(2006-02-16) — The United Nations Security Council today tabled discussion about how to react to Iran’s ongoing nuclear weapons development in order to take up debate on what to do about U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s recently disclosed weapons capabilities.

“We don’t really know whether Iran is making a bomb, or just making cheap abundant electricity,” said an unnamed Security Council spokesman. “But we have hard evidence that Dick Cheney is armed and dangerous.”

The council will consider a variety of responses, from economic sanctions against Mr. Cheney, to a stringent inspection protocol with all weapons placed under U.N. seal, and 24/7 video monitoring.

“Of course, we cannot rule out a military response,” the source said. “We must keep our options open in dealing with what has quickly become the biggest weapons issue of our time.”

(2006-02-15) — V. Gene Robinson, the first openly-homosexual Episcopalian bishop, came under attack today for a recent statement in which he called his alcoholism a “disease” for which he’s getting treatment.

“Bishop Robinson has reinforced the stereotype that being a drunk is some kind of medical condition that needs a cure,” according to an unnamed spokesman for the American Drunkards Association (ADA), a non-profit group that helps people recover from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. “Alcoholism isn’t a disease, it’s who we are. We want to be accepted for who we are. The bishop has done irreparable harm to drunken clerics everywhere, not to mention the damage done to millions of lay-drunkards.”

The American Drunkards Association also lobbies lawmakers to gain equal rights for alcoholics — “a large and growing group of Americans who face discrimination daily, especially from the department of motor vehicles.”

“Imagine not being allowed to drive just because of who you are,” said the unnamed ADA spokesman. “Police across the country engage in discriminatory profiling against drunkards, and there’s no public outcry about this civil rights abuse.”

Bishop Robinson, who left his wife to live with his homosexual partner, said he’s “humbled by the opportunity to be the denomination’s first openly-gay, openly-drunk and openly-irresponsible bishop.”

“My life sends a refreshing message to our parishioners of redemption without repentance,” he said. “It’s a real improvement on old-fashioned Biblical principles.”

(2006-02-15) — Vice President Dick Cheney has spent four sleepless nights, poring over popularity poll numbers, analyzing focus group data and crafting an emotional speech designed to turn last weekend’s accidental shooting of a hunting buddy from a PR nightmare into “a comeback-kid moment.”

“We’ve seen this all before,” said an unnamed former White House official who helped a previous president react to his own public relations challenges. “Right now, Dick Cheney is probably standing in front of his bathroom mirror to practice biting his lip, dropping his chin and making other dramatic facial expressions that simulate genuine remorse.”

The vice president’s grief, insiders said, is not over the shotgun wound suffered by his friend, Harry Whittington, but over his own failure to notify the White House press corps immediately after the incident.

In an ironic turnabout for the former “darling of the news media,” Mr. Cheney finds himself at odds with the very journalists who helped him craft his public persona as an affable and wise man of the people.

Anonymous sources said that the vice president knew he had a disaster on his hands when NBC TV reporter David Gregory called White House spokesman Scott McClellan a “jerk.”

“When a man of the caliber of David Gregory turns on you, it’s time to freshen that résumé,” said one unnamed source. “The sad thing is that this whole tragedy could have been avoided if Dick Cheney had understood that his primary obligation is to the journalists who made him what he is today.”

In related news, the vice president’s spokesman denied that Mr. Cheney has asked President George Bush to divert attention from the quail hunting accident by “bombing something overseas.”

(2006-02-14) — The sponsor of a House bill to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military said today that he would add a provision removing the bans on overweight and pregnant troops as well.

Rep. Martin Meehan, D-MA, released a report today showing that the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy has resulted in 9,501 people leaving the service during a 10-year period due to their alleged homosexuality, wasting roughly $364 million in training investments and other costs.

During that same time, 36,513 people separated from the service for failing to meet weight standards, and 26,446 left during pregnancy.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) estimated the cost of losing 62,959 troops who were either pregnant or overweight at $2.4 billion.

“The military desperately needs recruits, and we’re rejecting patriotic Americans because of irrelevant lifestyle choices,” said Rep. Meehan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who sponsored the bill to lift the bans. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ has failed for homosexuals, and it would not work for fat or pregnant troops either because their lifestyle choices are even more obvious. One way or the other, they’re coming out.”

The Pentagon opposes lifting the bans, which it says are necessary to maintain morale and order in combat.

“When you’re in a foxhole,” said an unnamed Pentagon spokesman, “you don’t have time to think about whether the soldier next to you is fond of you, or if he might eat your MRE, or possibly go into labor. In a life or death situation, you can’t have distractions like that.”

(2006-02-13) — White House spokesman Scott McClellan, peppered with reporters’ questions about Vice President Dick Cheney’s accidental weekend shooting of a hunting buddy, said President George Bush was “not immediately informed of the incident because he was too distracted by the Iraq war.”

“If, because of the war, the president doesn’t have time to catch Usama bin Laden,” Mr. McClellan said, “when do you think he’ll find a moment to deal with a quail hunting accident in Texas? ”

In related news, Mr. McClellan said the Bush administration is sticking with its initial ’single-shooter’ theory.

“From all indications,” he said, “the vice president acted alone. Lab reports show that all of the pellets came from a single 28-gauge shotgun which had the Vice President’s fingerprints all over it.”

Despite these assurances, the White House press corps buzzed with conspiracy rumors, including suggestions that the quail, which Mr. Cheney allegedly shot at, had not flown in a completely random, natural pattern, but seemed to intentionally pass in front of 78-year-old attorney Harry Whittington.

(2006-02-12) — A thick blanket of snow that covered much of the northeastern United States this weekend may increase global warming by preventing the heat that radiates from earth’s molten core from escaping into the atmosphere, according to former vice president Al Gore.

Mr. Gore, a noted global warming expert who also once ran for president, dismissed suggestions that the biggest snowstorm in New York City history diminishes his case that the planet is warming at an alarming rate.

“First of all,” Mr. Gore said, “the reason for all of this snow is that greenhouse gasses trap reflected solar heat causing the polar ice caps to melt, increasing the volume of oceanic water that evaporates, then freezes to become snow. The warmer the planet gets, the more massive snow storms we’ll see.”

The former vice president, former senator and founder of the red-hot Current TV Network, said the only solution is to remove the snow, not just from the ground, but from earth’s water cycle.

“We must pack the snow into giant containers and launch it into outer space,” Mr. Gore said. “Every day that George Bush fails to do this, the threat to Mother Earth grows exponentially.”

(2006-02-12) — Vice President Dick Cheney today accidentally peppered a 78-year-old hunting buddy with shotgun pellets during a quail hunt in Texas, injuring attorney Harry Whittington.

Filled with remorse over the incident, the vice president immediately repealed the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees “the right to bear arms.”

“I’m truly sorry that I winged Harry when he blocked my shot at the quail,” said Mr. Cheney. “I now realize that gun violence is not just an inner-city poor problem, but rather an epidemic that can spill out of the ghetto and affect wealthy and powerful, elderly Americans.”

The vice president said he has “directed President Bush to declare martial law and to repeal the Second Amendment temporarily, until we can get a federal court to declare the right to bear arms unconstitutional.”

If the courts fail to rule in his favor, Mr. Cheney said he would at least pressure Congress to enact more stringent gun-sales background checks.

(2006-02-12) — The New York Times today released several new photographs that provide conclusive evidence of close ties between indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and President George Bush.

The pictures, which the White House has confirmed are legitimate, indicate the kind of influence Mr. Abramoff was able to wield in the highest echelons of power, and why Indian Casinos and others were willing to pay him millions to promote legislation that would benefit them.

Highly-influential lobbyist Jack Abramoff appears with President George Bush at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. Mr. Abramoff is to the president’s left, behind Waldo. (Photo: New York Times/ScrappleFace.com)
Jack Abramoff with a young George Bush and his doting father. Two of the three men in this picture went on to become U.S. presidents. The third wielded substantial influence behind the scenes, selling his close association with the Bush family for millions of dollars in lobbying fees.	Powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff looks on from his premium seat on the first-base line as President Bush throws out the ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals game. Experts say the photo indicates the kind of close, influential relationship Mr. Abramoff enjoyed with the Republican president.

(2006-02-11) — Democrats in Congress called for an investigation today of journalists who secretly eavesdropped on President George Bush when his microphone was accidentally left on during a private conversation with Republican lawmakers Friday.

The president had just spoken to reporters at a House Republican Caucus retreat in Maryland, before sending them out of the room so he could confer privately with GOP colleagues about the legality of the secret NSA wiretaps of terror suspects which he authorized. But the audio feed to the White House press room remained on and journalists heard the president saying in private the same things he often says in public.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, called for a Justice Department probe of the incident.

“These journalists listened in on a private conversation among American citizens without a warrant and without any kind of accountability or oversight,” Rep. Pelosi said. “They could have jumped up and turned off the audio, or left the room, but instead they violated the right to privacy which forms the Constitutional basis for our most precious freedoms.”

The California Democrat said “this irresponsible, and possibly criminal, act has revealed something that we have tried for years to keep secret — that the president says what he means in public and in private.”

“This breach of privacy threatens the security of many in the homeland,” she added. “Especially those of us whose legislative careers depend on fostering doubts about the president’s honesty.”

(2006-02-08) — Democrat National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean today accused White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove of engineering a series of Bush administration failures and scandals in order to highlight the Democrat party’s inability to capitalize on political opportunity.

“I think it’s more than coincidence,” said Mr. Dean, “that Scooter Libby, Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff get indicted, Social Security reform is DOA, Iraq is a quagmire, Bin Laden is on the lam, Iran and North Korea have nukes, FEMA lets black people die in New Orleans, gas prices go ballistic and yet, Democrats get no bump in the polls…Oliver Stone, phone your office.”

A White House spokesman denied that the administration ever intentionally fails at anything, but acknowledged that the key to Republican electoral victory in 2006 and 2008 is to “give Democrats numerous chances to publicly highlight their own ideas and to spotlight their own integrity.”