From yesterday’s decision by a Pennsylvania appellate court in Porter v. Commonwealth(witten by Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter):
Before this Court for disposition is the application for summary relief of Scott Porter, a/k/a Chauntey Mo’Nique Porter; Adolphus Talley, Jr., a/k/a Alonda Talley; and Robert Lee Noaker, Jr., a/k/a Priscylla Renee Von Noaker (Petitioners) and the preliminary objections of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania Department of State; and Kathy Boockvar in her capacity as Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth (collectively, “Respondents”) to Petitioners’ petition … challenging the constitutionality of a 1998 amendment to what is known as the Commonwealth’s Judicial Change of Name Act (Act)…[, which reads:]
“(1) The court may order a change of name for a person convicted of a felony, subject to provisions of paragraph (2), if:
“(i) at least two calendar years have elapsed from the date of completion of a person’s sentence and that person is not subject to the probation or parole jurisdiction of any court, county probation agency or the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole; or
“(ii) the person has been pardoned.
“(2) The court may not order a change of name for a person convicted of murder, voluntary manslaughter, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, robbery …, aggravated assault …, arson …, kidnapping or robbery of a motor vehicle ….”
When common pleas grants the application of a convicted felon subject to subsection (c)(1), the court “shall notify the Office of Attorney General, the [Pennsylvania State Police] and the office of the district attorney of the county in which the person resides[.]” “[U]pon receipt of this notice, [PSP] shall include the change of name information in the central repository as provided for in 18 Pa.C.S. Ch. 91.”
In the instant petition for review, Petitioners aver that they are “transgender women who live openly in accordance with their female gender but who are forced to use male legal names.” Alleging that old felony convictions prevent them from changing their names, they aver that discrimination and confusion result when they engage in everyday transactions and present identification documents thereby causing others to perceive them as male…. [T]hey acknowledge that only subsection (c)(2) impacts them due to the nature of their felony convictions (rape and first-degree aggravated assault). In any case, they allege that the amendment prevents them from changing their names such that the names on their government-issued identification cards do not match their gender expression or identity.
By way of relief, Petitioners request declarations that the amendment is unconstitutional under (1) article I, section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution {[a]ll men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness} because it improperly infringes the right to control one’s name; (2) article I, section 7 [the free speech provision] because it improperly infringes the guarantee against compelled speech; and (3) article I, section 1, as applied to them, because it violates their interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters….
An interesting substantive question, but of course it ends up being resolved on procedural grounds:
Misjoinder of Parties
… With respect to the Department and Secretary Boockvar, we have noted that Commonwealth agencies and actors are proper parties in declaratory relief actions only when they have or claim an interest that would be affected by the declaration…. [N]either the Department of State nor its Secretary play any role in the Act.
As noted, an applicant desiring a name change must petition a court of common pleas. A court of common pleas must forward a duplicate copy of the application and a set of the individual’s fingerprints to PSP, which must certify to the court what action PSP has taken. The Act does not include a requirement that either common pleas or PSP notify Respondents of any action. The Act does not impose any duties on Respondents, and Petitioners made no allegations that Respondents failed to fulfill any duties. Finally, the Act does not require any filings with the Department of State. Accordingly, we sustain Respondents’ misjoinder preliminary objection….
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This morning the D.C. Circuit, acting en banc, vacated the earlier panel decision in the Michael Flynn case. The full Circuit will rehear the case en banc on August 11. Here is the Court’s order:
Upon consideration of the petition for rehearing en banc, the responses thereto, and the vote in favor of rehearing en banc by a majority of the judges eligible to participate, it is
ORDERED that this case be reheard by the court sitting en banc. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the court’s order filed June 24, 2020, be vacated. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that oral argument before the en banc court be heard at 9:30
a.m. on Tuesday, August 11, 2020.
The parties should be prepared to address whether there are “no other adequate means to attain the relief” desired. Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 380 (2004).
VC readers will recall that a Government motion to dismiss is pending before Judge Sullivan in the District Court—and Judge Sullivan has asked for amicus briefing before making a ruling on the motion. Flynn’s attorneys sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit, which would have compelled to Judge Sullivan to enter an immediate dismissal. In my previous posts about the case, I argued that close scrutiny of the Government’s motion to dismiss was unwarranted but that, nonetheless, the issue of considering the motion was one for the District Court–not the Court of Appeals. I thought that the 2-1 panel decision ordering Judge Sullivan to promptly dismiss the case was “dubious” and that it wouldn’t be surprising to see rehearing en banc.
Now that the D.C. Circuit en banc has ordered rehearing, it is quite likely that the full court will deny Flynn’s petition and simply send that case back to the District Court. The Circuit has asked the parties to address whether, under its earlier ruling in Cheney, there are “no other adequate means to attain the relief” desired. Put simply, Flynn’s desired relief is dismissal of case against him—something that the District Court is obviously empowered to do. The District Court may well dismiss the case if given the opportunity to rule. Thus, there are other means to attain the relief Flynn desires. This is not a case that warrants appellate court intervention to provide “extraordinary” mandamus relief.
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This morning the D.C. Circuit, acting en banc, vacated the earlier panel decision in the Michael Flynn case. The full Circuit will rehear the case en banc on August 11. Here is the Court’s order:
Upon consideration of the petition for rehearing en banc, the responses thereto, and the vote in favor of rehearing en banc by a majority of the judges eligible to participate, it is
ORDERED that this case be reheard by the court sitting en banc. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that the court’s order filed June 24, 2020, be vacated. It is
FURTHER ORDERED that oral argument before the en banc court be heard at 9:30
a.m. on Tuesday, August 11, 2020.
The parties should be prepared to address whether there are “no other adequate means to attain the relief” desired. Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 380 (2004).
VC readers will recall that a Government motion to dismiss is pending before Judge Sullivan in the District Court—and Judge Sullivan has asked for amicus briefing before making a ruling on the motion. Flynn’s attorneys sought a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit, which would have compelled to Judge Sullivan to enter an immediate dismissal. In my previous posts about the case, I argued that close scrutiny of the Government’s motion to dismiss was unwarranted but that, nonetheless, the issue of considering the motion was one for the District Court–not the Court of Appeals. I thought that the 2-1 panel decision ordering Judge Sullivan to promptly dismiss the case was “dubious” and that it wouldn’t be surprising to see rehearing en banc.
Now that the D.C. Circuit en banc has ordered rehearing, it is quite likely that the full court will deny Flynn’s petition and simply send that case back to the District Court. The Circuit has asked the parties to address whether, under its earlier ruling in Cheney, there are “no other adequate means to attain the relief” desired. Put simply, Flynn’s desired relief is dismissal of case against him—something that the District Court is obviously empowered to do. The District Court may well dismiss the case if given the opportunity to rule. Thus, there are other means to attain the relief Flynn desires. This is not a case that warrants appellate court intervention to provide “extraordinary” mandamus relief.
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Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times from 1978 to 2008, was “startled” by the sympathy that four justices recently expressed for a Nevada church’s challenge to the state’s 50-person cap on religious services. In an op-ed piece published today, Greenhouse argues that the justices’ dissent from last Friday’s decision against granting Calvary Chapel in Dayton an injunction pending appeal irrationally elevates religious concerns above public health. She says the dissenting justices—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—”appear oblivious to the facts on the ground, particularly the well-documented role of religious services in spreading the virus.”
To the contrary, it is Greenhouse who seems oblivious to the facts—in particular, Nevada’s arbitrary distinction between houses of worship and businesses that pose similar or greater risks of COVID-19 transmission. Those favored businesses include bars, restaurants, gyms, arcades, bowling alleys, and, most conspicuously, casinos, where thousands of people from around the country have been gathering to try their luck since Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak allowed the gambling palaces to reopen on June 4. All of those businesses are permitted to operate at 50 percent of capacity, while churches, synagogues, and mosques may admit no more than 50 people at a time, regardless of their capacity. A church with seating for 500 people, for example, may not exceed one-tenth of its capacity.
That sort of discrimination is hard to reconcile with the standards that the Court has applied to laws that restrict religious activities. When those laws are neutral and generally applicable, the Court said in the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, they are consistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. But when those laws impose special burdens on religious organizations that do not apply to similarly situated secular organizations, the Court said three years later in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, they must satisfy strict scrutiny, meaning the government has to show the restrictions are narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest. That test is hard to pass, and the arguments mustered by Nevada in this case do not come close.
Calvary Chapel wanted to hold 45-minute services for up to 90 people, half of its capacity. Under its plan, congregants would follow designated one-way paths in and out of the church, observe physical distancing rules, sit in family groups spaced at least six feet apart, wear masks during services, and pass no items to each other. Sufficient time would be allowed to sanitize the church between services. These precautions, according to an infectious disease specialist consulted by the church, are “equal to or more extensive than those recommended by” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Compare that prohibited plan with the situation in restaurants, where people frequently sit for longer than 45 minutes and do not wear masks while they are eating; in bowling alleys, where groups of up to 50 tournament spectators are allowed to sit together as long as they stay six feet away from other groups; or in casinos, where people drink and gamble in close proximity at blackjack and craps tables, often eschewing the masks that are notionally required. The state lets all those indoor businesses serve up to half as many customers as were allowed before the pandemic, which in casinos means thousands of patrons at any given time, gamblers who often will visit several casinos during their visits.
If there is a logical public health rationale for this distinction, Nevada was unable to locate it. Greenhouse cites “the well-documented role of religious services in spreading the virus,” linking to a New York Times story that originally carried a headline claiming churches “Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.” But the information in the article, suggesting that “churches and religious events across the United States” account for something like 0.02 percent of COVID-19 infections, did not support that claim. Evidently that became apparent to the newspaper’s editors, who revised the headline without explanation two days after the article appeared.
“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Alito notes in his dissent from the decision to deny the injunction sought by Calvary Chapel, which was joined by Thomas and Kavanaugh. “It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance. But the Governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities. Claiming virtually unbounded power to restrict constitutional rights during the COVID–19 pandemic, he has issued a directive that severely limits attendance at religious services….That Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise, but this Court’s willingness to allow such discrimination is disappointing. We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.”
Alito suggests that Sisolak’s policy also runs afoul of the First Amendment by discriminating against speech based on viewpoint. “When large numbers of protesters [against police brutality] openly violated provisions of the Directive, such as the rule against groups of more than 50 people,” he notes, “the Governor not only declined to enforce the directive but publicly supported and participated in a protest.” Such discrimination also figured prominently in a federal judge’s June 26 decision against New York’s restrictions on religious services.
Greenhouse, who is currently the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale, does not simply disagree with Alito’s argument. She does not seem to understand his point. “‘Religion counts as a viewpoint,’ he wrote, a sentence I found baffling,” she says. “Isn’t belief in public health a viewpoint?”
Greenhouse notes that Nevada’s 50-person limit applies not only to churches but also to lecture spaces, museums, trade schools, and movie theaters (which are allowed to admit 50 customers per screen). But Kavanaugh, in a separate dissent, says Nevada is not off the hook simply because some venues have to comply with the same occupancy rule that applies to churches:
In these kinds of cases, the Court’s religion precedents require a basic two-step inquiry. First, does the law create a favored or exempt class of organizations and, if so, do religious organizations fall outside of that class? That threshold question does not require judges to decide whether a church is more akin to a factory or more like a museum, for example. Rather, the only question at the start is whether a given law on its face favors certain organizations and, if so, whether religious organizations are part of that favored group. If the religious organizations are not, the second question is whether the government has provided a sufficient justification for the differential treatment and disfavoring of religion.
Gorsuch, in his own one-paragraph dissent, makes short work of Nevada’s claim that the First Amendment allows it to disfavor houses of worship in this way:
This is a simple case. Under the Governor’s edict, a 10-screen “multiplex” may host 500 moviegoers at any time. A casino, too, may cater to hundreds at once, with perhaps six people huddled at each craps table here and a similar number gathered around every roulette wheel there. Large numbers and close quarters are fine in such places. But churches, synagogues, and mosques are banned from admitting more than 50 worshippers—no matter how large the building, how distant the individuals, how many wear face masks, no matter the precautions at all. In Nevada, it seems, it is better to be in entertainment than religion. Maybe that is nothing new. But the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.
Greenhouse still doesn’t get it. “I’ve been fascinated that some liberal commentators found the dissenting opinions persuasive and the case a close one,” she writes.
Greenhouse links to a Vox piece in which Ian Millhiser says Calvary Chapel “presented a much stronger legal argument” than South Bay United Pentecostal Church did in its challenge to California’s restrictions on religious services last May. In that case, the Court likewise declined to issue an injunction pending appeal, and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion emphasizing that states have broad discretion in dealing with communicable diseases. The same four justices dissented.
Millhiser, who was not impressed by the argument against California’s rules, argues that churches in that state “were treated more favorably than similarly situated businesses, as they were allowed to reopen sooner than other places where groups of people gather in auditorium-like settings.” By contrast, he says, “there’s a plausible argument that Nevada does single out places of worship for inferior treatment that’s not imposed on many comparable secular spaces.”
Greenhouse won’t even allow that much, and her reasoning is telling. “I understand the impulse not to appear unduly antagonistic toward religion,” she says, “but I think that generosity toward the religious claim here loses sight of the broader context in which the dissenting justices were writing.”
By that Greenhouse means “the persistence of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices in seeking to elevate religious interests over those of secular society.” As evidence of that persistence, Greenhouse cites recent decisions in which the Court upheld a religious exemption from Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage mandate and ruled that the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination claims extends to teachers hired by churches.
When you understand that Alito et al.’s receptiveness to Calvary Chapel’s claims reflects a broader concern about religious freedom, Greenhouse seems to be saying, you should be wary about granting those claims any weight, no matter their legal merits. If she is trying “not to appear unduly antagonistic toward religion,” she is not doing a very good job.
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California Pizza Kitchen Declares Bankruptcy Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/30/2020 – 15:20
By Jonathan Maze of Restaurant Business,
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK), facing months of unpaid leases and with a dwindling amount of cash, declared bankruptcy on Thursday, seeking to cut back on its debt load and close unprofitable locations. The Playa Vista, Calif.-based chain, which operates about 200 locations, has more than $400 million in debt and is mostly owned by the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital along with members of the company’s management team.
The company had been seeking a possible sale since last year before the coronavirus hit. Once that happened, the company received a $30 million infusion of cash, which CEO Jim Hyatt in a bankruptcy court document called a “bridge to negotiate a comprehensive restructuring.”
Yet the company had just $13.5 million in cash on hand and four months of unpaid rent for “the majority of its locations.”
It also acknowledged receiving numerous default notices from landlords and faced lawsuits over unpaid rent.
The company has negotiated a deal with some of its lenders to provide $47 million of financing to get through the bankruptcy process. That would also shave $230 million from California Pizza Kitchen’s debt.
Not all of the company’s lenders support the deal, however. But Hyatt in his filing said CPK plans to use the time to reach a deal with remaining lenders and negotiate with its landlords “to rationalize” its footprint.
“No restaurateur in the world … has been unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hyatt said in his filing. “For many restaurants, the COVID-19 pandemic will be the greatest challenge they will ever face.”
Hyatt largely blamed a series of trends in the restaurant industry for its financial problems, from the emergence of fast-casual in the early 2000s to shifts of dining to takeout and away from dine-in service, what it calls “the Amazon/Netflix effect,” along with third-party delivery.
But it also says the coronavirus exacerbated its problems. The company said it has taken steps to adjust to consumer behavior, but that it also faced “a liquidity crunch” for the past two years.
The company was looking for potential buyers before the pandemic hit. “The COVID-19 pandemic severely interrupted the marketing process,” Hyatt said. He said sales were still down 40% during the last week of June, and that cash flow was negative $18.9 million between March and June, even as the company didn’t pay any rent or interest on its loans.
“Today’s announcement is a step towards a stronger future for California Pizza Kitchen,” Hyatt said in a statement. “This agreement from our lenders demonstrates their commitment to CPK’s viability as an ongoing business.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xen7vb Tyler Durden
Seth Klarman Slams “Enabling” Fed For “Infantilizing Investors” In “Surreal” Market Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/30/2020 – 15:05
“Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe this moment,” exclaims a frustrated-sounding Seth Klarman in his hedge fund, Baupost’s latest investor letter.
While the highly-paid, experienced, and process-oriented hedge fund managers are just “getting back to even” in 2020 (unable to beat the index), retail investors are crushing everyone in sight with gains above 25% as record economic contraction and unemployment did nothing to dent their demand to BTFD in any and everything from bankrupt HTZ to TSLA…
Goldman data showed that individual investor active trading is playing an increased role in market volatility, particularly in select stocks. In the shares market, 2.3% of all volume is made up of trades for $2,000 or less.
The increase in small trades has been even more notable in the options market, where 13% of all trades are for 1 contract.
Investor “psychology is surprisingly ebullient even though business fundamentals are often dreadful,” warns the billionaire fund manager who has historically not been shy to point out the reality behind the curtain. And it’s not just individual names like worthless HTZ, it’s systemic…
Source: Bloomberg
Klarman sees the culprit for all this insanity is obvious – The Fed!
Source: Bloomberg
Bloomberg reports that Klarman said his fund had strong gains and “we were significant net sellers as prices rallied strongly” in the second quarter.
“Investors are being infantilized by the relentless Federal Reserve activity…
It’s as if the Fed considers them foolish children, unable to rationally set the prices of securities so it must intervene.
When the market has a tantrum, the benevolent Fed has a soothing yet enabling response.”
“the market is getting ahead of itself, because the market is dependent on Fed largesse… and we made it that way…
“The Fed has created this dependency and there’s an entire generation of money-managers who weren’t around in ’74, ’87, the end of the ’90s, and even 2007-2009.. and have only seen a one-way street… of course they’re nervous.“
“The question is – do you want to feed that hunger? Keep applying that opioid of cheap and abundant money?“
Klarman warns:
“As with the 30-year-olds still living in their parents’ basements, we can only wonder whether the markets will ever be expected to make it on their own.”
Indeed, as Fisher concluded earlier in the year in his infamous blasphemy:
“…but we have to consider, through a statement rather than an action, that we must wean the market off its dependency on a Fed put.”
Not gonna happen before Nov 3rd?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3109Es5 Tyler Durden
It kind of looks like it – Trader Joe’s has decided to reverse course and not change all the brand labels of its products to satisfy the wokeness demands of a tiny, largely white, racism-parsing left-wing mob. Here’s their statement: (emphasis ours)
To Our Valued Customers:
In light of recent feedback and attention we’ve received about our product naming, we have some things we’d like to say to clarify our approach.
A few weeks ago, an online petition was launched calling on us to “remove racist packaging from [our] products.” Following were inaccurate reports that the petition prompted us to take action. We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist. We do not make decisions based on petitions.
We make decisions based on what customers purchase, as well as the feedback we receive from our customers and Crew Members. If we feel there is need for change, we do not hesitate to take action.
Decades ago, our Buying Team started using product names, like Trader Giotto’s, Trader José’s, Trader Ming’s, etc. We thought then—and still do—that this naming of products could be fun and show appreciation for other cultures. For example, we named our Mexican beer “Trader José Premium” and a couple guacamole products are called “Avocado’s Number” in a kitschy reference to a mathematical theory. These products have been really popular with our customers, including some budding mathematicians.
We constantly reevaluate what we are doing to ensure it makes sense for our business and aligns with customers’ expectations. A couple years ago we asked our Buying Team to review all our products to see if we needed to update any older packages, and also see if the associated brands developed years ago needed to be refreshed. We found that some of the older names or products just weren’t connecting or selling very well; so, they were discontinued. It’s kind of what we do.
Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing. We continue our ongoing evaluation, and those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves.
Trader Joe’s has been a unique, fun and neighborly place to shop for over 50 years. We look forward to taking care of our wonderful customers for many future decades.
That’s a big change from all the cancel culture that’s taking every minority face off food-label packaging, from Mrs. Butterworth, to the Cream of Wheat man, to Aunt Jemima, to Eskimo Pies, to the Land O’Lakes Indian maiden and more, leaving just the faces of whites on the packages. Trader Jose, Trader Ming, Arabian Joe, Maitre Pierre, Trader Giotto, Trader Joe San and the rest, though, look like they might just stay, just as their customers like.
Reading through the lines of the corporate statement tells us a lot of just why, and almost all of it is commendable:
1. They refute flat out that their products are racist:
We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist.
Glad they got that out of the way, nice to see a full frontal from what had been a bunch of corporate jellyfish.
2. They note that they are hearing from people:
We make decisions based on what customers purchase, as well as the feedback we receive from our customers and Crew Members.
…and…
Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing.
…and it’s scaring them straight. They must have been flooded with angry customers disgusted at seeing their beloved company cave in to political correctness. What next, replacing all the spicy food with bland pabulum, to keep all the cultural appropriation out and satisfy the far-left mob? Make the high-chair spoon throwers happy? Obviously, the customers rebelled.
3. They remember that they are a business:
We make decisions based on what customers purchase,
…and…
those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves.
Nice to see a company remember what it is — no Silicon Valley/Portland/Seattle-style claptrap about ‘changing the world’ from them. If something’s profitable, they keep their customers happy. And what’s more, customers agree. Here are some very recent comments that went onto the Change.org petition to force the company to take its cutesy ethnic names off its products:
One little white lie mars Trader Joe’s excellent pullback from its earlier stance – its claim that the petition to take the names off the shelves had no effect on it. Here’s an excerpt of what they were saying via the Change.org petition to shut their brands down:
“While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect— one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day.”
“…we made the decision several years ago to use only the Trader Joe’s name on our products moving forward. Since then, we have been in the process of updating older labels and replacing any variations with the name Trader Joe’s, and we will continue do so until we complete this important work.”
Yes, it did have an effect, and now the lefties are gathering more signatures to complain further. See how Change.org arranged the two statements and framed the issue on its site. They thought they had a cave-in from Big Corporate, and now are upset that they don’t.
But the rest of us see something good happening.
Trader Joe’s must have taken a look at who was behind the petition and decided it was total bee ess. Who’s behind it? A rich little wokester white high school teenager no doubt eager to please her teachers and college admissions committees named Briones Bedell.
Rest assured she knows nothing about racism, she’s just another Karen looking to ‘atone.’
Second, she drew very few signatures to her petition, a miserable 4,900 at last count, falling short of her 5,000 goal. This, despite fawning media profiles linked on her Twitter feed and copious glowing press. Seriously, she got less than 5,000 signatures and a lot of people trolling her. That doesn’t sound like the person who’s earned a right to push around big corporations, except that she knows they’ll let her. Maybe not now.
The remark by the Trader Joe’s employee above tells the real story – that Trader Joe’s introduces Americans to a wonderful variety of unique food they might not ever taste were there no Trader Joe’s. It’s cultural sharing in the best sense of the word and it delights millions and millions. Who would have tasted Alsace Tarte Tatin or Dukkah spice (please, please Trader Joe’s BRING IT BACK), or Mandarin orange chicken, the top-selling item in the store, or Salvadoran coffee, or Indian Palak Paneer, or Thai eggplant, or Peruvian chimichurri rice without it? So many tasty things to be found there, and tons of things that adapt to special diets, love the sugar-free sliced turkey they stock, try to find it elsewhere. The Middle Eastern ghee, by the way, should be labeled ‘ghee’ and not ‘clarified butter’ and come in a bigger jar, what’s with the white-bread sanitizing there? Bottom line, though, is that Trader Joe’s introduces American palates to new kinds of foods and that’s a heckuva lot better than mushed blandness, the same no matter where you go, all designed for high-chair wokester tastes.
What this sniveling ignorant little white teenager doesn’t get is there’s a difference between appropriation and appreciation, as a far smarter and more brilliant black teenager has explained exquisitely here:
Morgan Bullock is an African-American Irish dancer from Richmond, Virginia
After a TikTok video of her lightning-footed jigs went viral, she was accused of “cultural appropriation”
Q: You were misappropriating the Irish dancing culture?
A: I mean, my understanding of the term is that it means, when you’re taking something from another culture, claiming it as your own without recognizing where it comes from, and that couldn’t be further from what I’m doing.
It’s important for people to recognize that there’s a difference between appropriation and appreciation.
(The lovely video clip is edifying and well worth the time to watch). Here’s more backstory to that.
And as long as we are deep in teenager world, teen affairs being more important than, say Chinese espionage, let’s return to a previous story about appropriation and appreciation – remember this?
When Keziah Daum sported a traditional, Chinese cheongsam dress to her senior prom in Utah last month, she likely never intended her photos to go viral or be slammed as a “closet racist” over accusations of cultural appropriation. But days later, the 18-year-old began winning praise from an unexpected source — Chinese audiences and social media users.
“Very elegant and beautiful! Really don’t understand the people who are against her, they are wrong!” a supporter chimed in of the cheongsam, otherwise known as a qiapo. “I suggest the Chinese government, state television or fashion company invite her to China to display her cheongsam!”
“It is not cultural theft. It is cultural appreciation and cultural respect,” another agreed.
and this nonsense from someone who nakedly appropriates British culture, combined with sensible smackdowns from China, from Glamour:
“I suppose I was frustrated by it mainly because it looks out of context,” says Melissa Legarda, 25, a Filipino British journalist who initially shared the story with the group. “I always have such a skepticism when I see a [non-POC] wearing a dress of another country or tradition that’s not [their own] because most of the time, they don’t appreciate the traditions involved in that culture.” Legarda’s sentiment mirrors the reaction shared by many Asians in the West who have taken to Twitter to voice their dissent. One particular tweet, accusing Daum of cultural appropriation, has been retweeted over 41,000 times at publish time.
On Facebook, where I still keep in touch with my friends from Hong Kong, my feed tells a completely different story. Karen Chiang, one of my Hong Kong–based friends, shared a BuzzFeed article covering the controversy, writing, “This girl rocked it. Full stop.” Other commenters agreed, echoing the effusive feedback thousands of Chinese netizens have shared on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. The message was clear: To the Chinese, Daum totally rocked the dress—no offense taken.
“I didn’t think there was a more appropriate or respectful way for a foreigner to pay homage to qipaos and the Chinese culture, especially compared to occasions where Chinese culture is reduced to a fans, dragons, and chopstick-in-a-top-bun kind of moment,” Chiang writes in an email. The 25-year-old wellness blogger and freelance writer grew up in Hong Kong, and has seen many white expats in Hong Kong partake in the aforementioned type of dress—but didn’t see any hints of malice or racism.
“I probably raised an eyebrow [at these people], because they look quite silly most of the time. But as long as people are trying their best to respect and appreciate a culture, I’m cool with it. It’s still better than if they didn’t bother to open their minds at all.”
It seems the good guys are winning now. Enjoying another culture is not racism, it’s white Karenism, done by wokester teens with absolutely nothing intelligent to say. Glad Trader Joe’s woke up and smelled the coffee.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/310WXgB Tyler Durden
Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times from 1978 to 2008, was “startled” by the sympathy that four justices recently expressed for a Nevada church’s challenge to the state’s 50-person cap on religious services. In an op-ed piece published today, Greenhouse argues that the justices’ dissent from last Friday’s decision against granting Calvary Chapel in Dayton an injunction pending appeal irrationally elevates religious concerns above public health. She says the dissenting justices—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—”appear oblivious to the facts on the ground, particularly the well-documented role of religious services in spreading the virus.”
To the contrary, it is Greenhouse who seems oblivious to the facts—in particular, Nevada’s arbitrary distinction between houses of worship and businesses that pose similar or greater risks of COVID-19 transmission. Those favored businesses include bars, restaurants, gyms, arcades, bowling alleys, and, most conspicuously, casinos, where thousands of people from around the country have been gathering to try their luck since Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak allowed the gambling palaces to reopen on June 4. All of those businesses are permitted to operate at 50 percent of capacity, while churches, synagogues, and mosques may admit no more than 50 people at a time, regardless of their capacity. A church with seating for 500 people, for example, may not exceed one-tenth of its capacity.
That sort of discrimination is hard to reconcile with the standards that the Court has applied to laws that restrict religious activities. When those laws are neutral and generally applicable, the Court said in the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, they are consistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. But when those laws impose special burdens on religious organizations that do not apply to similarly situated secular organizations, the Court said three years later in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, they must satisfy strict scrutiny, meaning the government has to show the restrictions are narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest. That test is hard to pass, and the arguments mustered by Nevada in this case do not come close.
Calvary Chapel wanted to hold 45-minute services for up to 90 people, half of its capacity. Under its plan, congregants would follow designated one-way paths in and out of the church, observe physical distancing rules, sit in family groups spaced at least six feet apart, wear masks during services, and pass no items to each other. Sufficient time would be allowed to sanitize the church between services. These precautions, according to an infectious disease specialist consulted by the church, are “equal to or more extensive than those recommended by” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Compare that prohibited plan with the situation in restaurants, where people frequently sit for longer than 45 minutes and do not wear masks while they are eating; in bowling alleys, where groups of up to 50 tournament spectators are allowed to sit together as long as they stay six feet away from other groups; or in casinos, where people drink and gamble in close proximity at blackjack and craps tables, often eschewing the masks that are notionally required. The state lets all those indoor businesses serve up to half as many customers as were allowed before the pandemic, which in casinos means thousands of patrons at any given time, gamblers who often will visit several casinos during their visits.
If there is a logical public health rationale for this distinction, Nevada was unable to locate it. Greenhouse cites “the well-documented role of religious services in spreading the virus,” linking to a New York Times story that originally carried a headline claiming churches “Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.” But the information in the article, suggesting that “churches and religious events across the United States” account for something like 0.02 percent of COVID-19 infections, did not support that claim. Evidently that became apparent to the newspaper’s editors, who revised the headline without explanation two days after the article appeared.
“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Alito notes in his dissent from the decision to deny the injunction sought by Calvary Chapel, which was joined by Thomas and Kavanaugh. “It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance. But the Governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities. Claiming virtually unbounded power to restrict constitutional rights during the COVID–19 pandemic, he has issued a directive that severely limits attendance at religious services….That Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise, but this Court’s willingness to allow such discrimination is disappointing. We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.”
Alito suggests that Sisolak’s policy also runs afoul of the First Amendment by discriminating against speech based on viewpoint. “When large numbers of protesters [against police brutality] openly violated provisions of the Directive, such as the rule against groups of more than 50 people,” he notes, “the Governor not only declined to enforce the directive but publicly supported and participated in a protest.” Such discrimination also figured prominently in a federal judge’s June 26 decision against New York’s restrictions on religious services.
Greenhouse, who is currently the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale, does not simply disagree with Alito’s argument. She does not seem to understand his point. “‘Religion counts as a viewpoint,’ he wrote, a sentence I found baffling,” she says. “Isn’t belief in public health a viewpoint?”
Greenhouse notes that Nevada’s 50-person limit applies not only to churches but also to lecture spaces, museums, trade schools, and movie theaters (which are allowed to admit 50 customers per screen). But Kavanaugh, in a separate dissent, says Nevada is not off the hook simply because some venues have to comply with the same occupancy rule that applies to churches:
In these kinds of cases, the Court’s religion precedents require a basic two-step inquiry. First, does the law create a favored or exempt class of organizations and, if so, do religious organizations fall outside of that class? That threshold question does not require judges to decide whether a church is more akin to a factory or more like a museum, for example. Rather, the only question at the start is whether a given law on its face favors certain organizations and, if so, whether religious organizations are part of that favored group. If the religious organizations are not, the second question is whether the government has provided a sufficient justification for the differential treatment and disfavoring of religion.
Gorsuch, in his own one-paragraph dissent, makes short work of Nevada’s claim that the First Amendment allows it to disfavor houses of worship in this way:
This is a simple case. Under the Governor’s edict, a 10-screen “multiplex” may host 500 moviegoers at any time. A casino, too, may cater to hundreds at once, with perhaps six people huddled at each craps table here and a similar number gathered around every roulette wheel there. Large numbers and close quarters are fine in such places. But churches, synagogues, and mosques are banned from admitting more than 50 worshippers—no matter how large the building, how distant the individuals, how many wear face masks, no matter the precautions at all. In Nevada, it seems, it is better to be in entertainment than religion. Maybe that is nothing new. But the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.
Greenhouse still doesn’t get it. “I’ve been fascinated that some liberal commentators found the dissenting opinions persuasive and the case a close one,” she writes.
Greenhouse links to a Vox piece in which Ian Millhiser says Calvary Chapel “presented a much stronger legal argument” than South Bay United Pentecostal Church did in its challenge to California’s restrictions on religious services last May. In that case, the Court likewise declined to issue an injunction pending appeal, and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion emphasizing that states have broad discretion in dealing with communicable diseases. The same four justices dissented.
Millhiser, who was not impressed by the argument against California’s rules, argues that churches in that state “were treated more favorably than similarly situated businesses, as they were allowed to reopen sooner than other places where groups of people gather in auditorium-like settings.” By contrast, he says, “there’s a plausible argument that Nevada does single out places of worship for inferior treatment that’s not imposed on many comparable secular spaces.”
Greenhouse won’t even allow that much, and her reasoning is telling. “I understand the impulse not to appear unduly antagonistic toward religion,” she says, “but I think that generosity toward the religious claim here loses sight of the broader context in which the dissenting justices were writing.”
By that Greenhouse means “the persistence of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices in seeking to elevate religious interests over those of secular society.” As evidence of that persistence, Greenhouse cites recent decisions in which the Court upheld a religious exemption from Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage mandate and ruled that the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination claims extends to teachers hired by churches.
When you understand that Alito et al.’s receptiveness to Calvary Chapel’s claims reflects a broader concern about religious freedom, Greenhouse seems to be saying, you should be wary about granting those claims any weight, no matter their legal merits. If she is trying “not to appear unduly antagonistic toward religion,” she is not doing a very good job.
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With Hong Kong’s new national security law in place, two public universities in the Chinese city have begun shedding faculty members with a history of expressing anti-Beijing sentiments.
On July 27, news broke that Shiu Ka-chun, who teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University, will not have his teaching contract renewed, with no official reason given for the decision. A day later, Benny Tai was fired from his tenured position at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Both Shiu and Tai have faced legal trouble for their involvement in the 2014 protests for freedom in Hong Kong. Both helped galvanize support for the pro-democracy demonstrations, sometimes called the Occupy Movement or Umbrella Movement, and have been major players in calling for full democracy in the city. Shiu was convicted in April 2019 of inciting others to cause a public nuisance and of inciting people to incite others to cause public nuisance; he was released from jail in October 2019, after serving six months. Tai was convicted at the same time on some of the same charges; he was sentenced to a 16-month prison term but was released on bail in August 2019.
Now both men have been expelled from their respective universities, as the institutions rush to dissociate themselves from dissidents.
The decision to terminate my appointment was made not by the University of Hong Kong but by an authority beyond the University through its agents.
It marks the end of academic freedom in Hong Kong. Academic staff in education institutions in Hong Kong are no longer free to make controversial statements to the general public about politically or socially controversial matters.
South China Morning Post reports that he “learned his fate on Tuesday night after the HKU council reversed a recommendation by the university’s senate earlier this month that there were not enough grounds to dismiss him.” (The council is the university’s governing body, made up of students, staff, and laypeople.) Beijing’s liaison office welcomed the sacking as a “move that punishes evil and praises the virtuous.”
The national security law, which went into effect at the beginning of July, is China’s attempt to exercise greater control over Hong Kong and its pro-democracy agitators. The New York Timesreports that the law “has drawn criticism for introducing ambiguously defined crimes such as separatism and collusion that can be used to stifle protest” and that it “sets obedience to Beijing above the former British colony’s civil freedoms.”
3/ to the extent academics were already practicing self-censorship in hong kong (and many do), the case of benny erodes even that last bit of protection. e.g. https://t.co/q8ftqfLQza
Neither Shiu nor Tai have called for violence. In fact, in 2014 Tai advocated nonviolent civil disobedience in The New York Times: “Blocking government may be even more powerful than blocking roads. Refusal to pay taxes, delaying rent payments by tenants in public housing estates and filibustering in the Legislative Council, along with other such acts of noncooperation, could make governing more inconvenient.”
Since 1997, when the British handed Hong Kong over to China, the territory has operated under the “one country, two systems” policy, which the city a degree of autonomy. As a result, most Hongkongers are accustomed to freedom of speech, a fair shake in court, and the ability to elect many of their lawmakers. Mainlanders, on the other hand, face regular suppression of speech at the hands of an authoritarian state.
As Beijing tightens its grip on Hong Kong, it’s not just Tai and Shiu who are paying the price: Universities hell bent on caving to Beijing are threatening longstanding norms of academic freedom, and they’ll be much worse for it.
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With Hong Kong’s new national security law in place, two public universities in the Chinese city have begun shedding faculty members with a history of expressing anti-Beijing sentiments.
On July 27, news broke that Shiu Ka-chun, who teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University, will not have his teaching contract renewed, with no official reason given for the decision. A day later, Benny Tai was fired from his tenured position at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Both Shiu and Tai have faced legal trouble for their involvement in the 2014 protests for freedom in Hong Kong. Both helped galvanize support for the pro-democracy demonstrations, sometimes called the Occupy Movement or Umbrella Movement, and have been major players in calling for full democracy in the city. Shiu was convicted in April 2019 of inciting others to cause a public nuisance and of inciting people to incite others to cause public nuisance; he was released from jail in October 2019, after serving six months. Tai was convicted at the same time on some of the same charges; he was sentenced to a 16-month prison term but was released on bail in August 2019.
Now both men have been expelled from their respective universities, as the institutions rush to dissociate themselves from dissidents.
The decision to terminate my appointment was made not by the University of Hong Kong but by an authority beyond the University through its agents.
It marks the end of academic freedom in Hong Kong. Academic staff in education institutions in Hong Kong are no longer free to make controversial statements to the general public about politically or socially controversial matters.
South China Morning Post reports that he “learned his fate on Tuesday night after the HKU council reversed a recommendation by the university’s senate earlier this month that there were not enough grounds to dismiss him.” (The council is the university’s governing body, made up of students, staff, and laypeople.) Beijing’s liaison office welcomed the sacking as a “move that punishes evil and praises the virtuous.”
The national security law, which went into effect at the beginning of July, is China’s attempt to exercise greater control over Hong Kong and its pro-democracy agitators. The New York Timesreports that the law “has drawn criticism for introducing ambiguously defined crimes such as separatism and collusion that can be used to stifle protest” and that it “sets obedience to Beijing above the former British colony’s civil freedoms.”
3/ to the extent academics were already practicing self-censorship in hong kong (and many do), the case of benny erodes even that last bit of protection. e.g. https://t.co/q8ftqfLQza
Neither Shiu nor Tai have called for violence. In fact, in 2014 Tai advocated nonviolent civil disobedience in The New York Times: “Blocking government may be even more powerful than blocking roads. Refusal to pay taxes, delaying rent payments by tenants in public housing estates and filibustering in the Legislative Council, along with other such acts of noncooperation, could make governing more inconvenient.”
Since 1997, when the British handed Hong Kong over to China, the territory has operated under the “one country, two systems” policy, which the city a degree of autonomy. As a result, most Hongkongers are accustomed to freedom of speech, a fair shake in court, and the ability to elect many of their lawmakers. Mainlanders, on the other hand, face regular suppression of speech at the hands of an authoritarian state.
As Beijing tightens its grip on Hong Kong, it’s not just Tai and Shiu who are paying the price: Universities hell bent on caving to Beijing are threatening longstanding norms of academic freedom, and they’ll be much worse for it.
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