The law cannot simultaneously uphold same-sex marriage and a child's right to his mother and father.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed Senate Republicans for passing a measure providing billions in ICE and CBP funding.
The proposed cut is estimated to strip modest fruit and vegetable benefits from nearly 5.4 million WIC participants.
Embattled Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner faces further problems after Republicans announced they were pouring $3 million into incumbent Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) reelection campaign. Republican-aligned PAC One Nation announced the new investment after a flurry of negative attention directed against Platner, as more scandals continue to pile up. It also launched a new ad […]
Why in the world did the Department of Justice just declare that President Donald Trump has the right to demolish the Statue of Liberty?During oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington Friday, lawyers for the DOJ presented the government’s case for continuing construction on Trump’s increasingly expensive White House ballroom without the approval of Congress. In order to demonstrate Trump’s supposedly far-reaching power to destroy and alter national monuments at whim, the DOJ lawyers claimed that if the president wanted to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty in New York, there would be no one with the standing to challenge him. “If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors—that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast—nothing can be done?” Judge Patricia Millett asked, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney. “I think that’s right, yes,” the government responded. The Statue of Liberty, like the White House, is managed by the National Park Service. Demolishing it would require legislative approval and rigorous public and regulatory review under the National Historic Preservation Act. This argument features in the DOJ’s primary claim that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the group behind the lawsuit, has no standing to challenge the construction. The DOJ also argued that construction on the ballroom can’t actually be stopped by the courts, and could only be stopped by Congress. All of this further illustrates just how powerful the Trump administration believes itself to be: Its modus operandi is simply to break our nation’s laws with such speed that no one can stop it.
The Justice Department was in court on Friday fighting for President Donald Trump's bulldozing of the White House East Wing for his ballroom.The oral arguments Friday deal with who has the right to sue over the destruction of the White House. Matthew Russell Lee, who runs "Inner City Press," was live-posting the back and forth. Among the first things he quoted the DOJ as saying was, "There is an aspect of self-inflicted harm here."But all arguments about the size, appeal or funding of the ballroom don't matter because the DOJ claims the case doesn't have standing to begin with. "In an appeals court fight over the White House ballroom, DOJ says the federal government could quickly bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, and no one would have standing to sue over the changes once the demolition is done," wrote Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney on X. The exchange came from Judge Patricia Millett, who questioned, "If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors — that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast — nothing can be done?"The DOJ agreed. During the government shutdown, Americans watched in horror as large machinery tore into the historic building. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration in an effort to block construction of a 90,000-square-foot structure. They argue that the project moved ahead without the required public review and approvals. In their court filing, the group said that no president has the right to tear down part of the White House or build a ballroom on public land without giving the public a chance to weigh in, and that the administration should have gone through the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts long before demolition began.A federal judge already put a hold on the building until Congress could weigh in. Trump claimed that because the funds were being raised through private donors, Congress had no role in the matter. Not long after ,Trump asked Congress for $1 billion for the project. The court battle has become a larger fight over whether Trump, or any president, can treat the White House grounds as a personal private canvas for their own projects. Former first ladies like Michelle Obama and Jill Biden have denounced it, saying that the building is the "people's house" and that their family upheld that belief in their treatment of it.
Congressional Republicans are beginning to challenge the president openly.
Embattled Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner faces further problems after Republicans announced they were pouring $3 million into incumbent Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) reelection campaign. Republican-aligned PAC One Nation announced the new investment after a flurry of negative attention directed against Platner, as more scandals continue to pile up. It also launched a new ad […]
The British government earlier this week barred left-wing political commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur from entering the U.K. ahead of several speaking events. The Home Office said it was canceling their travel permits because “their presence in the U.K. may not be conducive to the public good.” Piker and Uygur, who are related, are both outspoken in their criticism of Israel. While the government did not cite a specific reason for the ban, some lawmakers and pro-Israel groups had accused the two of promoting antisemitism, which they reject. “I find what the British government did here to be objectionable. I find it to be disgusting. I also find it to be terrifying,” Piker tells Democracy Now! “I think it’s a sign that we’re … headed down a very different — dare I say, fascist — direction in the Western world.” Piker also discusses his participation in a recent humanitarian mission to Cuba, for which he is reportedly under investigation by the Trump administration, and his support for progressive and antiwar candidates in this year’s midterm elections. “We don’t have a lot of time. Fascism is here,” Piker says.