07.31.06
Some reserve units in Iraq to work through lunches, take triple shifts
by Terri Firma
With further challenges ahead, with efforts to better secure neighborhoods in Baghdad, rather than move to increase enlistment or institute a draft, the troops already stationed will be asked tow ork through lunches, and pick up extra shifts while stationed in Baghdad, “just like we do, when we get extra busy at the Pentagon,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled let slipduring a Pentagon briefing today.
“Hell, it’s not a cakewalk,” Rumsfeld said. “A lot of our average Americans back home have to take extra shifts to make ends meet, you know. I know, when I was their age, I had a paper route, plus I worked in a sub sandwich shop, and they’re young. It’s not like you have to be immune to hard work when you are in the US military.”
After conferring with advisors, Rumsfeld has decided that the briefing will be carried out by a press spokesperson from this point, to allow Mr. Rumsfeld to spend extra time on other Pentagon matters.
Mel Gibson denies anti-Semitism, urges skeptics to hold opinion till after they view his new film, “Jews run everything, there was no holocaust”
by Paula Berrer
Actor Mel Gibson has been asking critics to withold judgment on his latest film, “Jews run everything, there was no holocaust,” based on a circa-1940 French-German propaganda pamphlet, till after they have seen it.
Gibson came under recent fire after a rumored profanity and hatred-laced polemic against arresting officers in Malibu, and was accused of anti-semitism over his portrayal of Jews in his film, “The Passion of the Christ.”
“This film is not in any way anti-semitic,” he said, “and anyone who thinks otherwise should be marched off and summarily shot and killed.”
He was susequently remanded back to “Darker Spaces,” the rehab facility where he has spent time, off and on, since 1981.
Bush says “I was a little off on Iraq, but trust me, about Iran”
by Paula Berrer
In the face of increasing skepticism about his foreign policy decision and overall accumen, President Bush has chosen to confront his critics head-on, stating in part “I was a little off on Iraq, but trust me this time, on Iran.
“It’s the real deal this time. They are cold-hearted killers. We ignore this gathering threat to our peril. We must attack our enemies before they attack us and our way of life. You know, 9/11, yada-yada, so on and so forth.
“Our intelligence is much better this time. We learn from our mistakes. Plus we’re not going to pretend there are WMDs this time.
“‘Course I know that story of that little boy crying wolf,” he answered another questionner. “What the hell’s that got to do with anything?
“Look, like I’ve said before, ‘fool ‘ya once, shame on me. Fool ‘ya twice,’ oh whatever.”
07.30.06
Des Moines high schooler turns in material from Bush speech for homework, gets a “D”
by Terri Firma
A high school student named Jeremy Shocky turned in a part of President Bush’s recent speech on the Lebanese crisis, but the assignment earned the student a “D,” with the teacher remarking that the arguments were “not well thought out.”
The assignment was “Why my country is at war.” Reached late yesterday, first grade teacher Jennifer Tobin said,”Jeremy should not have plagiarized, but frankly, there wasn’t much there to earn him a passing grade.
“The grammar was fairly atrocious too,” Tobin said.
Bush sno cone melts, concludes global warming is real
by Paula Berrer
President George W. Bush has once again changed his stance on a core issue after coming face-to-face with real world refutation of his position. As with the instance where a film about aquatic life, presented by Jacque Cousteau Jr. in March, drove him to use a Presidential order to create an underwater national wildlife perserve, the hot temperature and its effects have led him to re-think his position on global warming.
“It’s fucking hot,” he told reporters on his ranch in Crawford over the weekend. “My sno cone melted really fast. Okay. I get it.
Tari Ritenour of the American Science Foundation expressed skepticism that this should greatly alter the administration’s energy policy. “Heat, ultimately, is a function of our Creator. If you’ve done your time on Earth without redemption, hot it will be. But people who play the game right will feel refreshing feelings alone, in eternity.”
For his part, Bush said, “Now I’m not going to just go along with saying these so-called ‘climate experts’ have it completely right on this thing. At the same time, there is a heck of a lot of this heat going on right now, and it must be because of something.”
Bush misuses intelligence services again, orders agents to find out if urinating turns swimming pool water purple
by Terri Firma
Tales of misuse of US intelligence servies by past chief executives are legendary, including Billy Carter’s briefings to locate kegger parties and former President Nixon’s infamous tracking of individuals on his “enemies list.” No abuses seem quite as flagrant as those disclosed by an intelligence source to USA Today, that Bush ordered officers to use all means, legal and otherwise, to find out if swimming pool water really turns purple after swimmers urinate.
“I just want to know,” Bush reportedly told the agent. “Look,” the agent told USA Today, ” I know there’s no chemical in pools that makes the water turn purple after kids piss. It’s an old wives tale. An urban myth. But he’s the President, and I promised I’d find out for sure.”
Frist says alternative minimum tax, gas tax, are not really a tax
by Tom Toburn
On FOX News Sunday, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) told host Chris Wallace, “No, I don’t consider the alternative minimum tax to be a tax. It effects working families only, and not inheritance. Plus it’s only an alternate.”
Frist was challenged by Duncan Turner of the Conservative Americans for Tax Reform, who opposed Frist, and questioned the effectiveness of government expansion with resultant hidden taxes in the form of high sales, gas and property taxes, and higher taxes on goods and services. Hunter challenged Frist over the increasing number of citizens subject to paying the alternative minimum tax, creating government expansion that has accelerated to an unprecedented degree.
“No, the Democrats are for higher taxes. Not the Republicans. I thought I explained that very clearly. Oh, and the Democrats are for ‘cut and run’ in the war on terror, in case I forgot to mention.”
Turner accused First of not knowing what the alternative minimum tax or property taxes are, and of uncritically and truculently adhering to mindless talking points. “That may be true in some people’s minds, but not in mine. Our party is easier, because it stands for integrity and standing firm, which means not letting little details get in the way.”
Bush says escalating violence in Middle East proves he was right all along about Iraq and WMD
by Terri Firma
In the face of escalating violence in the Middle East, President Bush said today that he believes his instincts were correct all along, and he was right to intervene militarily in a stand-off over WMDs in Iraq, because, “as you see, that place is a fucking nightmare anyway.”
After going briefly to his colloquial brand of speech, he returned subsequently to increasingly shopworn themes at his joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair standing beside him. “Even if there were not WMDs – and let me point out, most people thought there were…except maybe some of the weapons inspectors – but that does not change our being there to do good. And we will do good. Just not yet.
“It’s freedom vs. tyranny and terror. And if it’s not one, it’s the other. And the fact WMDs were not found proves that.
“In Texas, we have this thing called a ‘tautology.’ That means I’m always right. Especially after September the 11th.”
Shaking his head incredulously behind him was Blair, who answered another questioner, “No, I don’t think the word ‘tautology’ means exactly what the President thinks it means.” Blair recently told the London Times he had not completely lost his faculties when he elected to join Mr. Bush on his vision for Iraq.
07.28.06
Decision 2008, Candidate Profiles: John Kerry – “Last time, it’s not like I lost by a mile or anything”
by Paula Berrer
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee, is considering another run at the presidency, in light of a not overwhelmingly lackluster performance in the last Presidential contest. He was up in the polls in that election, and running against a weakened President, and had considerable funds. He has been criticized for failing to contest the outcome, which was very close, and may have been affected by tampering, and failing to refute charges that he is French (“I was French for a few years, before I wasn’t French,” he said at the time, in an unfortunate, but widely reported, parsing of the issue to voters in the second Presidential debate).
Though many have focused on the machinations of political savant Karl Rove as a primary driver in Kerry’s defeat, others have focused on some high profile missteps, such as his problems articulating a vision, (“I was for the war once, against it twice, and misunderstood that they actually meant a real war, two other times”), a banal nominating convention event, a lackluster response to organized partisan critics of his Vietnam war service, and a bad photo-op with gun and hunting gear in the battleground state of Ohio (he admits now that blowing the duck call backwards was an unfortunate misstep).
There was also his club-footed reference to Mary Cheney (“Mary Cheney is certainly a lesbo, we all know it, but so what? Oops.”) and her hostile rejoinder (“…he is a verminous, despicable asshole”). Kerry says of his last run, “Last time, it’s not like I lost by a mile or anything. I should have done many things differently. I shouldn’t have referred to Mary Cheney, an elegant and graceful daughter of the Vice President, as a lesbo. She’s actually a filthy-mouthed, cross-dressing troglodyte. I won’t make that same mistake twice.” It remains to be seen if voters will give him that second chance.
07.27.06
Coulter says to critics: “Stop the witch hunt”
by Tom Toburn
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter came out in full force against her critics today, in the wake of her column’s cancellation by a third newspaper, this time the North Carolina “Yes Weekly.” Coulter has come under increased fire recently, after calling Bill Clinton a likely homosexual on a nationally televised interview on MSNBC, criticizing Holcaust survivors as wimps, calling Priscillan Presley and 9/11 widows opportunists who bask in the deaths of their husbands, and urinating onstage on a recent late night television “pissing contest” with film maker Michael Moore. “It is outrageous. Stop the witch hunt!” Coulter said at a press conference called for media critics.
Coulter complained “Come on. Don’t you see? They are fixated on me and my skimpy outfits. My critics are a bunch of fixated fags and lesbians. That’s why I seem to get them all in a lather.”
When asked about accusations that she engages in hyperbole and is a purveyor of a publicity-minded brand of absurd theatre, she dismissed these as “…hysterical charges leveled at me because I am a woman.
“They want to see me dead,” she said further. “May I point out, Jesus Christ died for the sins of his critics too?”
