The U.S. Supreme Court’s printed guide for counsel is blunt on the subject of trying to be funny in briefs or oral arguments: “Attempts at humor usually fall flat.”

Yet here comes the Cato Institute and its client, satirist P.J. O’Rourke, presenting the court an amicus curiae brief replete with attempts at humor—all aimed at making the point that humor and even falsehoods are essential to politics and the First Amendment.