A federal judge has blocked construction of Donald Trump’s arch for 14 days after a final vote approving the structure passed late Thursday despite fierce opposition from citizens who voiced concern during a marathon public hearing.
The National Capital Planning Commission, one of two federal agencies that oversees architectural and design changes in Washington, gave the final green light to build the 250-foot monument at its virtual meeting on Thursday after more than 120 citizens, many of them veterans, lined up to plead with the panel to block the project.
Within an hour of its passage, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who is overseeing a high profile lawsuit to stop construction, ruled that the administration, the defendants in the case, would be prohibited from “initiating, making or otherwise effectuating” any “construction-related activity” near the proposed site of the arch.
Wonder if they start it anyway and see if anything happens. It’s one of the dumbest things and so vain of him like all the other projects and gold trim BS he does, and wastes tax revenue on all this trash and suffering he causes. Public funds should be used for good, not all this bad fruit from bad people. Warnings were given and foretold but ignored.
The fucking Death Arch, man… lol. What else are you going to call it when it’s meant to be full of drones and snipers?
Fucker tried to sneak it in just before midnight, and the judge was like, “nope!“
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
The elite can wait to have their monuments until every single person in the US, and preferably the world, is housed and fed.
“Elite” is such a subjective term. Call them what they are: rich assholes.
lmao the “elite” can go fuck themselves and build their own monuments by hand if they want them so badly.
I don’t understand why the FAA opinion doesn’t carry more weight considering the are saying it’s too tall and will be a massive safety hazard for the airport.
The judge after purposefully waiting until the last possible moment to block it.
“Two can play at this game…”
Based on what has it been prohibited?
This initial TRO (temporary restraining order) is basically a 14-day pause while other stuff continues before the Court.
Oversimplified, the Plaintiffs basically go “Hey! Someone is doing a thing that we have a problem with! You need to stop them from starting, as the very act of starting causes us harm, in the legal sense of the word.” The Judge will eventually grant a fuller ruling, but the back and forth takes a while to make sure everyone doesn’t have to rush. The TRO is put in place to buy that time.
To grant a TRO, there are a few requirements that must be met.
- Likelihood of success on the merits (Does the Plaintiff have a reasonably good argument)
- Likelihood of Irreparable Harm (If the TRO isn’t granted, will harm occur that can’t be undone. For example, once a building is torn down, it’s already gone.)
- Public Interest (Do the public’s interests align with the Plaintiff)
- Balance of Equities (Is the TRO not unreasonably unfair to one side or the other)
The Judge’s decision is 33 pages long, and is based on various factors from several months of litigation on the topic. It’s a little long, but pretty easy to parse. If you’re inclined to read for yourself, there’s a link in the article. The TL;DR is that D.C., Virginia, a Vietnam Vets group, and a couple other interested parties all have various oppositions to the arch due to economic, traffic, safety, historic, etc. claims. Their harm is material, imminent, and frankly, the Government did a shit job of defending themselves.(A few days ago they went “But national security! It’s to protect the President!” and refused to elaborate.) So, the TRO is in effect.
The bostonglobe.com article that I just posted has that information. In short, harm to the plaintiffs and unrecoverable costs to DC and Virginia.
She later issued a memorandum explaining some of the reasoning for the order, including its potential economic impacts and traffic delays.
tis a poor article
Yeah I glanced over the article in search of a legal reason for the prohibition and it’s not really talked about. The concerns raised by the protestors further in the article seem to have more legal ammunition. Really strange.
