Bill Maher Nails It On Trump's Bogus "Executive Orders"

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Bill Maher, in his Real Time intro last night, really hit the nail on its head, exposing Trump's so-called "executive orders" (which consumed 99 percent of actual work time this week, or maybe 2 hours total) as what they are: signed tweets. To call Trump's parade of signed malarkey executive orders is roughly like calling each page of Junior's scratchy algebra homework new proofs of Fermat's theorem.

But, of course, Trumpies don't wish to hear that. They'd rather loll in their delusional world that their man is accomplishing something when he isn't doing squat. Hence, they fancy  the mirage of action over actual executive effort and work. Like Trump - when he holds up each signed product in a leather binder, similar to a toddler who just completed a page in his coloring book. "Looky, Mommy! I  did do it! I did!"

But in Trump's case it's all theater. All make believe. By that I mean these glorified scrap sheets  have no force of law, none. Many Trumpies also believe the authority to write an executive order is conferred by the Constitution but this is not technically so. Let us reference the Wikipedia entry:

"There is no constitutional provision nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. The term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution refers to the office of President as the executive. They are instructed therein by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 5 or face impeachment. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office"

In other words, these more comport with a wish list based on appeals or pleas from a president to the legislative branch to formalize into law what he seeks to do. In Trump's case, most legal experts note these scribbles on fancy paper haven't even been vetted  by competent, qualified staff for internal consistency or by constitutional lawyers, for consistency with constitutional law.  Thus, they are at most :"executive actions" - or a lesser category to executive orders. The latter, then, have already been vetted.

Trump's signed action ("tweet")  on staunching the flow of Muslim immigrants is clearly unconstitutional, for example. He declares with solemn bull toad authority that he is preventing people from "entering via terrorist nations", yet he doesn't even name the nations of the 9/11 terrorists, including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab  Emirates.  The selective naming of his chosen 7 nations means there is no equal protection under the law for the selected nations' immigrants. It's like he's turning a blind eye to the sources of real terrorists.

So, any constitutional lawyer worth his salt would be able to expose Trump's signed paper as not worth much more than a piece of his gold-lined toilet paper.

Thus, the key aspect for people to bear in mind here is:

"Executive orders are subject to judicial review, and may be struck down if deemed by the courts to be unsupported by statute or the Constitution."

Trump's other signed tweets - like for his nutty wall - are in similar legal limbo. That includes not even making the cut for internal consistency, hence not even making the grade of an executive action.

A signed tweet as Bill Maher put it? Sure! But Trumpies ought not get their panties in a twist from premature somersaults,  given most will not even see the light of day as actual deeds.