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So, just who is writing all of these Executive Orders? [1]

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Date: 2025-02-15

As I am of the inquiring mind needs to know sort, I asked this question of myself yesterday after catching a short clip of Trump signing an Executive Order (EO) in effect "outlawing" paper straws and putting plastic ones back on the shelves. Well, at least for any and all government agencies that use straws, I guess in their cafeterias. And of course, for our military folks. The Biden plastic straw ban, which was in effect, had a final date by which the entire US government had to comply--2027. Of course. now this is irrelevant as Trump overturned the Biden EO and the government will have to buy plastic straws. Oh, happy day.

But then, this weird EO got me to thinking--just who is creating all of these darned things? Recall please that in a matter of a day or two following his inauguration, Trump signed more than 50 different EOs, ranging far and wide, some silly, others dangerous, and many of them patently unconstitutional and/or illegal.

Trump tasks congressman with writing executive order he could issue to halt offshore wind | AP News ) Well, among the first things I discovered was that there is little to no transparency--I couldn't find much if any information that would provide an author or authors, for example. With this one exception--a Republican congressman from New Jersey, Jeff Van Drew, talked to Trump and asked him to make good on his campaign promise of getting rid of offshore wind turbines. So, in typical Trumpian style, he told the congressman to write up an executive order on wind turbines and he'd sign it. Bada bing. Done. Here's the full story:

Who Writes Executive Orders - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board In my research, frustrating as it has been, I found folks positing online not who specifically they think is writing these things, but rather that it is likely to have been twenty-something staffers onboard during the transition who are responsible for several of them. And that some of these orders appear to be if not clones of, certainly close enough to be text and policies from the 920+ pages of Project 2025. Okay. I know this is pretty darned amorphous, and maddening--but it is what it is. Just in case you would like to get as frustrated as I did, here's one source:

Having gotten this out of the way--although the who of it all is not clear, it appears from many of these orders that maybe my approach had to be altered to consider why. Why this flurry of orders in a matter of hours and days? And then I realized that the orders themselves held the key to why. Each order overturns something Trump railed against, or said he'd do (never mind what he promised to do was either largely impossible or illegal or unconstitutional to accomplish) and hence all these ruffle and flourish orders.

Fine, now what? We do not know who has written them, it is almost impossible to find out, but at least we have a good idea of why many of them are being signed. so then, what remains? Maybe this?

Does Trump have any idea what in the heck he is actually signing--which puts us at the "what" of good journalism. And so you don't have to, I went in search of clips of as many signings as I could find and two headaches later this is what I discovered.

He had to be told for each one he signed what the order was, which makes sense sure, but then this information was followed by a vacant-stared Trump appearing for all the world clueless as to what the actual order "ordered," and particularly what the actual impacts his Sharpie pen would have on programs, real people, the economy, the democracy and the Constitution. Several of the clips would have been laughable were the dangerous nature of the orders he was signing not been so obvious to anyone bothering to listen to the pro forma, attenuated explanations by the guy at his right shoulder happily shoveling these huge parchment papers at him.

Our country is being turned upside down by DOGE and by these crazed executive orders, most of them illegal and/or unconstitutional, but opinion only here, the guy with the Sharpie who is exercising imperial power not granted anywhere is, as my Irish mother would have said, "not right in the head." Ultimately this is the worst danger to us--not Doge; not the orders; but that the person who holds the lives and fates of more than 335 million human beings in his hands is a malignant narcissist, likely a sociopath or worse, and with evidence piling up that he is suffering from dementia. And it appears he has a Jesus complex. Oh, and there's this too: with everything that is wrong with Trump, isn't he the perfect useful idiot Project 2025 needed? Just curious.

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