Here is the list of the President's Executive Orders of Jan. 20, 2025 and my brief thoughts on some of them
As requested
Below is the White House’s list of Executive Orders. If you click on any Executive Order in the list, the language for that order will pop up. This website is not fully populated with other materials yet and there are a few minor duplications.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/
The America First directive:
I take this to mean, in part, that taking actions like fomenting coups or starting wars to benefit corporations like United Fruit, as was done in Latin America, or to please other nations like the UK or Israel, will not be part of our foreign policy. Fingers crossed. Too much of our military might and our clandestine services have been used as tools for private parties, to the detriment of American citizens, American soldiers or operatives, and citizens of other countries. Am I an incurable optimist?
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Trump is taking control of the National Security Council and a Homeland Security Council, and making sure his team controls the agenda. A good move.
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Trump says our foreign aid is being used for purposes that may go against American interests, and all foreign aid is to be halted until it has been reviewed. Much of our foreign aid is conditioned on nations buying US military equipment from us. Will this be stopped or reduced? We do sometimes face attacks on our troops using US-made (and sometimes “donated” equipment. The military industrial complex benefits from wars. Other foreign aid props up dictatorships, pays for clandestine operations, and serves as a slush fund for who knows what. USAID is widely acknowledged as a CIA cut-out. Hopefully these funds can be redirected to better uses.
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Wind energy projects are to be reviewed. It appears that leasing of areas for offshore wind projects is to be immediately halted:
Under the authority granted to me in section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. 1341(a), I hereby withdraw from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. 1331. This withdrawal shall go into effect beginning on January 21, 2025, and shall remain in effect until this Presidential Memorandum is revoked.
Offshore wind energy is ridiculously expensive (several times the cost of windmills on land) and the environmental impacts are significant. I never understood why offshore sites were chosen in the first place. Other wind projects will be reviewed.
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The Senior Executive Service (SES) was a new type of federal executive, established in 1978 during the Carter administration. According to the Office of Personnel Management,
Members of the SES serve in the key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. SES members are the major link between these appointees and the rest of the Federal workforce. They operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies.
It has been claimed that these high level executives carry out the orders of the Deep State, managing to keep the same policies in place regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. In order to command authority over the federal agencies, Trump needed to be able to rein in the SES, and fire SES personnel who were not carrying out his agenda. Now he will be able to do so.
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“Putting People Over Fish” is a timely executive order for California:
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Another executive order makes it easier to fire federal employees. I have heard from two people I know, former government officials, that it is extraordinarily difficult to fire an employee, even when they don’t come to work or fail to perform their job. We are trying to fix a broken system and we can’t tolerate this waste of time, effort and cost. An E.O. will make it much easier to fire employees for cause. This is needed.
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I believe the order to exit the WHO is issued correctly, clearly and undeniably, no matter what vague statements or hints some people have made. The US will not be bound by any Pandemic Treaty or IHR amendments and federal employees working in any capacity with the WHO are to be recalled and reassigned.
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Jan 6 pardons
(b) 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;
The Attorney General shall administer and effectuate the immediate issuance of certificates of pardon to all individuals described in section (b) above, and shall ensure that all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, who are currently held in prison are released immediately. The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive.
I further direct the Attorney General to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive.
“Begin a process of national reconciliation.” That is beautiful language. I have always felt the Jan 6 participants were lured into the Capitol by (at least) the 26 acknowledged FBI informants; that this so-called invasion of the Capitol by mostly peaceful US citizens was planned, in order to interfere with efforts by some R. Congressmembers to challenge the 2020 election on that date; and that deaths caused by police or other federal employees were covered up, and were probably also planned to support the narrative of a violent uprising. These 1500 scapegoats will be pardoned. I hope they also receive appropriate recompense, most of whom were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Supporting the wrong candidate.
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Exit the UN Climate Agreements
We are out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a limit of 1.5 degrees centigrade for a world rise in temperature since the onset of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1850). This was a crazy standard. We don’t really know what the world temperature was at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The tools for measuring temperature have changed over time, and the places it is measured have also changed.
The Net Zero agenda was always going to lead to deindustrialization and a reduction in living standards. The claim that burning wood or dung in Africa is sustainable, while burning of gas or oil is not—when both emit comparable amounts of carbon dioxide, was laughable.
Arbitrary climate, carbon dioxide and sustainability goals were always at heart designed to weaken our nations, leading us toward a centralized currency and government to save us from our self-inflicted wounds. They were very cleverly designed and carried out by globalists since at least 1972, using mostly taxpayer funds, funneled through the UN, WHO, UNEP, UNESCO, the World Bank, etc.
Getting out of the Climate treaties will save nations a great deal of money and allow them (for example, Germany and the UK) to regrow their economies, since they are experiencing negative growth and astonishing failures of leadership.
The 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change was ratified by Congress (the Paris Agreement was not) and so it may need a vote by Congress to get out, while the EO says it is effective immediately.
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There are far too many regulations. Some are important, but complying with all of them is a nightmare. The regulations a doctor in private practice must comply with in order to accept medicare reimbursements is so onerous that no one can do it and stay in business—which is one reason why most doctors are employees. I think this was a deliberate consequence of regulation, a way of centralizing what was a cottage industry just a few decades ago. Medicare used to send me a large booklet of new regulations every few months when I was in private practice. I had to give up seeing medicare patients because I figured I could always be out of compliance with something or other.
This has grown a huge compliance industry in healthcare. I think halting the issuance of new regulations in order to carefully review them is a good idea, and cleaning out the hundreds of thousands of rules and laws is desperately needed.
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What a good idea.
As someone who suffered this at the state level, I am very excited about this big step to returning us to a nation following the real rule of law.
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Another necessary step:
I’m waiting to see RFK Jnr confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. That needs to happen asap.
As someone noted over at Reinette Senum's Save Our Skies, many of us had hoped that Trump would issue an order to end geoengineering, which spews many different toxic materials on all of us, there's no escape. This is something Kennedy had said he would do if he were elected, so when he's officially in the administration I hope he finds allies, I guess in DoD, who will see the harm this causes.