ROTI always stands ready to bring the greatest achievements of the art world to your attention. Like the time we braved a buggy Google Earth interface to demonstrate the wonders of the Museo del Prado’s online collection. Or the time we highlighted a groundbreaking poop artist in Los Angeles.

Yesterday, Nils coq au Vin sent me a link to one of the finest pieces of American art I’ve ever glimpsed.

Mother Jones’ Marian Wang does a good job of summing up this masterpiece:

For as little as $130, fellow Americans, you can take home a canvas reproduction of this beauty of a painting depicting your country’s noble roots. “One Nation Under God” is a new piece by artist Jon McNaughton of Utah, who says he got his inspiration from a vision he received during the 2008 elections.

Front and center, the painting features Jesus Christ, creator of the heavens and earth and bearer of the US Constitution. (A few online wags have already compared the likeness to that of Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn.) At his feet on his right you have the good guys—the farmer, the Christian minister, the US Marine, the handicapped child, the black college student, the schoolteacher who vaguely resembles Sarah Palin. You also have the young white man who represents the rising generation.

On the other side—Jesus’ left side—is another set of characters, including a professor holding a copy of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, a politician, a lawyer counting his money, a liberal news reporter, and a Supreme Court Justice weeping over Roe v. Wade. Oh, and who could forget Satan lurking in the shadows.

When dudes in Utah start having visions, you never know what kind of freaky shit they’re going to come up with. This painting has every Fox News talking point embedded into it, and then some.

Not only that, but this School of Athens-style depiction of Jesus coming back to lay down a reckoning on American liberals comes complete with alt-text webpage, outlining all the delicious symbolism.

The bottom line: Republican presidents and Founding Fathers rule, Jesus hates the legislative and judicial branches, conservative interest groups are awesome, liberal interest groups are in league with Satan.

Also, Jesus is somehow involved in the Constitution.

Let’s take a look and find out more!

I thought “patriot of freedom” was a weird phrase to use here. Patriotism is love of one’s country, it doesn’t really apply to love of a specific concept.

If I’m wrong, then you can go ahead and dub me a TRUE PATRIOT OF CAKE.

I Googled it up and quickly found a link to the webpage of the American Patriot Party. Other than the fact that this is the single worst webpage design I’ve ever seen since the blink tag fell out of favor, it’s worth noting that this is a hard-line right wing party dedicated to…well, pretty much everything this painting stands for, and against.

Here are a couple of dudes that Jesus can’t STAND.

Some might say that we have three co-equal branches of government. Jesus doesn’t agree. He’s only down with the POTUSes. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, punks!

Marbury vs. Madison? Jesus intends to take a dump on that one, and every other cockamamie scheme those activist judges cooked up since. Judges’ role is to interpret the laws, not make them!

How a law that doesn’t square with the Constitution could be invalidated without the principle of judicial review, I have no idea. Maybe McNaughton will come up with the answer to than one in his next vision. Be patient.

Now for the dastardly politicians. In his lengthy dissertation on the painting’s imagery, McNaughton declares “In the background are the Federal Capitol Building and the U. S. Supreme Court Building to represent the Legislative and Judicial branches of our government. Only some of the lights are lit and some are very dim to symbolize the waning of the cause of liberty among many of our elected officials.”

Jesus doesn’t like it when you ignore liberty!

If only those two rascals were the extent of the evil plague upon America, we might be able to handle it. But the hit list goes on!!

Here’s where McNaughton really starts to tip his hand. Whereas before we’ve seen him talk about those who haven’t stood up for liberty, here he pretty much comes out and calls liberals evil.

The fricking liberal left! They believe in evolution and try to convince others that their views are correct! The nerve!

When is our beloved Christ gonna show up and kick the shit out of these pansies already?

This skeevy lawyer LOVES his money. What a dick!

We definitely need to take away his liberty to enjoy the free market profits of the demand for his services…wait, WTF am I saying? Just stone the bitch!

Hopefully. Hopefully…

But ya know. If those liberal lefties don’t cool it, we might just have to declare war on their evil states and wipe them from the face of the earth once and for all.

In the name of liberty!

This is one of my favorite parts. You know who else gives big ups to the 5000 Year Leap?

None other than the messiah of all birthers, deathers, and fringe whack jobs…Glenn Beck!

The only thing that would make that cover better is a big smiling Jesus face stamped right in the middle.

The delightful geniuses at Shortpacked.com took a liking to McNaughton’s masterwork, and have created their own version of the site with commentary interspersed.

One thing they hit on quite well was the fact that many of the Founding Fathers did not beat their chests and cry out to Jesus.

Actually, a lot of the Presidents depicted flanking JC were actually deists, who believed in a higher power but not Jesus Christ per se…

Then again, that’s probably something fed to me by the wicked professors of academe, who this painting makes VERY clear are in the pocket of Sinners who Jesus is gonna destroy!

Wait just a damn minute…these guys sound like a bunch of atheist pinkos to me!!

What kind of country IS this, anyway?!

Also…she looks exactly like Sarah Palin.

If there’s one thing I LOATHE, it’s big government passing out handouts to lazy welfare queens and good for nothing bums.

Now please pass me that pitcher of corn syrup.

What a stud!

I still prefer Baby Jesus to the grown-up edition – so much more inscrutable, yet knowing – but this is a pretty bad ass Jesus, and he loves him the Constitution.

Never mind that it never actually says ANYTHING about Jesus in the Constitution. Visions don’t lie, bro.

One thing that is great about both the original McNaughton page and the parody is that both versions feel the same way about the evillest figure in the painting — no, not Satan.

MR. HOLLYWOOD!

The Of Common Consent blog was so inspired by this work of genius, they started a haiku contest.

Here are some of my favorites:

Karen H. Says:
Founding Father Jive!
Alexander Hamilton
Dance jazzy hands dance!

Geoff J Says:
Civil war soldier
What’s up with all the crying?
The blue side won dude

And my personal favorite:

S.P. Bailey Says:
Benjamin Franklin
Gots his eyes on that cutie
With the baby bump

Old news, right?

Well, wait until you hear about who exactly brought this case:

A crazy religious group out of Salt Lake City whose founder told all these crazy stories about divine creatures visiting him, and they have this wacky temple and follow VERY strange religious practices…

No, not the Mormons.

The SUMMUM!

The Summum Pyramid in SLC.
Not to be confused with The Luxor: Mormon Edition.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court warily confronted a case Wednesday that mixes limits on free speech with issues of church-state separation.

The justices engaged in lively arguments over a small religious group’s efforts to place a monument in a public park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display.

The court seemed reluctant to accept the arguments put forth by the religious group known as the Summum that once a government accepts any donations for display in a public park, it must accept all.

“I mean, you have a Statue of Liberty; do we have to have a statue of despotism? Or do we have to put any president who wants to be on Mount Rushmore?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked, acknowledging his examples might go a bit far.

Yet the court also was uncomfortable with the position of Pleasant Grove City, Utah, which rejected the Summum’s request to erect a monument similar to the Ten Commandments marker that has stood in the city’s Pioneer Park since 1971.

Justice David Souter wondered how the city could accept the Ten Commandments display and then say, “‘We will not on identical terms take the Summum monument because we don’t agree with the message…’ Why isn’t that a First Amendment violation?”

The Salt Lake City-based Summum wants to erect its “Seven Aphorisms of Summum” monument in the park. The Summum, formed in 1975, say the Seven Aphorisms were given to Moses on Mount Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. Moses destroyed the tablet containing the aphorisms because he saw the people weren’t ready for them, the Summum say.

Yeah….we’re gonna need to know more about these weirdos.

The WASHINGTON POST fills us in:

Although the debate was spirited, it lacked some of the rancor of the last time the high court took up a dispute over the Ten Commandments. In 2005, a sharply divided court issued decisions forbidding the commandments from being displayed on the walls of two Kentucky courthouses but allowing their presence on a granite monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

Those cases were argued under the First Amendment’s establishment clause forbidding government endorsement of religion; Summum’s lawyers chose the free-speech argument instead. The primary issue yesterday was a somewhat arcane debate over whether the city’s decision to accept the Ten Commandments monument made it “government speech,” rather than private speech, which would mean it does not have to be balanced with other viewpoints.

Beyond the legalities, much of the interest in the case has focused on the small religious sect at its center. Founded in 1975, Summum is described by its Salt Lake City lawyer, Brian Barnard, as based on “Gnostic Christianity and New Age philosophy,” along with ancient Egyptian traditions.

One of those traditions is mummification, which is practiced on people and pets. The body of Summum founder Summum Bonum “Corky” Amon Ra, who died this year, is currently undergoing the six-month process.

Currently-being-mummified Corky Ra with mummified cat. Srsly.

WIKIPEDIA tells us more about this bizarre cult of Summum:

Practice of the religion involves meditation upon the aspect of creation that is within one’s self. Summum believes that within all created things is an essence which is the spirit of the creator. The more one directs their attention to this indwelling spirit, the more one realizes its existence and moves along the lines of spiritual progression, developing “spiritual Psychokinesis”. It appears that there is no recognized deity per se in the philosophy, but rather that people are all part of the mind of the universe and that the universe collectively constitutes something great and worthy of study and meditation.

Summum produces “Nectar Publications” which are nectars containing alcohol and used in the meditation practices that Summum teaches. The nectars are made inside the Summum Pyramid and according to Summum are imbued with resonations that contain spiritual concepts. Summum has made a number of different types of nectars, each containing its own “message”. A small amount of nectar is consumed prior to meditation, and the alcohol is said to carry the resonations across the blood-brain barrier where they are released in the brain. Perception of the nectars’ effects is said to depend upon the awareness of the person using them.

Governmental authorities consider the nectars to be wine and required that Summum obtain a winery license in order to make them. Summum is Utah’s first federally bonded winery.

This is actually an awesome idea…marketing booze for religious purposes and calling it a “publication.”

You know, Summum might not be that bad.

In fact, check out the Seven Aphorisms:

1. Summum is mind, thought; the universe is a mental creation.

2. As above, so below; as below, so above.

3. Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.

4. Everything is dual; everything has an opposing point; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes bond; all truths are but partial truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.

5. Everything flows out and in; everything has its season; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing expresses itself in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.

6. Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is just a name for Law not recognized; there are many fields of causation, but nothing escapes the Law of Destiny.

7. Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all levels.

Is it just us, or do those tenets kind of…make sense???

Especially the one about vibrating. That’s, like, science.

Now, these guys exploit a loophole in biblical literature to “prove” that Moses made two deliveries from Mount Sinai: “While many people may not realize it, passages in the Bible tell the story of how Moses returned from Mount Sinai with stone tablets on two separate occasions. These passages are found in the Book of Exodus (chapters 32 – 34) and the Book of Deuteronomy (chapters 9 – 10).“

The reason the story was told twice is that the Pentateuch was not actually written by Moses but assembled from a number of sources, which is why the Bible often repeats itself.

Of course, fundamentalist Christians do believe in the literal truth of the Bible, which means they have some ‘splainin’ to do when it comes to Moses’ double dip on the mountaintop…

In fact you could say that Summum’s interpretation of the Bible is no more bogus than that of many fundies…who are the ones who love those Ten Commandments displays in the first place.

“You want the Seven Aphorisms?? You can’t HANDLE the Seven Aphorisms!!”

Anyway, it’s an interesting case.

Click here for the a transcript of the oral arguments, if you’re so inclined.

And now for some informed opinions…

The SCOTUS blog notes that this case is tricky because it dwells in a nether region between various constitutional clauses. “The case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (07-665) seems to have much to do with “public forum,” “limited public forum,” “government speech,” “private speech,” and “viewpoint discrimination,” among other categories. But the Court’s members seemed unpersuaded that any of them is just right for this case.  The Justices weren’t even sure which part of the First Amendment is really at issue — free speech, or church-state separation…Jay Alan Sekulow, the Washington, D.C., lawyer for the Utah city, had barely begun his argument when Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., told him: “You’re really just picking your poison, aren’t you?  I mean, the more you say that the monument is Government speech, to get out of the Free Speech Clause, the more it seems to me you’re walking into a trap under the Establishment Clause.”“

How about the merits of the case? Dahlia Lithwick from SLATE writes: “Even [Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg balks at Harris’ assumption that monuments and speeches are identical for First Amendment purposes: “From time immemorial,” Ginsburg says, “public parks have been places where people can speak their minds. But I don’t know of any tradition that says people can come to the park with monuments and just put them up.” Even the most doctrine-loving justices seem to be bothered by the practical problem of city parks becoming cluttered with hate monuments, weird stuff, and, eventually, rusted-out cars. But the problems on the other side are equally glaring. Cities should not be allowed to exclude unpopular groups based only on the content of their message. The state should not be able to keep gay soldiers’ names off the Vietnam Memorial. Just ask Moses if it stopped being speech just because it was carved in stone.“

Dahlia Lithwick rules. We also have the same favorite Summum Aphorism.

Calvin Massey from THE FACULTY LOUNGE blog opines, “In terms of what a city chooses to display in its park, the park functions much like a public library or art museum.  Governments are entitled to make content-based choices about what books, art works, or monuments they seek to acquire and display.  When the work has a religious element, there is a question of whether the governmental acquisition and display is a forbidden endorsement of religion.  So as a free speech matter, Pleasant Grove should win.“

Agree? Disagree? Don’t care and just want to get wasted on some Summum “publications” and mummify a few cats? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section.

Hear us out.

While it now seems very likely that Obama wins the election going away, let’s just hypothesize that McCain makes a huge comeback. Stranger things have happened in this weird election. McCain somehow makes a crazy resurgence and wins almost all the battlegrounds.

In addition to the 185 electoral votes he’s still hanging onto (per electoral-vote.com), Johnny Mac, fueled by Romo supplements, takes wins in:

NEVADA 5
COLORADO 9
FLORIDA 27
NORTH CAROLINA 15
VIRGINIA 13
NEW HAMPSHIRE 4

Somehow captures WISCONSIN (10) with a huge push from Sarah Palin…

and…
scores the one stray electoral vote in one congressional district in Maine that the McCain campaign just announced its intention to go after…

269 – 269 tie.

OK, so then as everybody knows, the election goes to the House, where the Democrats will have a commanding majority and Obama wins. Right?

Twelfth Amendment sez:

But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

And as Charlie Cook wrote today, 26 state delegations is no cakewalk for Obama:

We obviously don’t know the makeup of the 111th Congress, but we do know that Democrats now control 27 delegations, Republicans have 21, and two are evenly divided. So I asked my colleague, David Wasserman, the House editor of The Cook Political Report, to game out what would happen if the election were thrown into the House. He concluded that it might not be easy to reach 26 votes, given that a lot of Democrats serve districts with a long history of supporting the Republican presidential nominee. Would North Dakota and South Dakota’s at-large Democratic representatives — Earl Pomeroy and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin — vote with their electorate or their party? Although Obama is competitive in North Dakota, he is still likely to come up a bit short and has virtually no chance of winning in South Dakota. In her 2004 campaign, Herseth Sandlin indicated that she would be open to voting for the Republican nominee — President Bush in that case — in the event of a tie in the Electoral College…

Wasserman argues that having to decide the presidential contest would put plenty of House delegations in uncomfortable positions. For example, if Democrat Ethan Berkowitz were to unseat longtime GOP Rep. Don Young in Alaska’s only House seat, Berkowitz would almost certainly seal his own defeat in 2010 if he stuck with his party and voted against a GOP ticket including the state’s popular governor. GOP Rep. Michael Castle, who represents Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden as Delaware’s only representative, would face the same choice.

And, if Democrats were to clinch a delegation majority in Arizona by protecting both of their vulnerable seats and picking off an open seat in the northern part of the state, five Democrats would have to choose between voting for Obama and voting for their state’s candidate and choice for president, John McCain.

There is no way to anticipate how members would weigh considerations such as the outcome of their state’s vote or the national popular vote. But for Obama, winning the support of 26 House delegations could be harder than it sounds. For one thing, four of the toss-up states in this scenario have even-numbered House delegations, meaning that intra-delegation deadlocks could reduce the number of states available to reach the magic number 26.

OK…so what happens if they are deadlocked at 25? The Twelfth Amendment continues:

And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.^[1]

The Amendment then goes on to describe how the Vice-President is chosen, which could mean that this newly selected Vice-President would then serve as President. However, it does not prescribe for the selection of a new Vice-President in this instance, which seems curious. Could this mean that the current Vice-President would then serve a term as President?!?!?!

Given the stakes involved, the lack of precedent, and the series of bruising deadlocks that would lead to this scenario…is it such a stretch to see this going to the Supreme Court? And what will we find here – an even more conservative, Republican court than the one that came up with the very controversial Bush vs. Gore decision!

Ladies and Gentlemen, President Cheney. Dick Cheney.

And Palin wins one extra state delegation, becoming VP!

You’re so screwed Iran!!!