Incredibly Petty Bullshit

As you may have heard, Donald Trump's stooges renamed the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy center on December 18, despite the fact that the name of the center is mandated by law, and this law prohibits putting anyone else's name on the building.

In response to this, there were a number of cancellations, including the touring show of Hamilton, but the most abrupt cancellation came from the annual Jazz Jams concert, which is typically on Christmas eve.

So Trump's stooges are threatening to sue the organizer, percussionist Chuck Redd for $1 million.

This response was foreseen and foreseeable. 

Maybe if you decide to violate the law, and are accused by multiple artists of not paying them in a timely manner, you should expect cancellations.

The president of the Kennedy Center has demanded $1m in damages and fiercely criticized a musician’s sudden decision to cancel a Christmas Eve performance at the venue days after the White House announced that Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment – explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure – is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” the venue’s president, Richard Grenell, wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd that was shared with the Associated Press.

In the letter, Grenell said he would seek $1m in damages “for this political stunt”.

………

A drummer and vibraphone player, Redd has presided over holiday Jazz Jams at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts. In an email Wednesday to the Associated Press, Redd said he pulled out of the concert in the wake of the renaming.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd said. He added on Wednesday that the event has been a “very popular holiday tradition” and that he often featured at least one student musician.

I would suggest that Mr. Redd lawyers up, and that his lawyer be extremely during discovery.

While changing the name of the Center probably being unlawful (i.e. not a criminal infraction), making this decision could be prosecuted as a conspiracy, which is a criminal infraction.