KINGSPORT STAR HERALD – May 17, 2016
ELSEWHERE, Kentucky — Cthulhu, the independent presidential nominee, released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Tuesday in a move designed to head off concerns of who is the most evil candidate in the presidential race.
This unusual move comes as Cthulhu is looking at an electoral lineup of two of the most corrupt and disliked candidates America has seen. The campaign strategies for both are centered on driving up the other’s negatives which could mean trouble for Cthulhu.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, Cthulhu immediately called on Obama to replace him with federal appeals court judge Azor Whateley. The Tempus, Oklahoma, judge is known for his “unique” brand of fundamental constitutionalism.
Cthulhu said in a statement that his shortlist was “representative of the kind of portentous principles I value and, as god-president, I plan to use this list as a guide to nominate replacements for the current all-too-mortal United States Supreme Court.” The Cthulhu campaign was not forthcoming on the selection methodology, but Cthulhu has previously indicated that he was looking for candidates outside the realms of the “usual do-nothing mortal suspects.”
Cthulhu’s selections consisted of four local judges, two federal appeals court judges and four beings of unknown origin. All have questionable records and six of the 10 may not even have passed the bar.
They include several judges who are supposed to be long dead, like Karl H. Roeper, a Colorado judge known for his inventive forms of corporal punishment who died in 1842. The Cthulhu campaign, however, is confident that they are able to reconstruct his “essential saltes” and bring his hard-line jurisprudence to the bench.
Other deceased judges include Massachusetts colonial judge Moses Abernathy, himself executed for witchcraft in 1690, also voodoo practitioner and county judge Red Rex of Louisiana, disappeared in 1866, and Los Angeles county judge Jefferson Willeth, murdered in 1928. All of whom were accused in their day of having record high guilty verdicts, “aberrant religious practices,” and a penchant for bizarre punishment.
Washington pundits fear that Cthulhu’s inexperienced local judges with no federal experience could create a constitutional crisis. The Cthulhu campaign is unconcerned, saying that what matters most is a strong sense of punishment.
“We entirely reject such fear-mongering,” stated campaign manager Eminence Waite. “The Supreme Court, as it stands now, is another partisan institution. Americans want judgement based not on which ideological team they favor, but on insuring that people get what’s coming to them.”
When asked about relative inexperience of several of Cthulhu picks she replied, that “familiarity of federal law does not seem to have helped Clarence Thomas any.”
Judge Azor Whateley is unsurprisingly on the list. He previously worked in the Oklahoma state supreme court and has a reputation for handing down the harshest and almost unconstitutional judgements in that state’s history. He is most known for swearing people in not upon the Bible, but a book he cryptically calls “the codex” – an unusual practice that was itself upheld by a court in Phelps v. Whateley.
Most surprisingly on the list are beings with names like Tulzscha the Green Flame, Ngyr-Khorath, Ayi’ig and M’Nagalah. While the Constitution does not have provisions for dealing with extra-planar justices, it also does not forbid their nomination but the president.
Jane Redding, a long-time Supreme Court commentator, praised the audacity of this list as the greatest collection of independent judges that America has seen.
“It’s a great list of some of the most judgemental and, frankly, frightening, judges who give ample sign that humanity’s punishment is in good hands — or tentacles,” Ms. Redding said. “Whether a Republican Congress will accept these picks is anyone’s guess.”
But the Cthulhu campaign remains confident that Cthulhu will have his way once in office.
“Politicians are cowards. They respect and fear strength,” Ms. Waite said. “There is no candidate stronger on the issues of the day than Cthulhu.”