August, 04 2016, 12:15pm EDT
Lawsuits Filed Over Donald Trump's Privatization of Pennsylvania Avenue, "America's Main Street"
Civil Rights Group Challenges Buffer Zone that Restricts Free Speech at New Trump International Hotel
Defending the right to protest, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has gone to court regarding the "deals" reached by federal and District of Columbia officials with the Trump Organization that appear to privatize portions of Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the country's most historically significant sites for free speech and public assembly.
A section of Pennsylvania Avenue, a National Historic Site that runs from the White House to the Capitol, will be turned over for the use of the Trump Organization along with the large (7,000 square foot) previously public plaza that features an 1889 Benjamin Franklin statue and that abuts the soon-to-open Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office, as well as a portion of the sidewalk space abutting the Avenue.
The turnover of these spaces creates a "buffer zone" that appears to suppress or extinguish free speech in proximity to the building leased by Trump, restricting access to priority or exclusive use of the Trump Organization.
For over five months, through multiple Freedom of Information Act requests, the PCJF has sought disclosure of information regarding negotiations, agreements, and the terms and conditions of restrictions on, or exclusions of, free speech activities and public access to these spaces. The PCJF has issued public records requests to the General Services Administration, the National Park Service/Department of the Interior, and the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department and Mayor's Office seeking communications, emails, requests, applications and agreements, as well as any evaluations of the effect of imposed restrictions on public access to public space and the exercise of First Amendment rights. The agencies and entities in whose possession this information remains have refused to produce requested information despite a legal obligation to make such information public.
Faced with stonewalling by these government agencies, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund has now filed two lawsuits against both the D.C. and federal governments for violating Freedom of Information Act statutes by their failure to turn over requested documents and communications, and seeking disgorgement of the withheld materials. The lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the D.C. Superior Court.
In addition to its impact on the public's ability to engage in First Amendment activities and assembly, the loss of this public space will dramatically affect signature local events, such as the Cherry Blossom Festival and other festivals that take place annually and impact the cultural life of the city.
PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard said: "The public spaces of Pennsylvania Avenue, including the sidewalks and plaza abutting the Trump Hotel, belong to the American people not to Donald Trump. Pennsylvania Avenue is one of the most significant places in the United States for the exercise of free speech rights. It is critical to democracy to challenge Trump's land grab of America's Main Street. Allowing Trump to privatize public space on Pennsylvania Avenue also puts all similar public space in jeopardy. These public spaces have been consecrated by the expressions of democracy and dissent. That ground may now be pulled out from underneath the feet of those who wish to engage in protest in proximity to the Trump International Hotel, owned by a presidential candidate whose expression of openly racist and sexist views has been accompanied by an extraordinary hostility to the First Amendment. From his calls to have protestors beaten to his revocation of press credentials for any unfavorable coverage, the threat he poses to free speech has been made evident."
PCJF Legal Director Carl Messineo said: "The new Trump International Hotel is a beacon for protest. Trump's marriage of capital interests, political views, presidential ambitions and reality TV showmanship invites protest, free speech and assembly on the public spaces in proximity to the Trump Hotel. In 1965, Pennsylvania Avenue was declared a National Historic Site because of its unique role in the Nation's history for the great parades, protests, national celebrations, and expressions of free speech and dissent that have historically occurred on its venerated public spaces. Trump may not choose to set up shop on Pennsylvania Avenue and then build a wall or insulate himself from public assembly and protest. These spaces belong to the people and they intend to exercise their rights there."
To read the lawsuit against federal government agencies, click here.
To read the lawsuit against the District of Columbia, click here.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is a public interest legal organization that brings a unique and cutting edge approach dedicated to the defense of human and civil rights secured by law, the protection of free speech and dissent, and the elimination of prejudice and discrimination. Among the PCJF cases are constitutional law, civil rights, women's rights, economic justice matters and Freedom of Information Act cases.
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'Unhinged' Israeli Ambassador Literally Shreds UN Charter Ahead of Palestine Vote
"Shame on you," said Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan shortly before the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution supporting full membership for Palestine.
May 10, 2024
Shortly before the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution Friday supporting full U.N. membership for Palestine, Israel's ambassador took to the podium and put a prop copy of the U.N.'s founding document through a handheld paper shredder.
In a speech that one journalist described as "unhinged," Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan described Palestinians as "modern-day Nazis" and condemned the U.N. General Assembly for choosing to "reward" them with "rights and privileges."
"You are shredding the U.N. Charter with your own hands," Erdan said as he fed a small copy of the document through a miniature paper shredder. "Shame on you."
Watch:
Watch: Israeli ambassador to the UN @giladerdan1 used a paper shredder to shred the UN charter on the podium of the UN general assembly ahead of a vote that will give new privileges to the Palestinians at the UN pic.twitter.com/mWQ85c8uwK
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 10, 2024
Erdan's bizarre performance came just before the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution urging the Security Council to reconsider Palestine's request to become a full U.N. member following a U.S. veto last month. Palestine is currently a nonmember observer state of the U.N.
The General Assembly voted by a margin of 143 to 9—with 25 abstentions—in support of the resolution. The nine countries that voted no were the United States, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Papua New Guinea.
In addition to backing its bid for full U.N. membership, the resolution gives Palestine "the right to introduce and co-sponsor proposals as well as amendments within the assembly," The Guardianreported.
Riyad Mansour, Palestine's permanent observer at the U.N., said ahead of Friday's vote that support for the resolution "is a vote for Palestinian existence."
"I stand before you as lives continue falling apart in the Gaza Strip," said Mansour, noting that "more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, 80,000 have been maimed, 2 million have been displaced, and everything has been destroyed" by Israeli forces over the past seven months.
"No words can capture what such loss and trauma signifies for Palestinians," Mansour added.
"The U.S. and Israel are isolated and the world is on the side of Palestine."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, called the U.N. General Assembly's passage of the resolution "an unprecedented move that shows once again how unbelievably isolated [U.S. President Joe] Biden has made the U.S."
In anticipation of Friday's vote, a group of Republican U.S. senators led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced legislation that would halt U.S. funding for any entity—including the U.N.—that gives Palestine "any status, rights, or privileges beyond observer status."
Current law requires the U.S. to "cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state—which could mean a cutoff in dues and voluntary contributions to the U.N. from its largest contributor," The Associated Pressreported Friday.
Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. official who resigned in October over the body's failure to act in the face of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, wrote that Friday's vote further shows that "the U.S. and Israel are isolated and the world is on the side of Palestine."
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'Sad What We Are Doing': Global CO2 Increase Sets New All-Time Record
"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," said Bill McKibben. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
May 10, 2024
The average monthly concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by a record 4.7 parts per million between March 2023 and March 2024, according to new data from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
The spike, reported by the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography on Wednesday, reveals "the increasing pace of CO2 addition to the atmosphere by human activities," the university said.
"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," author and long-time climate activist Bill McKibbenwrote on social media in response to the news. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
"Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Scientists have been tracking rising CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa since 1958, and their upward trajectory has come to be known as the "Keeling Curve," named for Charles Keeling, who began the measurements. The curve has become an important symbol of the climate crisis—making visible how the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of vegetation has released more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, where it traps heat from escaping into space and raises global temperatures.
For most of human history, concentrations have hovered around 280ppm, and the curve's first measurement put them at 313. Sixty-five years later, C02 concentrations averaged 419.3 ppm in 2023, a level not seen since 4.3 million years ago when sea levels were around 75 feet higher and parts of today's Arctic tundra were forests. As of Wednesday, the Keeling Curve reported a daily concentration of 426.72 ppm.
The record jump from March 2023 to March 2024 surpasses the last record jump of 4.1 ppm from June 2015 to June 2016.
"We sadly continue to break records in the CO2 rise rate," Ralph Keeling, Charles' son who now directs the Scripps CO2 Program, said. "The ultimate reason is continued global growth in the consumption of fossil fuels."
The record leaps from both 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 were also influenced by active El Niño events. The El Niño phenomenon increases atmospheric carbon dioxide because it leads to warmer, drier temperatures in the tropics, which decrease vegetation and encourage fires. Atmospheric CO2 levels tend to rise especially quickly toward the end of an El Niño cycle, and last March's CO2 levels were unusually low, leading to a larger gap in the 12-month period.
This year's rate of increase during the current El Niño is significantly larger than the one that took place in 2016. As Scripps explained:
The increase from February 2023 to February of this year was 4.0 ppm, compared to 3.7 for the 2016 El Niño. The increase from January 2023 to January of this year was 3.4 ppm, compared to 2.6 for the 2016 El Niño.
The growth rate from April 2023 to April 2024 dropped to 3.6 ppm, but taking into account the first four months of 2024, the growth rate is well above that for 2016. If this El Niño follows the pattern of the last El Niño, the world might experience a very high growth rate for several more months, Keeling said.
However, any regular climate variations such as El Niño events occur over the longer-term rise in both fossil fuel emissions and greenhouse gas levels.
"The rate of rise will almost certainly come down, but it is still rising and in order to stabilize the climate, you need CO2 level to be falling," Keeling toldThe Guardian. "Clearly, that isn't happening. Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, wrote in response, "We're riding the Venus Express."
The record jump in CO2 concentrations comes as 2023 was the hottest year both on record and in around 100,000 years. Of the 12 months covered by the March 2023 to March 2024 period, 10 of them (June through March) were the hottest of that month on record.
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Analysis Finds Nearly 100% of Campus Gaza Protests Have Been Peaceful
"If someone is speaking more about 'violent encampments' than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases," said one supporter.
May 10, 2024
Just over a week after U.S. President Joe Biden defended police crackdowns on dozens of anti-war protests on college campuses by declaring that students don't have "the right to cause chaos," a new analysis on Friday showed that nearly all the campus demonstrations have not been violent at all—and many that have descended into violence did so due to police interventions or aggressive counter-protests.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) examined 553 campus protests that took place across the U.S. between April 18-May 3 and found that fewer than 20 resulted in serious violence or property damage—meaning that 97% of the protests remained non-violent.
The group categorizes demonstrations as violent only when "physical violence that rises above pushing or shoving" takes place or when property damage includes protesters "breaking a window or worse."
ACLED's latest analysis comes after a previous study released May 2, which found 99% of campus protests in the first days of the burgeoning student-led movement against Israel's assault on Gaza had remained peaceful.
In the latest report, analyzing the 3% of protests that became violent, ACLED found that at half of those students clashed with police who had been sent in to clear the peaceful student encampments—which should have been allowed to proceed unimpeded according to Biden's speech about the protests on May 2, in which he said, "Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to controversial issues."
At one protest at Washington University in St. Louis, three police officers were injured, and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison on May 1, a state trooper was reportedly injured after being hit with a skateboard.
ACLED found two instances of serious property damage: a protest at Portland State University where students shattered glass and damaged computers and other furniture while occupying a library, and the occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, where students broke windows.
But examining the campus protests as a whole, ACLED did not find evidence of the "disorder" Biden spoke of when he said earlier this month that "vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations... threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not a peaceful protest."
The most significant violence that's erupted at a campus protest so far, according to ACLED's data, was an attack by a pro-Israel mob on an encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, which went on for hours as police stood by.
"If someone is speaking more about 'violent encampments' than they are about violent genocide of the Palestinians, they have a problem reflective of deep and dangerous biases," said Tanya Zakrison, a surgeon at University of Chicago Medical Center, close to the college campus where students on Thursday said police shoved and hit them as they removed an encampment this week.
ACLED documented at least 70 examples of violent police crackdowns, including the use of chemical agents and batons to disperse crowds.
According to The New York Times, more than 2,800 people have now been arrested at campus protests at more than 50 colleges in the United States. The crackdowns have appeared to mobilize Palestinian rights supporters in the U.S. and abroad, with campus demonstrations spreading in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.
ACLED found that police have forcefully intervened against pro-Palestinian protests both on and off college campuses about five times as often as they have against pro-Israel demonstrations.
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