Somehow Chief Justice John Roberts found that a single person who walks past the White House every month and doesn’t like the proposed appearance of the ballroom has some standing to sue and block construction. Go figure. Roberts also decided that the Obamacare mandate wasn’t a tax.

Roberts joined with the minority DEI judges in his position [RULING HERE]. However, the majority decision was against the woman having standing to sue. Therefore, the lawsuit was dispatched and the building can continue.

SCOTUS BLOG – […] On Monday, a divided court granted the government’s request for a stay, permitting construction to move forward while the litigation continues in the lower court. The majority’s opinion focused primarily on its conclusion that the National Trust likely does not have standing to challenge the project. The trust had submitted a declaration from Alison Hoagland, a member who lives in Washington, D.C., and said that she visits the area where the White House is located approximately once per month. Hoagland, who has “expertise in historic architecture,” claimed that the project caused “‘injuries’ to her ‘aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests’ because she finds the ‘scale,’ ‘height,’ and ‘massing’ of the government’s design distasteful.” But those are not the kind of “concrete” and specific injuries required to bring a lawsuit, the majority explained.

The majority also concluded that the government would be permanently harmed if Leon’s order were allowed to go into effect – another key criterion in determining whether to grant emergency relief. Among other things, it noted, senior government officials “attest[] that constructing something approximating the height and mass of the intended above-ground ballroom is ‘crucial’ to the security of the below-ground military installation.”

In his six-page dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, Roberts countered that “[a] historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as,” based on prior court precedent, “an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.” Roberts ended the opinion by quoting Winston Churchill, who said that “[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” “All the more reason,” according to Roberts, “to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.” (source)

President Trump – “I am pleased to report that the United States Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the Ballroom/Military Complex being built without any further contingency, doubt, or threat. We are living in the Golden Age of America, and this Building will be one of the Greatest ever constructed in Washington, D.C. When completed in the Summer of 2028, the magnificent Ballroom and Military Complex will be something that the entire Country is very proud of. The Project, despite the baseless lawsuit brought by the so-called National Trust for Historic Preservation of the United States, which is not in any way affiliated with the United States Government, is under budget and ahead of schedule. The Ballroom is totally funded by Great Patriots and Corporations and, therefore, is a Gift — At no cost to the American Taxpayer. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

President DONALD J. TRUMP

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