What Are Executive Orders?

There are individuals expressing outrage and frustration over the President’s use of Executive Orders. But a simple review of history might bring clarity.

Executive Orders are used by the chief executive of the United States to quickly and clearly communicate to agency heads and other leaders within the executive branch certain policy positions. They are also issued to give direction as to how a law will be enforced.

While these are common tools used by Presidents to give direction to employees in the executive branch, these directives are even more necessary when congress has failed to confirm Cabinet Members who oversee the various agencies of the executive branch (not to mention the rest of the over 4000 presidentially appointed positions in these agencies).

But has the current president over exercised these Executive Orders?

As of February 3, 2017, the Trump administration has issued eight (8) Executive Orders and twelve (12) Presidential Memoranda.

President Obama issued two-hundred and seventy-six (276) Executive Orders and six-hundred and forty-four (644) Presidential Memoranda during his eight years in office. By February 6, 2009, President Obama had issued fourteen (14) Executive Orders.

Most other President’s have used Executive Orders. Here are a few from the list:
George W. Bush (R) – 291 – 8 years in office
Bill Clinton (D) – 308 – 8 years in office
John F. Kennedy (D) – 214 – 2 years, 10 months in office
Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) – 484 – 8 years in office

Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) (12 years, 1 month in office) and Woodrow Wilson (R) (8 years in office), the two U.S. Presidents that are revered most by Progressives (the people who happen to be screaming the loudest now), account for 5325 Executive Orders – more than one third of all the Executive Orders ever issued by U.S. Presidents.

This information is easily found and should have been used by news organizations to frame the current controversy. Instead it has been ignored and news organizations have chosen to fan the flames of ignorance.

Do your own research. Stop trusting news agencies who repeatedly give you false information.

Why we need to pause immigration from some countries

Why we need to pause immigration from some countries. Here are statements from President Obama's top security people while testifying before congress last year (from the House Homeland Security Committee):

 

Nicholas J. Rasmussen, Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “The intelligence picture we’ve had of this [Syrian] conflict zone isn’t what we’d like it to be…you can only review [refugees’ submitted background data] against what you have.” (10/8/15)

 

James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice: “There is risk associated with bringing anybody in from the outside, but especially from a conflict zone like [Syria]… My concern there [about bringing Syrian refugees into the United States] is that there are certain gaps I don’t want to talk about publicly in the data available to us.” (10/8/15)

 

Jeh C. Johnson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security: “But [the Syrian refugees are] a population of people that we’re not going to know a whole lot about.” (10/8/15)

 

Gen. (ret.) John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, State Department: “We should be conscious of the potential that [ISIS] may attempt to embed agents within that [Syrian refugee] population.” (9/11/15)

 

Gen. (ret.) James Clapper, Director, Director of National Intelligence: “As [Syrian refugees] descend on Europe, one of the obvious issues that we worry about, and in turn as we bring refugees into this country, is exactly what’s their background? We don’t obviously put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees…That is a huge concern of ours.” (9/9/15)

 

Michael Steinbach, Assistant Director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation: “Yes, I’m concerned [about bringing Syrian refugees into the United States]…We’ll have to go take a look at those lists and go through all of those intelligence holdings and be very careful to try and identify connections to foreign terrorist groups…in Iraq, we were there on the ground collecting [intelligence], so we had databases to use…You have to have information to vet, so the concern is in Syria is that we don’t have the systems in places on the ground to collect the information.” (2/12/15)

Is It REALLY A Muslim Ban?

It’s time to do your own research on what the news is calling a “Muslim ban”. Did you know the moratorium or suspension (not a ban) covers only seven countries? Did you know that those seven countries are defined by U.S. law that was passed by congress and signed into law by a U.S. President prior to January 20, 2017? Did you know that out of the 36 countries with the largest Muslim populations only seven countries are identified for the moratorium? Did you know that Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria ALL have more Muslim citizens than any one of the seven countries included in the moratorium? Did you know that Indonesia almost has more Muslims than all seven of the countries identified in the moratorium? Did you know that the Muslim population under scrutiny in the moratorium amounts to only 12% of the total global Muslim population?

One more question. Why are you trusting news organizations to tell the truth if the still call the 90 day moratorium on visa applicants from seven countries at “Muslim ban”?

By the way, researching this took less than 15 minutes using only four sources easily found on the internet: Wikipedia, the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the U.C. Code (Cornell University Law School). On more note, none of these news sources can be considered “conservative”.