Tag: EO

Roundup: March Madness

Posted on by documentingdescent

I’ve been a bit busy to keep up day by day, dealing with a rather impressive volume of bureaucratic paperwork. As such, I didn’t have much time to deal with any of this moment to moment over the last week. So you get a round-up of what’s been happening instead!

First off, Trump signed the Executive Order known as “Preserving and Protecting American Elections“. This EO essentially attempts to usurp the role of individual states in how elections are administered and run, moving everything under review of the federal government – namely the Department of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State, and DOGE.

Obviously, there is no reason for DOGE to be involved in elections for any legitimate reason. What’s more, the Executive Branch cannot set election law under any circumstances, and this is a transparent power grab by the president. Lest we forget, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”

This EO relies on two things to enforce its’ bullshit: the willing compliance of States, and the threat of federal funding being withheld. We’ll see how callow individual states are soon, I suppose.

Trump also told automakers in the United States not to increase prices due to his tariffs. I don’t know how he expects that to go; no corporation is gonna eat a massive loss on every item sold just because they want to appease his ego – at least not for long. If they can’t make money selling cars, it won’t matter if he’s mad at them or not. Obviously, this signals he knows his tariffs are shit that will hurt consumers in the United States, but we already knew he didn’t give a shit about them.

Still, seeing it in the open is good, just so there’s some kind of public acknowledgement of this rank insanity.

There was also a Trump EO that basically orders the Smithsonian and other federal museums/monuments to enforce white supremacist history, re-erect confederate monuments, strip anything uncomfortable (i.e. accurate) from their displays, and re-write the history of the USA to be pro white people. Among the more offensive things in the EO is the demand that race be identified as a quantifiable, genetic reality, rather than something socially constructed and understood. Note: this isn’t ‘some people have dark skin’ type of race, but the notion that there are identifiable, distinct ‘races’ of human beings.

The EO also risks shutting down any museum dedicated to non-white history, under the guise of ‘protecting’ us from “racially divisive exhibits.”

JD Vance addressed Greenland while there with his wife, saying both that Greenland hadn’t been treated very well by Denmark and that only the United States will respect their rights. Funny way to show it, by simultaneously threatening them by (essentially) saying “The United States will get Greenland no matter what.” That’ll be a shitshow of epic proportions if it happens. I’m not wasting any more time on JD Vance, though.

ICE is disappearing students around the United States for political speech. We’re up to 8 at least now, and in each case these students were targeted for things like writing Op-Eds in their student newspaper, engaging in protest or other protected speech, or generally saying stuff the Trump administration doesn’t agree with. They’re being taken while on the streets by ICE agents who are usually out of uniform, masked, and who only identify themselves as ‘police’ – which, I should note, is fucking terrifying.

ICE is trying to deny all of these students their day in court before an immigration judge, and Rubio is trying to deport them without due process, all because they said some uncomfortable truths about the United States and Israel.

Elon Musk is in hot water with Wisconsin after deciding to hand out several million dollars to select voters, in return for them voting. While federal law prohibits payment in exchange for voting for a particular candidate, Musk isn’t doing that. It’s Wisconsin state law he’s run afoul of.

In Wisconsin, paying for voter turnout is explicitly against state law, and it seems Wisconsin isn’t having any of his shit. He deleted his tweet advertising this, but many people captured it before it vanished. I doubt anything will happen legally, but I sure hope Wisconsin tries. We don’t need any centibillionaires messing around with out already broken political system.

I suppose we shall see what horrors next week brings. Stay safe out there.

Only I Can Interpret the Law

Posted on by documentingdescent

Welp, there we have it. An Executive Order indicating only the President has the authority to interpret laws relating to Executive Branch activities.

I’m sure this is totally fine with all of the people shrieking that Obama and Biden were tyrants, abusing their authority.

I guess we’re gonna see if the Supreme Court values their own power more than they desire to kneel before their king.

The Office of Religious Fuckery

Posted on by documentingdescent

Oh yeah. One more thing that happened this week. This shit.

The executive order for “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias”.

The legal framework is there, based on previous protected classes, and anti-semitic bullshit pulled by nazis. But it’s being applied in such an ass backwards way it’s offensive. Just a drop in the bucket for this week, but worth noting for future bullshit references.

The First Week

Posted on by documentingdescent

I had intended to start this blog on January 20th, the day of the inauguration. Unfortunately, the SSL certificate kept refusing to install properly, which blocked me from getting things set up until now. So I’ve decided to a first week recap instead, focusing on what has actually happened, rather than proposals. I am not interested (for now) in what people are exhorting the administration to do, but what they actually do.

This all comes on the heels of Los Angeles burning in all directions – some of the worst fires the state’s ever seen. The Palisades fire has destroyed a lot of Malibu and most of Pacific Palisades, as well as outskirts of Santa Monica. The Eaton fire basically erased Altadena from the map and is burning in the San Gabriels at the moment. The Castaic fire which was threatening Santa Clarita and Castaic Junction is getting contained, but not without getting perilously close to a lot of homes.

So, the past few weeks have been a bit of a lot.

A short list of executive actions in the first week of Trump’s second term. This is not all of them, but the primary ones of interest:

  • Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States
    • This executive order indicates deployment of “as many units or members of the Armed Forces, including the Ready Reserve and the National Guard, as the Secretary of Defense determines to be appropriate to support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”
  • Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program
    • This order has effectively halted all refugee admissions into the United States for the time being, including individuals who had previously been accepted but had yet to arrive in the United States. This includes military translators and advisors from countries such as Afghanistan. Others affected include refugees fleeing Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
  • Reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy
    • This was not a new executive order but reactivation of one from his first term, wherein individuals attempting to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until they are officially accepted as either residents or refugees. Coupled with the previous executive order, that time may be never.
  • Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship
    • This order attempts to rescind or redefine the nature of “birthright citizenship” as established in the constitution. Department of Justice lawyers have attempted to argue this week that citizenship is only granted to children born in the United States if one of their parents is already a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
    • If upheld, this would in effect create large numbers of stateless individuals, as certain countries do not regard children born abroad to be citizens, even if one or more of their parents are citizens of that country.
    • In a Seattle courtroom, these lawyers also argued that Native Americans are not citizens of the United States, because their primary allegiance is to their tribe, rather than the United States. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour has placed a 14-day hold on this executive order, and gave the DoJ lawyers a dressing down when they suggested Native Americans were “subject to the laws of the United States” but then asserted they were not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
      • I.E. they argued Natives were not citizens, but were still beholden to United States law. The judge was not having any of that.
    • This order will no doubt face other legal challenges on the basis of the 14th amendment.
  • Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
    • This order prohibits any member of the Executive Branch and associated agencies from recognizing someone’s gender may differ from their biological sex, or assisting in documentation to that effect. This has also paused all new intersex/agender passport applications, per Acting Secretary of State Marco Rubio
    • The order also indicates one’s sex is determined by their sex at conception. At conception, a zygote has no sex. It is a mass of cells.

There are other directives, executive orders, and proclamations I haven’t listed, of course. Muzzling the NIH, CDC, and other federal health agencies unless they run every public statement past the Executive Branch, for instance. The halt of federal funding for all medical trials being run by higher institutions of learning – and federal funding for certain other sciences as well. Pulling all federal funding for the World Health Organization. Trying to use Schedule F to reclassify federal employees, though unions are fighting that in court. The “anti-DEI” initiatives across all federal agencies, even NASA.

Interestingly, while he fired a shit ton of women in advisory positions, he seemed to leave most of the men in their jobs. Surely this is a coincidence.

There’s almost too much to catalog in this one week, but that – as told by Stephen Miller – was literally part of their plan. To overwhelm resistance with a firehose of action.

More to come as days unfold.