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first amendment

Democracy

The Onion filed a Supreme Court brief. It's both hilariously serious and seriously hilarious.

Who else could call the judiciary 'total Latin dorks' while making a legitimate point?

The Onion's Supreme Court brief uses parody to defend parody.

Political satire and parody have been around for at least 2,400 years, as ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes satirized the way Athenian leaders conducted the Peloponnesian War and parodied the dramatic styles of his contemporaries, Aeschylus and Euripides.

Satire and parody are used to poke fun and highlight issues, using mimicry and sarcasm to create comedic biting commentary. No modern outlet has been more prolific on this front than The Onion, and the popular satirical news site is defending parody as a vital free speech issue in a legal filing with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The filing is, as one might expect from The Onion, as brilliantly hilarious as it is serious, using the same satirical style it's defending in the crafting of the brief itself.

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On July 26, 2017, President Trump tweeted this:

The tweet linked to a video on Instagram taken at the president's recent rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where he relayed the same message to supporters.

Except ... the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right to practice whatever religion they choose to practice and worship whichever God they choose — and that includes no religion or no God at all.

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A reporter finally called out Trump's fake news claims in the White House today.

Brian Karem took a bold stand in the name of freedom of the press.

Things got heated during today's White House press briefing over a familiar topic: fake news.

After Breitbart's Charlie Spiering asked a question about CNN's decision to retract and apologize for a controversial story about connections between one of President Donald Trump's allies and Russia, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tore into media outlets for running what she called "fake news directed at this president."

The goal was clear: to sow distrust in reporting that made the administration look bad. It's been done time and time again.

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Just before 7 this morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted a call to jail or denaturalize anyone who burns the American flag.

As is the case with most things Trump, theories about, well ... why he tweeted this have run the gamut — from an attempt to distract from a report on son-in-law Jared Kushner's conflicts of interest to a devious plan to incite people to actually do it and use the backlash to consolidate his support to a typically impulsive response to something he saw on Fox News.

Regardless, it's a pretty stunning — and frightening — proposal. For a man who wants to make America great again, the tweet demonstrates a complete disregard for what makes America great in the first place: the First Amendment.

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