…as seen via orange-tinted video cameras. Unfortunately, the "joke" aspect exists only to those with as sick and twisted a sense of humor as I have. It's a coping mechanism:
- The most-appalling April Fools' Day joke I heard yesterday came from US Solicitor General John Sauer: His entire oral argument attempting to defend The Orange [Grandchild-of-Immigrants] Menace's embrace of the Great Replacement Theory via defying the Fourteenth Amendment. Writing clear and unambiguous declarations of principal that restrict later policy and implementation — the very definition of "a Constitutional" provision, whether or not capitalized — is not easy, and inevitably runs into writers' failures of imagination and changing contexts. That said, finding ambiguity in this:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
(U.S. Const. Amd. XIV § 1, first sentence) requires gyrations that boil down to "that may be what they said, but what they really meant was consistent with my century-and-a-half-later bigotry-masking policy preferences that were already rejected as inconsistent by judges who grew up with that very same language and its context." The details of Sauer's position are no better, attempting desperately to make "[parental] domicile" an issue when neither the word nor a reference to its twenty-first-century conception appears in the Amendment or its (improperly denigrated) legislative history. This is one of those times that the constitutional avoidance canon — avoid deciding a matter based on interpreting the Constitution if there's another path, like interpreting a statute, while remaining silent on the Constitutional issue and leaving it open — should be rejected. It's not like the Constitutional decision can't be changed later, and this Administration has demonstrated "I'll just rationalize it differently" isn't just an adventure, but a daily job.
The scheduling of this oral argument for 01 April was probably not unintentional, however unlikely it is that will ever be acknowledged. That's more likely than acknowledging that "orange" isn't "white," though.
- Speaking of jokes made by The Orange Menace, declaring "Mission Accomplished" again — when he indirectly denied that with his campaign's blaming/shaming of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan (a withdrawal resulting from his own foolishness) — is a joke, too. With body counts, something I'm old enough to remember, admittedly vaguely (and to have seen evolve, Up Close and Personal — I was outside the frame, near the camera, dealing with family members before the deprecated news dump).
So, yeah. I take this "joke" personally. But as I lack bone spurs, I'm not important enough to have a meaningful opinion.
- Just listening to Major Major Major (formerly Maj, (MI)ANG) display his ruthlessness in eliminating one of the few remaining restraints on war crimes after he, Sergeant Towser, and Capt Yossarian's entire aircrew had already taken care of others, with rather predictable results and blame deflection, must be a joke, too. Right? Right?
It's getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between "real life" and "satire," especially when putting out fires in the palace.