Halt

Now we get the battle over whether or not to build a pointless gigantic ugly arch in DC.

A federal judge blocked construction of President Trump’s arch, stopping work the administration had hoped to begin immediately. 

Just before midnight Friday, District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order — finalized and made public minutes later — barring the government from any construction work for 14 days, granting a request filed days earlier by the governments of D.C. and Virginia.

She laid out her reasoning in a 33-page opinion, in which she scrutinized the administration’s competing justifications for the arch — particularly its sudden emphasis on national security — and agreed that the local governments are likely to be harmed by its construction. The 250-foot arch would stand in Memorial Circle, a traffic island on the bridge linking the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery.

Trump administration officials have said work would take place 20 hours a day, year-round, for two to three years. In addition to questioning the arch’s legality, D.C. and Virginia argue the construction would cause all sorts of financial and logistical disruptions. 

“The threatened harms will materialize as soon as construction begins, in part because the traffic disruptions will occur immediately,” Chutkan agreed. 

For the sake of a massive ugly Nazi-esque arch that nobody other than Trump wants. Let’s just not.

Chutkan’s ruling came less than two hours after a federal planning commission packed with presidential allies granted final approval to the arch in an 8-4 vote. The National Capital Planning Commission heard nearly eight hours of impassioned pleas from veterans, lawmakers, residents and concerned citizens opposed to the structure.

The Trump administration had previously told the court it could begin excavation work that same day, despite lacking authorization from Congress and an expanding legal challenge.

Still acting the dictator.

Among their many concerns, critics said the structure would obstruct an important view, insult service members buried on the hallowed ground of nearby Arlington National Cemetery and add a layer of risk to the notoriously complicated D.C. airspace. They have questions about its legality and its cost, which the administration has not confirmed.

Many see the arch as part of Trump’s unilateral effort to memorialize himself in the nation’s capital — and described Democrats’ midterm sweep as a referendum against it.

Many see it that way? What other way is there to see it? Of course it’s all about his stratospheric ego.

At a hearing last week, Chutkan questioned how the administration plans to reconcile the arch as both a military structure and a tourist attraction. Critics made that point throughout the day on Thursday, at the rally and the commission meeting.

“We are mightily perplexed by the assertion that this vainglorious arch will serve simultaneously as a gold-encrusted tourist attraction, outfitted with a gift shop and a viewing platform, and as a military fortification equipped with snipers, drones and live munitions,” Susan Douglas of the activist group Third Act DMV said at the protest. “This is nothing more than the fever dream of a self-aggrandizing tyrant embellished by his sycophantic secretary of defense.”

Nicely put.

Will Trump just go ahead anyway? He always has before.

Weissman said Congress doesn’t need to act to stop the arch, since it never actively approved it. That decision, he said, will be up to the courts.

But, he added: “It would be fine if Congress takes additional measures to block construction, since we’ve seen this lawless administration circumvent the law and court orders so frequently.”

Virginia Rep. Don Beyer has introduced a bill that would prohibit and defund the arch, and said Thursday he expects the number of co-sponsors to grow from 80 to at least 200 in the new year.

And Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, warned commissioners that companies and “officials working to advance a project not authorized by Congress will put themselves at legal risk.”

But it’s worth it for the sake of The Leader?