Below is a list of governmental branches within our republic – administrations, agencies, departments, bureaus, commissions :
Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, Legislative Branch;
Departments of Justice (DOJ), Defense (DOD), Agriculture (USDA), Commerce (DOC), Education (ED), Energy (DOE) Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor (DOL), State (DOS), Transportation (DOT), Interior (DOI);
Affairs: Veterans Affairs (VA, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Central Intelligence (CIA), Environmental Protection(EPA); and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Emergency Management (FEMA), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), General Services Administration (GSA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), Small Business Administration (SBA), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Social Security Administration (SSA), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the US Postal Service (USPS). This is the only entity being fiddled with these days that by 1775 was a “service”; i.e., before we were a country
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A majority of the above have been compromised by the Executive branch. I can’t say that all of them have been because there are so many. Neither the Press nor many of us have the time, nor the fortitude, to keep track. For us citizens to stay up to date with the damage done to these entities during the past 10 years is impossible. And the Press reporters, constitutionally instructed to inform us about our government at all times, don’t have enough eyes among them to keep up.
The point here – in this not-even-close-to the entire list of government units – is a mere typing test of actual systems. I’d like to meet the person who could keep track of our parenthetical alphabet soup of a once democratic government. He or she would have to be one of those mythical photographic memory wizards or a polymath, who is a person of great and varied learning. There are not many of either.
But coming up with them all could be a game to play after dinner, or more aptly, during the cocktail hour. Sadly though, we are closer to knowing a lot more about these enfeebled alphabets governing us than before, because so many of them that we seldom ever thought about or even knew about have indeed been in the news since January 20, 2025, being ripped asunder. This unwanted fact is right up there with the current necessity of having to read the Constitution again and again. We do this in part to understand how a constitutional democracy can get rid of its top dog, and question each time why we haven’t done it.
~a column by Colleen O’Brien
