Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Fox News has been promoting Tucker as if he's the new reigning king of the American mass media, which, well, he most definitely is (at least in television news programming, as previously noted here).
So, while I am surprised to see Fox News indeed upload his entire opening segment to YouTube, it's pretty logical, after all, considering that Tucker's doing the real news reporting --- including traveling the Central America to interview Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele --- that the idiot lying leftist "mainstream" networks refuse to touch (for all the regular reasons), for doing so would just totally f*ck up their stupid ideological lies and memes with all things related to illegal immigration, Trump's very laudable (yet also flawed and imperfect) policies on border security, and the Biden regime's epically dishonest and incompetent handling of the crisis (which these White Hose ghouls constantly refuse to identify as such).
I'm not watching any news this morning, as I'm trying to get caught up on grading, but I did want to post some content here to the blog, as blogging's going to be light for a couple of days, as I travel out of town with my wife and young son to visit relatives in Fresno/Clovis. I should have an update on that perhaps later today, or early tomorrow morning, and I'll post some Amazon links for reader shopping opportunities, and of whose reader purchases are greatly appreciated.
Well, first off, the suspect, Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, is obviously not a "white supremacist domestic terrorist," and thus the lying "mainstream" media --- at all the major leftist cable and network news outlets --- can't run with their continuous and despicable lying memes of this so-called epidemic of "right-wing extremist violence," which these ghouls must be hatin' to their everlasting regret.
Lots of facts are still unknown, including the motives of the suspect Gonzalez; but it is known that the killings were completely premeditated, and the suspect knew the victims, and that he had secured bike-locks to the front and back gates to the business building complex there, and it appears, as O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer indicates at the video below, that the man is definitely eligible for the death penalty.
And one thing about Spitzer --- who I don't really like, and who I never vote for --- is that while he's actually a craven career politician, he's a freakin' hardcore "tough on crime" mofo, and he will push it to the max to make sure this Gonzalez guy gets the full "justice" that's coming to him, and if it's not lethal injection, that f*cker will be going behind bars for a very long time, perhaps even for life in prison.
The gunman knew his victims. He knew the office park — and how to trap them.
He locked the gates to the complex with bike cables before he slipped inside a manufactured homes business called Unified Homes, backpack slung over his shoulder, gun in hand.
That’s how police Thursday described the start of a shooting in Orange the night before that left four people, including a 9-year-old boy, dead.
Officers arrived at the scene about 5:30 p.m., minutes after receiving reports of shooting. They encountered gunfire and shot through the locked gates, wounding the gunman, said Orange Police Lt. Jennifer Amat. They used bolt cutters to enter the complex.
Officers found two victims in the courtyard — the boy and a woman who was alive and taken to a hospital, where she remains in stable yet critical condition. Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said it appeared that the boy died in the arms of a woman who “was trying to save him.”
The boy is believed to be the son of one of the victims who worked at Unified Homes. It is not clear if the mother is the woman hospitalized.
Police found three more bodies: a woman on an upstairs outdoor landing, a man in an office and a woman in a separate office.
The victims’ names have not been released because their next of kin have not all been notified, Amat said. The suspect is Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, a 44-year-old man last known to be living in Anaheim who police said had a “business and personal relationship” with the victims.
“It is a horrible, horrible tragedy,” Spitzer said, “that Mr. Gonzalez made a decision to use deadly force to deal with issues he was dealing with in his life. So he will suffer and face the consequences.”
Police recovered a semiautomatic handgun and a backpack with pepper spray, handcuffs and ammunition, “which we believe belonged to the suspect,” Amat said Thursday.
The suspect had been living in a motel room in Anaheim, and arrived at the business in a rental car, police said. A photo released by authorities showed a man entering the business dressed in black and gray with sunglasses, a baseball hat and a black bandanna covering his face. He had a backpack on his left shoulder and a gun in his right hand.
Two police officers discharged their weapons, said Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office, which investigates officer-involved shootings. Both were wearing body cameras.
The incident — the third mass shooting in the United States in two weeks — stunned the quiet north Orange neighborhood.
Tim Smith was sitting in his living room watching TV news about a commercial fire in Compton when he heard the crack of gunfire.
Seconds later, three more shots. His wife, Kim, joined him. The couple has lived in their home on Dunton Avenue since 1992, and said the most disruption they deal with on a typical day is the sound of neighbors mowing their lawns.
They looked at each other as four more gunshots sounded.
They got low in the house to shield themselves. After a moment, Smith went to the back door and cracked it open to listen.
Smith’s backyard — lined with tall cypress trees — is feet away from the office building’s back parking lot. Smith heard a male officer’s booming voice barking a command: “Don’t move or I will shoot you.”
He watched from his shed as the SWAT team moved into the building, silently, and in strategic formation.
Smith says he was heartened that police arrived so fast.
I actually wanted to blog more tonight, but, alas, there's too much stuff going on around here at home (including responding to loads of student requests for "extensions" on their semester term paper assignments, which I scheduled to be due BEFORE the Easter break, so students could actually chill while they're supposed to be on vacation; though now that I've actually given some of those "extensions," they'll actually be working over the same Easter break, that I told them, *sigh,* they needed to have off to relax, recharge, and reflect).
Oh brother, what's to come of this country?
(Well, I guess that's a rhetorical question, "shouting to the wind," with no other purpose, in a sense, but to rant helplessly).
Well, for one thing, we have to endure at least, what, the next 18-months with these idiot leftist totalitarian crackpots now hunkering down in the "Capitol," and I don't mean Washington, D.C., but the "Capitol of Panem," from the film (and novels) "The Hunger Games"?
Because, like just suggested, we're at the mercy of stupid, privileged, and hypocritical elites, like A.O.C., "Transportation Secretary" and now "climate expert, former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, and, last but not least, lying "Fauxcahontas" Senator Elizabeth Warren, who wants to raise your taxes (but not hers) for you to pay for all of this "new" technology (which isn't; I mean "windmills"?, c'mon, how long has world civilization relied on those ancient dealybobs, until these same starving and freezing folks, actually, didn't have to rely on that ancient technology that much anymore, because fossil fuels made their lives and work less burdensome and onerous, while at the same time improving the economic/material quality of life at rates that had never been seen in human history); but what do I know? If I don't shut up soon, I'll be up at the "Capitol" competing in some to-the-death "reality show" that would be a bit "too real," with me being called up from the "district" of KKKalifornia, to fight and, perhaps, die, for the entertainment of the same stupid "elites," who'd be stuffing their faces with the most obnoxious and expensive foods and wine, looking ahead to the next "spectacles," like those they had in Ancient Rome, and where human life was devalued and squandered (then, just like now), without so much as the bat of nicely, and cosmetically touched-up, eyelashes.
Marano was on "Tucker" earlier this evening, and the both of them, thankfully, I guess, inspired me to spin out this little tale of our coming "utopia" over this next 18-months; and frankly, if we do, indeed, survive until the next election, the 2022 midterms, maybe all us "rubes" in "flyover country" back in the "districts," will, at last, freakin' rise up and kick some muthaf*ckin' ass, and boot these "Green New Infrastructure" idiots back to the own sh*thole "blue states," where they can choke on their own, environmentally-friendly, and non-carbon baked, arugula cream pies.
It turns out I'd forgotten about Maxine Nightingale, whose song, "Right Back Where We Started From," used to come on all the time at K-EARTH 101 Los Angeles.
(And the same goes for Junior Walker and the All Stars, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)?," which I've posted to this blog more than once; and that's not to mention the Bellamy Brothers, and a few other "oldies buy goodies" kind of folks.)
In any case, here she is, and looking good too. She's apparently still active, according to her Wikipedia entry.
Well, first of all, what's a "mass shooting"? If I'm not mistaken, any "officer-involved" shooting in which at least two deaths occur, is defined as a "mass shooting." And who defines this? I don't know? Maybe it's a federal definition that's been on the books for years, if not decades.
But the implication, especially for the hated leftist media, is that with such a "low bar" on defining such events, any and all such incidents, can be sensationalized, and of course, any person's wrongful death is a tragedy, the killings in the City of Orange yesterday, again, all horrific and despicable, can easily be exploited by these same disgusting media outlets, especially the "progressive" national cable networks (notably, CNN and MSNBC) who're always the first "off the gun," so to speak, to turn any and all of such terrible crimes into some new Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel-type of definitive "mass shooting" incident, involving the shooter, Stephen Paddock, 64-years-old, from Mesquite, Nevada, which left 58 people dead, and almost 900 people injured, in what was, really, one of the all-time deadliest gun-related murder-massacres in American history.
Now, as for the City of Orange, I grew up there, and the shooting took place maybe a less than a mile from my dental office (the guy who does root canals, of which I've had too many), and Orange is also the location of my young 19-year-old son's school, and, as he had a recent bad incident himself, on Monday, March 22nd, and of which he's still processing, he might not appreciate how worried all of this makes his parents.
Helpfully, this L.A. Times story below is not very "sensationalist," whereas as this one, at CNN, is very much so, where the piece notes:
The FBI's Los Angeles division confirmed to CNN it had responded to the shooting as a matter of routine, but the Orange Police Department is the lead investigative agency.
This is at least the 20th mass shooting since the Atlanta-area spa attacks two weeks ago that left eight people dead. CNN defines a mass shooting as a shooting incident which results in four or more casualties (dead or wounded), excluding the shooter.
Now, CNN does go with the at least "four or more casualties (dead or wounded)," and in this case, the shooter himself was arrested. But still, even four "dead or wounded" remains a very low bar, and for CNN to lump in this number of "at least the 20th mass shooting" since the horrific Atlanta killings a couple of weeks back --- which itself was quickly politicized by CNN, before literally any genuine facts were known --- gives you a pretty good clue as to what exactly's going on, which, of course, is to perpetuate all the "Big Lies" that all the leftist media peddle, about the "epidemic" of gun violence in this country, with the media's "final solution" being to strip Americans of their God-given rights, and not just the Second Amendment, but perhaps even more importantly, the First.In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, (and a KABC Eyewitness News 7 segment, from last night, below), "4 killed, including child, in mass shooting at Orange office complex":
Four people, including a child, were killed Wednesday evening and a fifth person was injured in a mass shooting at an Orange office complex.It marks the third mass shooting in the United States in two weeks, coming after incidents at three Atlanta spas that killed eight people, including six Asian women, and at a Boulder, Colo., supermarket that killed 10.Few details were immediately available about the victims or a potential motive for the shooting.Lt. Jennifer Amat, a spokeswoman for the Orange Police Department, said officers received a call about 5:30 p.m. of shots fired and responded to a business at 202 W. Lincoln Ave. in Orange. The beige, two-story office complex at the address contains a number of small businesses.The officers encountered gunfire when they arrived and opened fire, Amat said. The shooter was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound and was listed in critical condition Wednesday night. It was unclear if the wound was self-inflicted or if he was struck by police gunfire, Amat said.There is no current threat to the public, she added. A firearm was recovered at the scene.
Have a good day, and don't ever, let them try to take away your rights.
I did see the video of the carjacking on Twitter, and I didn't want to jump to conclusions as to the race of the youth suspects, although watching the video in its entirety, it's clear at the end of it, that the two depraved "children" perpetrators were certainly not "white supremacist domestic terrorists" inflicting bloody murder-mayhem on a decent, immigrant family-man making some money, in his own car, delivering food during a pandemic for Uber Eats.
My wife and I were both stunned by this story, and personally, it's one of the worst crime stories I can recall in years, and that's saying a lot, considering how almost all the big Democrat-controlled cities in the U.S. have seen skyrocketing crime rates since the death of George Floyd, and the subsequent "peaceful protests" that burned down police stations, neighborhood shops, and more, during our dreadfully dishonest summer of "racial reconciliation" and "Black Lives Matter" lies.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is taking heat for sharing a video on "preventing auto thefts" amid her silence on the death of Mohammad Anwar, who died just days ago after two teen girls allegedly tasered him to steal his vehicle.
"Auto theft is a crime of opportunity. Follow these steps to reduce the risk of your vehicle becoming a target. Remember the motto, #ProtectYourAuto," Bowser wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
"Carjackings are a senseless act of violence that risk the lives of innocent individuals, and over the course of this month, we have worked to raise awareness about a troubling increase in this violent crime, related arrests and safety tips," a spokeswoman for the mayor told Fox News in a statement. "Today’s prescheduled social media post was part of that effort and should not detract from the tragic death of Mohammad Anwar. Our thoughts and prayers remain with his family and the families of those we have lost to violence."
Bowser's tweet received instantaneous backlash.
"Horrible timing on this clearly scheduled tweet. And even if Mohammed Anwar wasn’t dead, carjackings are a plague in DC — there isn’t a lot you can do [with regard to] risk reduction besides simply not driving a car. This was broad daylight," journalist Natalia Antonova wrote on Twitter.
"Blame the victim huh? How about cracking down on perpetrators to deter this behavior?" Twitter user Jesse Hunt wrote.
"Uber Eats driver Muhammad Anwar was the victim of a carjacking by two teenage girls, who committed felony murder, in DC. He died as a result of injuries. I presume this is a scheduled tweet but it’s extremely tone deaf. Bowser’s silence is deafening," media strategist Gabriella Hoffman wrote on Twitter.
Two teenage girls fought Anwar, a 66-year-old UberEats delivery driver, for control of his car, leaving him dead as he was flung from the vehicle when it wrecked. The suspects, who police say are ages 13 and 15, have been charged with murder.
The suspects, who police say are ages 13 and 15, have been charged with murder in the death of Anwar.
One of the girls told D.C. police officers that they had set out with a stun gun to steal a car on Tuesday, according to court testimony from homicide unit Detective Chad Leo.
The girls got into Anwar’s car around 4:30 p.m. at the Navy Yard Metro Station as he was making deliveries, Leo said.
Anwar drove the girls to Nationals Park where he pulled his car over and a struggle ensued between them. Officials, citing police, said Anwar partially left the car and was pinned between the door and the driver’s seat as the teens allegedly put the vehicle in gear, the New York Post reported.
The car then lurched forward, causing Anwar to be fatally flung out as the car made a sharp right turn, causing it to roll over on its side and crash into two parked cars.
Officials arrived on the scene and found Anwar suffering from "life-threatening injuries," police said. D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded to the scene and transported the victim to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead...
Also, at the video above, it turns out one of the youth suspects, not identified, had been arrested for a previous carjacking, so, I mean, what gives? Who's the racists here? The two girls, who (allegedly, as they've still got to face trial), or the court system, which let one of them off, presumably, with a slap on the wrist, not just because minors "have their whole lives in front of them," blah, blah, but, because, obviously, these two suspected murderers are black.
And, I don't know, Mayor Bowser, she's stayed silent right? Is her team still brainstorming to figure out another way to pin it on this poor Pakistani-born immigrant, driving his own car, and not taking in Jamie Dimon-level wages for his hard work? Dimon is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, the same bank that delayed the recent pandemic-economic relief checks for two-days after the feds sent the money to his bank branches, so no doubt Chase could reap windfall interest-earning profits, on the hundreds of millions of dollars of cash that sat in their coffers for two days, while regular Americans were scratching out their next meals, and downing anxiety meds like candy, while stressing over whether they'll go totally bankrupt when their rental eviction moratoriums expire, and they'll be on the hook for tens of thousands in unpaid back-rent, and which there's literally no way the average family would be able to afford (including millions of ethnic minority families in "marginalized" communities), unless Congress passes legislation making the rest of us --- the rest of us regular citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender identity, also struggling to make ends meet --- bailout our corporate masters on Wall Street, whose lobbyists meet regularly with Washington D.C. power-brokers, especially Democrat Members of Congress and top Biden administration officials.
So tell me, again, who's the racist in all of this?
So, I'm just back from Cerritos, where I came from visiting my young son, who was hospitalized this last week (due to a psyche breakdown dealing with his A.S.D.). He's coming home tomorrow, so I don't need to say too much more about that, other than, "Thank God," because working with these numbskull so-called "professionals" at such places is a nightmare.
Okay, in any case, driving back down the 91 freeway to I-5 South, I did have on 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, and it turns out they've screwed up their website, and I can't find the "playlist" of recent songs just aired, like I used to post back in the days of my regular "drive-time" musical updates. (I guess the station had to "consolidate" with some others on "radio.com," or some such bull, but no matter, at least it's still on, shoot.)
I mean, 95.5 KLOS Los Angeles is still going strong, since back in the day when I was in high school, and K-EARTH 101 Los Angeles, which 20 years ago was an "oldies but goodies" station, playing everything from the Beach Boys to the Beatles to Sam Cooke to Dobie Gray to Elvis to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles to the Temptations, and more. Now it's just, basically, another "classic rock" channel, with a few 80s "new wave" hits thrown in, which is okay, but I miss KKLQ 100.3 FM "The Sound" Los Angeles, which, frankly, was just as good, and even better, when you figure in the nostalgia, as the old KMET Los Angeles, a.k.a., the "Might Met," which used to have D.J.s like Jim Ladd, who used to smoke "doobies" while on air, as well as Cynthia Fox, who years later, was back "spinning" the classics, at "The Sound."
The one other radio station I really miss was the Long Beach-based "Pure Rock" 105.5 KNAC, which used to have the most hilarious morning D.J., Norm McBride, who after I'd had a couple of "tokes" in the morning, my eyes would be watering and my stomach aching, non-stop, because I'd get the "lolz" bad.
In any case, it's all iTunes and whatever the f*ck nowadays, so who really gives a rat's ass? Most of the old "classic rockers" are starting to kick the bucket now anyway (R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen), so I know I'm getting too old for this stuff anyway.
But I like Portugal. The Man, so I guess I should count my blessings that I'm still here, and I never O.D.'d on some damn stupid coke-cocktail, or some such dumb sh*t (heroin, f*ck, hated the "junk" myself, holy motherf*cker, and I only tried it once, and that was once too many, jeez), that some of my long lost buddies, from back in the day, succumbed to.
And pfft, don't even get me going about "KROQ," as, frankly, with folks like "Darby Crash," former alcoholic lead singer of the "Germs," now also dead, I don't need to relive the experience; and Rodney Bingenheimer, the stuck up old c*nt, used to spin records at the "Starwood" punk nightclub, in West Hollywood, at the time, when I wasn't so smart as I am now. No need to relive that sh*t, sheesh.
Thanks for checking back in at this old fart's old blog.
Can't keep my hands to myself
Think I'll dust 'em off, put 'em back up on the shelf
In case my little baby girl is in need
Am I coming out of left field?
Ooh woo, I'm a rebel just for kicks, now
I been feeling it since 1966, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still
Ooh woo, I'm a rebel just for kicks, now
Let me kick it like it's 1986, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still
Got another mouth to feed
Leave her with a baby sitter, mama, call the grave digger
I will very pleased if Mr. Gowdy scores the 4:00pm broadcast, because then I might be able to have two straight hours of news programming that I actually would enjoy watching, and I won't get all the "woke" bullcrap from CNN, and, of course, I rarely, if ever, flip over to the clowns at MSNBC.
And Steyn is a worthy host, and he's even more hilarious than Tucker is at the 5:00pm show, "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (which, right now is the highest rated cable program out of all the cable networks, and it's no surprise, because he's just been killin' it).
Here's the list of ratings leaders for the 4:00pm "Primetime" program:
In order of viewership:3/8, Trey Gowdy: 2,057,000
2/1, Trey Gowdy: 1,988,000
1/1, Brian Kilmeade: 1,960,000
1/25, Maria Bartiromo: 1,877,000
3/22 (Mon-Wed), Brian Kilmeade: 1,777,000
3/15, Maria Bartiromo: 1,767,000
2/8, Mark Steyn: 1,759,000
2/15, Rachel Campos-Duffy: 1,728,000
3/1, Lawrence Jones: 1,713,000
2/22, Katie Pavlich: 1,647,000
Now, I'm a little surprised that Rachel Campus-Duffy beat out Katie Pavlich, who, I think, is 100 times smarter than Ms. Campus-Duffy, but who knows? Ms. Katie did look a little "green" in the role as "host" of an hour-long show, and, I don't recall, but perhaps Ms. Campos-Duffy is just more experienced. And Ms. Bartiromo's a freakin' pro, in any case, and I wish I saw her on T.V. more often, because I'm rarely up at 3:00am (Pacific) to watch her "Wall Street" program, although I do remember reading she got into a little "hot water" with her aggressive promotion of the "voter fraud" allegations being pushed by Team Trump. (And while there was fraud, and probably monumental fraud, I just wanted personally to "move on," and just gear up for the Georgia special elections, which Republicans lost, not just because of the hypocritical idiot Kelly Loeffler, but because all of those invovled, in the Washington G.OP. [the RNC], and folks down in the "Peach State," just refused to coordinate a wining electoral strategy down there).
Speaking of new theme songs . . . while I was riding with Ali Akbar to the Romney event Friday in Abingdon, Virginia, Ali was doing the usual thing he does when we’re traveling in his car: Playing crappy pop music from his smartphone through the car stereo system at top volume and singing along at the top of lungs, off-key.
Seriously, we’re like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, except that Ali’s not old enough to know who Oscar and Felix were. We get on each other’s nerves something awful and it’s really amazing that we’ve been friends for three years. Anyway . . .
So Ali was cranking out his wretched music when, amid the noise rotation, I heard a song that wasn’t quite as awful as the rest. In fact, it was kinda catchy. A pulsing bass riff in a minor key with some techno stuff in the treble and a chick singer with a keening falsetto. “Hey, man, play that again,” I said.
Intriguing. There was something spooky about the lyrics — lights and sleeping and “constant calling me home” — although I couldn’t understand them clearly enough to make out every word. And what was it about that voice? The chick had a weird Celtic-folk quaver going on, with a little bit Stevie Nicks, and also a little bit Cyndi Lauper. (Ali: “Cyndi who?”)
So I looked up the lyrics and the singer, a British chick named Ellie Goulding, and thereby learned...
Well, I personally don't have any such muscially-moving reminiscences, but I do have this:
Instapundit was on the 4:00pm Fox program today, discussing "cancel culture" (what else?), which I thought was cool, as I did get that Instalanche last week, and he's an expert on this stuff anyway (as you can tell, from reading his own book about it).
Jack Phillips is America’s most famous baker. People have taken him all the way to the Supreme Court in hopes of getting it to force him to bake them one of his custom cakes. This week he’s back in the dock, again defending his refusal to bake a custom cake with a message he says goes against his Christian faith.
Mr. Phillips owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., and holds traditional views on marriage and sexuality. The first legal action against him came via the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, when in 2012 he declined to bake a custom cake for a same-sex wedding and found himself accused of unlawful discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This time he’s being sued because he wouldn’t bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.
“Jack is being targeted for his religious beliefs,” says Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, who defended Mr. Phillips in his first case and continues to represent him. “His opponents are weaponizing the law to punish and destroy him because he won’t create expression that violates his Christian faith. They want to make the law an arm of cancel culture.”
In the first go-round, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 for Mr. Phillips. But it did so narrowly, on grounds that the commission had displayed “clear and impermissible hostility” to Mr. Phillips’s religious beliefs. (One commissioner compared Mr. Phillips’s invocation of his Christian beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust.) The court left unresolved the key constitutional question: Can the government compel people to create speech or artistic expressions to which they profoundly object?
The latest trial started Monday in Colorado state court. It dates to 2017, when Autumn Scardina called Mr. Phillips’s shop. She requested a custom cake—pink on the inside, blue on the outside—reflecting her gender transition. When the shop refused, she complained to the commission.
The commission pursued the case but dropped it in 2019 after Mr. Phillips filed a federal lawsuit against the state. Ms. Scardina then filed her own suit. Given that Mr. Phillips has already lost 40% of his business because he has stopped making his signature custom wedding cakes, these suits are plainly aimed at harassing him into submission.
A 2017 New York Times profile opened with this lead: “Jack Phillips bakes beautiful cakes, and it is not a stretch to call him an artist.” As an artist, he argues that his custom cakes are speech, and that he shouldn’t be compelled to create cakes with messages he deeply objects to.
In her court filing, Ms. Scardina says she asked for a birthday cake, not a cake celebrating her transition, and accuses Mr. Phillips of refusing her because she is transgender. But her story has shifted. In her original complaint to the commission, she wrote that she’d told the bakery the design was “intended for the celebration of my transition from male to female.”
After Masterpiece turned down this cake, Ms. Scardina called to request another. This one would feature Satan smoking a joint. Mr. Phillips declined, again because of the message...
Still more at that top link, and I do hope and pray Mr. Phillips prevails again in court, even if, once again, it goes to the Supremes.
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