Youth Climate Plaintiffs Challenge Endangerment Repeal on Religious Liberty Grounds

Media & Culture

I am quite skeptical of the lawfulness of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rescission of the endangerment finding upon which EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is based. It is an aggressive move that stretches administrative law norms and challenges  Supreme Court precedent. While I am not convinced the endangerment rescission is lawful, I would hardly argue it is unconstitutional or impinges upon religious liberty. The folks at Our Children’s Trust–the group behind the various kids climate suits–feels otherwise. They (along with Public Justice) have filed a challenge to the endangerment finding repeal making such claims. Last…

Media & Culture

Brickbat: ‘Ultimate Authority’

Jefferson County, Alabama, Probate Judge Yashiba Blanchard has been suspended after a 120-page complaint accused her of serious misconduct and running her court unprofessionally. The complaint says she called herself the “ultimate authority” with “no boss” and handled cases improperly. Her poor management of the court docket delayed involuntary commitment hearings for months, forcing some people to stay locked up or hospitalized longer than necessary. In one case, a hospital repeatedly contacted her office begging for a hearing so a patient could go home, but cancellations added extra weeks in the hospital, leaving the person “lying in bed crying and upset,”…

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An unknown protestor stands in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, 1989. Photo by: Jeff Widener/Associated Press/CC BY-NC 2.0 Could it be harder to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre yesterday – on its 37th anniversary – than last year when it was already incredibly hard? Apparently yes, and this applies to people outside China too. In Beijing itself, members of the Tiananmen Mothers group have reportedly been barred from visiting a cemetery where their children are buried in what is believed to be the first time in over three decades such commemorations have been stopped. In a statement published this week, the group said families were informed they’d not be allowed to hold any acts of remembrance at Wan’an Cemetery on 4 June. This feels supremely cruel and petty, but I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less from a government that commanded its troops to slay its own people. Commemorations beyond this are, of course, strictly forbidden within China. You are not going to see anything in Tiananmen Square. Indeed, and I’ve firsthand experience of this, it’s hard to get close to the square on 3 and 4 June. It used to be the case that people in Hong Kong could commemorate it. In 2014, a museum dedicated to the massacre opened. That, though, was closed years back. And as for the candles that were lit in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park year on year, they are no more, replaced instead by a… patriotic food festival. Even outside the Chinese Communist Party’s direct control it’s now more challenging to remember. The June Fourth Memorial Museum in Los Angeles was broken into and vandalised over the weekend. The museum was opened last June by Chinese dissidents and survivors, including student leader Wang Dan. This was clearly not some random act of destruction carried out by bored teens, given Beijing’s mastery of transnational repression and the date it happened. The CCP may very well have the last laugh. Anyone below the age of 30 growing up in China today likely hasn’t a clue that the words Tiananmen Square don’t just refer to the central Beijing landmark. Yes, you’ll see creative memes and puns coming out of the country as some try to bypass the censors. It’s just that they’re marginal and ultimately no match for the might of Beijing. All of which makes it more important to do what you can to remember. I personally like to revisit the Hunger Strike Declaration that we printed at the time. I like to look at the image of two people dancing in the square. Both remind me of the movement that came before the massacre. Yesterday, we also published a reflective piece from Lijia Zhang, the acclaimed Chinese writer who was part of the protests. Finally, we’ve lit candles ourselves. It’s a small act of resistance which literally keeps the flame of remembrance alive. READ MORE

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