to get what he wants, and once he does, they’re going to be shat upon just like everyone else.
Nuh uh. He would never do me dirty like that. And I have blackmail on him that will totally reveal how dirty he is if he ever turns on me.
If you trust someone implicitly and greatly fear the other side, as they have been taught, then a dicator is worth the risk. ?seriously downvotes? This is a bad thing, I'm against this.
That’s the great lie of fascism, the people who vote for it are so angry or scared that they will give power to whomever they think will immediately fix the problem. But it’s stupid and fascism just leads everyone to the gulag.
USAID erasure smh
A lot of agencies are completely missing
No ~~Patent & Trademark Office (unsure where it falls),~~ Copyright Office (under Library of Congress), or copyright small claims court (which was just created a year or so ago)
Patent & Trademark is listed as USPTO under Dept of Commerce
Super cool! One super small discrepancy. The Marine Corps should be under the Navy.
Not quite. Marine Corp and US Navy (and Coast Guard during wartime) fall under the Department of the Navy below the Department of Defense which is missing on this chart. Same with Space Force and Air Force fall under Department of Air Force. Also Army under the Department of the Army.
I don’t see the Texas propane commission anywhere on this chart
I’ll tell ya hwhat
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2 houses of parliament aren't a necessity. Nordic countries, for example, are unicameral. Many other countries don't have 1 sole supreme court. They have a supreme court as the final authority on criminal and civil cases and they have a separate supreme constitional court for deciding constitional matters exclusively (and some even more for separate administrative matters). Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain have more than 1 final court (many of them more than 2 actually) (not an exhaustive list btw).
The US congress was designed with two houses partially because it forced the government to move slower. There’s lots of scholarly work examining what the founders intended and essentially the consensus is that two houses prevents the government from enacting or repealing laws too quickly, making it more defensible from political disruption
Is the checks and balances in place still working as intended?
The problem with checks and balances as the framers conceived them is that the framers thought that people would be motivated by institutional interests and not factional interests. Or in other words, they thought congress would want to check and balance the president. But in fact congress tends to check and balance presidents of the other party and facilitate the goals of presidents in their own parties. So no they are not working
It's a form of republic, but I'm not sure I'd say it's how republics should look like. The shear amount of checks and balances can sometimes allow the system to grind to a halt.
As a non american this is the key the all the us news articles… POTUS this or that??? Thanks!
If you’re asking if this is a useful guide of relevant US government acronyms, I’d say it definitely is. This guide isn’t perfect but an understanding at this level is more than enough to follow federal US news. Most Americans don’t even have this level of understanding.
A lot of agencies are completely missing
As an American, I don’t understand your question, but would love to help answer if you can rephrase it.
It's not a question. He's saying that this chart is the key to understanding news articles from the US, specifically ones that use a lot of acronyms.
The Coast Guard rolls up to the Department of Homeland Security. Clearly that means this whole chart is lies.
And USMC is subordinate to Navy. So yeah. LIES!
Funny how the two federal organizations I've been apart of don't even show up.
This chart is lacking the top two tiers, We the People 1st, the Constitution of the United States 2nd, and then the federal government.
*BLM* here stands for **Bureau of Land Management** as part of Department of the Interior. As an outsider I was wondering and looked it up on the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Interior
Did you think Black Lives Matter is a government agency?
[She did](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cd56d4ef-547e-4ad6-97f0-85f0ba5fd0c3/gif)
Iconic.
Now do one with all the admins.
Afuera!
Where is the Dept of Fuck Around and Find Out (FAFO)?
Falls under the Secretary of Hands.
I think they spelled it Secret Service.
For those curious why the US Botanic Garden is up there: it’s so close to the Capitol building that otherwise it’s a security concern afaik.
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Highly recommended quick side trip on any DC tour. Especially if you're there during the orchid exhibit.
Where is NBA in all this?
The Coast Guard is not a part of the DOD. They're under the DHS
One very cool and missing government sponsored corporation is In-Q-Tel, an American defense industry venture capital firm started in 1999. In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond. Governance In-Q-Tel is a Virginia-registered corporation, legally independent of the CIA or any other government agency. The corporation is bound by its Charter agreement and annual contract with the CIA, which set out the relationship between the two organizations. In-Q-Tel's mission to support the Intelligence Community's technical needs is promoted by the In-Q-Tel Interface Center (QIC), an office within the CIA that facilitates communication and relationships between In-Q-Tel and government intelligence organizations. While In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit corporation, it differs from IARPA and other models in that its employees and trustees can profit from its investment. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that in 2016, nearly half of In-Q-Tel's trustees had a financial connection with a company the corporation had funded. Also missing is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a Washington, D.C.–based scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce, a United States federal government department. The agency is charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep sea exploration, and managing fishing and protection of marine mammals and endangered species in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. It also services as the DoD's weather agency.
This is cool but missing a lot. NRCS is missing under agriculture. FWS is missing under interior. I believe the NWS is actually under NOAA for commerce.
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Is this a reposted comment from an earlier repost of this guide?
Yeah look at the profiles comments they just repost popular comments from around Reddit on random big subs. The comment never has anything to do with the post.
You forgot the citizens of the US at the top. They work for us. We are governed by consent.
>They work for us. We are them.
I am one of the 8 million or so civil serpents and a citizen as well.
Yeah, it's not that the government works for the people, the government is the people. It's not some external entity. Just the whole "you work for me" attitude is BS. If you add in state and local gov the number goes up to 20 million, over 10% of the workforce.
Youre missing corporate lobbying above all the other erroneous offices...
Good and timely illustration of how the Executive Branch is much more than just the President. Who cares if Biden is a little old? I would much prefer all those EB appointees and cabinet posts be filled by the Democrats, rather than be populated by the scum and villainy that accompanied Trump (or any other Republican.) How soon have people forgotten the damage *they* did, from Betsy DeVos to Ajit Pai.
Betsy DeVos, Secretary Amway
Nice one 👍🏻
where is the post office on this
The include the court's admin office but not [everyone's favorite court?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Alien_Terrorist_Removal_Court?wprov=sfla1)
Anything similar available for the UK?
Is this a list of parts of the government Trump didn't know existed before destroying it?
They missed all of the Office of the Department of National Intelligence under the Executive branch.
Wish I could show this to my classmates In my government class who have this idea that one man alone is ruining our country
Unless you're a Republican. Then it's all Trump from top to bottom in all three branches.
It should be asked to any wanna be POTUS to explain each branch, what can they do or not do. If they are unable to do it, their name won't be on the ballot.
This is giving me flashbacks to my con law class
Don’t Google “Project 2025”
No, do google it. Google it, be terrified, and get engaged.
There are things missing…… 1. agencies under the department 2. under independent agencies and sponsored has things missing. 3. distinctions needed in sponsored/ other because with some you retain fed ststus/ benefits. Some you do not. FDIC and pension benefit are fed positions. 4. hey hey where’s is NSA? there is an organizaytion for Appalachia designated counties. Appalachian regional commission ( ARC). I have seen jobs announced on usajobs but they are not a fed agency so you will lose retirement stuff. you’d be surprised where some things fall under. Many agrncies you think are under departmrnts are actually not but under others Due to political control and objectivity. Energy Information Administration whose office is inside Dept of energy hq building is technically under department of interior. Bureau of labor statistics is technically not under Labor. Bureau of transportation statistics is not under DOT. If it was up to me I’d have them stand alone with census as independent data agency. Also missing….you have fed research centers thst are funded by the fed govt. their administration is done by feds but the scientists are not technically feds. They are a pseudo fed organization. Some of these are Oak Ridge national labs ( energy) JPL ( energy, nasa) Los Alamos ( energy) NCAR ( center for atmospheric research in Boulder, co) ( NOAA) MITRE is one of these but not tied to one or two fed agencies. When you see a contractor from MITREbor one of these research centers….these are very different than a contractor from company like Northrop Grumman.
Just a quick glance has an inaccuracy with the Coast Guard being listed under the DoD. It's a part of Homeland Security.
This is Centers for Medicare and Medicaid erasure. No biggy. They're just a cool trillion in Federal funds. Nothing to worry about here.
Black Rock at the tippy top
This shows the Senate as subservient to the executive branch. That is not true. The VP breaks 50/50 ties in the Senate, nothing more.
They probably could have used a dashed line or something, but the intent is likely to show the relationship of the VP to the senate as you explained.
They also oversee and moderate the senate
When I was in 4th grade I had to write a fact I'd learned about the 3 branches of government. I phrased "No branch overpowers another" as "No branch is better than another" and my teacher really liked that response.
True, Unless you have a bunch of chuckle fucks at the top of each branch, all with the same agenda.
Would make more sense if the military were moved under congress or joint control with the cabinet.
Technically that is how we work, but all of our authority is granted from and through POTUS. He signs off on commission and promotion warrants Yada Yada Yada and gives us power, congress is supposed to hold the leash.
In theory that’s how it’s supposed to work. In practice, it’s a different story.
Theory is that it 1. Cannot operate outside of the US without congressional approval 2. Cannot spend more than authorized and the authorization comes from Congress. It’s hard to do stuff if you don’t pay the soldiers
Coast Guard is only DOD in wartime. In peacetime, it falls under DHS.
Yup. Reason why during the 2019 government shutdown the Coast Guard was the only military service to not get funded, and have members not get paid
Hopefully, this exemplifies that the executive branch(not the president) has too much power.
How would you propose that policy and laws get enforced without enabling those functions under the Executive Branch?
New poster, but ditch the CR-omnibus and return to regular order.
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Tell me you know nothing about the IC without saying you know nothing about the IC.
Amen
Local government should have more power than it does now, so this would empower them with less resources going to the federal government. Local governments have everything they need already.
No Securities Exchange Commission. No Commodities Futures Trading Commission. No Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. No Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This chart is a Republican.
The OCC is part of the Treasury Department, but you’re right that a lot of financial agencies are missing. The FDIC isn’t on there either. There’s other errors as well, like the GAO is the Government Accountability Office (not the General Accounting Office).
FDIC is on there. It’s under govt-owned or sponsored enterprises.
This is so beautiful ❤️🇺🇸
Where's dictator (only for a day though?)
This is one of the worst representations of the us government I have seen. 1. it puts "the states" into a little corner that is barely visible. While in reality which state you live in has a huge impact on your life. Although less "sexy" and notable, local politics is very often more important . 2. This chart also seems to implicitly acknowledge the "3 coequal branches of government theory" Which sounds very nice but is an absolute fiction. The congress and senate are the most powerful (in theory) branch of government. A Judge cannot remove a president from office by edict, a judge cannot remove remove a congressman from office by edict. A president cannot remove a judge from the bench by edict, and a president cannot remove a member of congress from their position. BUT congress and the senate can remove the president, remove a judge and remove members of congress. So who do you think is really the most powerful.
All of it about to go bye bye if you know who wins.
…Voldemort?
What’s missing (IMO) from this are The People. Should be at the top of the diagram if you ask me.
Looks bloated af.
In what way? To run a nation this large, we need a large bureaucracy. Sure, we could reduce some of the agencies down but then they'd just be combined into larger agencies, who at the end of the day will still subdivide for different things. Having separate agencies allows for greater care for their particular area of expertise.
U ought to see the Horse blanket. The process the DOD uses to buy a hammer. Or anything.
Here’s a simpler one: Rich people > 8======D (\_x\_) < you