A Fascinating Coincidence Involving an Executive Order Number; Canadian Airlines Slice Flights to the U.S.–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: March 24, 2025

Indy Digest: March 24, 2025

Today, we’re going to examine something that’s been a topic on social media and Reddit in recent days, and before I continue, I want to make it clear that I am merely pointing this out because it’s fascinating. I am not assuming any intent here—seriously.

Got all that? Good.

In late January, President Trump signed Executive Order 14188, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.” You can read the text of it here.

NPR covered the signing thusly:

An executive order signed Wednesday by President Trump outlines a broad federal crackdown on “the explosion of antisemitism” in the U.S., especially on college campuses, and says he will cancel visas of foreign students who are “Hamas sympathizers” and deport “pro-jihadist” protesters.

“We put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and will deport you,” read a White House fact sheet about the order posted online Thursday.

The order cites “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism and violence” and states that U.S. policy “shall be” to use “all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.” It also directs all U.S. department and agency heads to come up with new means they could employ to combat antisemitism within 60 days.

The executive order got a fair amount of news coverage, but most news stories didn’t even mention the number of the executive order—for good reason, as the number given to an executive order has no bearing on the contents. So who cares what number it’s assigned, right?

Later, however, the order’s number, 14188, started getting that aforementioned social media/Reddit attention. Why? As one person on Reddit noted: “TIL that Executive Order 14188, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, signed by Trump, may be a Nazi dog whistle. The ’14’ is sometimes associated with the 14 words, the ’88’ is occasionally interpreted as ‘Heil Hitler’ (since H is the 8th letter), and the ‘1’ may be code for a slash.”

This Redditor is absolutely correct. Here’s what the Anti-Defamation League says about 14/88 in its hate-symbols database.

1488 is a combination of two popular white supremacist numeric symbols. The first symbol is 14, which is shorthand for the “14 Words” slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The second is 88, which stands for “Heil Hitler” (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet). Together, the numbers form a general endorsement of white supremacy and its beliefs. As such, they are ubiquitous within the white supremacist movement—as graffiti, in graphics and tattoos, even in screen names and e-mail addresses, such as aryanprincess1488@hate.net. Some white supremacists will even price racist merchandise, such as t-shirts or compact discs, for $14.88.

The symbol is most commonly written as 1488 or 14/88, but variations such as 14-88 or 8814 are also common.

These numbers are so widely recognized as white-supremacist symbols that Jeopardy! contestants are not allowed to use these numbers as wagers. As Mashable reported in 2019, during contestant James Holzhauer’s record-setting run on the show, in reference to a Twitter discussion between Holzhauer and previous Jeopardy! record-setter Ken Jennings:

Holzhauer chimed in to confirm that $69 was indeed a banned wager. However, Jeopardy’s current reigning champ also informed his followers that there were five forbidden wagers in all and that $69 was “probably the most innocuous one.”

On Reddit, former Jeopardy contestants confirmed Holzhauer’s claim by sharing the remaining barred wagers: $666, $14, $88, and $1488.

By banning every metalhead’s favorite number of the beast along with $69, it seems like Jeopardy producers are just trying to avoid some potentially problematic internet memes. But, the other three wagers—$14, $88, and $1488—are all symbols associated with the white supremacist “fourteen words” slogan.

So, an administration that 1) is in the midst of a purge of documents and webpages that honor women and minorities in the name of a DEI; and 2) includes two prominent members who went to Germany and, as explained by The New York Times, “boost(ed) a political party that many Germans consider to be dangerously descended from Nazism,” just so happened to use an executive order numbered 14188 to “combat anti-Semitism”? And it’s a coincidence?

It seems impossible—until you realize that presidents don’t pick the numbers given to their executive orders. The Office of the Federal Register, per its website, “numbers each order consecutively as part of a series and publishes it in the daily Federal Register shortly after receipt.” The 220 executive orders Trump signed in his first term were numbered 13765 to 13984. Biden’s 162 executive orders were 13985 to 14146. In second administration, Trump’s 93 orders have been numbered 14147 to 14239, and counting.

It’s possible the Trump team, knowing the numbers each order would get, saved 14188 for this particular executive order, but 14188 was going to come up at some point, no matter what—and that, folks, is one hell of a fascinating coincidence.

—Jimmy Boegle

From the Independent

More News

• This is truly good news: An attempt to significantly weaken press freedoms has been shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court. I am (quickly) breathing a sigh of relief (before worrying about other things) today. The Hill reports: “The Supreme Court on Monday turned away casino mogul Steve Wynn’s bid for the court to consider overturning its 61-year-old precedent that has protected journalists from libel lawsuits. Wynn urged the justices to use his lawsuit against The Associated Press to revisit the 1964 landmark decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, which requires a showing of ‘actual malice’ for public figures to hold newspapers and journalists liable for defamation, a high legal bar. President Trump has long called for reducing libel protections for the press, and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas has said multiple times the precedent should be overruled. … Thomas did not publicly dissent Monday when the high court declined to take up Wynn’s appeal in a brief order.”

• Yet another reminder that Trump’s threats and insults toward Canada could have a huge local economic impact: Airlines are cutting flights between the U.S. and our neighbors to the north—including flights to and from Palm Springs. The Street says: “Anticipating the lack of demand to last longer than just a temporary ebb, a number of Canadian airlines have … cut routes to the U.S.—in some cases, ones that were launched in anticipation of a busy summer travel period just a few months earlier. Edmonton-based Flair Airlines ran its last route between Toronto Pearson and Barry Field Nashville International Airport. The airline later confirmed that it is also canceling its routes to Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport from Calgary and Edmonton. The last flights are currently slated to run on April 7. Four flights that the airline already planned to suspend later in the spring—two to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport from Edmonton and Calgary, one between Palm Springs and Vancouver and one to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport from Waterloo International Airport in southeastern Ontario—(will now end in) early April.”

• The state just updated its maps of fire-prone areas—and added millions more Californians to said areas. Yikes. Our partners at Calmatters report: “With the release of its fourth and final round of color-coded hazard maps this morning, California’s firefighting agency is showing just how much of the state is prone to wildfire—and how much that computationally-modeled danger zone has grown since the state issued its last round of local hazard maps more than a decade ago. With a few notable areas where the orange and red tide receded, like the hills above Berkeley and Oakland, territory deemed ‘high’ or ‘very high’ hazard exploded across the state, increasing by 168% since 2011. All told, the size of these orange and red patches on the new maps is 3,626 square miles—an area nearly twice the size of Delaware. That’s home to roughly 3.7 million people, according to a CalMatters analysis which combined the maps with finegrain population estimates from University of California researchers.”

• 23andMe is filing for bankruptcy—and the state is recommending customers delete their DNA data from the company’s database. The Los Angeles Times says: “More than 15 million people have provided 23andMe with DNA samples, representing a trove of genetic information that could be sold in bankruptcy proceedings. But the company struggled to build a profitable business around DNA testing and its efforts to license data to pharmaceutical companies never caught on. Valued at $6 billion shortly after going public in 2021, 23andMe gained popularity for offering customers a window into their ancestry and genetic health. The company, however, struggled to gain repeat business, as each customer’s DNA sample needed to be collected only once. … California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a warning last week to remind consumers of their right to have their genetic data deleted amid the company’s financial struggles. 23andMe customers can delete their data by logging into their account.”

• Sooo the Trump administration had a group chat going in which they were discussing attacks in Yemen—information that, quite obviously, is classified—and they added the editor of The Atlantic to the chat, apparently by accident. Yeah, really. The Washington Post reports: “Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the message thread revealed in an extraordinary report by the Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘appears to be authentic,’ and that administration officials were ‘reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.’ The ‘inadvertent number’ belonged to Goldberg, whose article details a robust policy discussion that occurred in the lead-up to a March 15 military operation targeting Yemen’s Houthi militants. Goldberg reported being added to the group chat, which occurred on the encrypted messaging platform Signal, by President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz. Other participants included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the Atlantic article says.” (That linked-to piece in The Atlantic is DEFINITELY worth your time.)

• And finally … if you don’t have enough to worry about in your life right now, here’s something just for you, compliments of Wired magazine. The headline is “The Quantum Apocalypse Is Coming. Be Very Afraid,” and here is the lede: “One day soon, at a research lab near Santa Barbara or Seattle or a secret facility in the Chinese mountains, it will begin: the sudden unlocking of the world’s secrets. Your secrets. Cybersecurity analysts call this Q-Day—the day someone builds a quantum computer that can crack the most widely used forms of encryption. These math problems have kept humanity’s intimate data safe for decades, but on Q-Day, everything could become vulnerable, for everyone: emails, text messages, anonymous posts, location histories, bitcoin wallets, police reports, hospital records, power stations, the entire global financial system. … When (expert Michele) Mosca and his colleagues surveyed cybersecurity experts last year, the forecast was sobering: a one-in-three chance that Q-Day happens before 2035. And the chances it has already happened in secret? Some people I spoke to estimated 15 percent—about the same as you’d get from one spin of the revolver cylinder.” Eek.

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