Random Excerpts

Updating Funding Priorities. The Bureau should identify and eliminate outdated and ineffective concepts and focus on funding innovation. A rigorous review is necessary to ensure that current programs and funding streams avoid wasting taxpayer dollars and prioritize what is needed now and what works.

Defending and protecting the American people and advancing their interests requires the United States to engage in a broad spectrum of bilateral and multilateral relationships, including participating in international organizations. Working with other governments through international organizations like the United Nations (U.N.) can be tremendously useful—but membership in these organizations must always be understood as a means to attain defined goals rather than an end in itself.

Fortunately, a President who is willing to lead will find in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) the levers necessary to reverse this trend and impose a sound direction for the nation on the federal bureaucracy. The effectiveness of those EOP levers depends on the fundamental premise that it is the President’s agenda that should matter to the departments and agencies that operate under his constitutional authority and that, as a general matter, it is the President’s chosen advisers who have the best sense of the President’s aims and intentions, both with respect to the policies he intends to enact and with respect to the interests that must be secured to govern successfully on behalf of the American people. This chapter focuses on key features of and recommendations for several of the EOP’s important components.

Just as troubling, the government’s arguments against free speech are not limited to the facts of 303 Creative. As Colorado admitted to the lower courts, all sorts of artists and speakers like speechwriters, photographers, and videographers can be compelled to design custom messages that violate their most fundamental convictions as long as it serves a certain viewpoint that the government wants to promote.

No day is predictable at the White House. Therefore, to handle the pace and volatility of affairs, the Office of White House Counsel must offer measured legal guidance in a timely manner. This often means forgoing law review-style memos about esoteric legal concepts and instead quickly providing high-level yet incisive guidance. Due to evolving world events, domestic affairs, and political pressures, the office often faces legal questions for which there may not be a wealth of precedent. Attorneys in the Office of White House Counsel must therefore work collaboratively within the White House and the Department of Justice, relying on each other as a team, to ensure that proper legal guidance is delivered to the President.

At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections apply only when a platform does not remove information provided by someone else. In contrast, the FCC should clarify that the more limited Section 230(c)(2) protections apply to any covered platform’s decision to restrict access to material provided by someone else. Combined, these actions will appropriately limit the number of cases in which a platform can censor with the benefit of Section 230’s protections. Such clarifications might also include drawing out the traditional legal distinction between distributor and publisher liability; Section 230 did not do away with the former, nor does it collapse into the latter.

Most principal deputies have functioned as doorkeepers, sorting through action items, taking on those that can be handled at their own level, and passing up others that truly require the attention of the Chief of Staff or the President. Principal deputies also have assumed control of the scheduling functions, normally under the operations deputy, and have worked directly with the policy councils at the direction of the Chief of Staff. The OPL and Office of Political Affairs (OPA) also have reported to a principal deputy.

Federal Laws That Shield Big Pharma from Competition. Because generics generally cost far less than brand-name drugs, consumers begin to save money as soon as a generic product comes on the market. The vast majority are very affordable with 93 percent of generic products costing $20 or less.

America’s antitrust laws are over a century old. In 1890, the U.S. Congress enacted the Sherman Act,' the first federal prohibition on trusts and restraints of trade. The Clayton Act,’ adopted in 1914, builds upon the Sherman Act, outlawing certain practices, such as price fixing, while bringing other business combinations, such as mergers and acquisitions, under regulatory scrutiny.

In addition to providing a safety and regulatory framework through its 11 subcomponents, known as modes, the department has become a de facto grantmaking and lending organization. DOT provides approximately $50 billion in discretionary