Washington DC

blank 7/18

MILITARY OCCUPATION

KNOCK DOWN EAST WING WH

LAF SQ FOTO OP

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CCI 1 26 GMAIL

GUK

...Big oil ramped up its efforts to evade accountability for its past actions this year, said Wiles. They were aided by allies like Trump, who in April signed an executive order instructing the Justice Department to halt climate accountability litigation and similar policies.

In July, members of Congress also tried to cut off Washington DC’s access to funding to enforce its consumer protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims” by inserting language into a proposed House appropriations bill. A committee passed that version of the text, but the full House never voted on it.

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AN 12 25

Outside of Union Station in Washington, D.C., activists have been regularly demonstrating against policies of the second Trump Administration — from immigration and mass deportations to the economy to health care.

Now, according to Washington's Fox Channel 5, the U.S. Park Police are ordering protesters to leave the area. But some of them are saying that they have a permit and shouldn't have to vacate.

Nana-Sentuo Bonsu and Jillian Smith of Fox Channel 5 report, "These protesters told Fox 5 on Tuesday, (December 9), that they aren't backing down…. If you've been to Union Station recently, you've likely noticed the tents pitched outside. They belong to different groups protesting different issues — mainly against the current administration."

One of the groups told Fox 5 that the Park Police told them they have to leave the area morning despite having a permit to protest.

Matthew Gordon, a retired U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has been protesting against Trump's use of federalized National Guard troops in Washington. And now, he is among the protesters being told to leave the area.

Gordon told Fox 5, "The National Park Service, who manages the plaza and the circle, they told us we have until 12 p.m. Wednesday…. to vacate the premises to begin the 'beautification and construction' on Columbus Circle."

*Read the full Fox Channel 5 article at this link.

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last wd lawrence no dep cos ever spoke longer than vp 8 25

an 8 25

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller lashed out at Washington, D.C. residents protesting President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and his deployment of more than a thousand federal agents — including FBI, DEA, DHS, ATF, and ICE — to patrol the Capital’s streets. In striking remarks, Miller cast the demonstrators as white and the victims of crime as Black. His charges conflict with a new survey just released that shows the vast majority of D.C. residents oppose the Trump administration’s takeover and feel safe in their neighborhoods.

Miller told reporters that the people protesting the Trump administration’s federal takeover of the city’s streets are “elderly white hippies,” “stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” and, “crazy communists” who “have no roots, they have no connections to the city, they have no families they are raising in this city, they have no one that they are sending to school in this city, they have no jobs in this city, they have no connections to this community at all.”

Those people, Miller alleged, are “the ones who’ve been advocating for the one percent: the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers.”

IFrame Content

Whereas, Miller claimed, “residents who lived in Washington, D.C. their entire lives, their parents lived here, their grandparents lived here, and they have lived for generations in intolerable conditions of crime and decay.”

“There are hundreds of residents of this city who are shot in street violence every single year, making [it] one the most violent cities on planet Earth,” he claimed, which is not supported by evidence.

“And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C are Black,” Miller alleged, inaccurately. About 43 percent of D.C.’s residents are Black.

“This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens, for generations,” he claimed. “And President Trump is the one who is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department to support the National Guard and our federal law enforcement officers.”

“So we’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old, and we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.,” Miller said.

A damning Washington Post poll released Wednesday, however, found 79 percent of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s decision to take over the Metropolitan Police, and to deploy National Guard troops and federal law enforcement agents onto D.C. city streets.

“On Monday, Trump said Washington had been ‘the most unsafe place anywhere,’ but 78 percent of residents say they feel very or somewhat safe in their neighborhoods,” the Post reported.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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mma

### Charlie Kirk: “It's time to federalize DC, roll in the tanks, bring in the military”

08/06/25

August 6, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, posted to Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): I believe it's time to exercise the federalization of Washington, DC. Bring in the troops, cut out the crime. Federalize Washington, DC. President Trump has the power to do it. He has exercising home rule over the nation's capital. Make DC the safest city in America. Bring in the marines. Call in the Insurrection Act. Make the crime go to zero. Use it as an example. Make DC as safe as Tokyo. Make DC as safe as Singapore. Make DC as safe as Seoul, South Korea. We can do it, but we choose not to because we don't want to offend the teenagers. You see, I know so many of you when you're out at night, you're worried about teenager crime. How can we call ourselves a superpower when our great capital is a dangerous dump? Beijing isn't like this. Tokyo's not like this, but DC is, and it's because we're choosing. It's time to federalize DC, roll in the tanks, bring in the military. Federalize the town, and bring teenage crime to zero.z

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7 25 GMAIL

Read our_full blog post_on our website.

An attempt to defund the District of Columbia’s consumer protection lawsuit against Big Oil is part of a wider attack on climate accountability lawsuits

As Big Oil and its allies lobby to shield the fossil fuel industry from a growing number of climate deception lawsuits, Congress is now taking aim at a case filed by the nation’s capital.

Recently proposed legislation would prohibit the District of Columbia from using any funds to enforce its consumer protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims” — a clear attack on D.C.’s ongoing lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.

“The fossil fuel industry and its allies are trying to kill any and all lawsuits that would hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate lies and the damage they’ve caused — and this assault on D.C.’s ability to enforce its own consumer protection laws is part of their playbook,” said CCI President Richard Wiles.

Read our full blog post on our website

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GOP FUCKERY 6 25? FOREIGNER VOTE

6 23 DC election integrity BS AA

https://www.alternet.org/unworthy-of-this-body-raskin/

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/06/25/district-columbia-fraud-lawsuit-exxon-oil-climate-disinformation

Washington, D.C. is suing the four largest investor-owned oil and gas companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell — for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change, including historically undermining climate science and even now using deceptive advertising about the companies’ role in leading solutions to the climate crisis.

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced the consumer fraud lawsuit on Thursday, June 25. The lawsuit claims that the four oil majors violated the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act by engaging in misleading acts and practices around the marketing, promotion, and sale of fossil fuel products, which produce globe-warming pollution. The D.C. lawsuit alleges that these companies knew since at least the 1950s about the harmful consequences of burning fossil fuels and that they engaged in a campaign to deceive the public about those risks.

[twet]

For decades, these oil and gas companies spent millions to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of profits,” said Attorney General Racine. “The defendants violated the District’s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels threatens the health of District residents and the environment. [The Office of Attorney General] filed this suit to end these disinformation campaigns and to hold these companies accountable for their deceptive practices.”

In particular, the D.C. Attorney General's Office called out the oil industry's use of fake grassroots groups, such as the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which started out as a front group for tobacco giant Philip Morris in 1993. This group had transitioned to become the Advancement of Sound Science Center in 1997 and was run out of the home of climate science denier Steve Milloy, who most recently worked in public relations for coal company Murray Energy. The group has now been phased out of existence.

The lawsuit also highlighted the role of oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition — a fossil fuel-backed group launched in 1989 that for decades influenced the scientific process behind the United Nations climate assessments, using lobbyists and industry-funded scientists to attack climate scientists and manipulate the international UN climate negotiations.

The District of Columbia lawsuit is asking the court to order the companies to end their disinformation campaigns and pay civil penalties.

D.C. Joins Minnesota in Suing Oil Companies

The announcement from D.C. comes just one day after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that Minnesota is suing Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute for allegedly leading a 30-year campaign undermining climate science and misleading the public about the dangers of fossil fuels.

Already over a dozen cities, counties, and states across the country have filed lawsuits against ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies in an attempt to hold the industry accountable for what is now a well-documented campaign to cast doubt on climate science and delay climate policies. While these lawsuits are grounded in varying legal claims such as public nuisance, product liability theories, and consumer fraud, they all aim to hold companies like Exxon and Chevron liable for deceptive communication about their products to protect profits, much like litigation against manufacturers of tobacco, lead paint, asbestos, and opioids.

Like the Minnesota lawsuit filed the day before, the D.C. complaint explains the striking similarities between the tobacco industry’s campaign to deceive the public about the health risks of smoking, and the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to deliberately downplay the climate impacts of fossil fuels.

According to a press release from the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, “The [oil] companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the industry’s misinformation campaign — they also funded and promoted some of the same scientists hired by tobacco companies. These scientists disputed the conclusions of climate researchers, despite not having any training in climate science themselves.”

The D.C. complaint also details how the fossil fuel industry’s communication tactics shifted once the climate science became indisputable

[twt vid]

More recently these oil and gas companies have tried to portray themselves as environmentally responsible companies committed to solving climate change through investments in clean energy, and misleadingly promoting the fossil fuel natural gas as “clean.” The lawsuit claims this portrayal is deceptive because the companies’ actual investments in renewable energy like wind and solar are miniscule (Shell directed just 1.2 percent towards “greener” energy, for example), and because fossil fuel products like natural gas still produce carbon emissions, and release the powerful greenhouse gas methane during production, and therefore are not actually “clean.”

“The fact of the matter is that no fossil fuel product is ‘safe,’ nor ‘clean.’ It all creates carbon emissions, and it all represents a threat to consumers,” Attorney General Racine said during a press call.

ExxonMobil is facing other lawsuits for alleged deceptive advertising and misleading consumers, including from the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an environmental organization called Beyond Pesticides, and most recently the state of Minnesota.

Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton told DeSmog, “This lawsuit further demonstrates the ongoing coordinated, politically motivated campaign against energy companies. Legal proceedings like this waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change.”

According to Chevron spokesperson Sean Comey, “The claims against the company are meritless. This type of litigation detracts from constructive efforts to address the important policy issues presented by climate change.”

According to D.C.’s Deputy Attorney General in the Public Advocacy Division, Kate Konopka, the District did not coordinate with Minnesota and was not even aware of Attorney General Ellison’s lawsuit until it was filed yesterday. The D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has been investigating Big Oil and ExxonMobil in particular for potential fraud for the past several years, as had attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts.

The investigations followed groundbreaking investigative reporting in 2015 revealing the extent of Exxon’s early knowledge of climate change. Over the last five years researchers and journalists have uncovered even more evidence demonstrating not only what fossil fuel companies knew about climate science and when, but how they worked to conceal that knowledge and create a false impression of scientific uncertainty.

“The remarkable thing about these cases is how much evidence we have even before we get to discovery,” Kert Davies, founder and director of the watchdog group Climate Investigations Center, told DeSmog. “We have a mountain of evidence of what they knew and what they did to deceive the public about the threat of climate change. And yet we’ve only scratched the surface.”

WTF?!

:{What Is Happening at the Venezuelan Embassy Is an Outrage:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700"):}:

Medea Benjamin - May 7, 2019 - Local Peace Economy

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/05/07/what-is-happening-at-the-venezuelan-embassy-is-an-outrage/

Right here in Washington, D.C., an unprecedented showdown is unfolding. Venezuelan supporters of self-declared interim president Juan Guaido have been trying to take over the Venezuelan Embassy. This goes against international law, the wishes of the government in control in Venezuela, and the dogged determination of a group of U.S. citizens called the Embassy Protection Collective, who have been living in the embassy since April 15.

A takeover of the embassy of a sovereign nation whose government holds power and is recognized by the United Nations would be illegal according to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which says that diplomatic premises are inviolable and the receiving State must protect the premises against any “intrusion, disturbance of the peace or impairment of its dignity.”

This has nothing to do with whether one likes Nicolás Maduro or considers the Venezuelan elections fair. My Saudi friends in Washington, D.C., hate Mohammad bin Salman—a man who has never been elected by anyone—but the U.S. government would never let them take over the Saudi Embassy. Chinese dissidents say that “winners” of Chinese rigged elections—with only the Communist Party allowed to exist—should not be recognized by the rest of the world, but they would never get access to the Chinese Embassies. Likewise for dissidents from Egypt, Honduras, Syria, Zambia, Congo, Romania, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.—all countries with highly questionable elections, to put it mildly.

The inflammatory act of handing over the Venezuelan Embassy to Guaidó supporters would also have the potential to dramatically escalate the conflict between the United States and Venezuela. If the Trump administration were to allow this, the Maduro government would likely reciprocate by taking over the U.S. Embassy. This could be just what war hawks John Bolton and Elliott Abrams are looking for as a justification for a U.S. military intervention.

Determined to avoid another war, a group of U.S. peace activists sought and received permission from the legitimate Venezuelan government to form an Embassy Protection Collective. Since April 15, a group has been living in the embassy, sleeping on couches and floors, while outside supporters have been providing supplies and joining them for meals and educational events.

At first the Venezuelan diplomats were still working in the building, but the State Department ordered them to leave the country by April 25. Since then, we have been alone, holding the embassy so that a diplomatic solution can be worked out similar to the situation with Iran, where the U.S. Interests Section in Tehran has been operating under the Swiss Embassyand the Iranian Interests Section in Washington, D.C., is operating under the Pakistani Embassy.

On May 1, however, our peaceful presence was violently besieged by angry Guaidó supporters. Designed to coincide with Guaidó’s call for a May 1 uprising, his U.S. representative Carlos Vecchio showed up for a press conference and quickly left, leaving behind an unruly, violent mob. This group has been surrounding the embassy since then, creating mayhem and not allowing food, medicines or supplies to the people inside.

Even more shocking, the Secret Service, which is tasked with guarding embassies, has allowed this to happen. They have had a constant presence at the embassy since May 1 but have stood by as this group damages the building and threatens the peace activists inside and outside. They have allowed the opposition to bang on the doors with sledgehammers to try to break in, post signs all over the property against the wishes of the legal owners, physically attack people trying to get food inside, and destroy and steal the property of the Embassy Protection Collective (food, placards, signs, canopy). In violation of the city’s noise ordinance, the mob has been blasting sirens all day long at decibels so high that even the Secret Service police have been wearing earplugs. They block the sidewalks and all public passages. They have set up 10 canopies and 3 tents to surround the entire building. When we tried to set up a canopy, we were attacked by Guaidó supporters, but it was our member, Tighe Barry, who was arrested and accused of pushing a Secret Service officer.

The Secret Service has a public statement saying that no individuals, medicine or food have been prevented from entering the building. We ask anyone who believes this to go to the embassy and try to deliver a package to the people inside.Even packages sent by the U.S. Postal Service are not allowed in.Every entrance is blocked by opponents, and the Secret Service does nothing to stop them. On the contrary, supporters who have tried to bring food have been arrested. This was the case of CODEPINK organizer Ariel Gold. When she found all entrances blocked, she threw bread into an empty ramp outside a door and was arrested for “throwing missiles.” When we tied a package to a rope to send food up through a window,three of us were physically assaulted, and despite clear video evidence, the police refused to arrest our attacker.

Our people inside are without sufficient food and other critical supplies. They are not allowed to freely exit and enter the building. They sleep at night with a terrible sense of insecurity, worried that the angry mob will break in and attack. But we remain resolute, those of us on the inside and those of us supporting them on the outside, and we demand that our government respect U.S. and international law. The Secret Service must protect the embassy and the people who are lawfully on embassy property until the two governments come to an agreement about their premises. At that time, the Embassy Protection Collective will happily dissolve and leave the embassy, happy because we can go back to our lives but happy, most of all, because we will have helped to give John Bolton and Elliott Abrams one less reason to drag our nation into another war.

Medea Benjamin is the co-director of CODEPINK and a member of the Embassy Protection Collective.

Source: Independent Media Institute

This article was produced by :{Local Peace Economy:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute

superpollutants:

Eleven states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding enforcement of regulations on super-polluting greenhouse gases in air conditioners and refrigerators.

A similar lawsuit was filed by environmentalists on Tuesday. Both challenge an attempt by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruittto roll back federal regulations on the class of chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.

The HFC lawsuits are the latest in a string of legal challenges to the Trump administration's far-reaching agenda of rolling back environmental regulations, especially those relating to climate change.

...the

attorneys general who sued over HFCs represent New York, California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, and they were joined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Earlier this year, Californiaregulators adopted their own state prohibition on HFCs in new air-conditioning and refrigeration.