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Breaking Logjams — A week of pleasant surprises

 

Bryan Zepp Jamieson
October 2nd, 2023
www.zeppscommentaries.online

A few weeks back, I posited that if just six Republicans could stand on principle and break with the party, the looming budget crisis could be averted. Given the grim lockstep cowardice the GOP had shown up until then, I figured six would be the best I could hope for, and that retribution from the rest would be so severe their own option would be to leave the party and become independents.
I’m happy to say I was wrong.
Six Republicans didn’t break ranks: a hundred and twenty six did. It may be quite a while before we learn the exact behind-the-scenes machinations that led to this (especially since the MAGAt crowd are still a clear and present danger to all who oppose them and want specific targets to punish) but a majority of House Republicans realized there is safety in numbers, and absolutely flattened the leverage the “Freedom Caucus” was holding over them, the House, and the country.
How pervasive was the defection? I was amazed to learn that my own congressman, a lunar-landing-denying dingbat from the heart of our infamous demented neighbor, Shasta County, was one of the defectors. That was not on my dance card. That wouldn’t have been on a Bernie Sanders masturbatory fantasy!
For those just getting back from a weekend recreation and are just now catching up on the news, the continuing resolution is for 45 days (until November 15th, meaning before the Thanksgiving break and with the pressure of the holiday season looming). It is, however, a “clean” resolution. No spending cuts, in particular none of the draconian cuts to child care, law enforcement, and the IRS that the demented Trumpenfascists of the MAGA crowd wanted. Funding for Ukraine was excluded, but both Houses vow to take it up separately, and since the measure will enjoy majority support in both Houses and in both parties, I doubt Zelenskii is losing any sleep over that.
With 126 defectors, even Kevin McCarthy felt brave. He was one of the defectors. I wonder if he had to resist the impulse to blow a raspberry at Matt Gaetz as he voted. Given the Republican level of decorum in the House, it wouldn’t have been out of place.
Gaetz is swearing he will move to kick McCarthy out of the Speakership, even though anyone with the simple ability to count to 218 realizes that putting someone he likes in as Speaker is mathematically impossible. In fact, he may not even be able to kick McCarthy out: there are rumors flying that he and the Democratic Party members are confabulating, discussing scenarios where a large chunk of Democrats may actually vote to defeat the motion to vacate and let McCarthy keep his job. Part of that, of course, will mean taking a more centrist position, but between the 126 Republicans who have clearly signaled that they have had enough of the vicious and destructive MAGAts, and a number of Democrats would would sooner have to deal with a sane opposition party, McCarthy might get to keep his job.
One especially tasty rumor making the rounds is that the quid pro quo for Democratic support might include votes to expel some or even all of the Freedom Caucus. This Trump Rump group includes some of the most unsavory and unpatriotic members of Congress, including Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, and Paul Gosar. The best of the 45 or so members are merely repulsive. The worst are traitors. About a dozen of them asked for pardons from then-President Trump in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, a prima facie admission of guilt and more than adequate grounds for expulsion.
Expelling just a few of these people would, in the short term, break the back of the GOP, but by destroying the power of the MAGA caucus, also put them on the road to recovery. And yes, that’s a good thing: any democracy needs at least two opposing parties that are willing to negotiate with one another. It’s a fundamental element the fascists in the MAGA crowd overlooked in their lust for power.
If the Dems want to, they can get GOP support and start moving the budget negotiations forward. Or they can let them shoot themselves in the foot one more time before the next elections, and ride a populist wave to majorities in both Houses and the White House. The GOP have never won one of these extortionist showdowns, and in the last two, got clobbered. Seems the senile old man in the basement somehow outwits the entire Trump brain trust, every time.
This vote also shows that Trump’s power is rapidly crumbling. Last weeks’ court finding of massive fraud and the resultant suspension of his business license in New York state did extreme damage to his finances, and the expected avalanche of plea bargains in Georgia and Washington have begun. Trump is going down, and there’s nobody in the party to take his place. DeSantis? Gaetz? Taylor-Greene? Don’t make me laugh.
It’s a ray of hope. America may escape the worst crisis it has faced since the Civil War.
In other news, the death of California’s celebrated Senator, Dianne Feinstein (RIP, Di), put Governor Newsom in a difficult position. He had three estimable candidates to choose from, all of whom were planning to run for Senate next year. Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff, and Katie Porter. Further, he had vowed to put a black woman in the Senate In The Event Of. That would have been Lee, my own preference.
But Newsom surprised pretty near everyone and chose a different black woman, EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler. Butler, a fundraising giant in the Democratic party and a labor leader, is a moderately-left Democrat who falls about half-way between Feinstein and Lee politically. She’s also LGBTQ, which Newsom probably considered as his repudiation of the hate-filled far right of the GOP.
Butler was named with no preconditions, which means she is free to run as the incumbent next year, or not. She’s a close ally of Kamala Harris, and is likely to boost Harris’ chances going forward.
The Senate remains fairly stable. It passed the CR by a 91-8 vote the other day, showing solidarity against the fascist right. This is a good thing.
As for the next few weeks in the House, well, pass the popcorn. It probably won’t be constructive, or polite, but it will be massively entertaining.

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History Warns Us — But what do we hear?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson
September 30th, 2023
www.zeppscommentaries.online

In 2017 there was a pitch-black dark comedy called The Death of Stalin. A scalpel-sharp political satire, it pasquinaded the utter madness and viciousness that accompanies the decline of all authoritarian governments. It was the age of Stalin at its ultimate. The metronome in the background was the sound of people who were guilty of being accused of anything or nothing being dragged into interrogation cells and shot. At the higher levels of power, the arena of government management, both legal and extralegal, played out like a kindergarten recess where all the children are armed with AR-15s and grenades. With people like Steve Buscemi and Michael Palin it’s side-splittingly funny from the comfort of your living room and if you don’t think too hard about the reality of what you are watching. You can stream a free and legal version of the film at Tubi.
Anyone with even an ordinary understanding of history is going to feel a bit of disquiet while watching the movie. You see, while it’s clearly a parody, it isn’t an exaggeration. While the end of the Stalin era was marked by spasmodic and insane viciousness, the entire era of Stalin was one of persecution, genocide, blind obedience to mad authority, wholesale wasting of lives, and willful blindness by the millions who witnessed all this and said nothing.
But it’s not unique to Stalinism. Quite the opposite. It is a set-in-stone feature of all authoritarian regimes. All of them. No exceptions. All authoritarian structures have the cruelty and insanity that was so evident during the reign of Stalin. It doesn’t matter if they are theocracies, absolute monarchies, fascist or dictatorship, or political or social movements that keep leadership unaccountable to the followers and citizenry. They all become corrupt, brutal, insensate, and intolerant of any dissent of any kind. No exceptions.
The reason is that the coin of such realms is money and power. Nothing else. And those drawn to serve in such regimes are the very worst people for such positions. They are people who value money and power and nothing else. The power struggles are inevitable, and rapidly become no-holds-barred destructive frenzies on incurring court favor and amassing an ever-greater unassailable authority.
Quite often such regimes are “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” as Winston Churchill famously described the machinations of the Kremlin during the Stalin era. The only times we get a look at their inner workings are during their ascendancy, and when they collapse. Hitler ran for office in the 1920s and wrote a book in prison that made no effort to hide his plans for genocide and war. That Nazism devolved into utter lunacy in short order came as no real surprise to historians, who have an endless parade of tyrants and movements and churches they could compare the Nazi regime to. A good correlation to Death of Stalin would be Downfall (Der Untergang) 2004 film by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Source of thousands of “Hitler Finds Out” memes, the movie detailed the final days of the Nazi regime. Again, available to watch for free on Tubi. Not intended as a comedy, but eerily similar, because the pathology of the social phenomenon is essentially identical.
Stalin, while in his role of “Lenin’s left foot” wrote in Marxism and the National Question this summation: “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” You don’t have to squint very hard to see the bones of “Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Fuhrer” behind that thought. The {collective, state, church} above all, accountable only to itself.
Authoritarians usually make no real secret of what they are or what their plans are for you. But they wrap the malice in conspiracy theories and claims that you are the victim of enemies, real and imagined, inside or outside your nation. Most Americans are familiar with the hatred Republicans spit at single moms for daring to ask for help raising their kids, and blandly ignore the trillions stolen by the plutocratic class.
Accountability is the key element. It always has been. Freedom and social progress began only when leaders and prelates and governments had to become accountable for their actions. In the west, it began in 1215, when the King was forced to adopt the Magna Carta, making him responsive to the nobility. It culminated in 1789 with the Constitution, which set out to make the government the design of the people, and very deliberately worked to keep religious entities and the aristocracy out of power. It had mixed results, but it enabled Americans to largely avoid the madness and brutality of autocracy for 200 years. It was an ongoing process, of course. In the beginning, less than 10% of the population actually had rights.
It leaves Americans unprepared for the rise of an authoritarian movement, and even with a half-century of warning signs, most don’t recognize the GOP, hagridden with fascists, plutocrats, dominionists and libertarians, for the extreme danger that it is. Many believe that they lie for you, cheat for you, steal for you, kill for you, to protect your freedoms. It isn’t even intentional dishonesty on their part, usually. It’s willful blindness, denialism carried to an extreme. There are people who earnestly believe Donald Trump is being crucified for us. Most supporters blandly ignore the embrace of racism, deliberate cruelty, and outright Nazism, and parrot the propaganda about how the GOP is conservative, patriotic, and beholden to God.
When you watch the destructive nihilism of Republicans trashing the economy deliberately in a vain effort to pass cruel and draconian laws, or seeking to imprison women for the crime of not wanting to be pregnant, or staging the farcical and inane kangaroo court like the “Biden Impeachment hearings” remember Hitler and Stalin and many others, who made it crystal clear what they were, and what they would become if they seized power. The GOP want to be the Fourth Reich, the new Soviet State.
Denialism stretches to insane lengths. I began by discussing Russia in the throes of the death of Stalin. I’ll return there, only not as seen through the lens of a satire, but from a very grim reality, one described by a master eyewitness of that era, Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. The acclaimed novelist was, like millions of other Soviet citizenry, incarcerated in Stalin’s vast Gulag prison system (the book itself is part one of “The Gulag Archipelago”). He was there doing a ten-year stretch for “Anti-Soviet Agitation.” The so-called ASA laws allowed the state to imprison anyone for pretty much anything, or nothing at all. One of his cellmates was a peasant, learning to write. He had been taught to sign his name, and, proud of this new accomplishment, signed it wherever he could put pen to paper. One of the papers he used was the daily Pravda, and he signed his name across a picture of Stalin that happened to be there. His party block captain noticed. Ten years, ASA.
Solzhenitsyn was in prison with thousands of others that day in 1953 when news of Stalin’s death was broadcast. These were people whose lives had been destroyed, usually unfairly and often capriciously, and all knew people who had been ground to death under the wheels of the Soviet state. Many had seen the unbelievable carnage that ensued when Stalin attempted to stop the German army behind walls of bloody splintered bones that had been the pride of the Soviet Union. Millions more perished because of the mad agricultural polices of Lysenkoism.
You might think the prisoners all erupted in joy over the death of the man who had ruined their lives and murdered so many of their family and friends. But no! They wept! They wailed! They mourned the loss of this despot as if their own fathers had died (and in many cases, Stalin had caused the deaths of their own fathers!). There was an orgy of unfeigned and unstaged grief, totally genuine. Stalin was the state. He was the father figure. He was the kindly ruler who sometimes had to do hard things for the sake of his people. His victims wept, not for themselves and their loved ones, but for their loss of Stalin.
In the GOP, we find history has repeated itself. These people are showing us what they are, and anyone with any knowledge of history knows what they will do. Without restraint, and without limits, seeing cruelty as strength and freedom as a threat to their authority. Their coin is the frightfulness of madness, the inexorability of blind authority. They want to crush you. They will crush you, and they will work hard to persuade you to praise them as they do so.
Watch the Republicans, and see them for the horrible danger they are.

* * *

The Libertarian Party, and its fascist leaders, are one of the main reasons madness has taken over the Republican party and threatens to destroy all of us. Thom Hartmann, the renowned columnist, has a pair of deeply insightful pieces on the rise of this evil empire.

How Libertarianism is a poison that’s crept into America

And

As Republicans begin phony ‘impeachment hearings’ Democrats are ignoring real crimes

 

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Sixes and Sevens — An act of courage to save the country

Sixes and Sevens

An act of courage to save the country

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 24th, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

I haven’t been writing political pieces for the past few weeks for the simple reason that the political scene in the United States has gone utterly mad. I don’t need to spell it out for you. You already know that a small group of febrile zealots and fascists have leveraged the slim margin the GOP have in the House to turn the place into an utter clown show, aided by the weakest and most ineffectual Speaker in the history of the Republic. You know how bad the situation is; they want a shutdown for all sorts of crackpot reasons; ban abortion, impeach Biden, and, oh, I don’t know—maybe make NASA come clean about the great UFO conspiracy, or hang General Milley, or something.

There IS a way around this, though, and I’ll bet at least some House Republicans are already contemplating the very same answer.

All it would take would be for a relative handful of the sane Republicans in the House to leave the party. Oh, they wouldn’t have to defect and become Democrats; there’s enough conservatives in the Democratic Party as it is. They could just declare themselves independents, and leave the Republican caucus.

For it to work, it would take just six out of the 160 or so Republicans who aren’t really part of the insane clown posse that calls itself MAGA. The math is simple: presently, there’s 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats. Two seats are vacant. If just six Republicans became independent, you would have 212 Democrats, 215 Republicans, and 6 independents. If the six voted with the Dems on the budget plans that already passed the Senate by huge margins (70% of Republican Senators voted for them), the shutdown crisis would be averted.

It would be an act of considerable courage. Quite aside from the inevitable threats against themselves and their families from the violent lunatics that Trump formed into a cult, it would probably be the end of the GOP as we know it. Oh, a new right-of-center party would eventually arise from the ashes, and the sooner the better because no democracy should be a single party, even if it’s ‘the good guys.’ The defectors would be vilified and harassed for years. Obviously, there is some safety in numbers—ask any minnow—and if 12, or 20—defected then that would diffuse the threats.

Now, some of you have probably realized that what I’m suggesting is that we nullify one splinter group that has undue influence in the House and replace it with another splinter group that has undue influence in the House. Those six, or twenty or however many ex-Republicans will effectively control all legislation, even determine not only who the next Speaker is, but which party he is from.

But here’s the main thing that makes this different: this group will self-select based on such criteria as common sense, sanity, desire to un-paralyze the House, and patriotism. Oh, I know most politicians regard patriotism much the same way as most priests regard faith; something to wave in front of the plebs to keep them glassy-eyed. But at the very least they realize that destroying the government in the name of America is bad for business and will probably get a lot of people killed. And they understand that the amorphous and diffuse concept of “America” is a very poor replacement for “The United States of America.” The US as a constitutional democratic republic is far better than the vague, cloying and usually idiotic notions the morons get when they get glassy-eyed over “America” which combines the worst of patriotism and faith.

It could work. It would work. Just six at a minimum. More is better. Yes, it’s a temporary fix, one that will allow the country to stagger forward to the next election when, hopefully, the voters will cast off the madness of the zealots and ideologues that have made “America” something very toxic.

I’m not going to soft-peddle this: it would be an act of remarkable courage by those who defect. They would make many enemies for what at best would be a transitory gain, and some, if not all, might get voted out in the next election, if only because if one party or the other gets a majority, their leverage is gone. I’m not asking them to return an overdue library book; I’m asking them to throw themselves on the grenade. History will view them kindly, for whatever that’s worth.

Are there a half dozen Republicans who have the integrity and guts to do the right thing? If just 2% of Republicans do that right thing, they will be remembered as saving the country from the madness of Trump and the malice of Putin.

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Barbie — Guise and Dolls

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 4th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

They’ve been making movies that are created for the sole purpose of flogging toys to kids for years, of course, and even if you don’t find the manipulation and exploitation of kids and their parents vulgar, most of them were pretty dire, since the budget went for special effects, and not for acting or writing.

And the last thing I wanted to see was a movie about fricken’ Barbie. As a retired male, I’m not exactly Mattel’s target demographic. Honest, I stopped playing with dolls when I was 55 as part of my probation. And I’m allergic to pink.

But the inevitable howls from the usual suspects on the right wing were, as usual, amusing. This crowd leads their mindless followers from one contrived social crisis to the next, whether it’s a black cartoon mermaid, litter boxes in school bathrooms, a President eating Grey Poupon mustard, or Bugs Bunny in drag. These ‘crises’ are usually stupid, pointless, and brainless, but then, they have a specific target audience.

But I noticed a more frantic tone this time. It wasn’t the usual crap about “plus size” Barbie, or gay Ken, or any of the other tired social tropes/bogeymen that the fascist right use to keep their herd frightened and docile. Ben Stein was so far over the top in his raving condemnation of the movie that I wondered if Barbie was the only girl who let him pull down her pants in high school and he still felt betrayed.

And it went on well beyond the usual puppet show shelf-life. The Barbie howls even drowned out the National Labor Relations Board ruling that any company caught interfering in any way with attempts to organize a union would automatically become a union shop immediately, no election needed. Yes, that was a landmark decision that will change the face of working conditions in America.

That should have sent them into paroxysms of red-baiting, but they were too busy pink-baiting (yes, that sounded pretty awful in my head as I wrote it, too) to notice.

Obviously, I was going to have to watch this movie to see what the fuss was about. Something was going on here.

My wife and I watched it. I never had a sister so I never experienced the joy of blowing up one of the dolls with firecrackers or feeding one to the dog. But my wife did, and I figured that as a long-time Barbie saboteur, she could lend moral support.

Barbieville is filled with hundreds of Barbies, who all live in a perfect matriarchy where everything is pink and life is perfect, and nobody ever cries or feels hurt or angry. There are hundreds of Kens, as well, and they are there to admire the Barbies. It’s a bit like the town in The Truman Show.

But one day, the lead character, Stereotypical Barbie, starts encountering problems. For one thing, her heels, which are always four inches higher than her toes, drop to the same level. Frightened, she consults with Weird Barbie, who tells her someone is playing too hard with her in Reality (our world) and she will have to go there and solve the problem.

Ken stows away in her convertible to reality, and in the course of trying to find the problem, Ken is contaminated with toxic masculinity. (The scene in which this first happens is when Barbie is at Santa Monica beach, and rebuffs a construction worker trying to hit on her by giving him a level stare and saying, “I don’t have a vagina.” That was a genuinely jaw-dropping moment.

They return to Barbieville unaware that they’ve been contaminated. Ken had stolen some books from the library in Santa Monica, and soon starts preaching a “Yo Bro” philosophy. He feels that he has a place at the table and should be respected. However, this leads to male bonding stuff ranging from bullying and abuse to giant trucks and for some reason, horses. Soon, the Kens plot to overthrow the Barbies.

The Barbies are confused and malleable at first, but a couple of Earthers, a tweener and her mum, start teaching the Barbies about empowerment and individual autonomy. Slowly, they learn to resist.

We watched this with growing amazement, and about an hour in, my wife said, “You know, this reminds me a lot of Pleasantville.”

Bingo.

Pleasantville was written, co-produced, and directed by Gary Ross. It stared Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J. T. Walsh, and Reese Witherspoon, with Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Marley Shelton and Jane Kaczmarek in supporting roles.

In that movie, a couple of 1990s teens, brother and sister, are sent to a world based on a 1950s sitcom called Pleasantville. It’s the idyllic suburban life that TV liked to portray in such shows as Dobie Gillis, Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, or Leave it to Beaver. All the lawns were perfect and had white picket fences, the school teams never lost (indeed, the basketball team never missed a shot), and the wives were always immaculately coiffed and dressed and served breakfasts of sausage, pancakes, eggs, and ham that amounted to about 4,000 calories a plate, a cardiovascular feast of doom. Except nobody ever got sick in Pleasantville. The high school boys dreamed of going steady with “the right girl” and their highest ambition was to “pin” a girl and allow her to wear their letterman jackets. And the girls wanted to be pinned and wear the jackets.

Being a 1950s sitcom world, everything is in black and white, what we call greyscale now. There was no color.

Our 1990s sister noticed the boys right away, with avid interest. But she wasn’t interested in lapels or silly coats: she just wanted to get the boys into the back seat of their convertibles and bang the hell out of them. Despite the alarmed protest of her bother about the effect this might have on the inhabitants, she does so.

And something does happen to the boys: they start seeing in color, and become colored themselves. The girl tells her sitcom mother about masturbation, and the next day, Mom shows up with pink cheeks.

The colorization spreads, and the town authorities finally notice and Take Action, at which point the movie takes a very dark turn.

At that point, Pleasantville becomes a thing of beauty, a fantastic and marvelous film that packs a huge emotional wallop and is deeply inspiring. It truly is one of the finest movies ever made.

Barbie doesn’t have the multilayered nuance and complexity of Pleasantville, and nor does it build to as stunning a climax. But it will inspire millions of people who watch it, because it carries the same profound truths about personal awareness and autonomy, awareness of beauty, of others, of life, and the same drive toward individual freedom and liberty. It is a resounding shout in the blanket of a rise in fascism.

It is, in a word, “woke.”

Thus, the screams from the right. And thus the cheers, and hope, it gives millions who watch it.

Don’t dismiss it as a movie about little girls’ dolls. It’s much, much more than that.

Directed by Greta Gerwig

Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach

Based on Barbie by Mattel

Produced by David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Robbie Brenner

Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell

Cinematography Rodrigo Prieto

Edited by Nick Houy

Music by Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt

Production companies Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment, NB/GG Pictures, Mattel Films

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

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The Mugshot — Churchill, by Kubrick

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 24th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

The Trump mugshot was a shot seen ’round the world. Few who have seen it have been able to avoid interpreting the lowered-head scowl of Trump, seen variously as being in a fit of psychotic rage, scared to death, or defiant.

A meme all over social media mentions “the Kubrick glare,” or “the Kubrick stare.” It’s a favorite way the famed director Stanley Kubrick had of portraying one of his lead actors in a state of decompensation and sheer malice, described as “a heavy-browed look of insanity”. Think of Jack in The Shining. Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Pyle in Full Metal Jacket. For the first two actors mentioned (Jack Nicholson and Malcolm McDowell) they became career-defining images, and doubtlessly those demented glares contributed to the success of their films.

It probably wasn’t the look Trump was aiming for. His followers insist the look is one of defiance, and I suspect that was what he had in mind. And he based that on another iconic and world-famous photograph of a politician, the “Thundering Lion” image of Sir Winston S. Churchill.

The picture shows a seated Churchill glowering at the camera, and many people have inferred, from the time the photograph was taken (December 30th, 1941) that Churchill was trying to project courage and defiance.

Indeed, Churchill wanted to project that. While Britain had successfully fended off the planned German invasion (The Battle of Britain, aka “The Blitz”) some six months earlier, Churchill knew that he had to get the Americans to join in because otherwise the respite was only temporary. So he went to his ally, Canada, (at that point already actively fighting alongside Britain for two years) to harden resolve in the Canadian parliament, and by extension, persuade a reluctant US Congress.

Churchill did give a characteristically marvelous speech to the House of Commons, a speech famed in itself for his disparaging comments about the Petain regime in semi-occupied France. (“When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, ‘In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken! Some neck!”) But it is that image that is instantly recognized over 80 years later. (The signed original hung in Ottawa’s famed Château Laurier until December of 2020, when someone stole it.)

But defiance wasn’t what Churchill was trying to project when Yousuf Karsch snapped his shutter. It was more along the line of baffled, incredulous outrage over a sudden act of temerity against the Prime Minister.

Churchill had one of his stogies going, and Karsch didn’t want the smoke obscuring the image. He asked Churchill if he would set the cigar aside. Churchill refused. So just before the camera went off, Karsch darted in and snatched the cigar right out from Churchill’s mouth! What the camera caught was a look of amazed shock on Churchill’s face.

Yes, cameras lie. The image became synonymous with British resolve and cemented Churchill’s image as a heroic figure facing down the Nazi foe. You can recreate the photo just by walking up to any random baby and snatching the num-num from its mouth. Although if mum is nearby, you risk, in the words of some unfortunate French general, getting your “neck wrung like a chicken.”

Churchill himself admiringly remarked Karsch could “even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed,” which led, somewhat inexplicably, to the title of the photo.

I think Trump was trying to recreate the image of defiance that Thundering Lion evokes. But like most things Trump, he got it ass backwards. Churchill wasn’t feeling resolute at that instant; he was about to have a tantrum.

Trump wanted to project resolve and defiance. Instead, he looks like he’s about to have a tantrum. Someone stole his num-num.

I suspect that Trump practices a lot of his facial expressions in the mirror. A lot of sociopaths do, in an effort to appear more human and less unco. Trump, however, didn’t practice this one very much. That, or he was so rattled at having his mug shot taken (the emotional equivalent of some commoner ripping a cigar out of his mouth) that he wound up looking like a man who had just plotzed and was hoping his Depends would contain the odor.

It wasn’t his Churchillian moment. It was, if anything, his anti-Churchillian moment. Whatever that grimace was, it wasn’t calm determination. It was the opposite of calm determination. It was a man about to lose his shit.

It was the Kubrick stare, only he wasn’t acting.

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Ke-ua-a-ke-pō — Pele upstaged by the spirit of rain and fire

Ke-ua-a-ke-pō

Pele upstaged by the spirit of rain and fire

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 14th, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

There are very few people in California who don’t feel deep sympathy and compassion for the victims of the Maui fire, which is now the greatest natural disaster the State of Hawai’i has suffered. Most of us have faced (and some suffered) the same fate. At the bottom of this article you will find CBS-provided links to some of the most reputable and effective aid agencies working to help the survivors put their lives back together. If you can see your way clear, please donate.

One element of this disaster that caught my eye was that abandoned cane plantations outside of Lahaina had become overgrown with non-native grasses, many of which were eight-to-ten feet high. According to Ben Adler at Yahoo News, “Before it was drained by plantation owners irrigating their farms, the Lahaina area was a wetland, according to the local environmental advocacy organization Save the Wetlands.”

A fire bomb waiting to happen, in other words. All it took was a few weeks of drought followed by hot winds from a passing hurricane.

It’s something we know all too well here in California. While the public forestlands get criticized (rightly) for being overgrown, the fact is roughly 15% of wildfires start on government lands (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10244 ) but because of the relative remoteness of such regions, only 3% of wildfires that affect settled areas come from the public lands. The rest start on private lands, many of which are just as neglected.

It’s a big issue for small towns in the forested areas, where the state has been thinning and building firebreaks and issuing grants to local fire safe councils to do the work. However the efforts are negated by negligent property owners who bought land for a two-times-a-year vacation, or to lease out, or simply for investment, and are loath to put out the money needed to make the property fire-safe. It’s one thing to remove trees and keep brush and grass cropped to protect your property, but if the neighboring lot has grass three feet tall with a couple of dead pines, you’ve mitigated nothing.

California used to have what was called “proving” laws pertaining to individual mining claims and grazing areas. If you staked a claim, in order to maintain that claim, you had to do $100 every year in improvements. (Call it about $2,500 in today’s money). Perhaps the state needs to consider similar laws for unimproved or unoccupied lots, where fire amelioration standards must be met or the property is forfeit. That would have the dual benefits of helping to protect the mountain areas and discourage rentiers from buying up all the forested properties.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a member (DekeDeke) of Guardian’s Comment is Free blog wrote, “With biodiversity already on a precipitous decline globally, with severe under funding of critical research and data collection. We have a very narrow understanding of what is currently happening to ecosystem after ecosystem. Let alone how these environments will suffer the additional stresses from climate change.

“Absolutely. There is no denying that we are in trouble. But with scientists being surprised regularly at unknown feedback loops, exponential and synergetic effects, and chain reactions, we have a long way to go to really understand this.

“Given we are now in a constant state of flux. It will never be settled.”

He is raising valid points that everyone needs to be aware of. No, science can’t predict all the permutations of climate change. The system is incredibly complex, and on the single level of climate patterns alone, chaotic. So yes, we have to expect many surprises that nobody saw coming, and it’s safe to assume that most of them won’t be pleasant.

By way of example, here’s my own semi-informed guess as to how we’ll fare here in the northern California mountains over the next twenty years. I expect that amounts of precipitation will remain about the same and possibly a little bit higher, but that drought and fire problems will sharply increase and the state will evolve from water shortages to full-on water crises.

If that sounds contradictory, it isn’t. Rain or no, California will continue to warm, and it’s reasonable to expect that warming to progress with a greater effect in the mountain regions. (Here at one kilometer altitude, we’ve had six days this summer over 100, with a seventh forecast for today. I lived here twenty years before seeing 100 on the property. Now it’s becoming commonplace.) Warmer means faster rates of evaporation, meaning the soils and plants dry faster. Further, the area of snow coverage is decreasing dramatically as snow levels rise. (It helps to think of mountains as being like cones, and the surface area decreases dramatically with height. For those with maths, it’s something like this: A = L + B = πrs + πr2 = πr(s + r) = πr(r + √(r2 + h2)). Don’t let your young kids see that if you want to keep them in school.)

So less water in snowpack, higher rate of drying, and hotter. Add to that increased mortality of stressed trees, and the recipe for disaster is clear.

Add the bugger factor that DekeDeke mentioned, and brace yourself: expect the unexpected.

More Lahainas will happen. We don’t know when, we don’t know how, but we can take steps to try and avoid the worst.

 

 

The American Red Cross

Disaster workers from the American Red Cross are in Maui, “working around the clock to help those affected,” the group says. To donate, visit redcross.org, call 1-800-RED-CROSS (800-733-2767), or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

You can also go to cbsnews.com/redcross to make a donation.

The Hawai’i Community Foundation

The Hawai’i Community Foundation is accepting donations through its Maui Strong Fund. The foundation has already raised $1 million to help fire victims, Hawaii News Now reports. To donate, visit the fund’s website. For questions or additional information, please contact Donor Services at donorservices@hcf-hawaii.org or (808) 566-5560.

Maui United Way

Maui United Way, founded in 1945, works to address Maui’s vital needs by focusing on education, income and health. The organization has set up a Maui Fire and Disaster Relief Donations Page. All donations are processed online.

Maui Food Bank

Maui Food Bank provides “safe and nutritious food” to anyone in Maui County who is at risk of going hungry, the organization says. Maui Food Bank also donates food to disaster relief efforts on the island. “With every $1 donated, the Maui Food Bank can provide 4 meals to the hungry living in our island community,” the food bank pledges. To donate, visit the food bank’s website,

Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Blessing

Faith-based NPOs specializing in disaster relief.

 

 

 

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Terms and Conditions — Some apply, some don’t

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 6th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

I’ve been thinking over the past few days about various terms I’ve been using, sometimes interchangeably, and in this dark era, often improperly. The terms I have in mind are conservative, libertarian, fascist, Christian, religious, fundamentalist, and finally, cult. Not the normal definition of cult, but how the term is used in relation to Trump’s following. All require a more specific usage to reflect the times we are in.

Let’s start with “conservative.” I stopped using it to describe the ideologues and flat-out nuts that have infested the GOP beginning with Goldwater and which flowered under Newt Gingrich. Conservatives traditionally supported small government, careful husbanding of resources, and staunchly supported separation of church and state. The Republican party has been taken over by people who support overwhelming government interference in personal lives, utter contempt for efforts to control pollution or address the damage done by pollution, and are in many cases determined to inflict the more savage elements of religious doctrine on all the rest of us. The very opposite of “conservative.”

“Fascist.” The most simple and direct definition of a fascist is that it’s someone who is authoritarian, and wants a merger of state and corporate power. They don’t mind associating with patriotism and devoutness as long as it furthers their aims, which basically are establishment of a plutocratic autocracy. People associate fascism with Hitler, but Hitler was beyond the pale. Fascist regimes are ugly, oppressive and corrupt, but nothing equal to the insane nightmare of Nazism.

“Libertarian.” Most libertarians (but not all) are closeted right wingers who have learned to adopt the parlance associated with American liberties and civil rights. They purport to be for the rights of the individual, and want government to be small enough to “drown in the bathtub.” It’s worth noting that the Libertarian Party was founded by the same people who underwrote the John Birch Society. Yes, the same people who rode a wave of McCarthyism in the ‘50s. Ask a libertarian “if a corporation is beneficial to society because it is a group of people banded together to protect their mutual interests and benefit while providing a needed service to society, then shouldn’t labor unions be viewed the same way?” The answer will tell you much about that particular Libertarian. You find that when most libertarians talk about rights and freedoms, they mean rights and freedoms for the bosses, not the workers or consumers. Many libertarians are, in fact, fascist.

Fascists are not conservative, and few conservatives are fascist. Stop calling people like Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump “conservative.” They are anything but. Those two have gone beyond fascism to the greater nightmare.

“Christian,” “religious” and “fundamentalist” are often applied to people of faith with varying degrees of accuracy. Fundamentalist usually is associated with a need for order and control, and a high personal demand for rigid and authoritarian structure. It’s a psychological disorder, associated with religion only because many religions offer the same hard and fast answers and absolute truths that fundamentalists crave in their lives. “Christian” and “religious” are umbrella terms that defy any sort of specific definition. There’s tens of thousands of different religious sects under the umbrella of “Christianity” alone, and the differences go far beyond one word in The Lord’s Prayer or the number of cross bars on the cross. Some are totally unrecognizable to other Christians. As a rule of thumb, the closer in ideology two sects are, the more likely they are to reject each other as heretics.

The majority of Christians, and for that matter, many fundamentalists, are not part of the toxic pseudo-religiosity that has permeated the American right and is behind the move to impose their doctrines on the American people, in the form of women’s issues, racial oppression, and oppressive control for non-believers. Those people are called ‘zealots,’ and most religious writings, including the Bible (at times) condemn zealotry as a toxic and destructive force in any culture. Zealots may claim the mantle of God, but in reality, they are vicious, controlling bigots willing to kill and lie and destroy in the name of their beliefs. Zealotry isn’t limited to Christianity—all religions attract them, as do all political movements.

The main weapon against zealotry is to have a religion or political belief that practices tolerance, inclusion, and, well, wokeness.

Finally, let’s talk about cults. Or rather, let’s talk about the people who are part of MAGA who follow Trump, because they aren’t really a cult. Oh, I’ve called them cultists myself, but I did some thinking on it, and realize that what we are dealing with here is something outside a standard framework of a cult.

Cults, no matter how weird or nasty, have to stand FOR something. They have a god, a leader, someone who followers can worship and admire. They offer hope, and community, and trust. Trump offers the trappings of that, but even his own followers find that Trump’s compassionate embrace is very thin gruel indeed.

What he does offer to people is the excuse to go out and be assholes. Rather than build his followers up, he vilifies all non-followers through verbal abuse, lies, and calumnies. He takes his pages, not from spiritual leaders, but from hate-mongers who have realized that hatred is a powerful force. It’s always been an element of the American right—open hatred of liberals and progressives dates back to the days of the John Birch Society. Trump can’t offer hope, or love. But he can tell people it’s OK to hate others, and to assume anyone not part of the movement is the enemy. Liberals “groom” children, just like Jews drink the blood of Christian babies or all black people want is to rape white women. Zealotry is a very powerful and massively destructive force, capable of great harm (Germany, 1945) and extremely dangerous.

But because it offers hatred and not any kind of socially binding force beyond that, it’s far easier to dissipate the following by defeating it. Successful cults have true believers generations after they fade. Hate movements tend to evaporate in a self-realization of guilt and shame over what the followers have become, and social opprobrium. Remember how the Nazis in Germany all just vanished after Berlin fell and Hitler died? Cut off the head, and the movement dies. It’s not quite the same as a cult. More dangerous, but more vulnerable.

Anyway, this is all just my opinion. Read it, think it over, and decide for yourself if I’m right or not.

But I believe it’s time our political terminology embraces our present-day realities.

 

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Like Nixon Flinging Poo — Trump’s demise is ultimately low comedy

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 25th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Back nearly fifty years ago, my buddy Grunt and I were sitting around in my room/converted garage and just shooting the shit. It was late July, 1974, and it was becoming obvious that the Nixon presidency was drawing to a close. Like nearly everyone, we were wondering What Would Happen Next.

Grunt was of the opinion that Nixon would not go quietly, and gleefully painted a lurid picture of a naked or near naked Nixon, clinging frantically to the top of the highest flagpole over the White House, howling obscenities into the wind as he swayed back and forth, shrieking and flinging his poo at the army helicopters that circled around him.

Mind you, this was back when presidents were supposed to be dignified and present a good example to the nation. Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman were considered shockingly undignified at the time. We thought Nixon was the worst, most blatant criminal to ever occupy the oval office. But at least he tried to hide his wrong-doings. And he even had a moral basement. For instance, as the looming indictments and impeachment grew, he and staff forbade themselves to use the word “pardon” in any context (Gerald Ford didn’t get the memo, apparently) not just because it looked bad, but it crossed a line most of Nixon’s staff were not willing to step over.

It was a different era. Since then, we’ve had Reagan, Bush the lesser and Trump to show that the adage that “anyone can grow up to be president” includes fools, morons, scofflaws and people so poorly trained in social skills that they wouldn’t be able to hold a job pumping gas. People might want an Abraham Lincoln, but they’ll settle for a Zaphod Beeblebrox. Two heads are better than one, right?

But back in 1974, Grunt’s view of the demise of Nixon was outrageously funny. (There may have been some beer involved.) It was about as outside the realm of expected actions as the Pope hitting the local pub, getting pissed and doing a Knees Up Mother Brown whilst wearing an Andy Capp cap. Jerry Lewis playing Atticus Finch.

I should ring Grunt (we talk about once a month anyway) and get his take on the demise of Trump. I know he’s delighted. I never saw him more openly angry then he was when, in the summer of 2016, we discussed the chance of Trump becoming president. We both knew the possibility was real.

But it would be unfair to expect Grunt to match his soliloquy on Nixon. At least, as far as being outrageously and unexpectedly funny. Grunt still has matchless verbal skills.

It’s just that every night now, Trump climbs the Truth Social flag pole and starts screaming and flinging his poo. He screams delusional bluster about how indicting him “will destroy the Joe Biden presidency” and calls for Congress to destroy the FBI, the District Attorneys, and every other legal force that might inconvenience him. He makes open threats, and openly promises pardons to the violent filth that turned out on his behalf on January 6th. He’s showing all the dignity and gravitas of one of the meth clowns in wifebeaters waving 40s who got hauled in on Cops. Mack Sennet comedies usually ended with more gravitas and probity. Trump has reduced American politics and governance to a pie fight.

Grunt won’t be able to match his effort which I remember so vividly a half century later.

Sorry, Grunt. It’s not you. It’s the world that’s changed.

What is truly depressing is how much of America Trump pulled down around him. Oh, his supporters have always existed, and they were always deplorable. Trump just made it easier for them to crawl out from under their rocks. But the GOP has become a self-doomed disgrace. When Trump falls, they will implode. They worshiped Trump, and he gave them the moral equivalent of syphilis.

Will the media have a similar fall? Faux will never recover from the role they played propping up Trump and lying on his behalf. But what about CNN and MSNBC, who even now put in hours pretending the Trump presidential campaign is a real thing and he might be president again? It’s a lie, one that drives up ratings, and they know it’s a lie. They can bloviate all they want about how popular Trump is amongst Republicans, but that is only a quarter of the voting population. The rest want to see the end of him in overwhelming numbers. Sixty percent of voters reject Trump under all circumstances. No candidate can overcome that.

Will the media do their own version of Nixon’s demise as Trump collapses? After all, once he’s in prison and finished, how are they going to attract viewers? More indictments are coming, possibly this week, and some are the sort that will finish any political credibility Trump has remaining. Even his followers are beginning to wise up. Prince Charming just wants to sell Springfield an elevated monorail, and whatever Jesus is doing, even the Jesus that wants to gas transgenders, he isn’t hugging Trump.

It’s a sign of how frantic the right is becoming as they become ever more loud and violent and vicious, hoping to detract from the fall of Trump and hoping that something in their message will appeal to Americans. It explains the flat-out Naziesque cruelty of people like Ron DeSantis or Gregg Abbott, or the increasingly ludicrous Hunter Biden scandal or the Barbie foofooraw. (Yes, Barbie. The doll. Apparently she’s an agent for Pink China.)

Expect lots of monkeys on lots of flagpoles throwing lots of poo.

But watch carefully: Three quarters of the population will be still, and silent, and thoughtful, carefully watching the end of Trump and his diseased movement. They, not the poo-flingers, are what matter.

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The Dwindle Swindle — Despite media impressions, the far right is collapsing

The Dwindle Swindle

Despite media impressions, the far right is collapsing

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 9th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

There’s a meme making the rounds on social media these days that addresses the true state of Trump’s popularity. There are variations, but it basically goes like this: “As an experiment, I had my daughter wear a ‘Trump 2020’ T shirt to see what sorts of reactions the shirt might provoke. So far she’s been cursed at, spit upon, and had garbage thrown at her. I’m wondering what the reactions will be like when she leaves the house.”

Despite the efforts of the for-profit media to prop up the Trump campaign, the fact is that polls show that fully 60% of all voters don’t want Trump back in the White House under any circumstance. The Marist National Poll for National Public Radio and PBS NewsHour was conducted in March, before the 72 indictments were issued. According to Newsweek, “The Marist poll found 76 percent of Republicans do want Trump to run for a second term, with just 21 percent disagreeing, indicating he has a good chance of clinching the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. By contrast, 89 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of independents don’t want Trump to run again, nor do 41 percent of those identified as ‘white Evangelical Christians,’ a group that has become increasingly lukewarm towards the Republican front-runner.” Even Fox News reported on the poll.

That 60% reject Trump out of hand would seem insurmountable. But not to the ratings-hungry media, to whom Trump is catnip.

Yes, the Trumpster has a big lead among Republicans. But Republicans only make up 36 million out of the 127 million voters who have to declare party affiliation, running well behind second-place independents. And that was in mid 2022. Their numbers have shrunk since then as the party has been taken over by fringe lunatics on the far right who push such wildly unpopular ideas as banning abortion and birth control, bringing back segregation and child labor, and getting rid of Social Security and minimum wage.

Yes, Trump could win the primaries, even though he’ll be on trial for at least some of that period, and will in all likelihood be facing hundreds of new indictments for anything up to and including insurrection and sedition. Depending on the nature of those documents he stole, and who he showed them to, he might even be facing charges of actions injurious to the national interests (the closest possible charge to treason in peacetime). The general election would be the biggest slaughter in presidential elections since 1936.

It is fun watching the right—the ones sane enough to spot the looming disaster—race in panicked circles. Maria Bartiromo, who has at least learned to lie about entities that won’t sue her such as the FBI and DoJ, told Ron DeSantis (NSDAP-Florida) that he couldn’t win because the DoJ and FBI were out to destroy him. That would be the Deep Statetm. The one that is trying to destroy Trump. (How do you destroy Trump? Let him speak.)

I’m not exactly clear on how the Deep State will finish Trump by destroying his main rival in the primaries, but I’m sure Maria has it all figured out. Jewish space lasers and electronic mind control devices hidden in COVID vaccines, no doubt.

Trump keeps self-sabotaging, and in increasingly stupid ways. His lawyers keep deserting him because he is the client from hell who can’t keep his mouth shut and keeps self-incriminating. He cheats and betrays his allies at the faintest sign of what he considers disloyalty, real or imagined. He breaks promises blatantly, publicly, and for no good reason. For example, he went into an eatery on his birthday and promised food for everyone there, and then promptly left, leaving angry patrons and a dismayed restaurant staff hanging. I can only surmise that he thought the media would only cover the generous promise and not follow up, even though, given his track record, reporters would be doing exactly that in search of a juicier news story.

The far right is similarly self-destructively confused. Moms For Liberty (AKA ‘Twatzies’, ‘Ku Klux Karens’ or ‘Housewives for Hitler’) spearhead the Moment of Hate campaigns against the LGBTQ community, trans-gendered kids in particular, and have become the face of book banning. The various Nazi militia groups that formed the backbone of Trump’s attempted coup on January 6th vacillate between calling for a nationwide uprising and pretending they had nothing to do with Jan 6 and what’s more, Trump deluded them into it. Republican politicians keep trying to out-Nazi one another, the most visible (but not necessarily the worst) being Ron DeSantis. His reign in Florida is so grotesquely fascistic that hundreds of thousands have already fled the state, and millions more are seriously contemplating it. Even the Floridians who don’t mind his authoritarianism, bigotry and cruelty are becoming aware that he is going to destroy Florida’s economy. (If German corporations had stood up to Hitler instead of trying to use him to their own ends, Hitler would have been just a small footnote in history. US Corporations take note.)

Like a gravely wounded predator, the far right is in a frenzy, chewing on its own entrails. They have the potential to be fantastically dangerous, but in the end, they are self-doomed.

Remember the 60% of voters reject Trump poll, and ignore the contrived horse race media self-promotion. The fact is, a large majority of people don’t want Trump, or his deplorable following.

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How to Avoid Discrimination — A strange day in court

How to Avoid Discrimination

A strange day in court

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 1st 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

The docket was distinctly odd. The next half-hour was given over to something listed as “an advisory trial,” a term that simply didn’t exist in Judge Meyersota’s experience. Only one attorney and a “client” were listed. He scanned the courtroom confusion softening his stern features. He glared at the bailiff. “Well?” his eyebrows inquired. The bailiff gave a slight shrug and glanced at the district attorney. Meyersota gave a light cough, getting an obedient attention from the DA. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that is it customary to have an accused in these types of proceedings. Despite having looked at the accustomed location in this court room for a defendant, such a person stubbornly refuses to manifest. Perhaps you have an explanation for this?”

The DA gave another shrug, one carrying an admixture of dread and resignation to Meyersota’s practiced eye. “Your honor, there is no defendant.”

Meyersota gave a benign smile and glanced down at the desk before him. He looked up at the DA, wearing an expression normally used to reassure frightened kittens. “No…defendant, Mister, erm, Kavano? Am I hearing you properly?”

“You are correct, your honor.” Kavano fumbled at the book he held before himself. Meyersota noted that it was a bible. “The, um, defendant is hypothetical.”

“Hypothetical.” Meyersota paused, considering his next words. “To quote: ‘involving or being based on a suggested idea or theory: being or involving a hypothesis. Conjectural. Speculative.’ Am I to understand that your non-evident defendant is conjectural? Or would the word be speculative?”

Kavano was sweating. Meyersota did not see this as an endearing quality. “Suppositional might be a better word.”

“I see. I see. And what is it that you are asking me to suppose about this defendant?”

“The defendant is a group of people that the plaintiff believes may make unreasonable demands upon her.”

“May make?” Meyersota glanced at his screen. “I see we do actually have a plaintiff listed, and apparently she has a name. Erm, Karen Scalito.” He turned his attention to the woman sitting next to Kavano. “Would that be yourself?”

Scalito stood and bowed her head. “It would, you honor.”

Meyersota knew that declaring a recess and suspending the proceedings would be his only real course of action at this point. No defendant? Could you even HAVE a plaintiff if there was no defendant?

But his curiosity was piqued at this point. What were Kavano and this Scalito woman playing at?

Meyersota gavelled. “I declare court to be in recess. Would Mr. Kavano and Ms. Scalito attend to me in chambers? He glanced around. “Is there a defense attorney here? Or is he as real as his client?”

Kavano winced. “I’m presenting arguments for the defense.”

“You’re…” Meyersota actually gasped. “Am I to understand you are prosecuting and defending attorney…erm, attorneys in this travesty?” Kavano nodded, clearly wishing to put his Bible between him and his view of Meyersota’s face. Meyersota was wearing a well-practiced expression designed to melt certain grades of titanium.

“Chambers. NOW!”

* * *

“All right. Siddown.” Meyersota normally offered a choice of sweets and non-alcoholic libations in chambers discussions, hoping to promote a sense of collegiality amongst warring factions. But this was unknown territory, and Meyersota was wondering if Kavano was pranking him in some way. Misdirected humor in court was sometimes a career-ender. No sweets for you, Mr. Kavano. Not until I know what the hell this is.

“Now, explain to me how this is even remotely a proper court proceeding with no defendant.”

“303 Creative v. Elenis, your honor. Just came out this week. The ruling says that an artist may not be compelled to write or portray actions or images that he or she finds objectionable.”

“303 Creative…wait a minute. It that the case where some woman sued over the right to not have to violate her religious principles and write a message on a wedding cake for a gay couple?” Meyersota paused to recollect. “It turned out that the party she named as opponent in the suit in fact wasn’t gay, was married for many years to a woman, still was, and had no intention of marrying anyone else? In fact, it turned out that he had never approached that woman and asked her to perform any service at all for him? She just picked his name out of a phone book or something?”

Kavano nodded. Meyersota looked aghast. “And the Supreme Court ACCEPTED that mess?”

“And ruled on it, your honor.” Kavano opened his bible and pulled out a sheath of papers. “It says here, ‘Ms. Smith and the State stipulated to a number of facts: Ms. Smith is “willing to work with all people regardless of classifications such as race, creed, sexual orientation, and gender” and “will gladly create custom graphics and websites” for clients of any sexual orientation; she will not produce content that “contradicts biblical truth” regardless of who orders it; Ms. Smith’s belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman is a sincerely held conviction; Ms. Smith provides design services that are “expressive” and her “original, customized” creations “contribut[e] to the overall message” her business conveys “through the websites” it creates; the wedding websites she plans to create “will be expressive in nature,” will be “customized and tailored” through close collaboration with individual couples, and will “express Ms. Smith’s and 303 Creative’s message celebrating and promoting” her view of marriage; viewers of Ms. Smith’s websites “will know that the websites are her original artwork.”

“Hmph. Well, it is stare decisis that the First Amendment forbids the government from compelling people to say something that they would rather not say. But that’s an action taken by the government. Was your suppositional defendant a government?”

“The situation we’re stipulating is that the plaintiff, Ms. Scalito caters party functions. She is moving to prevent having to cater events which she finds objectionable.”

“’Objectionable.’ You mean like stag parties, or…I don’t know, frat parties where there’s underage drinking going on?”

Scalito spoke up. “I mean heathen events. Bar Mitzvahs, Arab weddings, that sort of thing.”

Meyersota had tried some extremely distasteful people in his day, and was well-versed in maintaining an impartial mien. He had also learned to hear a person out, no matter how unpromising the start. But Scalito was already trying his patience.

“Mr. Kavano, you might advise your client that the law forbids discriminatory practices against those in protected classes. This includes religious beliefs.” Meyersota glanced at the Bible Kavano was still holding. “ALL religious beliefs. I’m a practicing Christian myself, but generally do not permit holy texts and artifacts in my courtroom other than in an evidentiary role. Is that Bible you’re waving around evidence of some sort?”

Kavano glanced at the bible as if it had come to life and was wriggling in his hands. He stuffed it into his briefcase, giving Scalito a dark glance. She made him carry it, Meyersota realized. This was getting weirder by the moment.

Scalito gave Kavano a disgusted look and spoke up. “I have nothing against Arabs, your honor, and some of my best friends are Jews. But I am an artiste, and I feel that if I am forced to engage in thematic imagery or wording as part of my catering services, people might think that I personally am Jewish or Muslim, and as a devout Christian, I wish to be spared that.”

Meyersota gave Scalito a level stare. “That seems a bit far-fetched, Ms. Scalito. Take me, for example. I wrote lesson plans and essays as part of my role as an adjunct professor at the local college. I wrote a piece that laid out the groundwork for the findings for legal action against the police whose African American prisoner died in custody last summer. I argued that the prisoner in question was entitled to the full rights of any white prisoner and might still be alive had he been treated the same as a white prisoner.

“Does that mean people will think I am African American? And for that matter, should I care if some people get that impression? There is no shame intrinsically in being African American, just as there is nothing shameful about being Jewish or Islamic.”

“But I have a right as a Christian to not be lumped in with those other religions. They are false!”

Kavano spoke up. “Your honor, my client isn’t asking for the right to discriminate. She is asking, under the provisions set out in Creative 303, to be permitted to avoid serving customers so that she can avoid having to be discriminatory.”

Avoid being discriminatory.  Yeesh.  Meyersota had heard enough. “I don’t see grounds for a trial, or any sort of legal proceeding here. You don’t have a plaintiff because nobody has been wronged. You don’t have a defendant. The argument that a client may discriminate in order to avoid having to discriminate is absurd on its face. Come back when you have something that fits in the framework of law, or even common sense, and we can proceed.

“Now get out of my courtroom.”