01/22/25

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, January 22nd.

Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day

Ruth’s hard-hitting questions include such high-brow journalism as… who do you think you are? And what gives you the right?

And now, the news.

Trump 2.0

-via AP News, CNN, NY Times, CNN, NBC News, NPR, and The Cut

The big story is, of course, that we are… here. In Trump’s second term.

So let’s talk about the executive orders he signed on his first day in office.

While he has not yet noted how he will handle the tariffs on Chinese imports, he signed a 25% tariff on products coming in from Canada and Mexico. That will start on February 1st. So buy your maple syrup in bulk this week.

He also hit pause on the TikTok ban for 75 days, to give more time to find an American buyer to swing on through and snag a 50% plus 1 majority in the company. Over the weekend, on Saturday, TikTok did go down for a few hours with a note talking about the ban having ban their services temporarily unavailable.

The next day, the day the ban was originally meant to take place, the app was back up and running with a note that thanked President Trump.

Yes, they literally thanked Trump, calling him President Trump… a day before he was inaugurated. And none of these notes mention this fact: It was Trump was originally started this ban back in 2020.

So actually, no thanks to that dude! There are currently all types of conversations, theories, and fan fictions being spread about what happened in those 14 hours that TikTok was down and look – we just don’t know. We don’t know what negotiations took place to get the app back online and we don’t know what the future holds after these 75 days. But right now I can tell you this – the app is back up and running and, as far as anyone is aware, neither Meta nor Elon have purchased the app (which are the two biggest theories I’ve seen online so far).

A classic when we know more, we’ll know more situation here.

An isolationist as heart, because he did never hugged him, Trump has pulled out of the World Health Organization.

A loser at heart, he signed an order that will rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Um… okay. Here’s the thing, he can rename it on federal paperwork but he can’t name it globally.

That order is part of a larger order called Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness (….ok) and also includes reverting Denali’s name to Mount McKinley. This order is a multistep process though, because all it really does is tell the new secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, to rename these things. Though obviously he’ll follow through.

Even though the world is quite literally on fire and, here in Los Angeles, we haven’t seen rain since May, he pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accord again. Remember, he did that in his first term as well.

He formally empowered the Department of Governmental Efficiency, run now only by Elon because Vivek Ramaswamy has dropped out to run for governor in Ohio.

And because the cruelty is the point, he signed an order saying that the federal government will only recognize two genders and they’re defined by whether someone was born with eggs or sperm, not by their chromosomes.

Under this order, federal prisons and shelters for migrants and rape victims will be segregated by sex as defined in the order. And, of course, federal taxpayer money could not be used to fund “transition services.”

He also signed a separate order that halts governmental DEI programs.

The White House internet has also made some changes…

The Spanish language version of the White House is gone.

Reproductiverights.gov is gone.

The word “abortion” on the federal Department of Health and Human Service site brings up very few results, none of which are about how to actually go about getting one.

And let’s talk about what he’s planning for the border.

He signed an order the reverses a Biden-era rule prioritizing deportations to people who commit serious crimes. So now anyone is a priority.

He declared the southern border a national emergency and said he will send US troops to help support ICE agents keep those seeking refuge and asylum from entering the country.

To that end, he suspended the US Refugee Admission Program, pledged to restart a program that forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico (it’s unclear whether Mexico will accept migrants again) and ended the CBP One app, which was an online lottery system that gave appointments to 1,450 people per day, allowing them entry into the country legally.

And of course, he’s trying to end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is in the 14th Amendment, Section One, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Twenty-two state attorneys general have sued to block Trump’s order from going through.

Expect this one to be a long, drawn-out, fight. Because on the one hand, legal experts note that this is a complicated order. First of all, while presidential power is wide-ranging, he can’t just change the constitution with the flick of a sharpie. And making sure he understands that is important, because otherwise he might try and change other things in the constitution. For example – just how many terms can get serve?

Also, if someone gives birth to a baby here, but birthright is taken away… that baby is undocumented from the jump, likely rendering them without any country’s citizenship at all.

So on the one hand, it’s complicated. But on the other hand… Trump is racist. So he’s going to really push for this one.

And then, adding to again “the cruelty is the point”… on Tuesday, Trump announced that ICE agents can make arrests inside of churches and schools, which is a departure from a previous, long-standing, policy of not making arrests in what’s known as “sensitive areas.”

A statement announcing this change says, “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

Yeah! You hear that? You wanna do crimes, you better start hiding in some better places… like the White House.

Of course, you don’t just have to be in the White House to find safe harbor for crimes. Because on Monday Trump also told the world that, if you do violent crimes for him… you’re good. Those actions will be rewarded.

Because he also pardoned about 1,500 people who did insurrection on his behalf. This includes those who committed violent offenses against police officers.

It also includes people like Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the alt-right nazi group Proud Boys, as well as Oath Keepers head Stewart Rhodes.

Fear not… Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski is disappointed so… I’m sure that’ll help.

Lees… Trump ran saying he would do this! And in the face of that, you were brave enough to… say you wouldn’t be voting for Trump or Harris.

Now is not the time for cowards. Now is the moment for bravery and conviction.

And of course, I can’t end this episode by talking about something that happened at the inauguration. I said I wouldn’t cover it unless it made news. And surprise surprise… it made news.

Because, while speaking at the Capitol One Arena in DC, Elon Musk ended his speech with a stiff-arm salute.

Now, some are calling this simply an “awkward gesture” but most are calling it what it is – some combination of a nazi or roman salute.

And I’m not going to get into the whole thing, but yes the roman salute is associated with fascism so it doesn’t really matter if that’s what he was doing, it’s still awful.

Because here’s the point… this man is closely associated with the president and stood on the world’s stage and did a gesture so close to the nazi salute that the entire world went “hey isn’t that a nazi salute?” And so I would say… yeah, he knew was he was doing.

Listen, we’re not giving him the benefit of the doubt anymore. This dude’s entire world is built on the benefit of the doubt. He lost that privilege a while ago, but I would say right around the time people were like “no no no, it only LOOKED exactly like the nazi salute” was the time to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Believe your eyes. Believe what you see.

We’re entering a period where they’re going to try and stop you from doing exactly that… and we can’t let them.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of cats asking questions. They need answers, and they’re not going to stop until they get them!

But more than that, because you also know that now is the time for questions. Now is the time to be relentless. Now is the time to refuse to be silenced… I’m proud of you.