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Supreme Assholes

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: TPO
Date: Jul 8, 2007 8:43 AM

From: The Man Common

Supreme Assholes

Ever since the 2000 election, when television network news broadcasters began the practice of dividing the country into "red" and "blue" states, the conservative part of the country has seemed to want to hasten the divide.

Nearly two years ago in this column, I wrote of the man who now sits in the chief justice chair of the Supreme Court, "if there's one thing that [John] Roberts can safely be accused of, it is that he is an asshole." And due to the efforts of the Roberts court, with freshman justice Samuel Alito safely ensconced within it, we have begun working our way toward the half-asshole nation.

"The Constitution follows the flag," Finley Peter Dunne's fictional character Mr. Dooley once opined, "but the Supreme Court follows the election returns." Except now, the angry white men--plus one angry black man without a historical conscience--are leading the whole country down the path of the angry assholes of the nation, back toward the past. Cities that try to remedy segregation are rebuffed, as Clarence Thomas compares integration plans to Jim Crow. Women are contemptuously told that they don't have the temperament to be trusted with their own bodies, and if want to remedy wage discrimination, they've got only six months to figure out if they're being discriminated against, and after that, they can just take what they get and like it.

In a piece for Tribune Media Services, judicial columnist Robyn Blumner wrote of the new court, "The addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to the heartless duo of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas has cemented a plurality for cruelty. If there's a choice between casting a lot for the little guy, tipping a case toward compassion, or putting a foot on his throat, it's a safe bet that these four will be getting out their jackboots."

Over the course of the last term, the court has been champing at the bit to overturn longstanding precedents (especially in the cases of Scalia and Thomas, for whom the judicial tradition of stare decisis must mean as little as Alberto Gonzales' oath of office). Due to the more sly efforts of Roberts and Alito, however, the court is content to hollow out precedent while leaving it standing as a fragile shell solely for appearances.

And what of those appearances? Do they constitute any kind of grim assurance for those who, back in 2000, claimed there wasn't "a dime's bit of difference" between George W. Bush and Al Gore? Sure, Roe v. Wade hasn't been overturned yet. Sure, the court didn't turn Brown v. Board of Education on its head because we should operate as if we are a color-blind nation. But behind each new opinion released by the court, with its clockwork 5-4 opinions, one can detect a desire by the majority to have a predetermined outcome, and carving the language of the opinion to fit it. You want state-sponsored funding of religion? No problem--out comes Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Scalia's caustic belief that the precedent set in 1968's Flast v. Cohen should be tossed out like yesterday's crab shells. Hey, if the president now wants to use money to subsidize religious programs, you as a taxpayer don't have dick to say about it. Tough noogies.

I keep imagining what the science-fiction universe would look like if Al Gore had won and the composition of the court had changed in the other direction. Say what you want about Tipper Gore and her late-'80s efforts to "protect" children from profanity and drugs via the Parents Music Resource Center, but one can be sure that a court with a Gore-appointed chief justice might actually get the humor inherent in the dadaist banner BONG HITS 4 JESUS.

Come on, people! BONG HITS 4 JESUS! I want to put this on a sticker on the back of my car, and I'm not even a pro-drug kind of guy. As a commenter in Slate.com's reader letter section "The Fray" recently put it, "The courts always have trouble with humor. They're serious places filled with serious people in serious clothes doing serious things. Judges demand--and expect--respect, and don't tolerate jokes. Even when they talk about humor, they fall back on Important Satirists like Jonathan Swift, and don't discuss the equally subversive, but much funnier, Molière."

So if the justices barely get old-fashioned humor, then the surreal is entirely out of bounds for them. The Alaskan high-schooler who got suspended for hanging this banner wasn't even on school grounds--he was across the street. It reminds me of when I was suspended in eighth grade for calling my math teacher "Jelly Belly"--while I was in history class. It's not the words, it's the principle of the thing, and authority is authority, context be damned.

So this is the Roberts court. I can't wait to see what happens when the constitutional-crisis train we are on arrives at their station. I shudder to think what the asshole conductor will say when it arrives.

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Kucinich answers questions at Town Hall Climate Exchange

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: TPO
Date: Jul 8, 2007 9:12 AM

Thanks: Dennis Kucinich for President in 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_gg-uC72Rk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfpnaYvEh80

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LeD7I1kcjE

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Nicole Smalkowski interview on 20/20

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Debunking Homophobia (great video)

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: TPO
Date: Jul 8, 2007 8:14 AM

Thank You:
Cheryl
Zombie Wendy

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Ricky - The Bible (animals)

Atheist Stand-up Comedian, Jamie Kilstein

I MADE THE TOP 10 VOTE AGAIN SAVE DEMOCRACY!!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Jamie Kilstein
Date: Jul 7, 2007 6:28 PM

I MADE THE TOP 10! VOTE AGAIN SAVE DEMOCRACY!
REGISTER HERE
http://famecast.com/registerfan.php

VOTE HERE http://famecast.com/contest/centerstage.php?stage_id=6&round_id=59

Lots of people on the list have been cheating with bots and multiple acounts so if you could repost this and help out that would be swell.Mailing lists bullitains, anything! Thanks so much. This could get me out of living in my car.

And even though I am desperate for cash I will donate 1000 bucks to Democracy Now! Independent media is the only way to get real news. If you are not familiar
go to democracynow.org Haza!

J

Jamie Kilstein

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National Lampoon's 72 Virgins

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: The A-Team
Date: Jul 7, 2007 10:23 PM

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Jamie Guinn
Date: Jul 7, 2007 9:49 PM




We are The A-Team and we approve this message.

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the passion of the Zombie Christ

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From: Way of the Monster
Date: Jul 8, 2007 11:41 AM

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46 & 2

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: TPO
Date: Jul 8, 2007 3:49 PM

Sweet!!!

Much thanks to:
Dan G.

Just because....

Lyrics and Video for the Tool song Forty Six & 2
The Shadow as defined by Carl Jung
46 & 2 chromosomes explained by Drunvalo Melchizadek
Art by Alex Grey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tja6_h4lT6A

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