I want to preface this with the fact that I am not an economist, or a historian, nor do I hold a degree of any significance other than to confirm that I graduated from high school. But what I lack in formal education, I make up for in common sense, determination to learn, observation, and experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve attended college and been enrolled in a strange conglomeration of courses from political science, anthropology and philosophy of religion to enough medical courses to make me a danger to my own health (if I don’t bite my tongue a bit when I’m being seen by a doctor). So, armed with my common sense and determination to learn, I aim to share these observations and pose questions to those who can add something to the conversation. With that being said:
Yesterday (April 13, 2025) I was scrolling through substack and I came across a video by Nathan Jun that had been shared from TikTok, which had been posted 3 days prior, that detailed executive orders that had been signed while the country was distracted by the tariff chaos. You can watch the video here
I will list the executive orders that in the order that Jun covers them and link to their listings on the white house website. Jun picked out key things in each of the executive orders and parsed them down to easily digestible ideas, but I needed to dig further to see it for myself. Here is what I found in regard to the points that Jun made and some things that jumped out at me additionally.
March 25th
Executive order 14248 section b part 3 “the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the DOGE Administrator, shall review each State’s publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities as required by 52 U.S.C. 20507, alongside Federal immigration databases and State records requested, including through subpoena where necessary and authorized by law, for consistency with Federal requirements. “
March 28th
Executive order 14252 Section 3 part 2 “The Task Force shall coordinate to ensure effective Federal participation in the following tasks: (ii) monitoring the District of Columbia’s sanctuary-city status and compliance with the enforcement of Federal immigration law;”
Executive order 14252 Section 3 part 6 (actually part 5) “The Task Force shall coordinate to ensure effective Federal participation in the following tasks: (v) collaborating with appropriate local government entities to provide assistance to increase the speed and lower the cost of processing concealed carry license requests in the District of Columbia;”
Executive order 14252 Section 3 part 8 (not pointed out by Jun, but still worth mentioning) “The Task Force shall coordinate to ensure effective Federal participation in the following tasks: (viii) deploying a more robust Federal law enforcement presence and coordinating with local law enforcement to facilitate the deployment of a more robust local law enforcement presence as appropriate in areas in or about the District of Columbia, including in such areas as the National Mall and Memorial Parks, museums, monuments, Lafayette Park, Union Station, Rock Creek Park, Anacostia Park, the George Washington Memorial Parkway, the Suitland Parkway, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and ensuring that all applicable quality of life, nuisance, and public-safety laws are strictly enforced, such as those prohibiting assault, battery, larceny, graffiti and other vandalism, unpermitted disturbances and demonstrations, noise, trespassing, public intoxication, drug possession, sale, and use, and traffic violations, including as prescribed by Executive Order 13933 of June 26, 2020 (Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence), which was reinstated by Executive Order 14189 of January 29, 2025 (Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday).”
Executive order 14252 Section 4 part b, ii “(b) The program under subsection (a) of this section shall include, at a minimum, the following elements as appropriate and consistent with applicable law: (ii) restoration of Federal public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties that have been damaged or defaced, or inappropriately removed or changed, in recent years;”
Executive order 14252 Section 4 part c (not pointed out by Jun, but again worth mentioning) “(b) The program under subsection (a) of this section shall include, at a minimum, the following elements as appropriate and consistent with applicable law: c) The Secretary of the Interior shall immediately issue a directive to the National Park Service requiring prompt removal and cleanup of all homeless or vagrant encampments and graffiti on Federal land within the District of Columbia subject to the National Park Service’s jurisdiction, to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
March 27th
Section 4 parts 1, 2, and 3 “(a) The Secretary of the Interior shall:
(i) determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology;
(ii) take action to reinstate the pre-existing monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties, as appropriate and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 1451 et seq., 54 U.S.C. 100101 et seq.,and other applicable law; and
(iii) take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”
Secretary Rollins Emergency Order:
This proports to “protect national forests” while promising to “boost domestic timber productions” but it just sounds like they removed the protections that had been in place to keep our national forest from being the victim of logging.
What are your thoughts on these executive orders that seemed to fly under the radar and not get the fanfare that others did from “trad media” (as V Spehar of Under the Desk News calls it)?