Executive Orders Part 3

I know I missed a couple of days on these. I got a little overwhelmed and had to play stupid computer games to unfuck my mind. But here we are, the final Executive Orders from Day 1 of the Trumpocalypse. 
Holy crap, there are a lot of these. More than 50 total. Plus all the non-executive-order-fuckery that's gone on in the first few months days of the new administration (has it really only been 5 days? It already feels like so much longer...). These are the final Executive Orders from 20-Jan-25. I'm at the point of just being cynical and rage-filled now, so it may be difficult for me to maintain the level of impartiality that I would like, but I'm gonna try. At least until the red words.

• Securing our borders
• This one is straightforward. Build a wall. Increase law enforcement presence at the border. Detain anyone suspected of entering illegally. Deport anyone who enters or remains in the country illegally. Charge anyone who violates immigration laws, or who assists in that violation. 
• Remember the whole kids-in-cages thing? Families being separated at the border? Welcome to that, version 2.0. Please note that the order states, explicitly, that anyone apprehended on suspicion of violating laws, should be detained ",,,until such time as they are removed from the United States." Under this clause, citizens can be jailed and deported all because someone suspects that they're here illegally.
  Wait, actually...I suspect that the South African Nazi is here illegally. Can he be jailed and deported next?
• Protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship
• This order begins by claiming that the 14th Amendment "has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States." As such, it seeks to remove birthright citizenship. If the person's mother was illegally in the US and the father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident, or if the mother's presence was legal but temporary and the father not a citizen or permanent resident, that person will not be granted citizenship. In other words, one or both parents must be citizens or lawful permanent residents at the time of birth. It also implies that this will be made retroactive.
• Ignoring the fact that this is trans-exclusionary, it seeks to invalidate the citizenship of hundreds of  thousands, if not millions, of people. People who have never set foot outside this country may be at risk of deportation to a country they've never seen. I'm sure some people will be thrilled to have no more "anchor babies," but all it's going to do is tear families apart.
  Can someone explain to me why we're so afraid of letting other people live alongside us? Is it just because they're different, and we don't like change? Are we really convinced that other people are less-than? I just don't get it. 
• Realigning the United States refugee admission program
• This order starts off by stating that the US lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants and refugees in a manner that doesn't overburden American citizens and cause scarcity of resources. This order suspends entry of refugees as of 12:01am EST on 27-Jan-25, not to be reinstituted until a report submitted by the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services states that resumption of refugee entry would be in the interests of the US. A new report must be submitted every 90 days to continue allowing refugees in. It also revokes The February 2021 Executive Order, "Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration".
• "Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
  I guess we should change that poem (the one on the Statue of Liberty) to just read, "Fuck off!" Which is pretty absurd, considering the fact that white people murdered the crap out of the indigenous people. You want illegal immigration? I'm gonna go ahead and say that wholesale slaughter is way worse than people wanting to hold onto their positive traditions.
  I'd also like to point out that the state of emergency declared by NY was in response to large quantities of asylum-seekers being bussed into the state and overwhelming shelters. If those people had been bussed out to more areas, spread out across the country instead of dumped into one spot, it's extremely unlikely that such a state of emergency would be necessary.
• Unleashing American energy
• This order "encourages" the exploration and production of energy on Federal lands and waters. It also eliminates the "electric vehicle (EV) mandate" to "promote true consumer choice", which includes the removal of state emissions waivers. It seeks to remove environmental constraints on consumer goods like light bulbs, toilets, and gas stoves. It also states that no federal funding can be used "...in a manner contrary to the principles outlined in this section, unless required by law."
  
• Remember that time that everybody thought the Biden administration was gunning for gas stoves and looking to ban them? You know, the thing that was just categorically false? (In case you're wondering, they were looking to find ways of making all products that use natural gas, including but not limited to gas stoves, safer for use with fewer emissions.) And you know how some states offer a toll relief for EV cars or cars that produce significantly less greenhouse gas emissions? These things weren't trying to stop/remove the purchase of gasoline-powered cars or natural gas-powered appliances. They were just looking to offer benefits to people who opted to go for the more energy efficient items. But because Trumpletoes takes anything related to the environment as a personal slight. All this is going to do is promote the use/purchase of less environmentally-friendly options, because they're less expensive, and let's face it, fucking everything is getting out of control price-wise.
• Clarifying the military's role in protecting the territorial integrity of the United States
• This order requires that, within 10 days, the Secretary of Defense must provide a new plan to "seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities."
• This order basically mobilizes the military to the border and allow for the murder of countless would-be immigrants under the guise of national security. Whatever your opinion on immigrants, legal or otherwise, surely we can all agree that nobody deserves to be gunned down for the crime of trying to make a better life for themselves.
• America First trade policy
• This order demands the investigation of the causes of the country's annual trade deficits in goods, a look at the economic and national security implications, and requires a plan to remedy the deficits. The plans may include "a global supplemental tariff". It also calls for the United States Trade Representatives to review and identify "...any unfair trade practices by other countries and recommend appropriate actions to remedy such practices..." It goes on to make specific demands regarding all types of trade-related issues, including export markets, counterfeit products and contraband drugs, and trade agreements with other countries (specifically China, to include physical goods and "technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation"). There's a lot of technical explanations of the requirements.
• There's a lot of detailed information and addendums and technical jargon. I'm not the most adept at translating it into English, if I'm being honest. From what I understand, the idea is to make sure the US has the upper hand on all trade deals. A lot of it seems to be rather unrealistic, and like it's implying that we're going to sue the crap out of other countries because someone doesn't think the agreements we have are good enough. It also strongly indicates that the current administration doesn't understand how tariffs work. Somehow, tariffs are supposed to decrease trade deficits. Except...we'd be the one paying the tariffs, not the other country...
• Memorandum to resolve the backlog of security clearances for Executive Office of the President personnel
• This requires the White House lawyers to provide "a list of personnel that are hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances for a period not to exceed six months..." to the WH Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer. Those people will then be immediately granted access to, well, everything. It also allows the WH Counsel to add to or remove from the list at will.
• "You get a security clearance! And you get a security clearance! Everyone who I want gets a security clearance! But not him. Fuck that guy." It seriously just allows for all his cronies and ass-kissers to get security clearances. Whether they pose a threat to national security or not. But go ahead and say we have nothing to worry about. I double dog dare you.              
• Declaring a national emergency at the southern border
• This order allows the mobilization of the military to the southern border, complete with additional physical barriers, unmanned drones, and a requirement for all organizations to provide a plan regarding their actions to the President.
• This is 100% just a way to allow this bloviating xenophobe the ability to murder brown people at the border. I'm pretty sure my stance on this is apparent.
• Restoring accountability to policy-influencing positions within the federal workforce
• This basically makes some edits to existing documentation regarding being a supervisor in the Federal workforce. It does explicitly state that no person is required to support the President personally or politically, but that they must "faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President.  Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal."
• This is simultaneously a threat to fire anyone who doesn't do exactly what they're told by Cheeto Benito, and gives anyone an out. The phrase "consistent with their constitutional oath" means that if a person finds that a command is illegal, they can refuse to act upon it. It's tricky to uphold, but it's something.
• Delivering emergency price relief for American families and defeating the cost-of-living crisis
• After making some claims regarding costs on the American household, this order demands that all executive departments and agencies "...deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people..." Among those demands are actions to "...lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply...", "...create employment opportunities for American workers...", and "...eliminate unnecessary...rent-seeking practices that increase healthcare costs..."
• 😹😹😹😹😹😹💀This is a joke, right? Surely he's just fucking with us now. Housing is so expensive right now because rich assclowns are buying up tons of properties and either hoarding them or flipping them and selling them at obscenely high prices. There are so many corporations snapping up any house they can get their hands on just to resell it or rent it out at rates that nobody with fewer than 2 full time jobs can hope to afford. He's demanding we create employment while simultaneously firing anyone involved with DEI practices, to the extent of having a snitch line for people to report anyone who is trying to avoid being fired by adjusting their job title/responsibilities (which, how would you even do that? Federal positions are pretty well set in stone without months of approvals and retooling efforts).  And can you please explain how rent-seeking practices are increasing healthcare costs? I can't really see the connection there. But you know what I can see? I can see where the Affordable Care Act, which this bloated buffoon is trying to scrap, is helping provide lower costs of healthcare. And I can see where he's already rescinded policies from the previous administration that capped the cost of drugs like insulin.
  If this shit wasn't so mindbogglingly stupid and thoroughly depressing, I might actually be laughing right now.
• Regulatory freeze pending review
• This order demands that no new rules be submitted until it has been reviewed and approved by a department or agency head that the President appoints. Any rules that have been approved but not yet published in the Federal Register must also be withdrawn and submitted for review. Any new rules that have already been published should be considered for postponement so that they may be reviewed for factuality, lawfulness, and compliance with policy.
• This is another way of trying to stack the deck to his favor. Basically, any rules that affect the federal government in any way need to be reviewed by one of this administrations cronies to determine if it's something that pleases the almighty pissbaby.
• Ending the weaponization of the federal government
• This order states that the prior administration misused Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community to investigate, prosecute, and perform civil and/or federal actions against people that disagreed with the administration, including jailing "an individual for posting a political meme." It does not provide context for this claim. The order states that the administration prosecuted "more than 1,500 individuals associated with January 6, and simultaneously dropped nearly all cases against BLM rioters." The order seeks to review the activities of "...all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority..." as well as "...the Intelligence Community..." for the last 4 years, and come up with remedial actions for any perceived overreach. It also demands compliance with document retention policies.
• First off, source needed for that individual jailed for posting a political meme. Because all I can find is a guy who actively spread disinformation regarding Hillary Clinton, calling her a "warmonger," claiming she cheated Sanders out of the spot, claiming that she wanted to draft women (while she did say she wanted women to have to register for the draft, she did not intend to activate the draft), and various other misleading or outright false claims.
  The 1,500 people involved with the insurrection of January 6 were prosecuted for various crimes that they were caught committing, many of them on camera. This includes inciting violence, assault (including the assault of law enforcement), and property damage, among other things. The BLM "rioters" (read: protestors) who had their charges dismissed were those who were arrested for things like failure to disperse and open container violations, "crimes" for which most people get nothing worse than a fine, especially on their first arrest. And there were plenty of people arrested (over 10,000), with many receiving fines, hundreds facing charges of looting and burglary (which typically results fines, probation, community service, and/or short stays in jail), and several receiving jail sentences upwards of a year. Those people who were convicted of crimes were given sentences that aligned with the severity of their crimes. I don't know what Agolf Shitler expects to happen here. You can't re-try people who have already been tried or had their cases dropped, and he's already freed the insurrectionists. so...?
• Restoring Freedom of Speech and ending federal censorship
  
• According to this order, " Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate." It goes on to say that taxpayer resources should not be used in any conduct that would "unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen" and demands that the federal government find previous instances of this happening and "take appropriate action to correct" the situation.
• Since when is ensuring that false, very likely harmful information isn't spread around? Also, nobody was saying you couldn't write such things, only that they wouldn't be hosted on certain (PRIVATELY OWNED) websites without a fact-check. That's how the right to free speech works. You have the right to say whatever you want, but it doesn't free you from the consequences of saying those things. In this case, the consequence of saying something that is provably false was that your post either got a warning label that it was false, or was removed from the platform. I'm not aware of any federal expenditures to this effort. This is literally people being butthurt that their (often wild, speculative, or just completely wrong) takes on certain topics were not allowed to be as widely disseminated as they would like.
• Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions
• After another set of jabs at the previous administration, this order revokes the following, previously existing, executive orders:
• Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government
• Ensuring a Lawful and Accurate Enumeration and Apportionment Pursuant to the Decennial Census
• Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government to Provide a Unified and Effective Response to COVID-19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security
• Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation
• Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel
• Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis
• Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation
• Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities
• Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery
• Establishing the COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board and Ensuring a Sustainable Public Health Workforce for COVID-19 and Other Biological Threats
  
• Improving and Expanding Access to Care and Treatments for COVID-19
• Protecting Worker Health and Safety
• Supporting the Reopening and Continuing Operation of Schools and Early Childhood Education Providers
• Economic Relief Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Protecting the Federal Workforce
• Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform
• Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities
• President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
• Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad
• Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act
• Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, To Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border
• ...You know what? I was going to list them all, but there are just too damn many of them.
• Yeah, that's about half of the orders that are being rescinded. The gist of what I'm getting from this is that the Covfefe Commander is trying to undo every. single. one. of Biden's executive orders and picking it back up from where things were when he was ousted last time. We're rolling back all kinds of protections, committees intended to prevent another pandemic, policies that would simplify the immigration process and make it easier for people to enter the country legally, and a whole mess of other things. So don't be shocked if you're fired for being in the Alphabet Mafia in any way, or if climate change accelerates uncontrolled, or we return to separating children from their parents at the border and subsequently losing track of them.
• Flying the flag of the United States at full-staff on Inauguration Day
• This one is probably the fluffiest. Currently, flags are being flown at half-staff in recognition of the death of former president Carter. As is tradition, the flag is to be flown that way for 30 days after his death. However, "...in honor of Inauguration Day and everything good and noble that it represents...I hereby order that, on this and all future Inauguration Days, the flag of the United States shall be flown at full-staff."
• Look at me, look at me! I'm special!
  That's it. That's the whole order. I have nothing more to say on the matter.

Well, there you have it folks. That's the whole list of executive orders made on Day 1 of the second term of the worst president in US history. I was planning to put the Cabinet picks here, too, but that's its own level of Hell to wade through, so that'll be tomorrow's fiasco. Then there are more orders that he made after Day 1, some extremely problematic hand gestures made by his crony partner in crime puppeteer er...by the elongated muskrat (thanks to Richard Jeter for that one), and who knows what other insanity to get through to catch up. But here we are for now.

But wait! There's more!

 I thought I got through all of the executive orders from yesterday, but that's what I get for checking a news report rather than the White House website. I saw a few that I missed in other articles, so here I am, cross checking the WH site with what I've already written about, and adding the rest here.
Fuck me, there's a lot of them.

• Keeping Americans safe in aviation
• This goes along with the other merit based hiring/DEI hiring, stating that "...the FAA betrayed its mission by elevating dangerous discrimination over excellence."
  
• Just like the other similar orders that I reviewed yesterday, the idea isn't to promote the hiring or advancement of unqualified persons based on their demographics, but to provide the same opportunities to everyone, and ensure diversity in the workplace.
• Guaranteeing the states protection against invasion
  -and-
  Protecting the American people against invasion
• The first order declares that current policies at the border are insufficient for proper background checks as related to public health, safety, and national security, and suspends the ability of non-citizens (called "aliens" here) to enter the US from the southern borders until "I issue a finding that the invasion at the southern border has ceased." It also prevents the use of previous legislation from being used to permit continued presence. It goes into detail about each type of risk posed, but ultimately states all the same things. The second order does much the same, except it revokes several existing executive orders from 02-Feb-2021 and demands the prioritization of prosecution of people who break immigration law.
  
• This is going to cause problems. Lots of problems. Not because we're being invaded from the south, but because our until-just-now-current immigration policies were difficult to enforce and even more difficult to obey for people seeking asylum or just wishing to immigrate to the US. These orders roll back several policies, making it even harder to enforce and obey immigration laws. I guarantee this will see an uptick in illegal immigration, not by people sneaking across the border, but people legally obtaining visas and then simply not leaving when those visas expire.
  I can provide an awful lot of information that shows that illegal immigration isn't nearly the problem some people think it is, but I know nobody who ought to will read it, and honestly, I think I'll want to tackle that in another post later on anyway. But suffice it to say, the vast majority of people who come to the US, legally or otherwise, simply want to make a life for themselves someplace where they won't be under threat from the government/cartels/gangs. But a word of advice to those people: You're probably looking at the wrong place if you want to come here and you're not a rich, white, middle-age or older man.
• Unleashing Alaska's extraordinary resource potential
• This order basically states that the previous administration's protections of Alaska mean that we're wasting the resources that can be found there. Specifically, it states that the US aims to: "fully avail itself of Alaska's vast lands and resources...", "efficiently and effectively maximize the development and production of the natural resources...", "expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects...", and "prioritize the development of Alaska's liquified natural gas (LNG) potential, including the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region." It goes on to revoke protections put on Alaskan land, rescind an impact statement entitled "Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, Alaska" from 2024 and reinstate an environmental impact statement titled "Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program" from 2019, expedite the development of a "road corridor between the community of King Cove and the all-weather airport located in Cold Bay", remove protections on specific areas of land "within the National Petroleum Reserve", reinstate a host of older Public Land Orders, "immediately review all Department of the Interior guidance regarding the taking of Alaska Native lands into trust...", "deny the pending request to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to establish indigenous sacred site in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge", and frankly, quite a lot of other changes, rollbacks, and denials. 
• Ok, if I wasn't pissed purple before, I sure as fuck am now. (Spoiler: I definitely already was.) I actually read the whole thing, even though I didn't list it all here. An extreme simplification is that this order revokes effectively all orders that protect the wildlife, their habitats, and anything and everything to do with Native peoples. The idea is to open up Alaska to drilling for oil, levelling forests for lumber, destroying the natural habitats of a host of animals for the sake of putting in a damn highway, and give us the ability to hunt and fish a whole fuckload more species into extinction. It's snatching land from Native peoples (who have already had their land snatched, their sacred sites defiled and/or destroyed, their primary food sources overhunted/overfished, and their children murdered and buried in mass graves behind churches) and effectively ensuring that they are unable to continue with any sort of traditional way of life.
  Just to be abundantly clear, I am in no way Native American. (I mean, I'm native to America, but my family ancestry traces back to Germany, England [and England by way of Nova Scotia], and Ireland. I am very, very white. I also have no kids, which means the damage that won't be obvious right away (like the extinction of a variety of Alaska-native animals and the increase in greenhouse gas production from the deforestation and continued excessive use of fossil fuels) won't affect me. I'll be dead by the time that shit becomes critical. I have absolutely no skin in this game whatsoever. So why does this bother me? Well, unless something insane happens, like a meteor crashing into the earth, or a hostile space alien invasion, or another pandemic that successfully wipes out the majority of human life on the planet, there will still be other people living after I die. I would like them to have a habitable planet. I would like them to be able to experience all four seasons (insomuch as they still exist). I would like them to be able to look back at the generations that came before them and continue cultural practices that have been around for centuries, but are now becoming more scarce because white people keep fucking shit up for indigenous people. I truly don't know why people can't care about other people just a little. Doesn't even need to be that much. Just enough to respect that other people have different ways of life, and that as long as everyone involved consents to their involvement and nobody is being hurt or killed, maybe it's none of your goddamn business what they're doing. (Yeah, yeah, I know I went a little off the rails here. Deal with it.)
• The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal (Global Tax Deal)
• This order states that the Biden administration's OECD Tax Deal allows for forces outside the US to have control over US income, and limits the US's ability to "enact tax policies that serve the interests of American businesses and workers." It labels the Global Tax Deal as discriminatory. It seeks to nullify prior commitments to the Global Tax Deal; investigate whether other countries are complying with tax treaties, have any current tax rules that would disproportionally affect American companies, intend to create any such tax rules; and provide a list of protective measures the US should adopt in response to either non-compliance with approved tax treaties or implementation of new, unapproved tax rules.
• I will freely admit that I don't know a damn thing about international taxes. I don't know who we have what deals with, or how those deals affect American companies. I do know that pretty much everything I buy says "Made in [insert non-American country here]" and that we rely heavily on trade with China and various Middle Eastern companies. Logic dictates that there would be taxes associated with such trade, but I don't have anything more than that, and my brain really isn't built to understand anything math-related, which this is. On the surface, this isn't bad. It reads like it intends to keep us competitive in the global market, and to prevent other countries from taking advantage of us. However, knowing that this comes from a man who has run multiple businesses, including a casino into the ground, I get the sneaking suspicion that this is just another way for us to piss off other countries. 
• Organization of the National Security Council and subcommittees
• This order creates a council combining people from National Security and Homeland Security, the President, and a series of other Federal employees, to convene and act as the "...principal means for coordinating Executive departments and agencies in the development an implementation of national homeland security policies, strategies, activities, and functions...". Members of the NSC are: President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, Director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, White House Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Homeland Security Advisor. Other (non-voting) attendees will be decided based on the topic of the meeting, the sensitivity and/or clearance requirements of those topics, staffing, and "other considerations". Expected additional attendees may include: Director of National Intelligence, Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor (listed as the principal note-taker), Deputy Homeland Security Advisor (listed as principal note-taker when convening as the HSC [Homeland Security Committee]), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of the CIA, Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Assistant to the President for Policy, and Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs and Legal Counsel to the National Security Advisor. Any attendee may propose agenda items. Those proposals must be submitted in advance and in accordance with a timeline set by the National Security Advisor, who will determine whether to include those items on the agenda. The Homeland Security Advisor takes over that role when the Council is convened as the HSC. There are a ton of bullet points regarding the roles of council members, the purpose of the meetings (on the whole, the creation, implementation, prioritization, and oversight of policies and procedures relating to national and homeland security), dispute resolution, etc. It is a very in-depth and specific way of saying, "This committee is a whole bunch of appropriately-qualified people talking about what to do in regards to national safety and/or homeland security).
• I don't hate this. This is another one of those "on the surface" caveats. It looks like the idea is to improve national security. There are heads of a whole mess of division heads; lawyers; presumably intelligent and informed advisors; assistants; and high-ranking members of 3-letter organizations. In theory, this will prevent the creation and implementation of Really Fucking Bad Ideas(TM) and keep other countries from stealing our secrets, infiltrating our government, acting as puppet masters, etc. On the surface. But this only works if the people on the committee aren't all boot-licking, ass-kissing, corrupt-as-fuck scumbags who are only in place because they kissed the ring. So, y'know, probably going to be a shitshow. But the idea is sound.
• Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
• This order demands an immediate pause in US foreign development assistance with the intention of reviewing current and requested foreign aid to determine if we should continue (or begin) to provide the aid requested. It appears that this order is intended to ensure that the assistance we provide is only going to countries whose ideals and values are aligned with American ideals and values.
• If we weren't so obviously diving directly into an oligarchy/fascist dictatorship, I'd say that this is a reasonable order. We want our money going to people who have the same values as us, right? People who don't bomb churches and hospitals, or commit a variety of war crimes just for funsies. And if I thought for even one second that this order would ensure that, I would say, "Yeah, good answer." But if we ask Steve Harvey if "doing that" is on the board, we're gonna get the big red X and the buzzer sound. The US is perpetrating war crimes on the daily at this point (forced birth is a war crime, and is exactly the outcome of these abortion bans/). We'll see if this actually does any good, but I'm not holding my breath on it.
• Declaring a national energy emergency
• This order states, "our Nation’s inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed-incomes." It goes on to blame the previous administration for "...a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid..." exist, and are the cause of vulnerability to hostile foreign actors. It demands that various organizations provide information regarding the obtaining, refining, and transportation of energy, with a focus on the Northeast and West Coast. These organizations include: the EPA; Army Corps of Engineers; Director of the National Economic Council; Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service; Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act Committees; and Secretaries of Interior and Energy, Defense, and Interior. 
  "The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals..."
• "The energy grid in our country is poorly maintained and insufficient for our ever-increasing needs, so we're gonna blame the people who won't let us dig or drill for non-renewable resources and make everyone feel like it's their fault for trying to keep the earth from burning up." That's what that order sounds like. (Point of interest, most of the orders have some kind of barb blaming the previous administration for the perceived problems. And in some cases, they're not wrong. Like the foreign aid situation, and possibly the wind energy situation [assuming that there really were insufficient studies and prep done]. But so many of them are just laying blame and trying to make former administrations look bad rather than just saying it's a deficiency that needs to be addressed.) Do we have an energy crisis? Yeah, we do. Just ask the people in Texas who are told to keep their AC no lower than 82°F, and ultimately found themselves in a big-ass blackout because their grid just couldn't handle it. Ask anyone who has experienced rolling brownouts in summer or winter for the same reason. But blaming it all on the previous administration is stupid. Every administration thus far has failed to really explore alternatives to fossil fuels. Nuclear power is less dangerous than it sounds, as long as all the right procedures are in place (then again, seeing how the government skimps on other things that cost money, maybe that isn't the best plan for us...). Solar power can be utilized in most of the country, and it would be as simple as tossing solar panels up on existing structures (and we're not going to "use up" the sun this way, jfc. That's not a thing that can happen. The sun will eventually burn itself out, but nobody on earth now is likely to be around when that happens.). We've already started implementation of wind energy (though there may be a need for further research into the potential ecological repercussions [turbines spinning and causing a flying hazard for birds, synthetic chemicals needed to keep things moving the way they're supposed to move, sound and/or vibration caused by the spinning of turbines that could disrupt certain animals, etc.], though economic repercussions would be minimal if we would just be intelligent and train the people who currently mine for coal and/or drill for oil to operate the systems necessary for the building of wind power collection), and water-current energy has been used at least as far back as George Washington's time. 
  I've gone on a tangent. Regardless, we do have an energy crisis and we do need to do something about it.
• Restoring accountability for Career Senior Executives
• I'm just going to pop the second and third paragraphs of the order here, and comment further later:
  "As the Constitution makes clear, and as the Supreme Court of the United States has reaffirmed, “the ‘executive Power’ — all of it — is ‘vested in a President,’ who must ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”  Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197, 203 (2020).  “Because no single person could fulfill that responsibility alone, the Framers expected that the President would rely on subordinate officers for assistance.”  Id. at 203–04. 
  "The President’s power to remove subordinates is a core part of the Executive power vested by Article II of the Constitution and is necessary for the President to perform his duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  Because SES officials wield significant governmental authority, they must serve at the pleasure of the President."
  This order demands that agency heads will terminate existing Executive Resources Board and Performance Review Board, institute a new ones, and "...take all appropriate actions, up to and including removal of that official..." if they become aware of an SES not conforming to the order.
• Let's unpack some bullshit! The use of "all of it" between em-dashes when discussing power is very, VERY telling. "They must serve at the pleasure of the President" is also telling. This entire order is about bending the knee to Orange Julius Caesar. That's it. There is no other purpose to this order than to demand that senior officials do exactly what he wants or be fired.
• Promoting beautiful federal civic architecture
• This order gives the Administrator of the General Services Administration and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy 60 days to come up with ideas to make Federal public buildings "...visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government."
• Yet another fluff order. I have no idea why this was something that was deemed important enough to create an executive order on the very first day. But I swear, if Don the Con ends up a statue in the middle of some busy area...
• Restoring the death penalty and protecting public safety
• This order demands that the Attorney General "...pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use" (please note that this severity is not listed in this order), and pursue the death penalty "...regardless of other factors..." for federal crimes that involve the murder of a law enforcement officer, and capital crimes committed by an illegal alien. It also demands the evaluation of the prisons for each of the 37 murderers who had their death sentence commuted by Biden in December; instructs that the AG ensure that all states allow capital punishment, ensures a "sufficient supply" of lethal injection drugs, seek the overruling of any Supreme Court precedents that hinder capital punishment, and prioritize the prosecution of violent crime.
• I am of mixed opinion regarding the death penalty. On the one hand, there are violent criminals, who, given the opportunity, will gladly continue to commit their crime of choice, be it murder, rape, assault, whatever. On the other hand, it's meting out an infinite punishment for finite crimes. No matter how awful a person is, there's only so much crime they can do if they're not stopped. But once you're dead, that's it, you're dead. Regardless of whether anything comes after this life, enacting the death penalty completely ends that person's now. Is it less expensive than housing a person in a suitable prison for their entire life? Probably, yeah. But is it moral? Additionally, isn't prison supposed to rehabilitate criminals? And what happens if a person is wrongfully convicted and subsequently put to death? I'll leave that one with y'all.
• Putting people over fish: stopping radical environmentalism to provide water to Southern California
• This order seeks to restart a project that got blocked during Derp Fuhrer's first run. (It was blocked by the Governor of the State of California in an effort to protect Delta smelt and other species of fish. The project allows water to flow from snow melt and rainwater in rivers in Northern California, for the use in Southern California, which is notably needed during the current wildfires.
• This is another one I don't know an awful lot about. If the Governor of the state that is routinely ON FIRE says that this plan, which would bring water nearer to the affected areas, maybe, just maybe there's a good reason for it. I'm just saying, I can't think of any elected official that would willingly let their state burn if other options wouldn't be more detrimental.

I was going to do a few more of these, but sweet jeebus, this is hard. It's not just a lot of reading, it's a lot of analyzing and introspection, and it's pretty daunting at times. Some of them aren't so bad, but so many of these orders imply some fucking terrifying things (see: Career Senior Executives). It's pretty clear what the goal is here. And it sure as shit isn't bringing the country together with liberty and justice for all. And this is just the executive orders. I haven't even touched on the Nazi salutes and admissions of election tampering.

I'm gonna need a lot more alcohol for this.

Well, we're fucked.

 We've made it through Day 1 of Trump Presidency Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, but to say we're unscathed would be a lie. I've been doing nothing but doomscrolling, and getting more and more upset as I do. I'm somewhere between livid, disgusted, despondent, and smug (because fuck you, motherfucker, we said this shit would happen). I don't often wish to be wrong. In this case, I do.

Because it's hard to get an unbiased look at, well, anything these days, I'm going to attempt to provide an unbiased look at the Day 1 fuckery executive orders. In no particular order:

• Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness
• Renames Mount McKinley - during the Obama administration (2015, specifically), Mount McKinley was renamed "Denali" at the request of the Koyukon people of Alaskan Athabaskans (also known as Dena). However, the national park in which this particular peak can be found is retaining the name "Denali National Park and Preserve".
  This is one of those things where it's a dick move, but it's not really going to impact all that much. The Koyukon people have been calling it Denali all along, and the park is maintaining its native name. It's a dick move because it is Native American erasure, but it ultimately won't change all that much. It seems to me like a fluff order intended to take the focus off of the more egregious orders. 
• Changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
  Another fluff move. Technically, it's a more appropriate name, as the gulf touches both North America and Central America. That said, it's obviously intended to mean the Gulf of the USA, but one can make an argument that it isn't, and that it's just updating the name to be more accurate. In the long run, it doesn't change much, and will likely be undone the next time someone from the left enters office.
• Designating Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations 
• This states that "International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime..." In short, it says that Cartels are terrorist organizations and should be treated as such.
  I don't have a problem with this one, and neither should you. It's not inaccurate at all to say that Cartels are a threat to the US and its citizens. Hell, that's why so many people flee Cartel-led countries; they're unsafe. This order allows us to more harshly punish Cartel members that enter the country.
• Ending illegal discriminations and restoring merit-based opportunity
  -and-
  Reforming the Federal hiring process and restoring merit to government service
  -and-
  Ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing
• DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The program is very similar to Affirmative Action, but paints with broader strokes, and where AA "can include preferential treatment for historically disadvantaged groups," DEI "focuses on creating a culture of belonging and equity for everyone." These three orders are extremely similar, with each one focusing on a certain aspect of the hiring and awards process. The first pertains to promotions and awards within the government, where the second specifically pertains to new hires, and the third outright ends DEI within the government. To quote the first order: "They [current Federal hiring practices] no longer focus on merit, practical skill, and dedication to our Constitution. Federal hiring should not be based on impermissible factors, such as one's commitment to illegal racial discrimination under the guise of "equity," or one's commitment to the invented concept of "gender identity" over sex. Inserting such factors into the hiring process subverts the will of the People, puts critical government functions at risk, and risks losing the best-qualified candidates."
  Hoo boy, these are humdingers. Ignoring, for the moment, this utter bullshit about gender identity being an "invented concept," (I'll get to that on a later order) these orders are extremely complicated. On one hand, yes, the best fit for the job should always be the person hired if you want your company or organization to work best. I think the biggest issue with DEI is that its purpose is misunderstood. It isn't intended to give POCs, women, people with disabilities, etc. preferential treatment, inserting them into positions for which they're not qualified. The purpose is to ensure that if two people are equally matched in skill/talent/experience, the job won't always go to the older middle class white dude. If used properly, DEI ensures that everyone who is qualified gets an equal shot at a position, rather than it just automatically going to one person based on things they cannot change, like race, disability, etc., Unfortunately, it is often misconstrued and misrepresented. The majority of people believe that this program gives "bonus points" or "go to the head of the class" tokens to people who fit into certain subsets, giving them an unfair advantage. But that's not how it's supposed to go. It's supposed to be that if Carl Jones and Ana Perez are equally qualified for the position, the hiring manager should look at their current staff, and if women and/or Hispanic people are underrepresented, offer the position to Ana first. If, however, men and/or Caucasian people are underrepresented (which is pretty damn rare), then Carl should be offered the position first. If we could trust hiring managers to hire in this fashion, losing DEI wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, there are a lot of "Good Ol' Boys" in high places within the Fed, and I guarantee that without DEI, we will see a LOT more middle-aged (or older), middle class white guys in government positions.
• Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government's Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects 
• This one is rather specific, and a lot to take in, but the general gist is that all wind energy projects that take place on land that falls into the Outer Continental Shelf are to be temporarily halted, and no new projects are to begin in that area. With respect to currently leased land, this order requires "comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President...".
  This one is a little confusing. I tried to do a little research into this whole situation, and there's some conflicting information. It seems that the wind farm projects that have already begun in the OCS were not terribly well evaluated before they began, nor after they were in place. There is some concern about the wind turbines causing a detriment to the local ecology (specifically birds and marine mammals), and apparently there's some "legal deficiencies underlying the Federal Government's leasing and permitting of onshore and offshore wind projects..." I couldn't really find anything that discussed the evaluations deemed insufficient. On the one hand, all of those impacts really should be reviewed. On the other hand, this feels like a way to prevent clean energy and continue to rely on older, less clean methods. Reminder: no matter what any non-scientist says, there is no such thing as "clean coal".
• Holding former government officials accountable for election interference and improper disclosure of sensitive governmental information.
• "In the closing weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign, at least 51 former intelligence officials coordinated with the Biden campaign to issue a letter discrediting the reporting that President Joseph R. Biden's son had abandoned his laptop at a computer repair business. Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign." This order lists 50 individuals (and indicates that there are two signatories who have since died) who should be stripped of their security clearances because they signed a letter that suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop ordeal was disinformation from Russia. This letter, which went through the CIA Prepublication Classification Review Board, was said to "weaponize[d] the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions."
  There's quite a bit more to this order, but it all boils down to one thing: some people claimed that Hunter Biden didn't abandon his laptop, and implied that the story may have come from a Russian disinformation campaign. Now, if someone with a security clearance willfully contributed to or allowed the dissemination of classified material to the general public, that needs to be addressed, and that person absolutely should lose their clearance. Depending on the severity of the breach, jail time may even be appropriate. I'll be honest in that I did not look any further into this. It stinks of the whole "stolen election" shtick, and I don't fuck with that. Because I didn't look into it further, I don't know if there actually was a security breach, nor do I know how likely it is that the whole laptop issue was Russian disinformation. Given the amount of interference we've seen from Russia (and China, and other countries that are less blatantly discussed), I'm not willing to write off the possibility that the story was, in fact, propaganda. But I'm also not willing to say that nobody did anything wrong. At this point, the information is out there, so it needs to be thoroughly investigated. If it turns out that there was classified information disseminated to uncleared persons, then yes, the people involved should be reprimanded in an appropriate fashion. That said, if someone just signed it expecting that it would remain with people that had the appropriate clearance, they should absolutely receive less of a reprimand than someone who knew damn well it was going to the public and signed/sent it out anyway.
  Also, I'm pretty damn sure the Cheeto in Chief openly admitted to having Elon Musk tamper with the voting in PA...
• Granting pardons and commutation of sentences for certain offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 
• It does exactly what it says; it releases and commutes the sentences of 14 individuals who were convicted of crimes relating to the Jan 6 riots, as well as "grant a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."
  This is expected, but disheartening all the same. These are people who were involved with disrupting a joint session of the US Congress, causing $1.5M - $2.7M worth of damage to the building, the injury of 174 police officers and an unknown number of rioters, mental/emotional trauma to various members of Congress, and who the fuck knows what else. These people, who were spurred on by the Tangerine Terror's words, were convicted of the appropriate crimes (or more likely, lesser crimes than those they actually committed), and are now being released. Meanwhile, there are people in jail for non-violent offenses, like carrying too much weed. This order confirms that there is no real regard for the law in this administration, unless that law benefits the people within the administration and their friends/associates.
• Withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement...again
  -and-
  Putting America first in international environment agreements
• This order does exactly what it says on the tin. We will no longer be participating in a pact aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7°F above pre-industrial levels, or 3.6°F above if the first attempt fails. This aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal/oil/natural gas.
  So states that have almost never seen snow are getting record snowfall amounts, half of California is on FIRE with no reasonable way to put it out (because fuck you, slave labor from forcing prison inmates to fight the fires is not reasonable), and record high temperatures are being recorded left and right (yes, even in winter), but we don't need to be involved with a group of countries trying to prevent more damage from happening. Right. Sure. But seriously, this is such a fool thing to do. It doesn't create any laws or make any real demands; it's just asking countries to do what they can to avoid the heat death of the planet. It's a bunch of people standing around, saying they should work on not destroying the world, spitting into their hands, and shaking on it. Just...what? Why? Are we really this desperate to continue the use of fossil fuels? I fucking can't with this.
• Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government
• This order demands that the US recognize only "two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality." Ultimately, this order implies that there are no trans people or non-binary people, and that "biological sex" is determined at birth based on physical attributes, namely the existence of either a penis or a vagina, and removes "gender identity" from the equation entirely.
  I will freely admit that I cannot view this with impartiality. My gender on my driver's license is "X". My entire life, I've said things like, "I'm so not a girl!" and meant it. Do a quick google and you'll find a host of information saying that: there are nearly infinite gender identities; sex and gender do not always match; there are no less than 6 distinct sexes within humans; and that the brain of a trans person more matches the brain of their "chosen" gender rather than their assigned gender. (I HATE using the word "chosen" there, but I can't think of anything more appropriate at the moment.) To everyone claiming that there's only XX and XY, which means there's only male and female, you're absolutely fucking wrong. There's XX, XY, X, XXY, XYY, XXXY...and several others. Those configurations are just the start. There can be people with a faulty SRY gene that causes disparity between physical sex and gender. And because I love making y'all read the receipts, this has been studied.
  This website has some information on those studies. A snippet: "We know from advances in neuroscience the past few decades that the differences between male and female brains are not insignificant – it influences everything from color perception to taste, scent, emotional reaction, empathy levels, rationality levels, pain tolerance, vocal inflection, and a host of many other factors.  This is easy to see on an MRI – male and female brains respond differently to different stimuli.  The largest study documenting the extent of the differences between male and female brains was done by Dr. Daniel Amen, who analyzed 26,000 people and found that the male brain has heightened activity in regions “associated with visual perception, tracking objects through space, and form recognition” and are 8% to 10% larger in mass size, while the female brain shows more overall activity, as well as increased blood flow in 112 out of 128 brain regions." 
  This order flies in the face of well-documented science. It invalidates hundreds of thousands of people's identities. And it's FACTUALLY FUCKING INCORRECT. Check in on your trans and NB friends, folks. We are not ok.
• Establishing and implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficiency" 
• This order changes the name of the United States Digital Service to United States DOGE Service (USDS) with DOGE standing for Department of Government Efficiency" and establishes a temporary organization, set to terminate on 4 July 2026, with the aim of modernizing "to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems."
  I'm not mad at this one at all. Or at least I wouldn't be, if they were actually doing what they're designed to do. It's intended to be a program designed to get the Fed's tech up to snuff. Considering that a certain organization still relies heavily on a certain program that hasn't been supported since 2012, and a certain organization uses a version of Excel so out of date that it can't handle certain formulas...Yeah, this is necessary. If the needed updates are actually implemented, it will mean better security for all information, classified or otherwise, and lead to improved efficiency and better final products. However, at this point it seems to be scaring the crap out of the workforce and testing the waters to see who will "fall in line". I will address the "OPM" memos in a later post.
• America First policy directive to the Secretary of State 
• All future foreign policies will put America and its citizens first, and all existing foreign policies will be updated to do the same.
  I kind of thought we already did that, but go off I guess. I can't argue with this particular order, because like, yeah, obviously we need to do what's best for us first. We need to keep our allies in mind, but if doing something that would benefit Italy would be somehow detrimental to us, we need to weigh the benefit against the cost and determine the correct course of action. But ultimately, the course of action has to be good for us; we don't want to cut our nose off to spite our face.
• Protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats 
• This order effectively tightens the control on visas, increases the vetting and screening of any "alien" looking to move to the US on a longer-than-a-vacation basis. It also requires the "...identification of countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension of the admission of nationals from those countries...", identifying the number of people from those countries that have entered the US on or after 20 Jan 2021, and "...ensure that sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent any refugee or stateless individual from being admitted into the United States without undergoing stringent identification beyond that required of any other alien seeking admission or entry into the United States." It goes on to say that current programs need to be evaluated and updated, but in a verbose, fairly legalese sort of way.
  On the surface, this is a good order. It increases national security and helps prevent terrorist attacks, at least from external sources. But that's not how it's going to be used. This is absolutely going to be used to vilify brown people and prevent people from coming to the US to work or live. People that have great skills and would be an asset to any organization, turned away because they don't have enough information to get into the country, despite a desperate need to do so.
• Withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO)...again.
• The title says it all. We are to withdraw from an organization that researches infectious diseases and looks for ways to eradicate them.
  Remember that time the whole fucking world shut down for a couple of months because somebody licked the wrong thing and ended up causing millions of deaths worldwide? The pandemic that left an unknown number of people with increased risk of heart attack, breathing issues, immunodeficiencies, etc.? Yeah, the WHO does research on diseases like that one, AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis... An estimated 1.2 million people died from COVID in the United States alone, and that's just the reported cases. Who was the last person you know of that had polio? If you're having trouble thinking of anyone, know that it's because of the WHO that we all but eradicated polio and saved countless lives across the world. We're the only first-world country that doesn't have universal healthcare (or even affordable healthcare), and we're looking to back out of an organization that has, historically, been amazing for healthcare.
• Application of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act to TikTok
• This allows the China-based parent company of TikTok (and other apps) to find a US buyer (to purchase one half of TikTok) before it gets officially banned.
  Another fluff order. In case anyone has forgotten, Trump was the one who got the ball rolling on banning TikTok. And now he's saying he has a soft spot for it and wants the US to own half of it, citing security concerns. Sir, there are so very many things in this country that come from China, and you're worried about an app that brought us things like the cinnamon challenge, a newfound love for sea shanties, a welcoming community for people who love smut, and provided an (actually quite substantial) income stream for people who post regularly and engage their audience. And as a reminder, when TikTok was gone for a whole 12 hours, thousands of people downloaded a Chinese app that was even less secure than TT. 
• Freeze Biden's action on Cuba 
• Last week, Biden formally notified Congress that he intended to lift the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. This was done as part of a deal facilitated by the Catholic Church that was intended to free prisoners in Cuba. Cuba began releasing prisoners the next day. 
  Not the worst move. Cuba has never really been a friend of the US, and it seems like every other week, there's a story about some American citizen getting wrongfully imprisoned there. But how many times do we have to say it? SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, MOTHERFUCKERS! The Church should not be making deals with foreign countries on our behalf, and with all the shit that goes on with Cuba, we should not be lifting its designation as a sponsor of terrorism.
• Initial rescissions of harmful Executive Orders and Actions
• As is the norm, the incoming President has issued an order freezing many new or pending federal regulations, throwing a monkey wrench into the former administration's plans to issue some last-minute protections. The exact freezes are non-specific.
  I'm pretty sure this last-minute-orders-get-humped-by-new-orders thing is just a giant dick waving contest. The outgoing guy slaps down a bunch of orders, likely intended to distract the incoming guy, then the incoming guy responds by knocking those orders off the table like an angry cat. This kind of thing reportedly happens every time there's a new administration. Excuse me while I roll my eyes and go play in my own corner of the sandbox,
• Return to in-person work 
• This order is intended to "...end the work-from-home culture that became common during the COVID-19 pandemic," and effectively cancels all ability to telework.
  This is fucking stupid. Do some people need to be in the office every day? Oh yeah, absolutely, there are people who need to be there. Does everyone? Hell no. Not every role requires active, constant interaction with other employees. On top of that, at least in my organization, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the majority of employees are more efficient when working from home. They are also happier, less stressed, and more comfortable. (Pants are for squares.) Additionally, many organizations made changes to their facilities. My organization, for example, gave the office a complete overhaul, which was much needed. However, because of the use of telework, we do not have enough seats for everyone to be in the office at once. Plain and simple, there are not enough desks for people to work at if the entire organization is required to be in the office every day. So I suppose we'll just have to throw more taxpayer money at the problem to fix it?
• Federal hiring freeze
• Exactly what it sounds like. With the exception of a handful of positions involving national security and public safety, the federal government has to stop all hiring actions, regardless of where in the process they are. The intention is to come up with a plan to reduce the government size.
  You know, part of the reason the Colonies broke off from England and became the US was that the English government was too damn big. We seem to have forgotten that. However, I see it all over the place: federal employees are grossly overworked and grossly underpaid. There aren't enough people on board to get all the work done in the time frames required. A hiring freeze isn't going to make the government smaller. It will cause people to jump ship for jobs in the private sector, but that isn't going to diminish the size of the workforce needed to efficiently run the show. (It also means that anyone who was looking to move positions is hosed now.)
• Rescind Title IX order 
• Title IX protects against discrimination in the Education Department based on gender identity or sexual orientation. While it won't actually have much effect on grade schools or colleges (much of the order was overturned when Republicans challenged it in federal court), it does pave the way for more DoE actions.
• Y'know, most of the smartest people I know are some flavor of queer. I get the feeling this was a fluff order meant to make it harder for everyone to, y'know, get educated. But primarily the queers. Joke's on you, asshole, we learn shit on our own because most of us are neurospicy, too, and are drawn to getting new information to create a dopamine feed.
• Restoration of 2017 deportation criteria 
• This order ends federal grants to "sanctuary" jurisdictions (state or local governments that limit cooperation with immigration authorities), claiming that sanctuaries like this break a law that forbids interfering with federal law enforcement. It also allows for the deportation of any person found to be in the country illegally, regardless of whether they have criminal records, are national security/public safety threats (read: terrorists), and recent border hoppers.
  Here's my stance on immigration: We make legal immigration next-to-impossible. We really do. Seriously, do a quick google check for people who have been denied asylum, long term visas, etc. There's a ton of them. And most of them are for incredibly dumb reasons. It's no wonder, then, that so many people enter the country illegally, or enter legally and overstay their visa. These people typically pay more in taxes, healthcare, etc. (no SSN = no tax refund) and receive nothing. Non-citizens cannot be granted WIC, TANF, Medicaid, or any other public service intended to help the needy. They are often paid under the table, and their wages are pathetic. You wonder why you see houses jam packed with people? They're being used and abused by a system that doesn't care. Now, that's not to say that there aren't bad people among these immigrants. And those people, people who commit violent crimes in particular, should be deported rather than jailed. Jailing costs taxpayer money. Deportation does, too, but less in the long run, and if done correctly, it sends a message that we won't tolerate bad behavior. But before you go running off to narc on your neighbor, ask yourself who harvests the tomatoes you eat? Mows your lawn? Repairs your roof? Cleans your office? Statistically, immigrants are most likely to have menial or physically laborious jobs. Jobs that citizens won't take because they're too much work, or have poor conditions, or don't pay enough to survive on. "Our" jobs are not being stolen, but these people are being exploited for their desperation.

Ok, so this wasn't the most unbiased description of these orders. I really, really tried. But some of the things the Tangerine Tyrant is trying to do? Ugh. Beyond disgusting. And this is just from Day 1! I dread finding out what the next 1459 days will be like.

I'm going to do my best to make a post like this every time something like this goes down. Partially because we need to know what's going on, partially because it actually helps me not feel like I've totally lost it. It forces me to actually look into what's happening, and doing the research helps me understand what the potential ramifications are. 

The Island

 TL;DR - I'm doing an art project for therapy reasons.

This is a little difficult to explain, so bear with me. I deal with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). Basically, as a side-effect of ADHD, I feel excessively emotional when I feel rejected or criticized, or if I feel like I've failed. (That's a general definition, btw, not quite what happens to me. But close enough.) My last therapy session addressed that. 

I've been dealing with a fair amount of RSD thanks to the cesspool that is the dating scene. There are a couple of people I'm seeing that are causing the RSD to kick into high gear. One I could push past, because I know what's going on in his life, and it's a bit chaotic. I can quiet the brain gremlins pretty effectively, and it ends up as just a twinge. But the other one? The other one was getting to me big time. We had gone out once, and it was a really good date. We had both expressed a desire to see one another again, but any time I mentioned it, he would either fail to reply or change the subject. When I finally cornered him about it, he said he wasn't available in the near or less-near future. This, of course, triggered the fuck out of the RSD. So my therapist asked me where on the Island of Kitty this person was. 

The what now? 

I was told to envision an island. I'm at the center of it, and anybody who makes it to the center of the island is someone I feel like I can't live without. Moving outward from the center are varying levels of emotional intimacy, and each level has some set of criteria to enter. To pass the deep ocean and get into the shallows, for example, is the baseline for me being willing to talk to you. There are no red hats allowed in the shallows. Unless they're the old lady red hats that were a thing in the 90s and early aughts. To get from the shallows to the dock, which is where I go beyond the casual getting-to-know-you stage, there's another, stricter set of criteria. Then there's the shore, where I'm willing to meet someone in person. Then the transitional area from beach to jungle is where I decide if I want to continue contact. (The friendzone lagoon lives in that circle.) And so on and so forth. She asked, realistically, where this guy is. And I thought about it. He got to the beach, but given his behavior, hadn't made it past there. And looking at that, did I really have the emotional investment to be feeling as badly as I did? Well, no, not really. 

Did this fix the RSD? No, not entirely. But it definitely helped. It's much easier to deal with the bad stuff if you have a way of quantifying it. 

So I'm painting my Island. From The Deep to the Mountaintop (the center). And then I'm going to attach it to a magnet board, get a bunch of pushpin magnets, and label them with the names of the people I'm most likely to feel RSD about. Then I can move them to their respective places on the island. Here's hoping I can get it to look the way I want it to! 

Time for a Pivot

 It's been a hot minute since I've written in any of my blogspots, but I think it's time to revive this one, just with a twist. I'm still intentionally child-free (and uterus-free), but I'd like to add in details related to my mental health and polyamory. So if you're a first-time reader, please take future posts as a testament to some of the reasons I remain child-free.