The Dissociated Press

Won Weakened, One Week In

WASHINGTON (The Dissociated Press) - President Barack Obama completed the first full week of his term in office Wednesday, and Earth, with the exception of Iceland, is, as far as anyone has been able to tell, still rotating on its axis.

Mr. Obama undertook several key executive actions during the week, including signing orders to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, prohibit torture of detainees by the US military and intelligence services, and make federal income tax evasion a crime punishable by Cabinet appointment.

Timothy Geithner, Mr. Obama's choice to head the US Treasury Department, was confirmed to the Cabinet post Monday by a 60-34 vote in the Senate. Given the margin of Mr. Obama's electoral victory in November, his sustained personal popularity, and the dire economic circumstances in which the country currently finds itself, the level of support for Mr. Geithener was certainly weaker than the President had hoped for and, one could argue, weaker than what he'll need in his administration's upcoming attempts to right the economy.

Three Democrats - Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Robert Byrd of Happy Pappy's Appalachian Mountain Home for the Elderly - joined Vermont's independent senator Bernie Sanders and 30 Republicans in opposing Geithner's confirmation.

"What really turned me off to him was finding out that he was on Bernard Madoff's 'Fave Five' list," Harkin said.

Republican Orin "Down The" Hatch, one of 10 GOP members to support the President's nominee, said he was untroubled by whom Geithner took phone calls from.

"The more important factor to me was, who better to find the weaknesses in our failing Treasury department than someone who spent all that time ripping it off?!" Hatch said.

Feingold admitted that Hatch had a valid point, but asked, "What says that just because he can find the weaknesses, he's going to try to fix them?!"

In other economic "good news," twelve of the nation's largest companies announced over the weekend that they intend to lay off tens of thousands of people in other countries, even if they don't employ them, "because [the companies] are just about tapped out on jobs to cut here." Some members of Congress have suggested passing emergency immigration reform to bring in additional workers to fire.

Surprisingly (though not really), many conservatives seem unworried by the growing jobless rate in the country - which is approaching double digits in many states and is above 10% in Michigan - and continue to argue that tax cuts, not large infusions of government funds to industry and public works, are the proper way to stimulate the economy. But many of the people hardest hit by the economic crisis are skeptical.

"Tax cut!? That's crap!" said Tray Mitchelson, an unemployed steel worker in Youngstonwn, Ohio. "I'll tell you how to stimulate my economy! Wrap a $20 bill around my dick, and beat me off!"

Meanwhile, in foreign affairs, President Obama designated former senator George Mitchell as his special envoy to the Middle East (where, after a 22-day bombing and artillery campaign, the Israeli military withdrew from "The Dust Cloud Formerly Known as Gaza," because its soldiers were finding it too difficult to breathe) and immediately dispatched him to Egypt, where he will meet with French, British, and Japanese diplomats to negotiate lower banana prices in Costa Rica.

"President Obama has especially emphasized that we are here, in Ethiopia, to listen," Mitchell told reporters aboard his canoe. "Quite often you think someone has said 'bananas' when, in fact, they've actually named an entirely different fruit!"

And, in Afghanistan, which President Obama has vowed to make the central focus of his effort to rid professional baseball of steroids...

Thousands of Afghan citizens took to the streets of Kabul Sunday protesting reports that a US air raid had killed 16 Afghan civilians the previous day. The protests followed reports on Friday that another American attack, north of Kabul, had killed over 2 dozen civilians. Local residents of the Tagab Valley disputed the initial claim by the US military that it had attacked Taliban fighters, saying that there were no militants in the area at the time of the attack.

The official US military response to the reports, issued Monday, was, "Whatever!"

This, as a new, independent tally released last week by the Afghanistan Rights Monitor said 4,000 Afghan civilians were killed by war-related violence last year, over a quarter of them by the US-led occupation. Another 6,800 were wounded, the report said, and 120,000 were displaced from their homes.

The Oaf of Office to Augur a Nation

WASHINGTON (The Dissociated Press) - Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the United States, and the first African American president, was almost sworn into office Tuesday, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, before a massive, jubilant crowd, estimated at over 1.5 million people, on the Capitol Mall.

The actual swearing in occurred Wednesday at the White House, before a small group of reporters and high-ranking officials, after, at the previous day's event, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts inadvertently married Mr. Obama to the first lady of Gambia.

"It was really nothing," Roberts said shortly after the gaff. "I'm sure no-one noticed."

However, the Obama team was unwilling to take any chances and had Chief Justice Roberts come to the White House on Wednesday. John Podesta, chief of President Obama's transition team, admitted having concerns that Republicans might seek to exploit an obscure 1881 federal statute, which dictates that, in the event of the presidential oath of office being incorrectly administered in its initial reading, and it is not properly re-administered within forty eight hours, the presidency reverts to Rutherford B. Hayes.

"I know, I know," said Podesta. "Hayes is dead... But not dead enough! Hell, in 2000, we thought Cheney was dead, and look what we ended up with! I'm telling you, you can't let these guys out of your sights!"

While the mood at Tuesday's historical inauguration and the various Washington events associated with it was overwhelmingly celebratory, questions did arise about the appropriateness of the estimated $170 million tab, a record by far, for the lavish affair, given the desperate shape of the economy and the severe times in which so many Americans find themselves.

"I know it seems a little excessive, given the times," said one new administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But, just like with the economic stimulus package we're putting together, this spending will benefit a lot of people. Hell, we've got 23 chocolate layer cakes, 56 cases of champagne, and 17,000 commemorative cocktail napkins sitting on the back of a truck right now, ready to go to local soup kitchens!"

Of Missed Takes and this Appointment

WASHINGTON, DC (The Dissociated Press) - President Bush held his final official White House press conference Monday, establishing once and for all that characterizations such as "unbelievable fucking moron," "soulless cretin," and "embarrassment to all primates" are far too generous in describing the country's outgoing executive.

Asked by reporters to reflect on mistakes he might have made during his presidency, Mr. Bush, who many scientists project will shortly be revealed as having been singly responsible for the extinction of, conservatively speaking, all living organisms on the planet, was hard pressed.

"I don't really dwell on mistakes," Bush told journalists. "That's more for historians and others who do hysterectomy."

"But," he continued, "I guess the time we had a state dinner with the Irish prime minister and used orange table linens; that was kind of a mistake, if you want to call it that."

In the area of foreign policy, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan, where a solid majority of Americans see Mr. Bush as a failure, and a solid majority of non-Americans see him as a war criminal, he admitted not to mistakes but to a number of disappointments.

"Well, not having weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when we invaded - that was a disappointment," Bush said...to which a senior State Department official standing in the rear of the room quietly cracked, "Yeah, especially for the Iraqis, I'll bet!"

Then, when one reporter asked the President if he felt frustrated, as a "lame duck," not being able to deal effectively with the burgeoning economic and political crises here and around the world, the State Department official, who requested anonymity, could barely contain himself.

"Lame duck, lame DUCK?!! What, are you kidding??!! This jackass has practically been in hiding for the past six months!! Quadriplegic chicken would be a more apt description!"

High Cost of Diploma, See?!

BAGHDAD, Iraq (The Dissociated Press) - Just in time for the beginning of its long-awaited "pull-out" from Iraq, the US Monday opened its massive new embassy in Baghdad, which has been under construction, through an approximately $17 trillion no-bid, cost-plus contract that was awarded by the Bush administration to the Texas-based Halliburton Company shortly before the outbreak of the Pelopponesian War.

The embassy, the most expensive and largest in the world, is comprised of twenty-one separate office buildings, a commissary, multiplex cinema, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, an Olympic size swimming pool, two golf courses, an airport, a ski resort, a sheep and cattle farm, Latvia, and twelve car dealerships.

It also has a drive-up-ambassador window, where Iraqis looking to get travel visas, political asylum, or just avoid being blown up for the day, can place their orders with "Jack the Ambassador Clown" and then pull forward to pick them up without the inconvenience of having to leave their armor-plated vehicles.

"This is the crown jewel of the President's Iraq policy, a testament to his unwavering commitment to diplomacy and to the Iraqi people," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said from New York, just prior to vomiting into her Vodka Gimlet. Rice was in Manhattan to attend UN meetings on the conflict in Gaza and to, as one top aide speaking on condition of anonymity put it, "go shopping and get shitfaced!"

In other Iraq news, five former Blackwater armed contractors pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal manslaughter and gun charges brought in relation to the 2007 Nissor Square incident in Baghdad, where Blackwater guards allegedly killed seventeen unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounded dozens more. The five are charged with fourteen counts of manslaughter, twenty counts of attempted manslaughter, and one count of using a machine gun to administer a suppository.

Gettin' Down for the Count

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (The Dissociated Press) - After an exhaustive vote recount, in which almost three million ballots for the US Senate race in Minnesota were manually inspected by election officials, screened by bomb-sniffing dogs, and given urine tests by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the State Elections Canvassing Board Monday unanimously certified Democrat Al Franken as the winner, by eight-tenths of a vote, over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, the older brother of former actor and California gubernatorial-recall candidate, Gary Coleman.

The deciding eight-tenths of a vote in the election was said to be cast by 96 year-old Eldrige Lumpkin of Hackett, MN, who apparently died of natural causes while in the act of voting. Officials determined, however, that the final scratchings on Lumpkin's ballot were sufficient to indicate his intent to vote for Franken.

Speaking briefly to reporters following the Board's announcement, Franken said, "After sixty-two days of careful and painstaking hand inspection of nearly three million ballots by election officials and volunteers across this state, I am proud to stand before you today and say, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, doggone it, people like me!'"

Before Franken can take office, the election results must still be certified by Republican Gov. Tim "Good and" Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

The Coleman campaign has said it plans to have both men kidnapped.

"Just the way our luck is going these days," one top Republican strategist was overheard complaining. "If it's 2000, in Florida, we get Katherine Harris; but, instead, it's 2008 in Iceland, and we've got Cesar Chavez!"

Land Laid Bare in Gaza Strip Tease

SDEROT, Israel (The Dissociated Press) - Israeli tanks and infantry swept across the border into Gaza Saturday night, ending weeks of speculation as to whether Israel would launch a ground invasion into the coastal Palestinian territory or simply pry it loose from the rest of the continent with a giant crowbar.

Coming on the heels of an intense, week-long bombing campaign that had already killed at least 430 Palestinians and wounded nearly 2,000 others, the land attack was designed "to completely and brutally obliterate the terrorist infrastructure of the [ruling Hamas] party," according to a statement made on Israeli TV by Vice Premier Haim Ramon. "However, we are taking great pains not to disturb their furniture and toiletry items," Ramon said.

Gaza, while home to approximately 1.5 million people, is but a thin sliver of land, roughly 25 miles long, with an average width of only about 5.5 miles. And, when the first wave of Israeli ground troops pushed into Gaza on Saturday, they did so with so much momentum that they accidentally overshot the territory and invaded Tunisia.

Most parties agree that with the advent of ground conflict in Gaza, civilian casualties, already high, are likely to rise. And protests, both official and civilian, that have been voiced against Israel's action over the past week are likely to intensify.

Sunday there were very large demonstrations in Morocco, Australia, and many European countries, with the vast majority of protesters calling for a halt to the actions of the Israeli army.

In Egypt on Sunday, President Hosni Mubarak condemned the Israeli ground offensive in a statement to the press. However, when Mr. Mubarak was questioned by a reporter why Egypt does not open its (8 mile long) border with Gaza to alleviate the suffering of the people there, ostensibly caused by Israel's control, and months-long blockade of all other land, sea, and air access to the territory, he politely excused himself, saying he was late for his Pilates class. The reporter was then taken into an adjoining room and given a colonoscopy with a ham radio antenna.

Meanwhile, the United States blocked an overnight resolution in the U.N. Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire. President Bush said Sunday that Hamas was "solely to blame" for Israel's massive bombing of and incursion into Gaza. He then noted that Hezbollah, Iran, Al Qaeda, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, Hitler, abortion, trial lawyers, and steroids were "equally at fault too."