Legal Superfriends

We're about to have a powerful legal team-up and no it doesn't involve a crossover from all the Law & Order's. David Boies and Ted Olsen, the two opposing lawyers for Bush v. Gore, are getting together to jointly file a brief. "On what?" you say. On behalf of gay marriage.

Former U.S. solicitor general Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who argued opposite each other in Bush v. Gore, are now teaming up to “represent two same-sex couples filing suit after being denied marriage licenses because of Proposition 8. Their suit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in California, calls for an injunction against the proposition, allowing immediate reinstatement of marriage rights for same-sex couples.”
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“For a long time I’ve personally felt that we are doing a grave injustice for people throughout this country by denying equality to gay and lesbian individuals,” Olson told The Advocate in an interview. A copy of the 10-page complaint is here.

But why do it together? Well Ted Olsen is trying to pitch a legal Odd Couple type reality show to the networks, tentatively and creatively titled Legal Odd Couple. Each season would see them take on a case from one side of the political spectrum. Boies? He's trying to get in the same room with Olsen so he can knock him over the head, tie him up in the basement of the Boies estate and then show Ted a constant loop of Bush-centric documentaries on the war/torture/economy/election in an attempt to show him what his legal arguments wrought in 2000. Also there may or may not be a charity wrestling match where Boies and Olsen team up against Ken Starr and Patrick Fitzgerald (The Special Prosecutors of Doom) in a best of 3 falls, no holds barred, extreme rules, tables, ladders and chairs match.

Discrimination makes strange bedfellows. Best of luck gentlemen. Hopefully you win and provide at least one comical moment where the snooty judge looks at your table and goes "the Bush lawyer...the Gore lawyer...but...but....heavens to betsy" and then either comically faints or is so flabbergasted that his monocle falls out.

Civil War in 2010

You know maybe people are taking this Obama/Lincoln thing too far. First it was all that Team of Rivals nonsense, now apparently Barack Obama is going to preside over the breakup of the United States and a civil war in 2010. Unclear on the status of a chin beard or top hat in Obama's future.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."
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"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

This is intensely dispiriting to those of us who were excited about the end of the world in 2012. Now it turns out we'll be fighting in the trenches with six other US geo-states in a battle for resources and won't have time to watch Quetzalcoatl destroy the earth. Lest we think the man spouting these predictions is a nut, it turns out he's a former KGB analyst, is the dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's diplomatic academy, gives lectures, visits the Kremlin, and appears on TV as a US/Russia expert. So he's at the very least a well conected, high ranking nut.

According to him we in the Northeast will become Atlantic America and will join the European Union, while Canada eats the midwest and California takes all of the PAC-10 and brings it under Chinese influence. Showing his complete understanding of Texas, he thinks Texas and other nearby states will break off and join Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Sarah Palin throws of the shackles of forbidden love and brings Alaska back to dearest Vladimir, and the Japs take Hawaii. Apparently no one self governs, we all just break up and then join disparate nations thousands of miles away.

So, sorry to bring the bad news, but we're in for a breakup. I'll be European in a few years and you'll be a Texican or Calichinese. Some Russian guy predicted it.

Obama: Cabinetry

An hour from now, our two Presidential candidates will meet and talk. McCain will congratulate Obama on winning and Obama will in turn congratulate McCain on correctly finding the right office and showing up on time. They'll sit down and chit chat for a little bit, pretending McCain is really going to be an ally to this administration and that he holds any sway within his party. Then, suddenly, Rahm Emanuel will press a button loosing Tata from his cage, letting him bound across the desk whereupon he feasts on Lindsay Graham's face. Then they'll move on to an agenda which the WSJ claims should include climate change, energy efficiency and national service, because McCain pretended he gave a damn about the first two during the campaign and probably still gives one whole shit about them. The Washington Times even surmises a cabinet role for McCain because of Team...no I refuse to mention it.

Meanwhile, there seems to be serious vetting going on for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Because why not? I mean all her major Senate Committee seats are Defense and Intel related, so why not State? Plus, and this is the only reason people seem to want to give, it keeps her out Obama's way on domestic policy and in the Senate. Because apparently it's going to be in Hillary's best instance to sandbag democratic legislation for some reason. Oh wait, 2012. Media wags are still convinced she wants to run in 2012 and the best way to do that would be to turn into an even pettier version of Joe Lieberman. Also there's that Team...fuck it I won't do it.

Oh shit, the lawyers for Doris Kearns Goodwin just kicked in my door! They've got my arm up against my back! They're forcing me to type! TEAM OF RIVALS TEAM OF RIVALS TEAMOFRIVALSTEAMOFRIVALS TEAMOFRIVALS. Obama needs to pick cabinet spots based on trite observations from a book about Lincoln. Hillary and McCain ran against Obama, therefore they must be in the cabinet. Because they are rivals! No other reason is needed! Success will follow! Because of the rivals! All hail this brilliant idea that must be incessantly referenced in every cabinet related article on Obama. Build a statue to Doris Kearns Goodwin. $11.55 on Amazon. Now in paperback! Read the brilliance of the new Confucius. Lincoln picked rivals, Obama must too. Rivals!