While You're Not Working at the Office Today
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing the Proposition 8 challenge brought by Ted Olson and David Boies, and in a rare move, the court has agreed to televise the proceeding. Starts at 1 PM Eastern time, will be on C-Span, and lasts for two hours - the length afforded this hearing being another rarity.

Ultimately, this will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I'm not so convinced they will care one way or another how a panel of the 9th Circuit feels about it. Still, how these three decide the issue may at least frame the public debate in the interim. Either way, it is pretty much must-see TV for the C-Span nerds among us.

Anita Hill Testimony Greatest Hits, Part 4
Who could forget this gem?!

One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were wording, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?"

On other occasions he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger
than normal and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had
given to women with oral sex. At this point, Late 1982, I began to feel
severe stress on the job. I began to be concerned that Clarence Thomas
might take out his anger with me by degrading me or not giving me
important assignments. I also thought that he might find an excuse for
dismissing me.

Thanks, Ginny for bringing this all back up! See all of the Anita Hill Greatest Hits posts.

Anita Hill Greatest Hits, Part 3
Link

On several occasions Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual
prowess. Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with
him at all, and particularly in such a graphic way, I told him that I did not
want to talk about these subjects. I would also try to change the subject
to education matters or to nonsexual personal matters, such as his
background or his beliefs. My efforts to change the subject were rarely
successful.

Parts 1 and 2 and the weird news that started this walk down memory lane are below.

Anita Hill Testimony Greatest Hits, Part 2
Having a great time revisiting Anita Hill's 1991 Judiciary Committee testimony during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Here's another great moment from the transcript:

My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects or he might suggest that because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very vivid.

He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals, and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises, or large breasts individuals in various sex acts.

See an earlier great moment below. I have no idea why Mrs. Thomas would want to bring all of this back up (drunk dialing? off her meds? honestly delusional?), but I'm glad she did!

Anita Hill Testimony
I had hoped to wait until a proper 20th anniversary to relive these glory days, but with the WTF news-of-the-day, it seems as good a time as any to revisit Anita Hill's time before the Judiciary Committee, testifying about her former boss, Clarence Thomas, and his excellent workplace manners.

After approximately 3 months of working there, he asked me to go out
socially with him. . . .

I declined the invitation to go out socially with him, and explained to him
that I thought it would jeopardize what at the time I considered to be a
very good working relationship. I had a normal social life with other men
outside of the office. I believed then, as now, that having a social
relationship with a person who was supervizing my work would be ill
advised. I was very uncomfortable with the idea and told him so.

I thought that by saying "no" and explaining my reasons, my employer
would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the
following few weeks he continued to ask me out on several occasions. He
pressed me to justify my reasons for saying "no" to him. These incidents
took place in his office or mine.

Apparently the only person who to this day believes she just made the whole thing up out of nothing is Mrs. Clarence Thomas.

Transcript of Colbert Answering Questions
Video of his opening statement is in the post below, but some of the best moments were during questioning from the committee. Apparently nobody much believes in transcripts anymore (what happened while I was away?) Blue Wave News has transcribed the one moment when Colbert seemed to come out of character and explain to Rep. Chu why he cares so much about the issue of migrant workers. Here's a snippet:

You know, “whatsoever you did for the least of my brothers,” and these seemed like the least of my brothers, right now. A lot of people are “least brothers” right now, with the economy so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that. But migrant workers suffer, and have no rights.

Other favorite answers include telling Rep. Smith (R-TX) that being a farm worker for a day is pretty tough:

SMITH: Is that to say it's more work than you've ever done before?

COLBERT: It's certainly harder work than this.

SMITH: Is it harder work than the comedy show?

COLBERT: Absolutely harder than punditry.

SMITH: You don't want to return to it?

COLBERT: I don't even want to watch Green Acres any more.

Then explaining to Rep. King (R-IA) that he was indeed packing, not unloading, corn.

COLBERT: I was packing corn. I was a corn-packer. I packed it; I put it in the trucks and I iced it down to keep it at 38 degrees so it wouldn't go through the process where the sugar turns into starch and we got that corn out that day. I was a corn-packer. And I know that term is offensive to some people because corn-packer is a derogartory term for a gay Iowan and I hope I didn't offend anybody.

Watch those portions of the video here.

Stephen Colbert Testifies Before Congress
From the annals of great political ideas, Colbert was invited to speak before the House Judiciary Committee, in a hearing on immigration. Here's his opening statement.