“There is no question in my mind of irreparable harm to the plaintiff,” Lamberth said of the administration’s actions during the hearing.
Lamberth granted the preliminary injunction, allowing work on the project to restart while the government conducts review of its concerns. The order said Revolution Wind is likely to suffer irreparable harm if it isn’t able to restart work on the project, which is 80 percent complete.
Lamberth said that if work does not proceed on the project, the “entire enterprise could collapse” and he pointed to a specialized ship necessary to complete the project that will no longer be available after December.
The project, which is being developed by the Danish wind giant Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables, has argued that the stop-work order is illegal and “reflects a shockingly expansive theory of agency power to undo prior regulatory approvals.” Lawyers for the companies argued that the Interior Department violated the major questions doctrine with the pause.
Revolution Wind has said the stop-work order “will inflict devastating and irreparable harm” on the project. The company has already spent or committed about $5 billion on the project and will incur more than $1 billion in costs if the project is canceled, it said.”
““They are putting it directly under the administrator and subjecting it to political interference, subjecting research at the office to political interference,” said Nicole Cantello, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents EPA Region 5 employees. “They are splitting apart ORD for no reason.”
Cantello said the Office of Research and Development has produced “unparalleled” research that scientists have relied on for decades to craft policy and regulations that protect the public and the environment. Splitting up the office, she said, is meant to intimidate scientists and will undermine the credibility of EPA science.”
“Federal law enforcement last year investigated Homan, who allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives seeking government contracts, according to an MSNBC report on Saturday. The outlet reported that Homan indicated he could help the undercover agents secure government contracts. The Justice Department waited to see if Homan planned to fulfil this claim, but the case stalled and was closed this summer.”
Does he still have the money?
… Homan is a close ally of the president, and served for a stint as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first term. The border czar has been among the most visible defenders of the president’s second term immigration agenda, and has been a key player in executing the administration’s deportation policy.
The president of the United States rambled falsities about important health science. Not good. Bad.
I’m all for a serious evidence-based discussion on the risks and benefits of different medications, but the nation’s leader ad libbing bullshit is not helpful.
“I think you’re having a shutdown because there are masked men in the streets; I think you’re having a shutdown because the FCC is using its powers to silence comedians; I think you’re having a shutdown because Donald Trump is weaponizing the workings of the federal government into something that is like what we see in Hungary; I think you’re having a shutdown because we are in fundamentally abnormal political circumstances and a shutdown is one of very few ways for Democrats to yell really loudly, ‘stop, this is some kind of emergency…we are going to try to throw ourselves in front of this truck’. Even if healthcare polls well…I think on some level, both your people and the public…know that this is not really about healthcare.”
Trump defines him ending a war as a war or conflict ending or having a cease fire if the U.S. was involved in some way, even if Trump’s involvement had no impact on the outcome or if the participants say that Trump’s involvement wasn’t important.
“Trump does all the same things as the authoritarians Levitsky and Ziblatt studied: He has refused to accept electoral defeats; called political opponents criminals and tried to jail them even while backing his own violent supporters; and lashed out at opponents and the media as “enemies of the people” — a chilling phrase that echoes Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
But Trump’s authoritarianism also resembles that of dangerous populists who failed to kill democracy. Careful studies that never seem to get much press find that only about a fifth of dangerous populists actually kill democracy, including in different regions and across different time spans. If you’re serious about weighing the Trump threat, you should be asking what makes the difference between countries where democracy died and countries where it survives.”