From The Colbert Report:

Soon America's grassroots people-power movements will be rid of the one thing that's holding them back: people.

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Stephen Colbert had a little fun with this story last night:

A Belgrade couple decided they couldn't afford the lost income if the husband reported for jury duty, so they cooked up an expletive-filled affidavit telling the court in no uncertain terms that the husband didn't want to serve.

That was back in January.

Now, the vulgarity-laced affidavit has turned up on the Internet on a Web site called The Smoking Gun, owned by the cable and satellite network Court TV.

“Apparently you morons didn't understand me the first time. I CANNOT take time off from work. I'm not putting my family's well-being at stake to participate in this crap,” begins the notarized affidavit submitted to the Gallatin County District Court last January by Erik A. Slye.

Slye goes on to say that he doesn't believe in America's “justice” system (the quotation marks are his) and that jury duty is “a complete waste of time.”

Most of Slye's other comments use language not suitable to be quoted here.

Slye was traveling on business Friday and couldn't be reached for comment; but his wife, Jennifer, told the Associated Press that she - not her husband - actually wrote the affidavit.

“I wrote it and he sent it in. We figured it was either crazy enough to work or he was going to end up in jail,” Jennifer Slye said in a telephone interview. “I guess it could have been said a little nicer, but it wouldn't have had the same impact.”

... When Erik got the summons for jury duty, he asked to be excused on the basis of lost income, but got a second notice a month later.

“We had to up the ante,” Jennifer said. “Some people think we're like militia people or something ... but I just said, ‘We can't afford it. That didn't work. Maybe this will.' ”

Erik Slye did end up being excused from jury duty in that instance and has since been twice more excused - once because he again pleaded financial hardship and the second time because the trip he was taking Friday clashed with the court schedule.

District Judge John Brown, in whose Bozeman court Erik Slye was summoned to serve, said Friday that a foul-mouthed affidavit is not a good model to follow to avoid jury duty.

Brown said he summoned Erik Slye into court two weeks ago to discuss the affidavit.

“We understand that it's a hardship for people to come down here and serve, but everybody, all citizens, have a legal obligation,” the judge told Slye, according to a transcript provided by the court.

“Maybe you'll be excused, but the point is that you should ask like an adult and not like you're 13 years old,” the judge told Slye.

At Judge Brown's direction, Slye apologized to several clerks who were in the courtroom at the time.

Still, as Colbert points out, he did get out of jury duty nonetheless.

I noticed that the wife who wrote the letter seemed confused by people's impressions they were involved in the militias. Maybe that's because Montanans have for some years now been reading screeds from the Montana Freemen that weren't appreciably different from hers. Particularly the line about not believing in "your 'Justice' system.'

My Montana-native wife was hoping that Conrad Burns' defeat would finally mean an end to national embarrassments for her home state. Alas, no such luck.

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From The Colbert Report:

To compensate for President Obama's bad attitude, Stephen has to amp up his own National Day of Prayer prayer.

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From The Colbert Report May 6, 2009. Stephen salutes Byron York for his column at the Washington Examiner: The black-white divide in Obama's popularity:

Colbert: Mr. York and I have tremendous respect for the opinions of African Americans. Except when they make it hard to measure the opinions of actual Americans.

That's why I think, for accuracy's sake, polls in the future should include the standard disclaimer, "plus or minus black people."

By the way, a lot of people called York's column offensive. But if you eliminate people who hate racism, it's not.

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Stephen Colbert noticed last night that, when President Obama said he would look for someone with "empathy" to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, the meme on the lips of all the Villagers (including Orrin Hatch) was that "empathy" was "code" for something -- most often "activist judges."

Wait -- isn't "activist judges" itself just code for "judges who don't rule the way wingnuts want"? Oh well.

In any event, Colbert manages to decode -- via a detour into the Star Trek universe -- the TRUE meaning of that invidious and insidious code word, "Empathy", which produces the anagrams "Meth Pay," "Ape Myth," and "Ham Type":

Which clearly means Obama plans to appoint a drug-addled evolutionist with swine flu.

Sounds as reasonable as anything we've heard from the Village.

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Stephen Colbert joined the cable networks in their coverage of the swine-flu outbreak with his own special report titled: "Enemy Swine: A PigCalypse Now, The Coming Oink-Mageddon"

Unfortunately, Colbert's guest from the WHO is sick and can't make it. So he winds up answering questions from viewers and offering his usual, ah, sage advice.

The final question: "How do I get rid of this swine flu hysteria once and for all?"

Colbert:

Remember: swine flu feeds on our fear. All we have to do is stop being scared and follow the rational advice of experts. We've got to start thinking calmly so the panic will starve itself out. Because if we don't, we're all doomed. DOOOOOMED!!!

Sounds about right.

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A rarity: Stephen Colbert featured a musical act as guests on his Comedy Central show last night. And he picked one of the best: Portland's The Decemberists, who specialize in a traditional folk sound served up fresh, with original songs. Their lyrics and melodies, as fans know, are brilliant and enchanting.

They performed "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid", from their new album, The Hazards of Love.

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Ohio State University did a study on The Colbert Report and found something very interesting.

Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements.

Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

As the Political Wire put it: Many Conservatives Don't Think Colbert is Joking
I guess they really do live in an alternate reality.

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From The Colbert Report April 23, 2009. Stephen has a solution for all of those angry Americans out there who aren't sure to be mad at in these tough economic times.

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From The Colbert Report April 21, 2009. Stephen Colbert takes us down the twisted path we're walking if we don't hold the CIA officers who committed torture responsible for their actions.

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Apparently John Amato wasn't the only one to notice how ridiculous Wolf Blitzer was with his very Fox-like "reporting" on the Obama bow. Stewart hit them during his Faith the Nation segment above and Colbert in his week's Threat Down. Once again the "fake" news is doing a better job than the ones who pretend to be credible.

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From The Colbert Report April 8, 2009.

Ted Stevens seeks justice for others, as long as those others are him.

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From The Colbert Report April 1, 2009.

The Fine Line is a new index that is just as meaningless as the Dow Jones, but it always goes up.

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Stephen thinks all we need is ambition, self-confidence and extreme good looks to rebuild America. Slate's Emily Yoffe has another opinion as she writes in her column
But Enough About You:

The narcissists did it. Some commentators are fingering them as the culprits of the financial meltdown. A Bloomberg columnist blamed the conceited for our financial troubles in a piece titled "Harvard Narcissists With MBAs Killed Wall Street." A Wall Street Journal op-ed on California's economy suggested that Gov. Schwarzenegger's desire for voter's love ("It's classic narcissism") helped cause the state's budget debacle. A forthcoming book, The Narcissism Epidemic, says we went on a national binge of I-deserve-it consumption that's now resulting in our economic purging.

.....

These days, "narcissist" gets tossed around as an all-purpose insult, a description of self-aggrandizing, obnoxious behavior. Unfortunately, the same word is used to describe a quality that comes in three gradations: a characteristic that in the right amount is a normal component of healthy ego; a troublesome trait when there is too much; and a pathological state when it overwhelms a personality. Narcissism fuels drive and ambition, a desire to be recognized for one's accomplishments, a sense that one's life has meaning and importance. The problem occurs when narcissism becomes the primary principle of someone's personality. Its most extreme form is narcissistic personality disorder, a psychological condition that impairs a person's ability to form normal relationships and wreaks havoc on those who have close encounters with it.

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From The Colbert Report March 19, 2009. Michael Steele still hasn't responded to Stephen's challenge so "in accordance with hip-hop's longstanding fairness doctrine" Stephen presents Michael Steele's response.