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CONGRESS TERMINATES SALARIES

(Washington) The Senate yesterday passed legislation that effectively ends the practice of paying salaries to elected officials in Congress. The bill, approved by the House Thursday will go to the President’s desk where it is expected to be signed into law before the weekend.

“The only hang-up now could be White House fears that the new approach may affect salaries there,” said Senator Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA), “but we figure Don will go for it. He’s fat and illiterate in Chinese and doesn’t need Congress. Counting evil campaign contributions and keeping an eye on the family are fulltime gigs.”

Although the final stages of negotiations went well the beginnings were a bit shaky.
“At first the Senate was quite willing to ban salaries in the House and likewise that governing agency supported a cessation of pay for Senators,” explained Noise, heir to several dog food fortunes. “Then, after a tedious expose’ on one of those pinheaded network news programs, the public got wind of the goings on and the entire Congress had no other choice than to support the legislation.”

A retraining program, like so many conducted by the benevolent gov’ment, aimed at  placing displaced people in functional positions, has already begun with just two politicians signing up for the gratis program. A large OSHA signs now hangs in the Senate where a painting of Thomas Jefferson was once on display.

A hastily hung OSHA information poster instructs former Congressional freeloaders to buck up and find a real job.  Bi-lingual and a bit blue-collar in nature, the graphic is part of a post-gravy train program that hopes to retrain unskilled workers for a more productive future.

Noise admitted that the media had delivered the death blow and added that he hoped that journalists, especially TV news anchors, would follow suit and end the practice of taking home exorbitant salaries just for looking pretty on the screen.
Washington insiders insist that a sagebrush revolt is already in the works which may result with the abolishment of salaries for any and all elected officials and most appointed ones.

“We could see this wave wash away years of procedure at the state and local level too,” said one analyst. “Then we might even undress the cash cow issue of campaign finance reform.”

Already 80% of the Congress has quit claiming economic hardship.

“Ridiculous!” popped Noise. “These people are all millionaires! What would they be doing if they didn’t sit around in the House or Senate all day, play video games? Play tennis? Drink? I’m staying right here until I see how the lobbyists react to all this.”
The freed-up funds, formerly earmarked for Congressional pockets and exhumed from tax coffers, will now be spent on agricultural research and social rehabilitation programs with a healthy percentage going toward paying off the national debt.

“All this talk about a surplus is a lot of crap,” said Noise, “It’s just more party propaganda like the jaded pledges to fight the drug trade and stale blueprints for upgrading the schools.”

– Kashmir Horseshoe

Broncos Troll Wal-Marts For Offensive Line Help

A legion of Denver Bronco scouts have begun patrolling local Wal-Marts in the hope of landing some help on their offensive line. The NFL franchise, that experienced gaping holes, horrible run stats and inability to protect the quarterback last year plans to shore up these blatant inefficiencies and run the ball in 2017.

Although many of their discoveries have proved fruitless up until now, the team expects to find help in the aisles of the nation’s largest retailer. Acknowledging that many of the new recruits may be too slow to play football one coach says he will stay the course.

“Some of them are real big,” he explained, “flabby, obese and not terribly athletic. Many have never participated in team sports or daily exercise which has contributed to their sad physical state. Our job is to toughen them up. Two a day practices in the summer heat will do wonders.”

The source then continued insisting that the concept of tethering a lineman had not been discussed. He then employed simple physics to his projected formula for success.

“A body in motion stays in motion while a body at rest stays at rest,” he smiled. “Many of our best prospects won’t be easy to move on the line. They will simply stay in one spot and take up room. Often that’s enough.”

Other teams have responded to the move and have begun examining sources of talent in their own regions.

“These consumers are so used to buying worthless junk that they cannot differentiate between credit and cash,” said an unidentified scout in Baltimore. “We hope this reality will translate into lucrative contracts on our end. After we pay off their credit cards and get them on the field we will know how to proceed.”

– Fred Zeppelin

Satirists Bring Suit

The International Union of Satirists and Gag Writers (AIUSG) has filed suit against Donald Trump. Calling the actions of his administration “unfair competition” they also named several top ranking administration officials in the action.

They say the President’s statements reflect strong irony and plenty of ridicule while outlandish remarks put him in a class by himself, shutting the door on light-hearted exaggeration attempts or any valid expose on anything political.

“Obama was fun to tease. He had a sense of well-advised comedic response,” said the suit. “Even George W. Bush could deliver a joke. Trump is the joke.

“We hope to bring the whole sideshow down before it destroys the nation,” said one petitioner. “Trump’s erratic behavior is in no way pointed, clever or constructive humor.”

In a prepared statement union leaders said It is currently impossible to make fun of someone who is such a mess. There is no inherent humor whatsoever unless one lowers himself to doting, laughable news coverage the mainstream media has produced since January.

A growing number of satirists and even some fledgling comedians are beside themselves and gasping for air. Several have reportedly jumped from bridges and balconies. Others have even began hurling themselves into the path of slow creeping (albeit non-existent) Republican legislation as a bloody protest.

Economists predict that as many as 3500 satirists could lose their jobs as a result of the humor quagmire.

“And that’s just in the immediate ranks,” said a Harvard professor. “One must consider the reverberations. All of the satellite industries connected to satire are at risk as well as the support services and fanned out personnel. This kind of laughter has been part of the editorial landscape since Jamestown. It’s healthy as long as it does not cross over to meanness.”

Trump supporters, if they read this at all, will write it off to fake news and liberal propaganda landing everyone right smack into the cycle of frustration and outright despair over the state of leadership in this country.

“He even lied about his golf handicap,” said one sardonic source who said she cannot keep up with the President in the field of the absurd.

“I’m out of energy,” she wailed. “It looks like my future in journalism will be eternally linked to covering town council meetings and writing obituaries.”

– Uncle Pahgre

Scribe Tied to North Korean PR Firm

Self-Indictment? An example of Toole’s dirty work, penned for Kim-Jong-il during his tenure in Pyongyang.

(Colona) Peninsular Journalist Melvin Toole has been linked to a rogue public relations firm that once represented named Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un.

Asian experts, who have been observing Kim Jong-un with a new degree of intensity since the crisis over nuclear weapons went into overdrive last year, agree that the North Korean leader is easily as dangerous as anyone in the current White House.

“We have been mining Kim’s vast experiences with everyday reality to come up with a working personality sketch that might further predict erratic behavior in Pyongyang,” said one political source in Japan. “Kim is what we like to call turnip cart nuts in diplomatic terms which does not disqualify him from elected or inherited power.”

Whether Toole was complacent in sharing sensitive information with North Korea or simply a stooge of his own delusions will be determined in the Hague next week.

Meanwhile Chinese Prez Xi Jinping appears to be positioning himself from potential blowback from the slogan scandal. Like many in the Trump Whitehouse, Jinping has never filed for status as the agent of a foreign power registered as a foreign agent.

Aides to the Chinese leader say he didn’t feel the need to fill out more paperwork at a time when nuclear warfare was on the table.

Toole, clearly responsible for such slogans as We may eat gras for dinner but we’ve got nukes! and Dear Leader – The only god you’ll ever need did not return our tweets this morning.

In the A bomb of our own campaign his halting hand is evident if not in the headlines then in the stuttering body copy. The mindless pentameter is unmistakably his as are the all too common sickly sweet melodies.

“His touch seems apparent,” said former copy writer and critic, Tommy Middlefinger, who adds that a favorite, He’s not just a man in an oversized suit coat, never made it to Korean TV but was a hit on commercial radio in China.

Toole expands on the rough slogans to further explain that Eating grass makes you strong (a play off a Wheaties ad) and the popular ballad: On a Clear Day We Can Reach San Francisco.

One release attempts to place Dear Leader in a better light. I am not going to eat this entire cow and this rack of lamb, these eight lobsters and this pork roast because I love my people.

Internationally the situation remains tense with propaganda replacing logic and threats dominating diplomacy.

North Korean copywriters have rarely had the opportunity to write much in the United States because the gifted ones have been shot by Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the Worker’s Party of Korea. Others have been shunned by the American mainstream due to the sordid case history of one Kim Kimo-Baby, a defector who arrived in the US just prior to the Korean War.

Kimo-Baby has since been indicted for selling classified ads to Joe Stalin in 1952 and arranging for the same Soviet dictator to have his mustache cleaned at a Bay Ridge (New York) dry cleaner shortly before his death in 1953.

Kim, allegedly the first Korean to it 65 homers in a season, is currently serving a life sentence for bilateral espionage (and failure to run out a fly ball) somewhere in New Jersey.

“Toole deserves the garrote for his insolence and grave noncompliance ,” said one prosecutor, “but he his well-carved talents will no doubt endure. He will probably end up writing ads for the insurance or pharmaceutical industry.”

Rumors that Kim Jong-on had suggested a diplomatic swap involving Toole for a minor league prospect in the Korean Maritime League were angrily shouted down in the House last night before bed.

– Fred Zeppelin

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping the common people quiet.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte

White Supremacists Negotiate Greenland Purchase

(Nuuk) A previously unknown White Supremacist cell, that until last week had meekly operated in far reaches of northern Maine, is now conducting negotiations with longtime landlord Denmark for the purchase of the Greenland.

Fear of a woman or another minority ascending to the White House appears to have been the conduit for the move. An estimated 500 legions are said to be ready to take possession of the frozen giant “one way of another”, according to uniformed militia, amassed on hundreds of small vessels along the cold, rocky coast.

“We’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse,” said one old salt, sitting on a his ship’s only lifeboat in Baffin Bay. “We don’t need food either because we’re tough and accustomed to foraging.”

Greenland, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, is the largest island in the world if one considers Australia to be a continent. Most of its population are Inuit and speak a bastardized Greenlandic that even the bearded seals and musk oxen don’t understand.

“If the Danes don’t come to terms we’ll storm the place.” pledged several of the Aryans. “It worked in Poland.”

According to a recent statement the group first looked into acquiring the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas if you are Argentine) but the Brits weren’t interested in selling. Africa was out since former colonial experiments there have failed miserably. “Southern Chile or even the Cook Islands showed promise but they are too far south to pick up Rush Limbaugh or other rightist heroes on the radio.”

“We are seeking an Aryan Utopia,” explained one man busily loading shells into an amphibious craft, a nation of armed utopians are we.”

The Danish government had no official comment on the proceedings. Many leaders there privately conveyed hopes along with fears that with the rapid warming of the planet Greenland might have palm trees, sandy beaches and a tropical air about it in no time at all.

Although Greenland was granted home rule Denmark still manipulates the island’s icy purse strings. That tiny European country controls foreign policy and most importantly monetary policy.

“We could have another Miami Beach up there on the Arctic,” said one critics of the transfer. “Think of all the white hotels and the beautiful people dropping money from the sky!”

“We have been baby-sitting the place since the early 18th Century and would like to at least recoup our initial investments,” he said. “These upstarts are offering little more than carfare. Selling the island now makes about as much sense as charging a herd of rhinoceros with an ax handle.”

– Mr. Ha Ha

Liver and onion wagon falls into surging East River

(Crested Butte) Ed didn’t see it coming. That’s what he told police after crashing his infamous Ed’s Liver and Onion Wagon into the East River just south of here. According to his testimony on the scene Ed (no last name given) was driving his tri-axle food cart along Highway 135 at about 25 miles per hour when the accident occurred.

“The wagon hasn’t moved much faster ever since the emergency brake got stuck near Leadville in 1969,” said Ed. “Sure, I’ve got a 350 Chevy engine under the hood but that drag is persistent and I don’t want to put any more money into her.”

According to a police report Ed was doing fine, minding his own business until he came upon a speed limit sign, reading 40 miles per hour, just past Crested Butte South.

“When I noticed the sign I sped up to 40 so as to adhere to the law,” continued Ed. “It was then that I felt the rear end shift and all that liver moving around unchecked. In a matter of minutes I was off the road, down the embankment and into the river. The water was cold.”
Local health officials are testing the waters at present to determine if contamination has taken place.

“The high concentration of grease on that public nuisance wagon may cause some problems down river but at this time all the fish are present and accounted for,” said a source at Roaring Judy Hatchery, an alleged front for CIA operations in the valley. “Doesn’t Ed know that the speed limits aren’t to be taken literally and are up to the personal discretion of each driver?”

A dispatcher for the Highway Patrol told the Horseshoe that she had never heard of anyone speeding up to be in compliance with posted limits. She said Ed seemed disoriented when interviewed by officers but was in good shape otherwise following his dip.

“It’s the first real bath I’ve had since my wife ran off with a sausage man in 1990,” said Ed, who was the only eye witness to the mishap.
From first observation it appears that the cart, which was towed out of the river this afternoon, is a total loss.

“I was barely able to recover any of my provisions and I almost forfeited my Russian Wolfhound to that raging river,” said Ed, who claimed losses in the $400,000 range. “Right now I’m searching for another food cart or the summer will be a thing of the past.”

The water-logged cart, which had been registered in Utah, has been brought to the new Crested Butte Visitors’ Center where it will be on display until new furniture arrivesfrom Denver in August.

– Small Mouth Bess