Matter of Laugh or Death

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

FUTURE RULINGS FROM THE SUPREME COURT

This is the CBS Evening News for Tuesday, June 16th, 2015. I’m Brittney Spears, reporting from our Washington bureau.

In our top story tonight, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two landmark decisions today. In the case known as Woe vs. Rade, the Court ruled by a narrow 5-to-4 margin that all state and local laws prohibiting murder are unconstitutional. In the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Hillary Rodham, the Court cited the separation of church and state doctrine. Rodham wrote, “Since all murder and manslaughter laws have their basis in the biblical commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ the existence of these governmental statutes constitutes an establishment of religion, a situation our Founding Domestic Partners most certainly would have abhorred. As Court rulings going back to the early 1960s make clear, the Constitution was written to protect the American people from intolerant and mean-spirited religious influences.”

However, before the Supreme Court could rule on the Woe case, it first had to render a decision in a separate case, U.S. vs. Jefferson. By a 7-to-2 margin, the Court ruled that the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional because it claims that people’s rights are derived from “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Justice Bryant Gumbel wrote the majority opinion, a terse one-paragraph statement: “The document uses the G-word. It’s f---ing unconstitutional. Case closed.”

The Jefferson ruling effectively voids the rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With the right to life officially abolished, the last hurdle was removed and the High Court could proclaim that Woe is now the law of the land.

Reactions to the rulings were loud and immediate—and in one case, tragic. The head of the American Civil Liberties Union, O.J. Simpson, told reporters outside his New York office, “This is a great day for America. If you don’t believe in murder, then don’t commit one. But no one has the right to impose narrow-minded religious values on the rest of society.”

As Simpson answered questions, the recently-installed Archbishop of New York, Mel Gibson, suddenly stepped forward and shot Simpson several times with a semi-automatic handgun. Gibson was immediately arrested and charged with violating the 53rd Amendment to the Constitution, the so-called Gore Amendment, which overturned the Second Amendment’s archaic right to keep and bear arms. A New York City police spokesperson said, “In light of the Woe ruling, if Mel had used a knife or a bat, he’d be a free man. But since he had one of those evil firearms in his possession, he’s in big trouble now.”

The New York City police commissioner, Bruce Springsteen, described the Simpson-Gibson shooting as an isolated incident, and predicted the Woe decision would not cause the crime rate to soar. “If it ain’t against the law anymore, man, then it ain’t a crime,” Springsteen pointed out. He also vowed to work closely with Mayor Al Sharpton to ensure that the Big Apple remains calm, explaining that he would order all police officers to take to the streets—minus their weapons, of course—and apologize to residents for past transgressions, real or imagined. Late this afternoon, caravans of SUVs began clogging area parkways as the entire population of the upper East Side fled to the suburbs.

There were other unpleasant feelings in the wake of today’s rulings. When Justice Rush Limbaugh, a George W. Bush appointee, began reading his dissenting opinion in the Woe case, Chief Justice Rodham shot him with a .38 caliber revolver. No charges were lodged against Rodham, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. She is allowed to own firearms via the Rosie O’Donnell Exception to the Gore Amendment, which permits certain celebrities to own guns, as long as they demonstrate a proper degree of angst about the issue.

At the White House, President Andrew Cuomo announced that he would likely nominate former rap star and current U.S. Senator Eminem for the newly-vacated Limbaugh seat on the High Court.

In a related story, there was an unfortunate accident in Washington today when a group of tourists found themselves in the most dangerous spot on the face of the earth: directly between a TV news crew and Supreme Court Justice Richard Blumenthal. When Blumenthal sprinted toward the journalists to hold yet another urgent press conference, six unsuspecting tourists were sent tumbling down the steps of the Supreme Court building, four of whom remain in critical condition at this hour.

All in all, it’s been a momentous day in America. Justice Rodney King spoke for an entire nation earlier today when he said, “Can’t we, can’t we all just get along?” Reporting from Washington, I’m Brittney Spears for the CBS Evening News. Good night.

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