Updates: Democracy and the law, the state of US democracy

Legal cases against Trump inch forward

Multiple sources are reporting that the last few days have been uniformly bad for Trump in five separate lawsuits. The Daily Beast writes:

In a matter of hours Tuesday, former President Donald Trump suffered humiliating defeats in courtrooms across the country that put him on track to have his personal taxes exposed, see his company dismantled, face a trial for an alleged rape, and confront the unencumbered power of the Department of Justice.  

In the midst of this maelstrom of legal trouble, the real estate mogul’s longtime personal accountant completely disavowed the company’s financial shenanigans, saying if he’d known the way executives were dodging taxes for years, he would have died of shock. “I probably would've had a heart attack,” Donald Bender testified in Manhattan criminal court, where the Trump Organization is defending itself at trial against the District Attorney’s Office.

What needs to be kept in mind is how successful Trump has been in gaming both the legal and business systems and getting away with it. Trump is second to none in breaking laws and contracts and getting away with it. 

He is equally expert at delay and stonewall tactics where patience, time and/or money simply run out for people in court trying to nail the bastard. Above the Law comments on this point:

Keeping it local, the fun picked up in the courtroom of New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, where Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba appears to have long since exhausted the court’s patience. And filing yet another motion to dismiss on the eve of the scheduling conference characterizing the detailed complaint filed by Attorney General Letitia James as “clumsily attempting to recharacterize decades of business transactions between highly sophisticated parties, only to succeed in establishing that she cannot plead a claim” did not help.

At one point, Habba suggested to Insider that Trump would actually take the stand in his own defense here. To which we would just note that the former president and his children litigated for years on end to avoid being deposed behind closed doors. And when they ran out of road, they largely took the Fifth. So … make of that one what you will.

Lat September, the ethics-focused CREW updated the list of 56 credible crime allegations since 2015. All 56 remain unindicted and unpunished. CREW wrote:

Trump’s staggering record of uncharged crimes

As of November 2022, Donald Trump has been credibly accused of committing at least 56 criminal offenses since he launched his campaign for president in 2015. That total only reflects allegations relating to his time in or running for office and omits, for instance, Trump’s criminal exposure for fraudulent business dealings.

A detailed table that CREW put together shows crimes that still can or cannot be prosecuted. All of Trump’s delays have served him very well. Nine of the 56 alleged crimes appear to be not prosecutable due to the statute of limitations having run. When in red, the column “likely deadline to file charges” indicates that the listed crime cannot be prosecuted because too much time has passed. That shows just how useless the rule of law and the court system is for rich and powerful elites. Some of the table of alleged crimes is shown below.

One can reasonably believe that many laws are either (i) intentionally written by rich and powerful people to preferentially protect rich and powerful people, or (ii) apply to everyone equally in theory but are enforced and prosecuted unequally. The US really does have a two-tiered system of law, an easier one for the elites and a much nastier one for the rest of us. Sociologist Brooke Harrington, tax advisor to wealthy people, once commented on this: 

“The lives of the richest people in the world are so different from those of the rest of us, it's almost literally unimaginable. National borders are nothing to them. They might as well not exist. The laws are nothing to them. They might as well not exist.”

Former president President Richard Nixon once expressed a similar sentiment when musing about himself:  

“Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.”

Maybe Trump did not have as nearly a bad a time in court the last few days as much of the reporting on it suggests. Every day that goes by where a crime is remains unindicted is another little win for the criminal. Every day not spent in jail is another little win.

The state US US democracy

One commentator cautions against getting too complacent in view of the results so far from the 2022 elections. The Guardian writes:

‘The US can still become a fascist country’: 

Frances Fox Piven’s midterms postmortem

The 90-year-old sociologist on ‘vengeance politics’, cruelty and climate change as she looks back on half a century of activism

“I don’t think this fight over elemental democracy is over, by any means,” she said. “The United States was well on the road to becoming a fascist country – and it still can become a fascist country.”

All the main elements are now in place, she said, for America to take a turn to the dark side. “There is the crazy mob, Maga; an elite that is oblivious to what is required for political stability; and a grab-it-and-run mentality that is very strong, very dangerous. I was very frightened about what would happen in the election, and it could still happen.”

“There’s going to be a lot of vengeance politics, a lot of efforts to get back at Joe Biden, idiot stuff. And that will rile up a lot of people. The Maga mob is not a majority of the American population by any stretch of the imagination, but the fascist mob don’t have to be the majority to set in motion the kinds of policies that crush democracy.”

That speaks for itself.

Update on low-carbon energy generation and storage technology

This is actually some pretty good news, assuming the US can get past it’s political problem called the corrupted, pro-pollution, pro-climate change Republican Party. Steve Novella at Neurologica blog writes:

“Renewable” includes wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal and biomass. Low carbon includes all these plus nuclear, which is not technically renewable because it burns fuel. “Intermittent” sources are wind and solar, because we cannot control when the sun shines or when the wind blows. One of the biggest communication errors I encounter is confusing “renewable” with “intermittent”, so I want to keep these terms clear.

There is no controversy over the fact that above 30% or so of wind and solar penetration the cost of new capacity goes up. This is because intermittent sources require overcapacity and grid storage to work at higher percentages. This is a geometric progression, with the inflection point being somewhere around 30%. This is not a limit or ceiling, it is an inflection point. The curve really starts to turn up at around 60%.

The other big variable is grid storage. With sufficient grid storage, well distributed, we can have 100% wind and solar. We don’t currently have such grid storage, so again we are betting on a future capacity we don’t currently have. Grid storage also needs to be able to shift energy production to demand over hours, days, and even seasons (for solar).

Again, the question is, what is the probability that a 100% renewable scheme (which would need to include about 80% wind and solar) will succeed, meaning that we have sufficient grid updates and grid storage? And if it does not succeed, what is our plan B? The default plan B is to burn fossil fuel, and that will cost us our climate goals. This is why I have found compelling the arguments of experts who say we need to maintain, at least, our nuclear capacity, and perhaps even expand it a bit, to reduce the probability that we will need to burn fossil fuels to make up for any shortfall in a 100% renewable scheme. This further means we need to develop nuclear capacity now, because it will be too late in 20 years.

Pumped hydro has always been one of the best grid storage options, and today is responsible for 99% of grid storage power. The idea is to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir when the grid has excess energy, and then to flow the water from the upper to the lower through turbines to generate electricity when needed. This has a round trip energy efficiency of about 80%, which is pretty good as grid storage goes. Only lithium-ion batteries are better, at around 92%.

Attention, however, has shifted to closed-loop pumped hydro. These installations are not connected to a river, and cannot be used as a source of hydroelectric power. They solely serve the function of grid storage. They can be built wherever there are two reservoirs of water that are close enough and have a sufficient difference in altitude (called the head). If, for example, the reservoirs have a head of 300 meters and are 1km apart, that is a good location for a closed loop system. There are other geological details of importance. The two reservoirs are connected by tunnels or pipes, so it matters how much rock will need to be drilled.

A recent analysis of the global potential for closed-loop pumped hydro finds 616,000 potential sites around the world. They also conclude that we only need 0.1% of these sites to develop sufficient pumped hydro grid storage to support wind and solar energy. This means we can pick the best 0.1% of sites to develop. They also argue that prior analyses of the potential of pumped hydro did not include the potential for closed loop, non-river systems.

An analysis of potential sites in the US includes an interesting discussion. First, this also finds great untapped potential, 35 terawatt-hours of capacity. But they also point out that such calculations are extremely sensitive to technical assumptions about the suitability and cost of developing specific sites.

A closed-loop pumped hydropower

energy storage diagram

Update on democracy vs. tyranny, etc.

The stolen election poison spreads to Brazil

Yahoo! News writes:

More than three weeks after losing a reelection bid, President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday blamed a software bug and demanded the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil’s nation’s electronic voting machines, though independent experts say the bug doesn't affect the reliability of results.

Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes — and a reelection victory, ....

Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa and an auditor hired by the party told reporters in Brasilia that their evaluation found all machines dating from before 2020 — nearly 280,000 of them, or about 59% of the total used in the Oct. 30 runoff — lacked individual identification numbers in internal logs.

Neither explained how that might have affected election results, but said they were asking the electoral authority to invalidate all votes cast on those machines.

Any glitch in a storm will do in the never-ending war of tyranny and kleptocracy against democracy.

A defeat is an actual victory?

The NYT writes:

In Blow to Trump, Supreme Court Permits House to Obtain His Tax Returns

The Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for a House committee to obtain former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns, refusing his request to block their release after a yearslong fight.

Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, who requested the files as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that his panel would “now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”

Mr. Trump has used the slow pace of litigation to run out the clock on various oversight and investigative efforts. His stonewalling and legal challenges have succeeded in keeping the House from obtaining his tax returns for nearly four years, but that strategy appears to have fallen just short. The House would almost certainly have dropped the request for Mr. Trump’s tax returns in January, when Republicans take control of the chamber.

WaPo writes:

It was unclear when the Treasury Department will turn over the documents — a spokesman said only that the department would comply — but time is not on the side of Democrats who run the committee, who will cede control to Republicans in January as a result of the recent midterm elections.

The radical right Republican Supreme Court did it's best to protect Trump. The open question is who well did it do it’s job. There isn’t much time for the House to do much investigating. The pace of House investigations has been slower than glacial. Once McCarthy takes over in January as House speaker, that will likely (~90% chance?) be the end of House investigations of Trump, his corrupt cronies and assorted fellow traitors. The next ~6-8 weeks will reveal just how much or little the Democratic House can do with this new information, assuming they get it before McCarthy takes control.  

It’s raining impeachments! 

The Hill writes:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that GOP lawmakers will consider impeachment next year if he does not step down.

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate, every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday.

Over the last few weeks, multiple commentators from multiple sources have noted the Republican explicit lust for revenge and witch hunts. They generally also comment that the Republican Party no longer governs or has any detailed policy agenda. In stead of governing, the GOP is going to exercise power and generally continue is anti-government, anti-democracy agenda to accumulate more wealth and power for elites at the expense of everyone and everything else, including the environment. 

Since they do not control the White House or Senate, House Republicans will just have to be content with vilifying and slandering Democrats, looking for Hunter Biden’s laptop and tax returns and investigating and impeaching any Democrat they target for impeachment. In other words, two more precious years are going to be wasted.

Why the Georgia Senate race is fairly important

Huffpost writes:

Two years into his presidency, Joe Biden has already broken records with the number of federal judges he’s gotten confirmed and with the diversity of his court picks. And as Democrats prepare to control the Senate for another two years, Biden is on track to make his impact on the courts a defining piece of his legacy.

It’s only going to get easier for him if Democrats win in Georgia’s Senate runoff on Dec. 6.

The Senate has been tied at 50-50, along party lines, for the entire time that Biden has been president. That’s meant that Democrats and Republicans have had equal representation on the Judiciary Committee, where GOP members have been intentionally delaying the confirmation process for a number of Biden’s court picks.

All those GOP members have to do is unanimously vote no on a nominee, causing a tie within the committee, and it keeps that nominee stuck there. Whenever they do this, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has to file a so-called discharge petition to force that nominee out of the committee and onto the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

Every discharge petition adds four hours of wait time on the Senate floor. That’s on top of the delays that come with filing a petition at all. To date, Republicans have forced Schumer to use a discharge petition for five of Biden’s court picks who went on to be confirmed. Among them: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

There are currently four other judicial nominees — two appeals court picks and two district court picks — who are still stuck in the Judiciary Committee and need discharge petitions to get out.

Democrats are already set to have 50 seats in the new Senate. If Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) defeats his GOP challenger, Herschel Walker, in the coming weeks, Democrats will have 51 seats. That would mean no more power sharing on committees, no more votes tied along party lines in the Judiciary Committee and no more discharge petitions. 

 

The Republican Party: It’s a waste of oxygen.

News bits: Divisions within the Christian nationalist movement; judicial ethics, or lack thereof

From the creating false narratives files:

Religious division in the Christian nationalist

political-ethnic-religious movement

Religion News Service writes:

As Christian nationalism digs in, differing visions surface

As Christian nationalists get more specific, ideological and theological divisions have reemerged.

When Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke took the stage at the ReAwaken America Tour in Pennsylvania over the weekend, the throngs who had come out to hear conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric about Democratic candidates instead heard Locke aim some of his sharpest criticism at a surprising target: Pope Francis.

“If you trust anybody but Jesus to get you to heaven, you ain’t going,” Locke said, his voice rising. “You say, ‘Well what about the pope?’ He ain’t a pope, he’s a pimp … He has prostituted the church.”

It was an odd note to strike at a rally where perhaps the biggest name on the speaker’s roster was retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a Catholic who later made it a point to mention his faith while voicing support for Christian nationalism. “I’m a Christian — I’m a Catholic, by the way,” said Flynn.

Locke had aired his anti-Catholic position a few days before in a Facebook post advocating for burning rosaries and “Catholic statues.” When another user urged him to abandon the anti-Catholic rhetoric, Locke doubled down. “Catholicism is idolatry 100%” he wrote. “I will not be silent whether you follow or not. It’s a false pagan religion and so filled with perversity it’s ridiculous.”

Anti-Catholic rhetoric has long been a theme in nativist American thought, which includes some forms of extremist Protestant Christian agitators such as the Ku Klux Klan. But in the current Christian nationalist surge that fuels the ReAwaken gatherings and others like it, the ideology has served more as a glue holding together a wide range of right-wing coalitions. Locke’s remarks injected an uneasy tension, raising the prospect that what was once a unifying force is now prone to causing potential divisions in right-wing ranks.

What this interdenominational bickering means for the Christian nationalist (CN) political-ethnic-religious movement is unclear to me. I do not know how prominent and serious this kind of discord is.

False narrative creation

This is the first reporting I can recall that focuses on religious divisions within the CN movement. I find this unexpected and surprising. That is probably mostly because in my naïve atheism, Christians criticizing and bickering about religious denominational differences strikes me as ludicrous. To me, it’s like bickering over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Pure nonsense. That led me to maybe mostly falsely believe that there was mostly harmony among the different Christian denominations in the CN movement.

Obviously, I was wrong because I was ignorant. On a bit of reflection, maybe this should not have been much of a surprise at all. CN religious leaders are zealots. They take their particular brand of religion completely seriously. CN dogma is theocratic authoritarian. Authoritarianism tends to not tolerate dissent and various kinds of differences. That includes differences between Catholics and other Christian denominations.

Let that be a lesson to us all. One’s beliefs, e.g., my own atheism, leads one to construct narratives and perceptions of reality to make sense of the world and to reinforce those beliefs. Filling in reality knowledge gaps is usually psychologically reassuring. Those mental perceptions can be, probably usually are, at least partly or mostly at odds with actual reality. All of this is normal for humans. Reality creation in the absence of knowledge of facts is an important trait that makes us human. Reality creation works fast and usually completely unconsciously. 

And that is why I keep harping on the critical importance of fidelity to facts, true truths and sound reasoning in politics.** Even if they contradict personal beliefs, or are psychologically and/or socially inconvenient or threatening.

** Facts, true truths and sound reasoning are not very important in religion. Religion and theocracy are faith-based. Secular politics is reality-based. Hence a need for separation of state from church in a democracy. In a theocracy or tyranny, that need vanishes because facts, true truths and sound reasoning are what the tyrant or religious leaders say they are, even when they are completely wrong. 

On the Code of Conduct for Federal Judges

Judges are supposed to act in accord with a set of ethics rules that are a bit different from and more stringent than those that apply to lawyers. I know, ethics rules for lawyers and judges might come as a surprise to some or lots of people. The astonishing sleaze in lawyering and judging in politics over the last few years make it look like there were few, if any, meaningful ethics rules for lawyers and judges. 

The sick joke aside, the ethics code for federal judges is of public record. Here are some key bits of it for enquiring minds: 

Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities

(A) Respect for Law. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

(B) Outside Influence. A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.

(C) Nondiscriminatory Membership. A judge should not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.

Canon 3: A Judge Should Perform the Duties of the Office Fairly, Impartially and Diligently

The duties of judicial office take precedence over all other activities. The judge should perform those duties with respect for others, and should not engage in behavior that is harassing, abusive, prejudiced, or biased. The judge should adhere to the following standards:

(A) Adjudicative Responsibilities.

(1) A judge should be faithful to, and maintain professional competence in, the law and should not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.

(2) A judge should hear and decide matters assigned, unless disqualified, and should maintain order and decorum in all judicial proceedings.

That might strike some readers as bizarre. For example, we are all aware of federal pro-Trump judge Aileen Cannon. She has bent over backward to protect Trump in the federal lawsuit over the documents he stole from the government and kept with him in Florida. Loose cannon Aileen has violated ethics canon 3(A)(1). From what I can tell, she will not be reprimanded and her sleazy partisan behavior will be seen as within the discretion of a federal judge. 

More importantly, we are all aware of the CN Supreme Court justice Amy Barrett. She was a long time member of a extremist Christian fundamentalist group called the People of Praise. The core dogma of that group, like core CN dogma, is to openly discriminate against non-heterosexual people and their families. Her membership in the People of Praise has led to a lawsuit demanding she recuse herself from a lawsuit about businesses that want to discriminate against non-heterosexual people. 

The Guardian wrote:

Former members of Amy Coney Barrett’s secretive faith group, the People of Praise, are calling on the US supreme court justice to recuse herself from an upcoming case involving gay rights, saying Barrett’s continued affiliation with the Christian group means she has participated in discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ people.

The former members are part of a network of “survivors” of the controversial charismatic group who say Barrett’s “lifelong and continued” membership in the People of Praise make her too biased to fairly adjudicate an upcoming case that will decide whether private business owners have a right to decline services to potential clients based on their sexual orientation.  

They point to Barrett’s former role on the board of Trinity Schools Inc, a private group of Christian schools that is affiliated with the People of Praise and, in effect, barred children of same-sex parents from attending the school.

A faculty guide published in 2015, the year Barrett joined the board, said “blatant sexual immorality” – which the guide said included “homosexual acts” – had “no place in the culture of Trinity Schools”. The discriminatory policies were in place before and after Barrett joined.

It is reasonable to think that Barrett will not recuse herself despite her blatant violation of canon 2(C). Supreme Court justices live by their own ethics rules. There is no meaningful mechanism to enforce ethics in the Supreme Court. The judges don’t even bother to explain themselves. It’s beneath their dignity. The most we might get for an explanation from a Supreme Court judge is an admonition to move along because there is nothing to see here. 

 

A ruckus in the church and other tidbits

The Christian kerfuffle in the teapot

Newsweek writes:

Thousands have signed a petition launched by a Christian organization condemning Donald Trump's 2024 bid for the White House.

The morning after Trump's announcement, Faithful America launched a petition that has since amassed more than 14,000 signatures.

The petition says that Trump announced his latest presidential campaign with a speech "laced with fearmongering and lies" and made it clear he "intends to double down on the fascist tactics" that led to the "Christian-nationalist" attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

"We don't know much yet about how the 2024 election will play out, but one thing is certain: Another Trump presidency would be a disaster for our country," it adds. "Multiple power-hungry pastors and Christian-nationalist leaders like Mike Huckabee, Mark Burns, and Eric Metaxas are already lining up to stand with him, falsely pretending they speak for all Christians."

Guess I’m not the only one who is calling out Christian nationalism and fascism on America’s radical right. A few other folks see the same thing. And I do mean few. 14,000 signatures is barely a drop in the bucket. It’s a little droplet. 

The news here is not that there are thousands of Christians in open opposition to Trump. Unfortunately, there are tens of millions of Christian who are not. That’s the real news here.

On sustainable energy production

Over at Neurologica blog, Steve Novella writes:

What is the potential of advanced geothermal? I read different estimates, but they range from 4-6% of current US electricity production by 2050. Here is a map of the US showing the temperature at 7 km. Current drilling technology is good to get down to about this depth but not beyond. But in the 3-7 km range, drilling is expensive and takes time. Even if we take the high end of the estimates, 6% of energy production in the US by 2050 is nice, but also is not going to be a major solution for decarbonization.

Hydroelectric power is currently at about 6% in the US, with a potential to increase to 9% by 2050. That assumes static demand, which is not likely to be true, so these figures will likely be lower. In fact, hydro capacity may only increase enough to keep it at 6% or so as demand increases. Wind and solar have the greatest potential for significant growth. Wind is currently at 9.2% and solar at 2.8%. There are two issues with these sources, they are land-use intensive, and they are intermittent. Without getting into the same debate about the upper limit of wind and solar, let’s just say there is a range of estimates where they can get by 2050.

If, then, by 2050 we have 6% hydro, 4% geothermal, 20% solar, and 30% wind, that leaves 40% unaccounted for. Right now nuclear is 18.9% and fossil fuel is 61%. Many of our nuclear power plants are set to retire so that 18.9% can decrease if we don’t extend their lifespan and replace them. This is why I say that our real choice for the next 30 years is between nuclear and fossil fuel.

If we can get significant new nuclear online in 10-30 years, they will replace fossil fuel plants and hold us over until deep drilling for geothermal comes online, or massive grid storage, or even fusion. These are more realistic for the second half of this century, not by 2050.

The IPCC agrees – there is no solution without nuclear. The numbers simply don’t work. Any other projection is incredible wishful thinking that we simply cannot risk. Otherwise that 40% or so will be provided by fossil fuel, and we will blow past 1.5 C.

We have no choice but to go all in on nuclear power. That has been clear for years. And for years most our political and business leadership has been undermining nuclear power and/or advocating for more carbon energy. Among the culpable prominent political and business leadership are the entire Republican Party leadership and oil and other carbon energy corporations, e.g., Exxon-Mobile. 

From the Humans Can Be Stupid files

Law and Crime writes:

Man Robbed Bank Using Back of His Birth Certificate as Note to Teller While Wearing Ankle Monitor from Another Case — All to ‘Prove a Point’ to His Lover: Feds

A Missouri man has pleaded guilty to robbing a local Bank of America branch using a demand note written on the back of his own birth certificate and while he was wearing an ankle monitor related to a previous case. That device easily placed him at the scene, according to court paperwork.

He did it all, he admitted to the authorities, to “prove a point” to his lover — though it’s unclear from court records precisely what “point” he was trying to make.

 Wonder who his lover is.

The surprised culprit: Michael Conley Loyd

Police nabbed him after leisurely pursuit

“How did they find me so fast?”

Getting a handle on what American Christian theocracy looks like

The concept of what a radical right American Christian theocracy will be is probably murky in the minds of most Americans. It is hard to mentally project exactly what that concept can entail in its impacts on society, business and government. Because of that, a series of blog posts that focus on examples of what the radical theocrats want will help make the concept more concrete and understandable. This is the first in a series of posts on Christian theocracy.

Law and Crime writes:

Norm Pattis, the controversial Connecticut attorney for Alex Jones, is now behind a federal lawsuit seeking to hold a major pharmaceutical company responsible for forcing Christian employees to violate their beliefs that their bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit” by getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Pattis’ firm filed suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against Takeda Pharmaceuticals, alleging claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for discriminating on the basis of religious beliefs. In the complaint, plaintiffs say that in Takeda’s quest to “create ‘highly-innovative medicines,'” the company “fosters a business culture and set of employment practices hostile to religious beliefs it believes might impede its scientific mission.”

The plaintiffs — a group of former employees of Takeda Pharmaceuticals — contend they were victims of religious discrimination because they were fired for refusing to get vaccinated.

According to the complaint, Takeda instituted a vaccination requirement on employees who work in or visit medical facilities that included an exception for religious objections. That exception required that an objecting employee had “sincerely held” beliefs and that accommodating those beliefs would not impose an “undue hardship” on Takeda’s business.

The lawsuit alleges that Takeda’s policy is essentially a sham. Per the complaint:

Takeda rarely, if ever, finds the religious beliefs of an employee “sincere” enough to warrant an exemption. When it cannot defeat the claims of a believer by claiming insincerity, Takeda then claims that accommodating the religious beliefs of an employee or prospective employee would pose an undue hardship on its business. The result is that Takeda almost never grants religious exemptions, in violation of Title VII.

It then goes on to detail precisely what the plaintiffs’ religious objection to the vaccine was — the debunked claim that COVID-19 vaccines contain aborted fetal cells:

The plaintiffs expressed concerns about their being required to inject a substance into their body that was developed in part by use of aborted fetal stem cells; they also asserted various claims such as their bodies being a temples of the Holy Spirit, and asserted other religious grounds sounding in faiths and practices long recognized in the United States and throughout the world.

The plaintiffs’ argument is one that has been used before in vaccine-mandate lawsuits by conservative groups. 

The plaintiffs ask for unspecified compensatory damages including lost wages and attorneys fees, as well as punitive damages.

We the Patriots, USA, Inc., the non-profit law firm that funded the litigation, released the following statement on Thursday:

Our fervent hope is that this lawsuit brings to light the fact that so many people continue to suffer as a result of the decisions that were made during the last two years. For them, the covid crisis is far from over. We are confident that we will obtain a victory for religious freedom that will ensure that discrimination against those with religious beliefs opposed to certain vaccinations is never justified in the eyes of the law.

We the Patriots is also requesting donations to offset the cost of litigation.

There is a lot to consider in this one story. A couple of points stand out:

• Theocratic Christian nationalists (CNs) do not hesitate to argue any excuse being a matter of freedom of religion, e.g., referring to humans as “temples of the Holy Spirit.” That excuse can be used to reject anything medical or nutritional that the CN movement decides is objectionable to God. That would include refusal of all vaccines and any and all medical treatments for parents and their children.

• Although conflicts among constitutional rights are common in modern society, the CN movement obliterates all of them by elevating all religion-related beliefs and activities above all other rights, social concerns and business practices. For example, the CN movement does not care about the adverse public health effects of refusal to get vaccinated. That includes injury and deaths of members of the public who do not share CN beliefs or practices.  

• The CN movement does not hesitate to resort to demagoguery, lies, deceit, slanders and crackpot reasoning to misinform and manipulate people. The CN flock is often or usually seriously misinformed. For example, COVID vaccines do not contain aborted human fetal cells. Nonetheless, the lawsuit alleges that in a court filing. That is not only a lie based on zero evidence, it is crackpot reasoning because having any cells in the main vaccines is impossible due to how the vaccines are made -- no cells are involved.

• CN elites are always asking for money. Always. That is despite massive tax breaks for religion under US tax law. Their greed is boundless. Kleptocratic in my opinion. A major core goal of the CN movement is to force taxpayers to pay for all or nearly all costs of all religious activities. If it gets in power, the CN movement will use our own tax dollars to neuter democracy, secularism and our civil liberties. CN elites want us taxpayers to pay for their own efforts to deceive, cheat, oppress and abuse us.