Living in Bizarro World

The satire magazine which has dubbed itself, "America's Finest News Source," aka The Onion has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court defending the right to parody. This is a serious, albeit entertainingly written, legal document

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know." 

The 6th circuit court, in a feat of astonishingly horrible jurisprudence, ruled that the police were justified in arresting a man for creating a parody facebook page for the Parma, Ohio police department.

In addition to the obvious, that the Parma PD retaliated because their feelings were hurt and should not be allowed to carry any weappms ever again, the court created out of thin air a requirement that all parody be prominently labeled as such, which is also a complete misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights.

A man who was arrested over a Facebook parody aimed at his local police department is trying to take his case to the Supreme Court. He has sought help from an unlikely source, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Monday.

“Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government?” the brief asked. “This was a surprise to America’s Finest News Source and an uncomfortable learning experience for its editorial team.”

The source is, of course, The Onion.

Or, as the satirical website described itself in the brief, “the single most powerful and influential organization in human history.”

The Parma, Ohio, area man in question, Anthony Novak, spent four days in jail over a Facebook page he created in 2016 that mocked his local police department. He was charged with using a computer to disrupt police functions, but a jury found him not guilty.

Mr. Novak says his civil rights were violated, and he is trying to sue the city for damages. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit earlier this year, saying that the police had qualified immunity, and an appeals court upheld that decision. Now the high court is reviewing his request to take up the matter.

Even by the expansive definitions of "Qualified Immunity" promulgated by Supreme Court precedent, these officers, and this police force, should never have been granted such an exemption from responsibility for something that is so transparently unconstitutional and illegal.

………

“They [The Onion] heard the story, and they were like, ‘Oh my god, this is something that could really put all of our people in the crosshairs if we rub someone the wrong way with one of our stories,’” Mr. Jaicomo said.

………

“The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onion’s writers’ paychecks,” the brief said.

It pointed to The Onion’s history of blatantly ridiculous headlines: “Fall Canceled After 3 Billion Seasons.” “Children, Creepy Middle-Aged Weirdos Swept Up in Harry Potter Craze.” “Kitten Thinks of Nothing but Murder All Day.” A footnote reads “See Mar-a-Lago Assistant Manager Wondering if Anyone Coming to Collect Nuclear Briefcase from Lost and Found, The Onion, Mar. 27, 2017.”

The brief also said that the case posed a threat to The Onion’s business model.

“This was only the latest occasion on which the absurdity of actual events managed to eclipse what The Onion’s staff could make up,” it said. “Much more of this, and the front page of The Onion would be indistinguishable from The New York Times.”

I would be remiss in not noting here that frequently, The Onion is indistinguishable from The New York Times.

The full brief is after the break.