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.