Andrew, as usual, has raised a number of interesting questions.

I have just one observation.  Does anyone else see the excruciating irony here?  The same administration that wants to do away with earmarks and asks everyone to trust the decisions to department and agency employees, refuses to trust those same employees when they make other decisions.

It is textbook civics to assert that the three branches of the U.S. federal government are separate but equal.  While there should be checks and balances, most of the activity of government should be done through the legislature, as the most broadly representative of those branches.  We are far from this ideal and moving in the wrong direction.

Just look at where the manpower is in the federal government--civil servants working in cabinet departments headed by political appointees of the President.  Consider today's news story in which the Office of the Vice President is accused of deleting sections of the Congressional testimony of the head of the CDC on climate change: