Bezos Attacks Toddler Safety

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-03-27-bezos-attacks-toddler-safety



Jeff Bezos may be irked that he lags behind Elon Musk as the planet’s richest man, but he’s closing the gap between him and Elon when it comes to who’s the planet’s most dangerous oligarch. Musk, of course, is running amok when it comes to crippling and closing government agencies, but Bezos put major points on that board earlier this month when his attorneys at Amazon filed a lawsuit arguing that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is unconstitutional. The CPSC is best known for its recalls of products that endanger infants and toddlers—defective scooters and cribs, flammable sweaters and swaddling clothes, that sort of thing.

Not even Musk has had the chutzpah to go after CPSC, but Bezos, plainly hoping to eclipse Elon in at least one category, is made of sterner stuff. During the past 12 months, the commission had ruled that Amazon had to recall products the commission had found to be unsafe, send out notices of the recalls to consumers who’d gone onto Amazon and purchased those goods, and refund those buyers who’d returned them. Initially, Amazon contested only its responsibility for those dangerous products, arguing that, like FedEx and UPS, it was merely delivering them. The commission noticed, however, that unlike FedEx and UPS, Amazon not only delivered those products but sold them—hence, its liability.

This month, sensing perhaps that its argument that it was just a delivery mechanism was perhaps a bit weak, Amazon upped the ante by saying the whole damn commission was unconstitutional. Were a court to uphold that, not only would Amazon be off the hook but there’d be no agency with the power to recall hair dryers with a nasty habit of electrocuting their users or carbon monoxide detectors that failed to detect, no matter who, including the manufacturer, sold them.

In its suit, Amazon made two arguments. First, it backed Trump’s “unitary executive” contention that a president should have the power to hire and fire at will all the board or commission members who serve with fixed terms on regulatory agencies. In 1935, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that those fixed terms were constitutional and, by implication, that such boards and commissions had to have a degree of independence from the sitting administration. Second, Amazon also argued that because those boards and commissions could charge businesses and individuals with violations of rules and then have administrative judges rule on those charges, those agencies violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, even though any such rulings may then be challenged in federal courts, and frequently are.

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[RussellCattle]

1. Musk wants to withhold food and education and Bezos wants them to burn in their PJ's. Move on.....

….nothing to see here. Just the TWO richest men on the planet getting richer.