Millions of Americans each year are victims of stalking, a disturbing crime that restricts an individual’s ability to live a productive, peaceful, and fulfilling life. Throughout National Stalking Awareness Month, we recognize this form of bullying and intimidation and recommit to addressing and preventing this harmful behavior that devastates so many individuals and their families and friends.
Today, 1 in 6 women and 1 in 17 men experience stalking in their lifetime, and nearly 7 in 10 victims report knowing their stalker. Stalkers commonly target young people, with 54 percent of female victims and 41 percent of male victims experiencing stalking before age 25. Even if the offender relents, many victims of stalking experience long-lasting mental and physical aftereffects, resulting in prolonged depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Stalking is a course of conduct directed at a specific person to instill torment, fear, control, and uncertainty. Behaviors include unwanted contact, harassing family members or friends, leaving unwanted items, and lurking or appearing at places without invitation and/or a legitimate purpose. Increasingly, perpetrators are using social media platforms and technology to terrorize their victims. Cyber stalkers post private information, send illicit or suggestive messages, concoct rumors online about an individual or their family and friends which causes them to fear for their safety, reputation, and even their livelihood.
Stalking any individual, especially our young people will not be tolerated. That is why, last month, I signed the Combat Online Predators Act to impose tough penalties on predators for stalking minors, including increasing the maximum prison sentence from 10 to 15 years. As one Nation, we must do everything in our power to keep our children and loved ones safe from this predatory behavior and hold perpetrators accountable.
My Administration remains committed to ending the crime of stalking. To learn its signs visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and if you or someone you know is a victim of stalking, please call the National Center for Victims of Crime Hotline: 1-855-484-2846.
Human trafficking is a horrific assault on human dignity that affects people in the United States and around the world. It tears apart communities, fuels criminal activity, and threatens the national security of the United States. During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we reaffirm our commitment to eradicate this abhorrent evil, to support victims and survivors, and to hold traffickers accountable for their heinous crimes.Tragically, through force, fraud, and coercion, human traffickers deprive millions of victims of their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Often referred to as “modern slavery,” this intolerable blight on society involves exploitation for labor or sex and affects people of all ages, genders, races, religions, and nationalities. As the United States continues to lead the global fight against human trafficking, we must remain relentless in our resolve to dismantle this illicit and immoral enterprise in our cities, suburbs, rural communities, Tribal lands, and transportation networks.
My Administration has prioritized ending human trafficking since its earliest days. As one of my first acts as President, I instructed Federal agencies to do what was necessary to bring human traffickers to justice and assist survivors on their road to recovery. Since then, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with other Federal agencies, has aggressively pursued these criminals, dismantling the financial infrastructure of their networks and arresting over 5,000 human traffickers. In 2019 alone, Federal law enforcement agencies initiated more than 1,600 new investigations into human traffickers and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) human trafficking task forces opened more than 2,500 new cases on the frontlines. At my direction, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched its new Center for Countering Human Trafficking, which utilizes personnel from 16 DHS components, including special agents, victim support specialists, and intelligence research specialists, to focus on disrupting and dismantling trafficking organizations and providing support and protection to victims.
A year ago, I was proud to host the White House Summit on Human Trafficking, honoring the 20th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). During this historic event, I signed an Executive Order on Combating Human Trafficking and Online Child Exploitation in the United States. Through this order, my Administration established the first-ever White House position focused solely on combating human trafficking. Last year, I also released a comprehensive National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (NAP), built around the “three pillars” of the TVPA: prevention, protection, and prosecution. The NAP also includes a fourth pillar which recognizes the invaluable benefit of implementing collaborative and cooperative efforts that crosscut all three pillars and involve a multitude of stakeholders and professionals from various disciplines and sectors. Using this strategy, the United States Government will employ a whole-of-government approach to improve our capabilities and build on existing momentum in our fight against human trafficking.
We remain focused on ensuring that survivors of these horrific crimes receive the care and support they need and deserve. My Administration is empowering and funding faith‑based and community organizations to provide survivors with vital services, including medical and counseling services, safety planning, educational opportunities, and vocational training. Further, my Administration has doubled the amount of DOJ funding to combat human trafficking compared to the previous administration and funded the largest package of DOJ grants to fight these crimes in American history. I am proud that these grants included the first-ever funding for safe housing opportunities for survivors nationwide.
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic this year, my Administration has been unwavering in its efforts to stop this scourge domestically and around the world. The DOJ and the Department of Health and Human Services engaged with State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments and nongovernmental organizations to understand the impact of coronavirus on human trafficking and published resource guides for those in the fight on how to operate and provide services during the pandemic. The Department of State also launched a year-long competition for proposed projects to address the pandemic’s impact on efforts to combat modern slavery. Additionally, the United States Agency for International Development adapted their approach to overseas programmatic work to ensure that survivors are able to access the critical support services they need without delay. No matter the circumstances, we will remain relentless in this work and will spare no resource in offering hope to the victims and survivors of this global atrocity.
While we have reached new milestones in this fight for freedom, we must remain steadfast in our pursuit to end the evil practice of human trafficking and slavery. This month, we restore our commitment to bringing human traffickers to justice and to preserving the dignity and worth of every person.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do proclaim January 2021 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual observation of National Freedom Day on February 1, 2021. I call upon industry associations, law enforcement, private businesses, faith-based and other organizations of civil society, survivors and advocates, schools, families, and all Americans to recognize our vital roles in ending all forms of modern slavery and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities aimed at ending and preventing all forms of human trafficking.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
On Thursday, December 31, 2020, the President signed into law:
S. 461, the “HBCU Propelling Agency Relationships Towards a New Era of Results for Students Act,” which requires Federal agencies to submit annual plans on increasing the participation of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in their programs and to establish the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs;
S. 914, the “Coordinated Ocean Observations and Research Act of 2020,” which reauthorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Integrated Ocean Observing System through fiscal year 2025; modifies requirements related to the Named Storm Event Model and post-storm assessments; and requires the Commerce Department to establish a National Water Center;
S. 979, the “Federal Advance Contracts Enhancement Act or the FACE Act,” which requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency to submit a report to the Congress on advance contracts, which are established prior to disasters in order to be able to quickly provide life-sustaining goods and services in the immediate aftermath of a disaster;
S. 1130, the “Scarlett’s Sunshine on Sudden Unexpected Death Act,” which authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to develop, maintain, or support programs that address sudden unexpected infant death and sudden unexpected death in childhood;
S. 1342, the “Great Lakes Environmental Sensitivity Index Act of 2020,” which requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to update at least once every seven years its environmental sensitivity index products for each coastal area of the Great Lakes;
S. 1694, the “One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act,” which requires National Aeronautics and Space Administration to add recommendations and inform other relevant Federal agencies of information relating to the principle of due regard and the limitation of harmful interference with historic Apollo lunar landing site artifacts;
S. 1869, the “Secure Federal Leases from Espionage And Suspicious Entanglements Act or the Secure Federal LEASEs Act,” which requires Federal lessees, before entering into a lease agreement or approving a novation agreement for high-security leased space, to require an entity to identify the immediate or highest-level owner of the space and disclose whether that owner is a foreign person or entity;
S. 2174, the “Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act of 2019,” which authorizes the Justice Department to award grants to certain entities to further efforts related to missing persons and unidentified remains;
S. 2216, the “Transparency and Effective Accountability Measures for Veteran Caregivers Act or the TEAM Veteran Caregivers Act,” which requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to formally recognize veterans’ caregivers, notify veterans and caregivers of clinical determinations relating to caregiver program eligibility, and provide time-limited benefits for veterans who are determined ineligible for the program;
S. 2683, the “Child Care Protection Improvement Act of 2020,” which establishes a task force to assist Federal and State agencies in implementing federally required background checks for child care staff;
S. 2730, the “Drone Advisory Committee for the 21st Century Act,” which requires the Federal Aviation Administration to take steps to encourage direct representation of certain interests on the Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) and public participation in the nomination of DAC members;
S. 3312, the “Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry Act of 2020,” which authorizes the Justice Department to award grants for State and local correctional facilities to provide clinical services for people with serious mental illness who need post-release mental health services;
S. 3989, the “United States Semiquincentennial Commission Amendments Act of 2020,” which amends the United States Semiquincentennial Commission Act of 2016 to modify certain membership and other requirements of the Commission;
On Friday, December 11, 2020, the President signed into law:
S. 4054, the “United States Grain Standards Reauthorization Act of 2020,” which reauthorizes certain authorities of the United States Grain Standards Act.
On Friday, January 1, 2021, the President signed into law:
S. 3418, the “Safeguarding Tomorrow through Ongoing Risk Mitigation Act” or the “STORM Act,” which authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide capitalization grants to States to establish revolving funds to provide hazard mitigation assistance to reduce risks from disasters and natural hazards.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to ensure the education, health, safety, and well-being of America’s children, our most essential resource upon which the future of our great Nation depends, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section1. Purpose. As part of their efforts to address the public health challenges and uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, State and local officials shut down in-person learning for the vast majority of our more than 56 million elementary and secondary school students beginning in late February and early March of this year. Since then, however, our Nation has identified effective measures to facilitate the safe resumption of in-person learning, and the Federal Government has provided more than $13 billion to States and school districts to implement those measures.
The prolonged deprivation of in-person learning opportunities has produced undeniably dire consequences for the children of this country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that school attendance is negatively correlated with a child’s risk of depression and various types of abuse. States have seen substantial declines in reports of child maltreatment while school buildings have been closed, indicating that allegations are going unreported. These reductions are driven in part by social isolation from the schoolteachers and support staff with whom students typically interact and who have an obligation to report suspected child maltreatment. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has also found that school closures have a “substantial impact on food security and physical activity for children and families.” Additionally, a recent survey of educators found student absences from school, including virtual learning, have nearly doubled during the pandemic, and as AAP has noted, chronic absenteeism is associated with alcohol and drug use, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, and suicide attempts.
School closures are especially difficult for families with children with special needs. Schools provide not only academic supports for students with special needs, but they also provide much-needed in-person therapies and services, including physical and occupational therapies. A recent survey found that 80 percent of children with special needs are not receiving the services and supports to which they are entitled and that approximately 40 percent of children with special needs are receiving no services or supports. Moreover, the survey found that virtual learning may not be fully accessible to these students, as children with special needs are twice as likely to receive little or no remote learning and to be dissatisfied with the remote learning received.
Low-income and minority children are also disproportionately affected by school closures. In low-income zip codes, students’ math progress decreased by nearly 50 percent while school buildings were closed in the spring, and the math progress of students in middle-income zip codes fell by almost a third during the same period. A recent analysis projected that, if in-person classes do not fully resume until January 2021, Hispanic, Black, and low-income students will lose 9.2, 10.3, and 12.4 months of learning, respectively.
A failure to quickly resume in-person learning options is likely to have long-term economic effects on children and their families. According to a recent study, if in person classes do not fully resume until January 2021, the average student could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings, or the equivalent of a year of full-time work. Additionally, in 2019, more than 90 percent of children under the age of 18 had at least one employed parent. Many employed parents do not have the option of engaging in remote work that allows them the flexibility to supervise their children during the day when in-person learning options are not available. Without the resumption of in-person learning opportunities, the economic and social harms resulting from such lost employment opportunities will continue to compound.
To help mitigate these harms, the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced additional relief for low income parents by allowing States to use funds available through the Child Care and Development Fund to subsidize child care services and services that supplement academic instruction for children under the age of 13 who are participating in virtual instruction. Nevertheless, virtual instruction is an inadequate substitute for in-person learning opportunities and this aid is insufficient to meet current needs.
While some families, especially those with financial means, have been able to mitigate school disruptions through in person options such as homeschooling, private schools, charter schools, and innovative models like microschools and “learning pods,” for many families, their children’s residentially assigned public school remains their only financially available option. Unfortunately, more than 50 percent of all public-school students in the United States began school remotely this fall. These children, including those with special needs, are being underserved due to the public education system’s failure to provide in-person learning options.
Students whose families pay tuition for their education are also facing significant hardships due to the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic. Scores of private schools, including approximately 100 Catholic schools, have permanently closed since the onset of COVID-19, and more than half of our Nation’s private schools are believed to have lost enrollment due to the pandemic. These closures and declining enrollments are harmful to students, bad for communities, and likely to impose increased strain on public school systems.
I am committed to ensuring that all children of our great Nation have access to the educational resources they need to obtain a high-quality education and to improving students’ safety and well-being, including by empowering families with emergency learning scholarships.
Sec. 2. Providing Emergency Learning Scholarships for Students. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take steps, consistent with law, to allow funds available through the Community Services Block Grant program to be used by grantees and eligible entities to provide emergency learning scholarships to disadvantaged families for use by any child without access to in-person learning. These scholarships may be used for:
(i) tuition and fees for a private or parochial school;
(ii) homeschool, microschool, or learning-pod costs;
(iii) special education and related services, including therapies; or
(iv) tutoring or remedial education.
Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
America, Patriots, let us all have a healthy, prosperous, and awesome New Year full of the Heavenly Spirit of 1776! 2021 bring the final phase where we take our country back for the rightful owners that are the American people, and what no longer serve, must be bury. Enjoy!
Merry Christmas everyone. Let the Christ light be within our hearts all ways, Always.
We pray for our nation be safe, and with our courageous people Be the guiding light of the world.
AND we leave you all with some patriotic fascinating Quotes from one of the Forefathers of our nation= Samuel Adams:
“We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection.”
“The name of the Lord (says the Scripture) is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.”
“Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins.”
“The right to freedom is the gift of God Almighty….The rights of the Colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading, and carefully studying the institutes of the great Lawgiver and head of the Christian Church: which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.”
“If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great security.”
“If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation.”
“The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.”
“He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man…”
AND then we remember this poem by Kenneth J. Goodrich:
“The Real student of Light faces the Light and sends the Light before him.
America! America! My blissed I AM Country!
The Light of God that never fails.
America! Tis Thee. America! America!
The Cup that holds the Christ-Light that will light the planet wide.
America, my love for thee, let her freedom reign without divide.”
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section1. Purpose. Since 1935, the Department of the Treasury (Department) has issued savings bonds to the American public. Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government, these bonds are extremely safe investments that were designed to be accessible even to inexperienced investors. Indeed, over the years, savings bonds have proved to be a popular birthday or graduation gift, helping introduce younger Americans to the rewards of investing in our country’s future. Among other things, savings bonds provided the United States with a critical source of financing during World War II.
By law, savings bonds never expire, and there is no deadline for owners to redeem them. It is currently estimated that more than 75 million matured savings bonds, issued as far back as 1935, remain unredeemed. The total value of these unredeemed savings bonds is approximately $27 billion.
Above and beyond any legal requirements applicable to savings bonds, the Department should take all appropriate action to make sure that those Americans who invested in the future success of their country have the opportunity to receive the remuneration to which they are lawfully entitled. Under my Administration, the Department has already undertaken significant measures to reunite matured savings bonds with their rightful owners. For example, the Department in 2019 released an online tool known as “Treasury Hunt” to help individuals determine if they are the owners of matured unredeemed savings bonds. This order is the next step in ensuring that owners of matured savings bonds have a full opportunity to redeem their bonds.
Sec. 2. Updating Records. The Department shall work to digitize and make electronically searchable sufficient information to identify the registered owner of any matured unredeemed savings bond, including the name and registered address of such owner and of any registered beneficiaries. In particular, the Department shall complete its ongoing pilot project to assess the feasibility and cost of digitizing and making these records searchable and accessible, which is being carried out in conjunction with multiple vendors, before the end of calendar year 2020. If the pilot project is successful, a vendor shall be selected to begin digitizing savings bond records. When digitizing records, the Department shall, to the extent feasible, focus first on the bond-issuance years that represent the highest percentage of matured unredeemed debt.
Sec. 3. Information Accessibility. Within 30 days of beginning to receive data from the digitization of records described in section 2 of this order, the Department shall incorporate into the data accessible through Treasury Hunt information collected from the digitized records, in a secure manner and consistent with applicable law, including the Privacy Act. The Department shall work to ensure that this information can be used through Treasury Hunt to help individuals determine if they are the owners of matured unredeemed savings bonds.
Sec. 4. Customer Research. The Department shall conduct customer research to determine why individuals do not redeem savings bonds upon maturity, any barriers individuals encounter when they do attempt to redeem their bonds, and the feasibility of modifying redemption methods or developing alternative redemption methods in order to mitigate, overcome, or avoid any such barriers.
Sec. 5. Collaboration with States. The Department shall engage with States and State associations to obtain additional data and information to help the Department identify owners of unredeemed bonds, to learn best practices employed by the States regarding the redemption of mature bonds, and to encourage the States to add direct links to Treasury Hunt to States’ unclaimed property websites or other appropriate State publications or information portals.
Sec. 6. Public Reporting. Within 6 months of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury shall publish a report on actions and initiatives undertaken by the Department to implement this order.
Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
On the 21 of December, 2020 and during the Saturn and Jupiter Conjunction, it would seems as forming a Christmas star for many, maybe do the brightness of the planets.
This holiday season, the most special thing to see in the sky won’t be flying reindeer pulling a sleigh, but rather a rare celestial rendezvous—a cosmic gift of sorts, many lifetimes in the making. On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will meet in a “great conjunction,” the closest they could be seen in the sky together for nearly 800 years.
An astronomical conjunction occurs when any two heavenly bodies appear to pass or meet each other as seen from Earth. To make one “great,” though, requires an encounter between our solar system’s two largest planets. The orbits of Jupiter and Saturn align to allow the giant worlds to seemingly convene roughly every 20 years.
However, some great conjunctions are, well, greater than others. The slightly oval shape of Jupiter and Saturn’s orbits, and how inclined each orbit is with respect to the sun’s equator, causes the planets’ closeness in the sky to fluctuate across their cyclic conjunctions. During some great conjunctions, the two worlds appear to come so close as to practically hug each other; during others, they seem to approach no nearer than arm’s length. (Of course, the planets are never actually close at all; during their December 21 encounter, they will still be separated by more than 730 million kilometers.)
For the last great conjunction, on May 28, 2000, the apparent distance between Jupiter and Saturn in the sky was 68.9 arc minutes, or more than twice the diameter of the full moon. In contrast, with 2020’s great conjunction—which coincides with the December solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and the longest in the southern—the gas giants will appear separated by just 6.1 arc minutes. That is roughly the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length.
“If you have a telescope, you’ll be able to see both the rings of Saturn and the Galilean moons of Jupiter close together at the same moment,” says astronomer Jackie Faherty at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
During the “great conjunction,” the two planets (and their moons) will be visible in the same field of view through binoculars or a telescope. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
In a way, that particular detail makes this year’s astronomical spectacle all the more poetic: The last time Jupiter and Saturn appeared so close was July 16, 1623, back when Galileo was still alive, a little more than a decade after he first used a telescope to discover Jupiter’s four largest moons that now collectively bear his name. The odds are low, however, that Galileo or anyone else on Earth managed to witness that great conjunction, which was virtually impossible to see because of its apparent position near the sun. The last great conjunction to appear as close and as visible as the upcoming one occurred on March 4, 1226. “For perspective, Genghis Khan was still roaming Asia then,” says astronomer Patrick Hartigan at Rice University in Houston.
You can see the upcoming great conjunction in detail with binoculars and telescopes, “but the best part about it is we’ll be able to watch it with the naked eye,” Faherty says. Find a spot where you can watch the sunset with a clear horizon in front of you, free of trees or buildings. In the hour or so after nightfall, first Jupiter will appear in the western sky, and then Saturn, both shining dots distinguishable from the stars by the fact they do not twinkle. “They will likely be visible even with light pollution—Jupiter is pretty bright,” Hartigan says.
Although the great conjunction will arrive on December 21, “you should be watching Jupiter and Saturn draw close every night until then,” Faherty recommends. Otherwise, “it’d be like tuning into the finale of a show without seeing all the episodes before it to get you caught up on what’s going on. By watching them get closer and closer, you can get a sense how celestial mechanics works in the nighttime sky.”
This sky map shows the crescent moon with Jupiter and Saturn as seen from New York City on Thursday (Dec. 17) at 6:30 p.m. local time, looking toward the southwest. (Image credit: SkySafari app)
Great conjunctions have at times drawn scientists to speculate over their possible links with major events. For instance, Johannes Kepler investigated whether the Star of Bethlehem, which in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew guided the Three Wise Men to Christ’s birth, was a great conjunction, calculating that one did occur in 7 B.C. “Often astronomers like to look through stories from ancient times and see if there might be an astronomical phenomenon behind something captivating that people saw,” Faherty says. (Hartigan notes that ancient great conjunction was not an especially close or remarkable one.)
After this great conjunction ends, stargazers need not wait centuries for the next close one. Another rendezvous where the giant planets are separated by just six arc minutes will arrive on March 15, 2080, Hartigan says. “A young person who goes out and sees this great conjunction now can potentially see the next close one in 2080,” he says. “It’d be a nice connection between generations, one that makes you think about all those who have seen these conjunctions in the past—and those who will glimpse it in the future.”
All in all, the great conjunction is a reminder of how one can find solace in the constancy of heavenly cycles over the millennia given the inconstancy of modern times, Faherty says. “We get caught up in things that happen over the small given amount of time that a human life exists under, but astronomy encompasses a timeframe so much more than that,” she notes. “In the face of everything that is going on, you can find perspective in astronomical timeframes.”
Election fraud is the secret “assassin’s mace” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has long confounded security hawks, according to tech billionaire and entrepreneur Patrick Byrne, who back in August assembled a cyber intelligence team to analyze the U.S. voting system.
“For 10 years or more, there have been references to a coming ‘assassin’s mace’ in the Chinese literature—where they take out the United States with one stroke,” Byrne told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program. “The national security community in the United States has been trying to figure this out: Is it their new aircraft carrier? Is that the hypersonic missile? Is it this, that, is it an EMP?”
“I don’t think so, ” he told host Jan Jekielek. “The one stroke that takes the United States out is what we’re experiencing right now.”
The 2020 vote involved “massive election fraud,” he says. “Not voter fraud, but election fraud.”
Byrne has been a driving force in the research for lawsuits filed by attorneys Lin Wood and Sidney Powell. He has also been working together with ASOG, the company that recently carried out the forensic audit on voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan.
Byrne said he started investigations back in August, and that as a result, he anticipated the very irregularities which he later observed in the November election.
He says his team of online security experts now believes Chinese developers are “under the hood” of the software that has infiltrated at least two of the main voting systems in the United States.
Suppliers of such election software and systems involved in the U.S. election have responded to allegations of voting irregularities with consistent denial that their systems can be manipulated or that they have any such connection to foreign governments.
‘Reverse-engineering the Coup’
Byrne described the election as a soft coup.
“We are basically reverse-engineering this coup,” said Byrne, in reference to his team of 30-40 people.
Byrne says that he fell in with cyber experts who had been looking at election manipulation since 2018 when they were hired as part of a blue-ribbon commission set up to examine potential election fraud in Texas.
“That group has had two years to really reverse engineer what the rest of America has had a couple of weeks to understand,” he said. “They had already figured out really about a dozen different ways you could defeat an election or hack an election—in a broad sense of hack, not necessarily just electronic cyber guys hacking.”
According to Byrne, they found cheating was possible “at an industrial level, in terms of generating hundreds of thousands of fake votes.”
Byrne says the pattern of manipulation can be identified through examining three key points—what he calls “three buckets of facts.”
“One bucket is understanding the systems themselves and how they were built: the functionality that was built into them and the vulnerabilities that exist.”
The second bucket, he says, relates to how the election process played out. “[In the event of fraud] you would expect people to have certain experiences when they either go in and vote or if they volunteer and work in the precincts.”
A Georgia Republican Party poll watcher looks over voting machine transporters being stored at the Fulton County Election Preparation Center in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 4, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
He gives the examples of vote tabulating being shut down, of poll watchers being denied entry, and of the video of election workers pulling out cases of ballots from under a table after observers had gone home and then scanning them.
The third bucket, he says, is the extreme statistical outliers that would be thrown up by such a manipulation process.
“Things like that happened—these statistical outliers: Having 123,000 votes in a row going to one candidate; or in Pennsylvania, I believe it was 580,000 votes got processed that were 99.4 percent for Biden… and they came through exactly when all the Republicans had been told they had to leave.”
“They’re on the order of you winning the Powerball lottery this week, and next week and the week after—and that happening in dozens of places around America at the same time.”
“When you put those three different narratives together, they also just come together perfectly. They all reinforce each other.”
Traced to China
Byrne says that the manipulation of the voting systems can be traced back to China.
“There’s a chain of command basically from China through Iran to Cuba and Venezuela,” he said. “The Chinese are funding Smartmatic through the Panamanian division of Smartmatic, but it bounces through Venezuela.”
“There is code buried within the Dominion machines that has been turned up that seems to show Chinese provenance.”
“There are Chinese developers under the hood of this stuff back in China who are actually getting their software into the Smartmatic systems which have infiltrated at least two of the main voting systems used domestically.”
Smartmatic’s headquarters located in Boca Rotan, Fla., on Dec. 2, 2020. (The Epoch Times)
“I say this as a guy who loves China,” he adds. “I speak Chinese, I have a great affection for China and the Chinese people—but I’m not such a big fan of the CCP.”
Smartmatic says its products were used only in one LA county in the U.S. 2020 election and has consistently denied any claims of wrongdoing or involvement in voter or election fraud past or present. It says it has no involvement with any governments or political parties or with Dominion.
Dominion Voting Systems has also consistently denied any wrongdoing or vulnerabilities in its systems and said that it does not use software owned by Smartmatic and that it has no ownership ties to the governments of China, Cuba, or Venezuela. Dominion products are used in 28 states.
Byrne, however, says that software created by Smartmatic went through a series of corporate mergers, acquisitions, divestments, and licensing agreements before ending up in at least two of the main commercial voting systems being used in the United States, including Dominion. “Its genetic lineage [goes] back to the software,” he says.
A number of other analysts have signed affidavits to the same effect.
Dominion has also come under scrutiny for its ownership structure after its parent company raised funds with the help of a Swiss bank before the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The transaction, peculiar in several ways, has led some to speculate that a Chinese entity could be an indirect investor in the company.
Byrne says that stealing the national election doesn’t require cheating across the board. “There are six counties that you need to steal. If you steal these six counties around the country, that flips the six states they’re in, which flips the electoral college votes that come with them, which flips the nation, ” he said. “You’ve got to take six places and cheat like crazy there.”
He says that some online security experts, who he describes as white hat hackers, say that they would give the election systems a rating of just one or two out of 10 for security.
Loyal members of the Chinese Communist Party are working in British consulates, universities and for some of the UK’s leading companies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
An extraordinary leaked database of 1.95 million registered party members reveals how Beijing’s malign influence now stretches into almost every corner of British life, including defense firms, banks and pharmaceutical giants.
Most alarmingly, some of its members – who swear a solemn oath to ‘guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life…and never betray the Party’ – are understood to have secured jobs in British consulates.
Among them is a senior official at the British Consulate in Shanghai. Its headquarters is also home to intelligence officers from the UK security services.
The official describes their role as supporting ministers and officials on visits to East China.
While there is no evidence that anyone on the party membership list has spied for China – and many sign up simply to boost their career prospects – experts say it defies credulity that some are not involved in espionage. Responding to the findings, an alliance of 30 MPs last night said they would be tabling an urgent question about the issue in the Commons.
Writing in The Mail on Sunday today, former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith says: ‘This investigation proves that members of the Chinese Communist Party are now spread around the globe, with members working for some of the world’s most important multinational corporations, academic institutions and our own diplomatic services.
‘The Government must now move to expel and remove any members of the Communist Party from our Consuls throughout China. They can either serve the UK or the Chinese Communist Party. They cannot do both
The Foreign Office last night insisted that it has ‘robust procedures in place to keep information secure and to vet staff at our overseas posts’. It is understood they are aware that they employ party members.
However, a senior Whitehall intelligence source said the revelations did raise security questions. ‘In that station [the official] will be sat one floor away from the MI6 team and could have identified intelligence officers.’
The database was originally leaked on Telegram, the encrypted instant messaging app, and passed in September by a Chinese dissident to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which comprises more than 150 legislators around the world who are concerned by the influence and activities of the Chinese government.
Dating from 2016, it includes the names of party members in Shanghai, the largest city in China and its financial hub.
The list is divided into more than 79,000 branches, many of them affiliated to individual companies or organizations.
In total, the Chinese Communist Party has more than 92 million members, but competition to join is fierce with fewer than one in ten applicants successful.
After authenticating the material, with the help of data security analysts Internet 2.0, IPAC passed the database to four media organizations around the world, including The Mail on Sunday. Detailed analysis of it by this newspaper reveals that:
A party member who studied at St Andrews University worked at various consulates in Shanghai including that of the UK;
Chinese academics who swore the oath to assist the party attended British universities where they were involved in potentially sensitive areas of research including aerospace engineering and chemistry;
There were more than 600 party members across 19 branches working at the British banks HSBC and Standard Chartered in 2016. Both have drawn criticism for their response to Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong;
The pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both involved in the development of coronavirus vaccines – employed a total 123 party loyalists;
Firms with defense industry interests including Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce employed hundreds of party members.
Security sources believe the initial data leak came from a dissident who targeted an outwardly unremarkable office block in Shanghai which housed the records.
Despite the near certainty of being executed for treason if caught, he or she probably accessed it via a server before downloading it on to a laptop and releasing it on Telegram where it was found by IPAC. As well as the names of members, the database has places, dates of birth, Chinese ethnicity and in some cases addresses and telephone numbers.
The consular official is registered in a communist party branch within a company called the The Shanghai Foreign Agency Service Corporation, a state-owned employment agency.
Oath of loyalty which party members swear
New members of the Chinese Communist Party swear an oath of loyalty in front of a traditional flag bearing a hammer and sickle to signify proletarian solidarity.
With fist raised, they say: ‘It is my will to join the Communist Party of China, uphold the Party’s program, observe the provisions of the Party Constitution, fulfil a Party member’s duties, carry out the Party’s decisions, strictly observe Party discipline, guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the Party and the people, and never betray the Party.’
While there are 92 million members across China, this equates to just six per cent of the population. Indeed, competition is fierce with less than one in ten applicants accepted.
The rewards are not purely ideological. Senior positions in business, academia and government are almost exclusively occupied by party members.
Experts say that since coming to power in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of the Party with members compelled to attend more regular meetings and undergo appraisals.
It employs almost 2,000 people and its website says it ‘provides comprehensive and high-quality services to more than 100 foreign organizations in Shanghai including foreign consulates, foreign news media, and foreign schools’.
Analysis of the data shows at least 249 Communist Party members were registered with the agency in 2016.
Academics on the membership list include some living and working in the UK. They include a research fellow in aerospace engineering at a leading university who also works for a private company.
Aerospace engineering is designated by the British Government as among the seven most militarily sensitive university subjects.
Students from countries that are not in the EU or the ‘Five Eyes’ network of Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are required to have an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate.
During the application process, they are asked to declare any state-linked funding, although some security experts fear the vetting process is not stringent enough. The research fellow did not respond to a request for comment last night.
The US security services have been increasingly concerned about the threat of Chinese espionage on campuses.
In the nine months to September, 14 Chinese nationals were charged over alleged spying offences and the Trump administration last week changed its visa rules so members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families can stay or get travel documents for only a month.
Last week, John Ratcliffe, the US Director of National Security, warned that China posed the ‘greatest threat to democracy and freedom’ since the Second World War and was striving to dominate ‘the planet economically, militarily and technologically’.
Australia revoked the visas of two professors from China in September amid suspicions they were involved in espionage. One of the men appears on the leaked membership list.
The database also reveals that party members work for many British and international companies in China, several involved in the defense or pharmaceutical industries.
Rolls-Royce, Boeing, Airbus and the French defense contractor Thales each have dozens of party members or more on their books while the British banking giants HSBC and Standard Chartered both have hundreds. Jaguar Land Rover was another company with staff who were members of the party.
Cosco, a major Chinese shipping firm, even has two branches in the UK for its seven members. Three are based at the port of Felixstowe, Suffolk, which receives almost half of Britain’s container trade.
In total, the list for 2016 reveals 2,909 members working for Cosco across 118 branches worldwide.
None of the companies above said they banned members of the Chinese Communist Party from being employees.
There is no evidence that any of the firms named above has been targeted or fallen victim to espionage and each insists it has measures in place to protect data, staff and customers.
Reacting to the findings, former Foreign Office diplomat and China expert Matthew Henderson said: ‘This is yet further proof of how China has inveigled its way into the British establishment. We are dancing with rabid wolves, intent on driving a wedge between Britain and America, overthrowing democracy and outstripping the West.’
Sam Armstrong, from the Henry Jackson Society foreign policy think-tank, said: ‘This is a deeply disturbing illustration of China’s spread across the globe which we can’t look away from and must tackle head on.’
And a former CIA and White House intelligence analyst, who specializes in East Asia affairs, said: ‘This is what the Chinese Communist Party is and you can’t trust them. They’re always looking for opportunities where they can take advantage of relationships, friendships, whatever, to further the interests of the Communist Party.’
However, Robbie Barnett, an affiliate of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London and at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said: ‘It’s not likely that many members in China actually believe in or care about Communism, so it’s largely a nation-building project, not an ideological one.
‘That’s just one of the many reasons that a McCarthyism, catch-all approach doesn’t make sense, even apart from the fact that it would be a gross abuse of people’s human rights.’
Last night, a Chinese Embassy spokeswoman said: ‘We urge the media to abandon ideological bias and Cold-War mentality and view China, the Communist Party of China and China’s development in a rational and impartial manner.
Chained: Media mogul who defied tyranny
Handcuffed, bound in chains and flanked by police officers, businessman Jimmy Lai is led to court to face charges of colluding with foreign powers.
The pro-democracy media mogul, one of the few business leaders in Hong Kong to speak out against the draconian new national security laws, was denied bail yesterday over allegations he had asked foreign countries to impose sanctions.
Mr Lai, 73, owner of the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily and founder of Next Digital Media, has repeatedly called for international action over the erosion of liberties in Hong Kong.
The charges reportedly relate to tweets he posted, including one in May asking Donald Trump to impose sanctions on China, and his decision to launch an English-language edition of Apple Daily.
Hong Kong politician Ted Hui, who lives in Britain after being forced into exile, told Radio 4’s Today programmed: ‘I feel extremely heavy watching my friends go to jail, perhaps for life. Freedom of speech is totally collapsed in Hong Kong and it’s extremely alarming to the world.’
Mr Lai’s arrest is the latest in a crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement since the sweeping national security law passed this summer by Beijing, which allows Chinese security forces to operate there.
Last week, activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam were jailed for taking part in an unauthorized protest last year. Teenage activist Tony Chung was also convicted last week of desecrating the Chinese flag, and at least 16 other activists were arrested.
The devotee who works just yards from MI6 spies
Outwardly at least, the British consulate in Shanghai – at 17F Garden Square – appears wholly unremarkable. There is little to distinguish it from the other high-rise buildings that crowd the city’s historic riverside district. What goes on inside, however, is quite a different matter.
One consular official identified in the leaked database is said by security sources to work near to a team of MI6 officers operating under diplomatic cover. Intriguingly, and some critics of the China’s regime may think worryingly too, the official is apparently on the floor below or, as one security source put it, ‘down a staircase’.
There is no evidence that anything untoward has taken place, but the simple fact that a Chinese Communist Party member is working in close proximity to intelligence officers has in itself given rise to concerns that the UK is ‘playing with fire’.
Long known as a city of intrigue, Shanghai was fabled in the 1930s as the Paris of the East, China’s most modern metropolis, a haven for gangsters and intellectuals, colonials and radicals, the new rich and the ultra-poor.
The communist revolution changed all that and the city’s famous vitality was largely stamped out. Even in the late 1980s, when other parts of China were modernizing fast, Shanghai lagged behind.
Now its appearance is positively futuristic. The skyscrapers in the gleaming financial district Pudong, for instance, dwarf the old colonial waterfront across the Huangpu river.
One senior Whitehall security source claimed: ‘In that station [the official] will be sat one floor away from the security services team.
‘In theory, anybody walking past where the official works and up the staircase could be identified as an intelligence officer and that information passed back to the Communist Party.’
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: With hopeless naivety, big business and universities have failed to understand that China is out to destroy our way of life
By IAIN DUNCAN SMITH for the Mail on Sunday
Joining the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is quite unlike signing up for a political party here or in any other democracy. It might seem closer to joining a crime family in the New York Mafia.
Members have to swear overriding loyalty to the one party that has ruled in China since the 1940s.
They must pledge to ‘guard party secrets’, to ‘fight for communism throughout my life’ and to be ready at all times ‘to sacrifice my all for the Party’. The oath is for life and sworn in the presence of party officials. Swift, harsh punishment would result should they ever dare to break it.
Belonging to the party is no mere formality. The CCP demands secrecy, cunning and utterly ruthless discipline from its millions of members. Notoriously secretive, its authority is absolute.
Members are routinely schooled in the beliefs, tenets and principles of Chinese Communist thought.
Democracy and freedom are such existential threats, for example, that violence and oppression are necessary to quash them. Western nations such as the UK are locked in mortal conflict with China and must be defeated.
It is a party whose beliefs about religious minorities remind us of the racist policies of the worst dictators of the 20th Century.
The CCP sees nothing wrong with rounding up Uyghur Muslims, placing them on trains and carting them to ‘re-education camps’ where women can be sterilized and the men put to forced work.
Each and every member has subscribed to all of this and more – harvesting organs from religious minorities, locking up lawyers, crushing the spirit of its own people. There is little room for deviation in political thought in Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party.
It would be bad enough were these individuals confined to China, where they have a vice-like grip on political power.
However, The Mail on Sunday’s investigation shows that CCP influence is spreading around the globe, with members working for some of the world’s most important multinational corporations, academic institutions and even our own diplomatic services.
Much of their spread into the UK took place under the so-called Golden Era, or project Kow Tow, as I prefer to call it. The UK welcomed China, believing – wrongly – that China would open up its economy and that Chinese investment would bring welcome growth, investment, and prosperity to the UK.
It is hardly surprising, then, that City of London behemoths Standard Chartered, KPMG and Ernst & Young each hired several hundred CCP members across several branches in China.
And it is even less surprising that HSBC tops the shameful league table of companies willing to comply with Chinese Communist Party rules. HSBC likes to criticize Brexit for its perceived small-mindedness, with adverts telling the UK ‘we are not an island’.
Its own behavior speaks volumes, however. Last week, it rushed to freeze the bank accounts of exiled Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui. Earlier in the summer, it issued statements denouncing the democracy protests.
Now we learn that it apparently once employed more than 300 members of the very party that is orchestrating the draconian crackdown in Hong Kong. Time and again, HSBC has proved itself to be Beijing’s favorite bank.
None of this would be remarkable in a Chinese institution but for a British bank – regulated and headquartered here in London – it is inexcusable.
The conduct of HSBC and other UK financial institutions is not just wrong but immoral.
We can only hope that this leak confirms the truth that is beginning to dawn on businesses around the world. Operating in China carries an inbuilt ethical and reputational risk. We already know that household brands have been linked with slave labor from Uyghur prison camp detainees in the Xinjiang region.
Mounting evidence links the Party to state-sponsored concentration camps and genocide against Uyghur minorities.
So when will rich multinational firms decide it is no longer worth the damage to their brand?
The threat is not just to their corporate image, by the way, or to our moral standing as a nation – it is a threat to our security. Companies such as Boeing, Airbus, Thales, and Rolls-Royce each play an essential role in manufacturing equipment used by our Armed Forces.
They make some of our most advanced weaponry and are trusted to guard top-secret designs for our most sensitive assets and facilities. Yet collectively they employ hundreds of Chinese Communists who have pledged to serve the Party above all else.
Other vital firms such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline employ hundreds of Communist Party members, giving them access to networks, designs and supply chains.
Then there is the matter of academics in the UK, some of whom are studying among the most sensitive subjects at our universities.
In recent years we’ve come to understand that China is systematically targeting – and stealing – academic technology.
In September, our Government barred Chinese military scientists from sensitive research. Now we know why.
Most troubling of all is the discovery that this scourge extends to our own Foreign Office.
Applicants to the FO are among the most closely vetted in Government, and rightly so. Staff in our consulates and embassies will see and discuss matters of state.
They are rightly considered among the most useful potential ‘assets’ by foreign intelligence services. Even the most anodyne pieces of information can have implications for national security.
So the Foreign Office will need to explain to the public and to Parliament how it is that we employed lifelong members of the Chinese Communist Party in one of the most sensitive facilities in the UK diplomatic network, the consulate in Shanghai.
An urgent investigation must now take place into exactly what sort of access this individual – and other Communist Party Members – have had.
I believe the Government must now move to expel and remove any members of the Communist Party from our consulates in China. They can serve the UK or they can serve the CCP. They cannot do both.
There is a common theme of naivety running through our companies, universities, and government officials.
We have failed to recognize that at the core of China’s system is a system of ideas and values that not only runs contrary to ours but seeks to overcome it. The interests of the Communist Party come first.
It is not that China has sought to hide this reality but that we in the free world have been prepared to turn a blind eye to it for so long.
Small wonder, then, that Xi Jinping states openly that China will have the world’s most powerful military forces in the world by 2049.
The question today is this: to what degree have our institutions and big business been helping him achieve his goal?
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 305 of title 5, United States Code, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy and Principles. As expressed in Executive Order 13777 of February 24, 2017 (Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda), it is the policy of the United States to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people. Overly burdensome occupational licensing requirements can impede job creation and slow economic growth, which undermines our Nation’s prosperity and the economic well‑being of the American people. Such regulations can prevent American workers and job seekers from earning a living, maximizing their personal and economic potential, and achieving the American Dream. The purpose of this order is to reduce the burden of occupational regulations in order to promote the free practice of commerce, lower consumer costs, and increase economic and geographic mobility, including for military spouses.
My Administration is committed to continuing this important work by partnering with State, local, territorial, and tribal leaders throughout the country to eliminate harmful occupational regulations, which are frequently designed to protect politically connected interest groups. To this end, in October 2019, my Administration announced the establishment of the Governors’ Initiative on Regulatory Innovation, which works with State, local, and tribal leaders to advance occupational licensing reforms, better align State and Federal regulations, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that drive up consumer costs.
Occupational regulations can protect practitioners from competition rather than protect the public from malpractice. Unfortunately, the number of occupational regulations has substantially increased over the last few decades. Since the 1950s, the percentage of jobs requiring a government-mandated occupational license has increased from less than 5 percent to between 25 and 30 percent. By requiring workers to acquire new licenses when they move to a new jurisdiction, occupational regulations reduce worker mobility, disproportionately harm low‑income Americans, and are particularly burdensome to military spouses who must relocate to support the service members committed to keeping our country safe. Additionally, blanket prohibitions that prevent individuals with criminal records from obtaining occupational licenses may exacerbate disparities in employment opportunity and increase the likelihood of recidivism, particularly as regulatory barriers to enter lower- and middle-income occupations are associated with higher recidivism rates. Licensing requirements unnecessary to protect consumers from significant and demonstrable harm also frequently impose expensive educational requirements on potential job seekers, even for occupations with limited future earnings potential. According to recent research, licensing requirements have cost our country an estimated 2.85 million jobs and over $200 billion annually in increased consumer costs.
Therefore, it is the policy of the United States Government to support occupational regulation reform throughout the Nation, building on occupational licensing reforms enacted most recently in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, and South Dakota, guided by six principles:
Principle 1. All recognized occupational licensure boards should be subject to active supervision of a designated governmental agency or office.
Principle 2. All occupational licensure boards recognized by a State, territorial, or tribal government that oversee personal qualifications related to the practice of an occupation should adopt and maintain the criteria and methods of occupational regulation that are least restrictive to competition sufficient to protect consumers from significant and demonstrable harm to their health and safety. The policies and procedures of such boards should be designed to protect consumer and worker safety and to encourage competition.
Principle 3. State, territorial, and tribal governments should review existing occupational regulations, including associated scope-of-practice provisions, to ensure that their requirements are the least restrictive to competition sufficient to protect consumers from significant and demonstrable harm. State, territorial, and tribal governments should also regularly review and analyze all occupational regulations, including associated personal qualifications required to obtain an occupational license, to ensure the adoption of the least restrictive requirements necessary to protect consumers from significant and demonstrable harm.
Principle 4. Individuals with criminal records should be encouraged to submit to the appropriate licensure board a preliminary application for an occupational license for a determination as to whether the criminal record would preclude their attainment of the appropriate occupational license.
Principle 5. A State, territorial, or tribal government should issue an occupational license to a person in the discipline applied for and at the same level of practice if the individual satisfies four requirements:
(a) the individual holds an occupational license for that discipline from another jurisdiction in the United States and is in good standing;
(b) the individual verifies having met, as applicable, the minimum examination, education, work, or clinical-supervision requirements imposed by the State, territory, or tribe;
(c) the individual:
(i) has not had the license previously revoked or suspended;
(ii) has not been disciplined related to the license by any other regulating entity; and
(iii) is not subject to any pending complaint, allegation, or investigation related to the license; and
(d) the individual pays all applicable fees required to obtain the new license.
Principle 6. Accommodations should be made for any applicant for an occupational license who is the spouse of an active duty member of the uniformed services and who is relocating with the member due to the member’s official permanent change of station orders.
Sec. 2. Review of and Report on Authorities, Regulations, Guidance, and Policies. The head of each executive department and agency (agency) shall, within 90 days of the date of this order and every 2 years thereafter:
(a) review the agency’s authorities, regulations, guidance, and polices to identify changes necessary to ensure alignment with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order; and
(b) submit a report to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Director of OMB), the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and the Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs (Director of IGA) identifying all necessary changes identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.
Sec. 3. Identification and Report of Opportunities to Encourage Occupational Regulation Reform. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, and every 2 years thereafter, the head of each agency shall submit a report to the Director of OMB, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and the Director of IGA identifying a list of recommended actions available to any and all agencies to recognize and reward State, territorial, and tribal governments that have in place policies and procedures regarding occupational regulation that are consistent with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order; and
(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, and every 2 years thereafter, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Director of OMB, the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, the Director of IGA, and the heads of other agencies and offices as appropriate, shall submit a report to the President identifying:
(i) recommended changes to Federal law, regulations, guidance, and other policies to ensure alignment with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order;
(ii) recommended actions to be taken by agencies to recognize and reward State, territorial, and tribal governments that have in place policies and procedures regarding occupational regulation that are consistent with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order; and
(iii) a list of criteria that may be used to evaluate whether a State, territorial, or tribal government has in place policies and procedures that are consistent with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order.
Sec. 4. Implementation of Recommendations to Recognize and Reward State, Territorial, and Tribal Regulatory Reform. (a) Within 180 days of the date of this order, and every 2 years thereafter, the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the heads of other agencies as appropriate, shall seek and report on information from State, territorial, and tribal governments regarding whether they have in place policies and procedures consistent with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order and shall make the report publicly available, including on agencies’ websites. The information sought shall be consistent with the criteria identified as required by section 3(b)(iii) of this order.
(b) Consistent with applicable law, and to the extent that the President approves any of the actions recommended pursuant to section 3(b)(ii) of this order, agencies shall implement such actions for the purpose of recognizing and rewarding a State, territorial, or tribal government that has in place policies and procedures regarding occupational regulation that are consistent with the principles set forth in section 1 of this order.
Sec. 5. Definitions. For the purposes of this order:
(a) “Active supervision” means:
(i) reviewing proposed occupational licensure board rules, policies, or other regulatory actions that may restrict market competition prior to issuance;
(ii) ensuring that any entity seeking to impose occupational licensing criteria adopts the criteria that are least restrictive to competition sufficient to protect consumers from significant and demonstrable harm to their health or safety; and
(iii) analyzing, where information is readily available, the effects of proposed rules, policies, and other regulatory actions on employment opportunities, consumer costs, market competition, and administrative costs.
(b) “Agency” has the meaning given that term in section 3502(1) of title 44, United States Code, except that the term does not include the agencies described in section 3502(5) of title 44, United States Code, other than the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
(c) “Occupational license” means a license, registration, or certification without which an individual lacks the legal permission of a State, local, territorial, or tribal government to perform certain defined services for compensation.
(d) “Occupational regulation” includes:
(i) licensing or government certification, by which a government body requires personal qualifications in order to be permitted to practice an occupation; and
(ii) registration, bonding, or inspections, by which a government body does not require personal qualifications in order to be permitted to practice an occupation.
Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
