Supreme Court Jack Daniel's ruling: I am going to lose my mind at this decision.

A crucial case determining the fate of American civil liberties—and our national character as a whole—was decided by the Supreme Court today. I speak, of course, of Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, a dispute centered on a canine chew toy molded to look like an amber bottle of Jack's Old No.7 Tennessee Whiskey. Except, instead of Jack Daniel's, the label reads "Bad Spaniels," and instead of Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey, it says "Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet." Far from being a bottle of liquor, it's made out of rubber, does not contain any alcohol, and is—in fact—for dogs.

Yet the powers that be at Jack Daniel's were so upset about this horrific incursion on their trademark that they took the issue all the way to the highest authority in the legal stratosphere, bringing to mind a third-grader who can't back down from a dare.

The court ruled in favor of Jack Daniel's after determining that VIP Product's chew toy—which was named "Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker" and could never be mistaken as a genuine bottle of Old No. 7 by literally anyone, even from a very great distance—does not fall under First Amendment creative protection. The decision was unanimous, which really says something dark about the scant few segments of political terrain Americans can find consensus on in 2023.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion. "This case is about dog toys and whiskey," she said. "Recall what the bottle looks like. Jack Daniel's’ is a registered trademark, as is ‘Old No. 7.’ So too the arched Jack Daniel's logo. And the stylized label with filigree." She added, "what might be thought of as the platform for all those marks—the whiskey's distinctive square bottle—is itself registered." The court threw out an entirely sensible opinion from an appeals court ("The Bad Spaniels dog toy, although surely not the equivalent of the Mona Lisa, is an expressive work," a sage judge wrote) and will now send the matter back to a lower court to figure out what to do.

OK, look, I’m not a free-speech lawyer. I can't pretend to have any idea what makes a Jack Daniel's-contoured chew toy a more significant threat to a poor, innocent megadistillery than, say, the myriad other parody items that tend to congregate at your local Spencer's Gifts. I was thinking about buying a shirt that said "Painstation" the other day—does that mean I’ll be testifying in front of Justice Kagan next? The justice added that "the infringement claim here rises or falls on likelihood of confusion," implying that the average consumer could be potentially unsure whether or not a gag Jack Daniel's chew toy was created by the distillery itself. Really? Is this what judges do all day?

It should be said that there are a zillion chew toys in the Bad Spaniels tradition, so I imagine Anheuser-Busch is just licking its chops right now. On Amazon, you can purchase the Nestpark Lil Pawty Pack—a truly distressing American confection—which comes with the rubber Pup Light (Bud Light), Pup's Blue Ribbin (no idea why they spelled it that way), Toto's Houdmade Pawdka (good lord), and a regular old fake bong. The Pawty Pack retails for $50 (!), and as far as I’m concerned, it's officially contraband. Run for the hills! You didn't hear this from me, but you can also find the newly punished Bad Spaniels toy on Amazon. They seem to be flying off the shelves. Any press is good press.

"I bought this because it is the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case because Jack Daniels sued the company for copyright infringement," said one satisfied Amazon customer, who has issued a four-star review. "Really squeaky, and the dog loves it, but my son said he put it away to preserve its historical value." Thank you for your service, my good man.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Voting Rights Act—a surprising decision considering the panel's hard-right lean—ensuring that millions of Black Alabamans won't be disenfranchised. Moving from that case to the Bad Spaniels Question is a tone shift of herculean proportions. I truly cannot imagine what it must be like to go from determining the future of the country's democratic functionality, to telling some retailer that they can't sell fake Jack Daniel's to dogs anymore. All more grist for my ongoing theory that anyone who aspires to be a judge is a deeply unwell person. But at the very least, we’re not living in a timeline where the rights of a whiskey imprint were enshrined over actual human beings. I’ll take any victory we get.

But I still have to say it: justice for the Silly Squeaker.