Did the weekly comic book run this afternoon with the husband. Stopped at McDonalds for fine dining in the car from the drive through (we get the food from the window then pull into the parking lot to eat). And, in exciting financial nerdness, I saved $1 a gallon at the Safeway gas station. Thank you for tracking my spending habits, Safeway (which you were going to do anyway since I always use the same credit card, so whatever).

Returned home and did a little more work (thank you, flexible pandemic work hours). I swear, it is going to be the death of me to break this agency of talking about getting "approvals" from Legislative branch committees, even in internal communications, but definitely in formal external communications. Long story short, under the US Constitution the Legislative branch has one way to "direct" or "approve" of Executive branch actions, and that's to pass legislation (with the assent or over the objections of the Executive). That's it, period. Every thing else is informal and small-p political. Mind you, it would be dumb (like, massively stoopid) for an agency to ignore or disregard Congress (or individual committees or members), but in the dance of things an Executive branch agency should never surrender their Constitutional role to execute the laws, especially in formal communications. It is fine to consult with Congress, it is fine to take their views under advisement, but they don't get to execute the laws, we do. If they want to run things, they can get a political appointment from the President. Otherwise, no. Just no.

This, as you might be able to tell, drives me up the wall when I run into it inside the agency, and will lead to a long, angry (lawyer-splaining!) lecture if I find it in formal, external communications.

So yeah, all that 'separation of powers' stuff you learned about in school? It's real stuff that gets argued about every day. Whee.