Coretta Scott King's Wiretap Ends
December 18, 2006 | Issue 42•51

January saw the passing of 78-year-old Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and with it, the end of the FBI's around-the-clock phone surveillance of Mrs. King.

"After Mrs. King's death, the Bureau determined that the threat she posed to American security was significantly minimized to the point that the wiretapping should not continue," said Charles Torcello, special agent in charge of the FBI's Coretta Scott King surveillance unit.

The FBI had monitored King since 1955, when her husband, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., first gained the attention of law-enforcement officials by leading the Montgomery bus boycott against segregation in public mass transit.

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution
November 28, 2006 | Issue 42•48

TOPEKA, KS—In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life.

"From now on, the streets, forests, plains, and rivers of Kansas will be safe from the godless practice of evolution, and species will be able to procreate without deviating from God's intended design," said Bob Bethell, a member of the state House of Representatives. "This is about protecting the integrity of all creation."

CNN Renews This Week At War For Next 8 Seasons
November 22, 2006 | Issue 42•47

ATLANTA—CNN officials announced that they will be carrying the popular news show This Week At War through the 2014 season. "We're confident that we'll have at least eight full seasons worth of material for this property," said CNN President Jonathan Klein during the dedication of the new 11-story TWAW news headquarters in Kuwait City. "And believe me, we're going to be going in some surprising new directions. A premise like this can go on for a generation." In addition to TWAW's extended renewal, CNN is retooling existing news shows to give them a more martial focus, most notably The Situation And War Room, and Lou Dobbs Tonight In The Middle Of A Pitched Street Battle Between Sunni And Shiite Extremists.

"The government knows exactly what they intend to put me through, and they still haven't done a damn thing about it, man," said Gerard, who, nearly three weeks before reporting to Fallujah, suffers from nightmares in which his potential best friend is beheaded. "I can't sleep, I can't eat, my hands constantly shake. I'm going to a place where people I don't even know will try to kill me. What the fuck?"

"I'm not the same man I once was," Gerard said, adding that he spends every night drinking to drown out the screams and cries for help he expects to hear. "War is going to be hell."

Report: More U.S. Soldiers Suffering From Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder
November 15, 2006 | Issue 42•46

Check this "unpublished sketch."

According to congressional testimony, the CIA sees Gates' intention to bring improvements in health and learning to the poorest corners of the world as the most serious threat to American foreign interests since the wave of independence-granting that plagued Africa in the 1960s and '70s.

U.S. Dedicates $64 Billion To Undermining Gates Foundation Efforts
August 15, 2006 | Issue 42•33

WASHINGTON, DC—The Bush Administration unveiled a new $64 billion spending package Monday for a joint CIA–Pentagon program aimed at neutralizing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's global humanitarian network.

"The fight against Gates will not be easy, will not be quick, and will not be without enormous cost," said Director Of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte of the new program, which calls for the creation of a new $20 billion counter-philanthropy unit aimed at punishing those countries that accept or use, directly or indirectly, any financial support from the Gates Foundation.

No Leads Sought In Asshole's Murder
August 9, 2006 | Issue 42•32

BROOKLYN, NY—The New York Police Department released a statement today confirming its intention to ignore the brutal slaying of local asshole Don Hewson, 34, and to avoid pursuing leads as long as possible. "Mr. Hewson was found with multiple stab and gunshot wounds in his smug fucking face and puffed-up chest, and while we recovered a number of weapons, we are neither testing them for prints nor tracing any serial numbers," Detective Travis Calloway said. "Nor will we follow up on the explicit eye-witness descriptions of the car seen leaving the scene, the calls to Hewson's phone, or interview the scores of people who had good reason to want this guy dead. There may have been a murder here, but we're having a hard time identifying any actual crime." Calloway said anyone calling NYPD's crime hotline with information on the murder would be eligible for fines of up to $10,000.

"This is a clear case of President Bush having carte blanche to grant himself complete discretion to enact laws to increase his power," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. "The only thing we can do now is withhold our ability to grant him more authority to grant himself more power."

"Unless he authorizes himself to strip us of that power," Reid added.

Despite criticism, Bush took his first official action under the new law Tuesday, signing an executive order ordering that the chief executive be able to order more executive orders.

In addition, Republicans fearful that the president's new power undermines their ability to grant him power have proposed a new law that would allow senators to permit him to grant himself power, with or without presidential approval.

Bush Grants Self Permission To Grant More Power To Self
August 1, 2006 | Issue 42•31

WASHINGTON, DC—In a decisive 1–0 decision Monday, President Bush voted to grant the president the constitutional power to grant himself additional powers.

"As president, I strongly believe that my  first duty as president is to support and serve the president," Bush said during a televised address from the East Room of the White House shortly after signing his executive order. "I promise the American people that I will not abuse this new power, unless it becomes necessary to grant myself the power to do so at a later time."

"The U.S. is characteristic of an abused nation in that, even decades after noisily pushing away from Britain, it still maintained close contact with the motherland, took care of it, even giving it financial aid—all the while fearing disapproval even though the parent country is now old, decrepit, and powerless," said Bauffman, a prominent contributor to the fourth edition of the Democratic Symptoms Of Maltreatment handbook, or DSM-IV...

Bauffman pointed to another telltale sign of abuse in the U.S.'s tendency to bully, torture, and persecute less powerful, vulnerable creatures, such as buffalo, passenger pigeons, forests, and Native Americans.

Although the American nation appeared to be on the road to recovery by the early 1990s, watershed events such as the open discussion of sexual issues, a protracted custody battle in the closing months of 2000, and a series of threats and physical attacks from enemy nations triggered centuries of repressed memories and set off a recurring pattern of violent outbursts and emotional volatility.

Report: U.S. May Have Been Abused During Formative Years
June 21, 2006 | Issue 42•25

WASHINGTON, DC—A team of leading historians and psychiatrists issued a report Wednesday claiming that the United States was likely the victim of abuse by its founding fathers and motherland when it was a young colony.

Alan Colmes' Death Goes Unreported On Hannity & Colmes
June 28, 2006 | Issue 42•26

WASHINGTON, DC—The accidental death of Alan Colmes, the liberal commentator sometimes featured alongside conservative Sean Hannity, has gone unreported on their Fox News political commentary show for two weeks. "I can't understand why—why the Republicans are afraid to pull the trigger on immigration!" said Hannity, speaking to an empty seat across the set.

Quote of note:

Protesters hoisted signs reflecting this sentiment, bearing such slogans as "Enough Is Enough," "Power To The Petroleum-Producing People," "Texaco-American Pride," and "I'm Pro-Oil And I Vote."

Oil Executives March On D.C.
'We Just Want Our Voices Heard'
May 17, 2006 | Issue 42•20

 

WASHINGTON, DC—More than 1,000 majority shareholders and executive officers from the nation's largest oil companies gathered in the National Mall and marched to Capitol Hill Monday in a mass demonstration for petrochemical corporations' rights and, according to several of those who attended, "to let our voices be heard at last."

New 'Anti-Abortion Pill' Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive
May 10, 2006 | Issue 42•19

NEW YORK—Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a "safe and effective method" for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.

Pfizer, manufacturer of UR-86—dubbed the "last-morning-ever pill"—said the drug is intended only for occasions when the mind-set or politics of the mother threaten the life of the fetus.

"This drug is designed for extreme cases in which the mother cannot or should not be saved, or when her health has been placed before that of her unborn child," Pfizer spokesman Anthony Wright said.

The orally ingested drug first tests for the presence of a fetus. If the outcome is positive, a near-lethal dose of barbiturates is released, which induces a coma in the expectant mother until the child is born, at which point a second, fatal dose is released.

Bush Calls Cabinet Meeting To Get Story Straight
April 26, 2006 | Issue 42•17

WASHINGTON, DC—With his administration dogged by criminal allegations, President Bush called a special Cabinet meeting Tuesday to ensure that his staff's complex web of alibis is consistent at every level, an anonymous source reported. "Okay, team, let's make sure we're all on the same completely fabricated page here," Bush reportedly said while aides distributed thick binders containing the administration's latest official side of things. "The e-mail server crashed during Katrina, the dog chewed up our files on the Plame leak, and no one ever told me that the illegal wiretapping was illegal. Right, boys?" Adde

Critics Blast Bush For Not Praying Hard Enough
April 5, 2006 | Issue 42•14

WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush, already facing the lowest approval ratings in history, is coming under fire from former supporters over what they call his "ineffectual and incompetent" use of prayer for national guidance and assistance.

"Every time the president is criticized, he insists that the nation is in his prayers," said the Family Research Council's Bob Jensen. "That may be, but it's becoming more and more clear that these prayers are either too infrequent, too brief, or not strongly worded enough to be effective."

Jensen added: "This nation deserves more than a president who just pays lip service to prayer. It deserves a president who demands that his prayers get real-world results."

I just ran across this joke at random. 

A young chap is walking down the street when he hears a girl's voice coming from the direction of the gutter. When he looks down he sees a frog.

The frog looks up at him and says "Good sir, I am a beautiful princess who has been trapped in the body of a frog by a wicked witch. If a young man kisses me I will turn back into a princess. If you kiss me and release me from my curse I'll do anything you desire."

The young chap considers this, picks the frog up and puts it in his pocket.

"Please help me!" says the frog. "Kiss me and I will do anything your heart desires. I will be yours until the end of time!"

The young man takes the frog out of his pocket and says "I'm afraid I'm a computer programmer so I haven't got time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog - now, that's cool."

 

Quote of note:

...Bush's senior advisers are trying to shield the president from the news. Aides are concerned that too harsh an awakening might shake Bush's faith, which has been a central part of his life for nearly 20 years.

"It's hard to tell the leader of the free world that he has been the butt of an elaborate and long-term ruse," a former staffer said. "Maybe it would be easier to take if it came from Cheney's God voice."

Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom
December 7, 2005 | Issue 41•49

WASHINGTON, DC—Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

FOUR JOKES
November 27, 2005

Rap artist 50 Cent says he is a big fan of President Bush. This increases Bush's approval rating among African Americans to 1.
— JAY LENO

[P6: kept my ass from watching his movie too...]

Bush pardoned the White House turkey. Then he appointed it the new head of FEMA.
— LENO

[P6: Personally, I think all this turkey pardoning Bush does is nepotism.]

Congress stepped up the pressure on President Bush to come up with an exit strategy for Iraq. Today, Bush said, "I have an exit strategy — I'm leaving office in 2008."
— CONAN O'BRIEN

[P6: be still my beating heart...]

 

Vice President Dick Cheney said he is upset when critics say [the administration] lied us into the war. I say fine, just lie us back out and we'll call it even.
— LENO

[P6: I can get with that.]

The Death Of Rosa Parks
November 9, 2005

DETROIT—Nearly 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give her seat to a white man on a segregated public bus in Montgomery, AL. This week, following the passing of the woman known as "the mother of the civil-rights movement," Americans from every walk of life—regardless of race, gender, or creed—can finally put the subject of racial equality behind them, once and for all.

"During today's service, America not only bade farewell to a seamstress from Alabama," President Bush said at a special GOP fundraiser Monday evening, "America buried the idea of civil rights itself."