Tag: Executive Orders

Executive Order 9835

I know what you are thinking….what silliness as Trump signed into law before he is thrown from the White House, right?

Well you would be wrong….Trump as of August 2020 issued 200 EOs and he s not the all time record….that would be Clinton with 364……this EO is about 70 years old and was issued by President Harry Truman….

So do you think the Trump was being paranoid when he wanted loyalty from government employees?

In response to public fears and Congressional investigations into communism in the United States, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive decree establishing a sweeping loyalty investigation of federal employees.

As the Cold War began to develop after World War II, fears concerning communist activity in the United States, particularly in the federal government, increased. Congress had already launched investigations of communist influence in Hollywood, and laws banning communists from teaching positions were being instituted in several states. Of most concern to the Truman administration, however, were persistent charges that communists were operating in federal offices. In response to these fears and concerns, Truman issued an executive order on March 21, 1947, which set up a program to check the loyalty of federal employees. In announcing his order, Truman indicated that he expected all federal workers to demonstrate “complete and unswerving loyalty” the United States. Anything less, he declared, “constitutes a threat to our democratic processes.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-orders-loyalty-checks-of-federal-employees

That was Executive Order 9835…..

Read the EO for yourself and see if there is nay difference in 70 years……

Click to access 6Executive-Order-9835.pdf

For more information……https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/executive-orders/9835/executive-order-9835

Let us not forget about the Sedition Act of 1918….

The Sedition Act of 1918, enacted during World War I, made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States” or to “willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production” of the things “necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war.” The act, along with other similar federal laws, was used to convict at least 877 people in 1919 and 1920, according to a report by the attorney general. In 1919, the Court heard several important free speech cases — including Debs v. United States and Abrams v. United States — involving the constitutionality of the law. In both cases, the Court upheld the convictions as well as the law.

Read the transcript and then tell me it does not sound familiar.

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/sources_document1.html

Just change a few words here and there and these could have been issued in the 4 years since the election of Donald Trump….

If you read and would like to give your thoughts….I am listening…..(should I have said ‘reading”?)

Ain’t history grand?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And Health Care

I will be doing a series of posts dealing with the choices of president-elect Biden for people and policies.

Biden is not a fan of Medicare For All (hence forth will be known as M4A)…….

This pandemic could give Biden the prefect opportunity to use a Trumpian ploy of Executive Order to make M4A a tool to fight this virus and all health issues in the nation.

Journalist David Dayen presented a convincing case Tuesday that President-elect Joe Biden, once sworn into office come January, would have the legal authority to immediately provide complete Medicare coverage to everyone in the country via executive action due to the Covid-19 pandemic—though the very serious question remains: would he?

During the primary season in March, Biden said he would veto a Medicare for All bill should one ever reach his desk, but with the coronavirus infection rate surging—and some scenarios projecting an overall death toll as high as 360,000 by the time the inauguration takes place—is it possible that conditions on the ground could move him on the popular demand for a single-payer solution to the nation’s public health crisis?

“I do not expect Joe Biden to use this power on Inauguration Day to instantly turn the United States into a single-payer country,” Dayen wrote in The American Prospect. “But there’s nothing in the law that would appear to prevent him from doing it.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/17/pandemic-national-emergency-biden-could-enact-medicare-all-executive-action-will-he

This would be the perfect way to get the “progressives” on his side from the first day of his administration.

Sadly he is too deep in the pockets of the health industry and Pharma……they will never let M4A from ever becoming policy……their strangle-hold on health care is too profitable to ever see it broken.

I have said all along that the EO would be the perfect way to get many of the democratic policies enacted.

Biden is in the process of trying to re-create the Obama years…..we need fundamental change not the reform minded lunacy of the Obama years.

I now await all those that think the Obama years changed things.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Look Beyond 2020

Okay this is a look at 2021, January when the new president takes (that is if Biden wins the hearts and minds of the voters)

Trump supporters applaud him for his use of Executive Orders to by-pass the Congress…..on the border…..immigration….and taxes and trade and so on.

My question is will these same people applaud the new president when he uses the same tactic to pass abortion rights or immigration or medicare for all or some green new deal or so on and on…..

Will they, the Repubs, be thrilled with the use of the EO?

Of course not!

They will revert to the Constitution, the same Constitution that they, Repubs, have ignored for 4 years, and demand that the process include the Congress.

This is a given….and it is a given pathetic tactic.

The view passed down from on high in the U.S. is that elections are the effective and legitimate means of collective decision-making in the realm of the political. Conversely, on matters of war and peace, economic distribution, environmental wellbeing, healthcare, education, housing, and social welfare— the areas where collective outcomes matter, these are either considered ‘economic’ in nature, or elected representatives defer to markets, grant decision-making power to corporate pleaders, or act with unanimity across alleged ideological differences. In other words, the liberal conception of politics has remarkably little to do with collective decision-making.

This isn’t the tired complaint that there are no differences between political candidates. One can grant all the difference in the world. However, if elections aren’t where political decisions are made, their meaning and function are different than is popularly understood. That for the second election in a row two of the least favored politicians in American history represent the range of choices speaks to the vacuity of the ‘process.’ In the throes of electoral passion, the insistence has been that personality and tenor are substance, hence the promise ‘to restore dignity to the presidency’ is put forward as a ready substitute for adequate healthcare, meaningful employment at a living wage, environmental repair, and real political participation.

The Day After Election Day

Now the Dems even before a winner is announced are in a circular firing squad of blame for losing those seats in Congress……The Centrists are blaming Progressives for their losses….just like 2016 they were crappy candidates on issues all the Centrists had was “anybody but Trump” with no plan after that….plus they are blaming the “Progressives” for the sad showing in the vote….but they just can find a way to fend for themselves so they find someone to blame and the media is assisting in that blame.

As Joe Biden inches closer to a White House win, Democrats are starting to celebrate. But the mood wasn’t one of elation during a Thursday conference call among House Dems, who sources tell the Washington Post engaged in a three-hour-plus “bitter exchange” in which centrists accused more progressive members of being too vocal on far-left ideology. That move, the centrists claimed, may have caused their party to lose at least a half-dozen House seats—leaving them with what looks to be the smallest House majority in nearly two decades—and fail in their quest to win the Senate. According to the sources, the more moderate House members dug into their liberal counterparts, saying that by pushing certain leftist platforms, including defunding the police and the Green New Deal, it gave the GOP an opening to label all Democrats socialists and radical leftists.

“We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger was quoted as saying. “We lost good members because of that.” Progressive members like Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused the centrists of ignoring key concepts that get their base energized. “To be real, it sounds like you are saying stop pushing for what Black folks want,” Tlaib is said to have countered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi painted Tuesday’s results as a “measured success,” a source tells the Wall Street Journal, noting that “we did not win every battle, but we did win the war.” Meanwhile, two moderate House Democrats tell the Hill they and other centrists are talking about backing a plan to oust Pelosi as speaker. “It’s time for Democrats to elevate a new generation of leadership in both the House and the Senate,” says one.

And the Dems promise to bring the country together…..and how will they do that when they cannot bring the Party together?

Do you truly believe that your life will improve after election day in 2020?

If so then I have been correct all along….the American people know nothing about their society and walk around in a fog their entire lives….or they are just plain stupid.

Finally…..with all the troubles that this absentee voting and mail-ins I look for the GOP to up their game against voter expansion…..that will be a priority not getting this country on the right track once again.

And after the writing of this draft…..my predication came about…..

These state Republican officials are getting backup from top national Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who said he wants to his committee to investigate mail voting. “If we don’t do something about voting by mail, we’re going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country,” he said on Fox News Monday night.

It’s very easy to imagine state-level Republicans introducing legislation in early 2021 to cut back on mail voting or early voting, which helped lead to record turnout in 2020. Republican attorneys general have intervened in litigation to back the Trump campaign’s efforts to block mail ballots that legally arrived after Election Day from being counted in Pennsylvania, claiming that the authority of the state legislature, which refused to give voters more time to send their ballots back, should supersede the judgements of state courts that did allot this extra time—an argument that could give GOP-controlled state legislatures even more sway over voting laws in 2021

Republicans Are Laying the Groundwork to Make It Harder to Vote

Good to know that I still have it!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–30Sep20

Is it a bribe for their votes?

Trump has signed a Executive Order….it is easier than going through Congress…..to help seniors with their ever expanding drug prices……but will it truly help or just a blatant attempt to bribe the seniors for their vote?

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of a “transparent and pathetic attempt to bribe” seniors for their votes after Trump vowed to send $200 prescription drug discount cards to more than 30 million Medicare recipients just weeks ahead of the November election.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, called Trump’s highly dubious promise “bizarre” and said that “seniors and all Americans don’t need Trump cards, they need real solutions to rip-off drug prices,” which have continued to soar during Trump’s presidency despite his repeated vows to lower them.

“The solution to outlandishly high pharmaceutical prices is not to give people money to offset extortionate drug prices; the solution is to end price gouging altogether,” Weissman said in a statement.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/25/trump-accused-pathetic-attempt-bribe-seniors-votes-promising-mail-200-medicine

“Seniors and all Americans don’t need Trump cards, they need real solutions to rip-off drug prices.”

Why now?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–25Sep20

Every time Donald the Orange opens his mouth or picks up a pen (sorry….Sharpie) he proves what a racist pig he truly has become.

His newest Executive Order bans diversity training in corporations…..now he is telling business what to do….a dictator at heart….no a fascist dictator at heart……

Donald Trump announced that he signed an executive order prohibiting government contractors and grantees from providing racial sensitivity and diversity training to employees. In it, the President claims he is taking action to combat “harmful and offensive race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating.”

The Daily Beast reports that Trump announced the new executive order in a series of tweets, because of course he did.

“A few weeks ago, I BANNED efforts to indoctrinate government employees with divisive and harmful sex and race-based ideologies. Today, I’ve expanded that ban to people and companies that do business… with our Country, the United States Military, Government Contractors, and Grantees. Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”

This executive order is similar to the one that Trump signed earlier in September which directed federal government agencies to cancel or divert funds away from any contracts for training sessions that mentioned “white privilege” or “critical race theory.” Tuesday’s executive order comes less than a week after Trump gave a speech on the importance of “patriotic education” and once again condemned critical race theory, arguing “the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.” Well, if the civic bonds are really that weak….

https://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-signs-executive-order-banning-federal-contractors-1845149417

There can be no doubt to anyone that is NOT a racist pig that this person, Trump, is a bigot with NO empathy for anyone but himself.

All that is missing these days is a special salute to the leader.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump On Police Reform

After thumping his chest like the crazed primate that he is over the protests and the “attacks” on the police….LAW AND ORDER…was his Tweets on multiple days……but now trying to gain the upper hand especially when an election is a mere few months away he, Trump, has signed a Executive Order on police reform…..

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday designed to improve police training in the wake of the George Floyd killing. “Reducing crime and raising standards are not opposite goals,” said Trump. His order falls short of what activists have been demanding, reports the Washington Post, though more sweeping reform measures are working their way through the House and Senate. Some highlights of Trump’s order, via the AP and USA Today:

  • Database: It would set up a national database to more easily track abusive officers and ideally prevent them from being hired elsewhere.
  • Training: It would encourage police departments to emphasize de-escalation training for conflicts, using federal grant money as leverage.
  • More help: It would set up a “co-respondent” program encouraging police departments to work more closely with social workers on calls involving issues such as mental health, drug addiction, and homelessness.
  • Chokeholds: Trump said chokeholds would be banned “except if an officer’s life is at risk,” though senior administration officials clarified that the order prohibits chokeholds ””except in those situations where deadly force is allowed by law.” The holds already are widely banned in police departments, per the AP.

Some of these points are good points…..but if they are not adopted by all PDs then these are just farts in the wind….which is what most police reforms in the past have been.

Training if done properly then it will help….again only if all PDs choose to become part of the solution if not then little will change.

My favorite part of his 27 minute diatribe was his statement on law and order and the people….

President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a rambling and authoritarian speech in which he defended U.S. police, attacked racial justice demonstrators, and proclaimed that Americans “want law and order” whether they know it or not.

“They demand law and order,” Trump said of the U.S. public. “They may not say it, they may not be talking about it, but that’s what they want. Some of them don’t even know that’s what they want, but that’s what they want.”

Really….a person who has no idea what the people are all about knows what is best….if that is not a fascist point of view then maybe you need to look up the definition.  He knows what his ‘slaves’ want.

Looks like Donald the Orange got the jump on the GOP who promised a package on police reform soon…..

Republicans, who have long touted themselves the party of law and order, appeared initially resistant to pursuing policing reforms in the immediate wake of George Floyd’s death and the protests that followed. But amid the growing chorus for police accountability, GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill are readying their own reforms.

Republicans in both the Senate and the House are starting to lay down some initial markers of reforms days after Democrats introduced broad legislation focused on police accountability. But it remains to be seen how much common ground will exist in the proposals and whether Democrats negotiate with the GOP on what many expect would be more incremental changes to policing.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-06-12/republicans-in-congress-consider-police-reform-bills

Just 8 days ago Congressional Dems offered up a bill on police reform….

Changing rules on “qualified immunity,” which can make it almost impossible to sue police for misconduct.

• Banning chokeholds and other practices that can lead to physical harm or death.

• Ending “no-knock” warrants in drug cases.

• Requiring police departments to report data on use of force and creating a national database to track police misconduct.

• Creating a national standard saying force should be used by officers only when “necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury.”

• Limit the transfer of military equipment to local police departments.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/congressional-democrats-unveil-police-reform-bill.html

I think the Dems bill would do more to cease some of the abuses of the police….but there are some parts of it that I do not think will help

All in all…I do not see any of the incidents going down….damn I hope I am wrong but I think these ‘reforms’ are just band-aids for gun shot wounds (no pun intended) of police violence and abuse.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump Extends EO 13303

This is a Bush era Executive Order that Trump has extended…..what is 13303?

Originally it was to help oil companies in Iraq in 2003….the lie is that the Extension order claims Iraq’s instability an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ ……

President Trump has issued a statement extending the May 22, 2003 National Emergency created by President Bush on the situation in Iraq. Trump’s statement cited the “unusual and extraordinary threat” posed by Iraqi instability.

The Bush emergency, Executive Order 13303, was meant to facilitate Iraqi reconstruction in theory. In practice, it gave US oil companies blanket immunity from lawsuits related to selling Iraqi oil.

This was criticized as Bush’s attempt to facilitate the US taking Iraqi oil after the invasion and occupation. That’s very on-brand for Trump too, so 17 years later he is just going to kick the state of emergency down the road.

Iraqi instability certainly means a very different thing in 2020 than it did in 2003, and trying to encourage Iraqi oil investment makes a lot less sense now than it did then. With the US pushing Iraq and other nations to cut oil production to shore up prices, its highly unlikely any company wants to invest heavily in Iraq, even if they get legal immunity.

(antiwar.com)

Back in 2007 I wrote about how the Iraqi people were being screwed by the oil companies and the Bush admin…..https://lobotero.com/2007/03/11/who-gets-iraqs-oil/

Now as then it is always about the Iraqi oil and the total screwing the people are getting….

Let Iraq handle their oil for themselves…..the money should go into the treasury and not the pockets of Big Oil….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–23Dec19

I have seen, heard and rad some blatant ignorant crap, especially in the last 3 years, but this one is one of the crappiest of the lot.

I seems that in a ploy to gain a few votes from the these “progressive” Jews our president is wanting to make a religion a nation.

President Trump plans to sign an executive order Wednesday that will classify Judaism as a nationality, a move that will add teeth to federal efforts to fight anti-Semitism on college campuses. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin but not, notes CNN, religion; those who violate that can lose out on federal funding from the Department of Education. The order will reportedly make use of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which covers “targeting of the state of Israel.” The New York Times reports that’s what the State Department uses, but it’s a definition that has been knocked by some as “too open-ended and sweeping.”

The AP predicts free-speech advocates will be no fans of the order, though an unnamed official says that it wasn’t the intention and the goal is not to clamp down on the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement known as BDS, which uses a boycott on the purchase of Israeli goods or the investment in Israeli companies as a means of supporting Palestine’s desire for statehood. But the head of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights frames the order as another step in an effort to “to silence Palestinian rights activism” by, as the Times puts it, “equating opposition to Israeli treatment of Palestinians with anti-Semitism.”

What bullsh*t!

Where does it stop?

What happened to the American right of free speech?

For those mental midgets out there…..criticism of the state of Israel is NOT anti-Semitic!  This criticisms are about a fascist state and not a religion…there is a difference that even a garden slug could tell the difference if they weren’t in Congress.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

One More “National Emergency”

We have an imaginary national emergency on the border and we will throw money at a problem that does not exist only in the mind of a delusional malignant toad.

He, Trump, has even stopped aid to “3 Mexican counties” (as FOX News put it…..”
Sunday morning’s Fox & Friends applauded President Donald Trump’s Saturday directive to cut aid to Central American countries by declaring, “Trump Cuts U.S Aid to 3 Mexican Countries.” )…..he keeps doubling down on this border fantasy that his base laps up like sweet pudding…….

Taking drastic action over illegal immigration, President Trump moved Saturday to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, whose citizens are fleeing north and overwhelming US resources at the southern border. The State Department notified Congress that it would look to suspend 2017 and 2018 payments to the trio of nations, which have been home to some of the migrant caravans that have marched through Mexico to the US border, reports the AP.

We know there will be a full field of Dem candidates for 2020….so the question is will Trump stand for re-election?

My thought is yes he will because he has not milking all the money he can out of the presidency.

Now let’s say he loses his bid….will he go peacefully from office?

What better way to retain that hold than to use a tactic he, Trump, has used before….declare a “national emergency” and stay in the White House until the legal wrangling is over.

I wrote about that awhile back……https://lobotero.com/2019/03/18/will-he-ever-go/

The below article was printed in Raw Story…..it pertains to the Mueller Report more so than an election but the outcome could be the same…..

But ultimately, politics is not about what is always right and just but rather what is practical and expedient.

Why is impeaching Donald Trump viewed by many people — including prominent Democrats — as a near-term impossibility? Could impeachment succeed, and under what circumstances? Are congressional investigations and hearings a better way of holding Trump and his administration accountable for their misdeeds and general disregard for democracy? What would happen if Donald Trump were to be impeached and convicted, or if he loses the 2020 presidential election? Would he declare a national emergency in an effort to stay in office?

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/trump-may-not-leave-office-peacefully-will-declare-national-emergency-loses-2020-harvard-constitution-expert/

I recall there were many that thought GW and Obama would use their executive power to retain office, their hold on the presidency, but Trump strikes me as someone who would want to retain his strangle hold on the country and its policies.

Side Note: This is just an opinion….no one is saying this will happen….just that it could….please do some thought before attacking….works best for everyone.

Can He Do That?

The big story these days is the fact that our Dear president has declared a “national emergency” so he can fulfill an ego trip to build a wall for a Trump plaque.

Now the Dems and others will be challenging the “declaration” in court…..”a big beautiful wall”…can he do that? When a president threatens to exercise the power to declare a national emergency, our system of checks and balances faces a crucial test. With President Trump threatening such a declaration in order to build his proposed physical border wall, that test could be an important one that could quickly implicate your right to privacy and a transparent government.

EFF has long tangled with governmental actions rooted in presidential power. From mass telephone records collection to tapping the Internet backbone, and from Internet metadata collection to biometric tracking and social media monitoring, claims of national crisis have often enabled digital policies that have undermined civil liberties. Those policies quickly spread far beyond their initial justification. We have also seen presidential authorities misused to avoid the legislative process—and even used to try to intimidate courts and prevent them from doing their job to protect our rights.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/15/national-emergencies-constitutional-and-statutory-restrictions-presidential-powers

Trump’s announcement looks like the first step of a person trying to cease power for himself and himself alone…..we cannot and should not support or allow him to do so……

presidential declaration of a national emergency is an outrageous abuse of power – perhaps the most dangerous yet by the unstable and increasingly autocratic President Donald Trump. If this invocation of emergency on false pretenses is tolerated, it could justify almost limitless abuses of presidential and military power, including far-reaching clampdowns on civil rights.

This unlawful and unconstitutional action is going to be challenged in court, including by Public Citizen. On behalf of several Texas landowners and a Texas environmental organization that will experience firsthand the immediate impact of Trump’s illegal emergency declaration, we will sue to challenge his unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the legislative process.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/15/why-we-must-stop-unstable-trump-and-his-dangerous-national-emergency-declaration

The American people should demand their reps do everything possible to stop this ego trip……it is a manufactured crisis of no basis……his action is ripped from a playbook for dictators (like it or not)……https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rempel-trump-marcos-parallels-20190214-story.html

On the other hand if he is successful (after all he has stacked the Courts with lackeys) the next Dem president could do the same for such true emergencies as guns, climate, etc…..

Let the lawsuits begin!

When will the GOP step up and do what is right?  This is the perfect situation where they can get off the Trump merry-go-round……but will they?

Personally, I have NO problem watching the GOP implode….but it is just a little sad to watch it destroy itself…..principles be damned!