Scott Shapiro, lawyer and teacher at Yale Law School, has a hilarious Twitter feed that I monitor pretty closely. Today, he tweets the "[f]unniest thing I ever saw in a trial transcript":
Defendant: I'd like to move for a mistrial.
Judge: On what grounds?
Defendant: On the grounds that my lawyer is a doofus.
To which someone replied:
True story.
Attorney: What's your occupation?
Witness: I'm the world's funniest comedian.
[Later, in private]:
Attorney: What kind of answer was that?
Client: I was under oath, right?
Speaking of doofuses (or is it doofi?): How about our president? He went to one of his rallies the night of the synagogue massacre and, evidently aware that "snowflakes" in the land would be repelled, noted that the New York Stock Exchange was open for business the day after 9/11. Only, it wasn't: 9/11 occurred on a Tuesday, and the exchange was closed for the rest of the week. Now, in an interview with a news outlet, he's stated his intention to revoke, by executive order, birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution:
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 . . . .
I think (or hope) this is just a stunt intended to rev up the dolts before Election Day. I mean, he can't seriously believe that he can edit the Constitution, because that wouldn't be the dreaded slippery slope: it'd be a downhill ice rink to the end of [adopting appropriate stentorian tone] The Rule of Law. Of course he sells this possibly diversionary proposal with more lies, such as that we're the only country in the world with birthright citizenship. Actually, lots of countries have it--for example, the only two with which we have a border.
Maybe the election season is getting to him. For sure the lies and misinformation and general dopey craziness are thickening in the air. It wasn't two weeks ago that he mentioned having ready a middle class tax cut by Election Day. A couple problems with that. One, it tacitly acknowledged that the Democrats were right about the actual tax cut being just a budget-busting giveaway to the rich. Two, Congress isn't in session till after Election Day and so can enact no new legislation. Details, details!
But send the military to the border! A couple hundred ragged women and children might show up there in around a month. It's a crisis, if you're crazy: the Ebola of 2018. What became of "the conservative temperament?" It seems to have been drowned in a sea of foam and spittle.
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