Standing resolutely before supporters in a teal pant suit with lavender pumps, Marcus Bachmann wept openly today as he announced that because his wife, Michele, had garnered only 5% of the vote in the Iowa caucus, he would not be taking his place by her side as First Lady on Inauguration Day.

“I don’t know what went wrong, he sobbed, wringing a linen hanky, God told her to run for president, I know He did because I was listening in on the other line.”

One of the reporters covering the event noted that God had also reportedly told Governor Rick Perry to run as well, and did that mean that both candidates had been punked by their creator? “Listen mister, said the indignant Marcus, “Rick Perry isn’t even fit to coordinate my Michele’s wardrobe. Have you seen what that Texas ruffian wears to campaign rallies? I mean seriously, would God promote someone so gauche as to wear a crew neck under a dress shirt, puleeeeze! And tell me what fashion statement he sends with those tight blue jeans that hug the curves of his wiener. Could Rick Perry cure barbarian gays through prayer and stiff, unrelenting discipline while raking in taxpayer subsidies, as occurs with Bachmann and Associates Pray-Away-the Gay Clinics? I think not! God spoke to Rick Perry? I say liar, liar pants on fire to Texas macho man. God made Michele rank last in the Iowa race so that we would have no doubt about what comes next. He may have closed one door, but he has opened a window. And I think I know just what drapes that window needs!”

Listening sites around the world have been monitoring radio traffic inside the borders of secretive North Korea since the announcement on Monday that Kim Jung il, that country’s most beloved despot had died on Saturday. At first there was little additional information, not even an official statement as to Kim’s actual age, estimated in the west to be between 65 and 70. All that changed today when the state’s Central News Agency divulged that the diminutive dictator had been aboard a train headed for a farm collective in the eastern part of the country when his overly generous heart gave out.

“Our Dear Leader died from overwork,” sobbed a news reader on North Korean Television, as a bright red laser dot from an offstage censor’s rifle danced on her forehead. “He was participating in a musical exercise which we believe is known in the west as the ‘Rusty Trombone’, something usually left to much younger men. But Dear Leader had always been keen to provide the zen-like duality of a hand job while at the same time delivering an enthusiastic rim job upon the nether regions of a lucky young soldier plucked at random from the barracks car of the train. The young guardsman said that just as life left the divine naked body of our earth bound god, Kim was heard to utter, ‘the throbbing, oh my… the throbbing.’ The Most Select Council of Military Endeavors is at this moment attempting to unravel the deeper mystic meaning of Dear Leader’s final pronouncement.”

Pulling ahead of the pack in the Right Wing race to be the most outrageous GOP candidate in history, Newt Gingrich distinguished himself at Thursday’s debate when he told moderator Howard Stern that as president he would simply ignore the other two branches of government.

“There’s no point in having federal courts that disagree with the chief executive,” he said. “George W. Bush was kind of leaning that way but he lost his nerve in his second term, frankly. Once I’ve taken the oath of office I’ll simply abolish any court that is foolish enough to stand up to me. That includes the Supreme Court, so I hope the justices are paying attention. When they appointed Bush to be president by canceling the vote count in Florida, they were dangerously divided: five right votes and four wrong ones. That simply won’t happen under a Gingrich presidency, frankly, it’ll be either my way or the highway. I know what’s good for America and as president I’ll rule the right way.”

Asked whether being drummed out of the House of Representatives in disgrace in 1999 by a near unanimous vote had been good for America, Mr. Gingrich was ready with an answer.

“Members of the House are in a good position to make lots of money, frankly, and that’s what I was doing. What you saw in 1999 was the result of a personal vendetta against me by a few sore heads who were frankly jealous of my ability to sustain a patriotic erection no matter how many distractions I was dealing with. They convinced the rest of the members that the fact that I was getting more ass than a DC bus bench while my wife was hospitalized for some allegedly life threatening cancer was giving the House a bad name. That and my making money for personal gain hand over fist on the taxpayers’ dime. I haven’t forgotten that insult and once I’m president Congress might just as well vote themselves a permanent vacation, because as Chief Executive I’ll eliminate that branch of government with a stroke of my pen. And I can do that, frankly. As a former historian I know whereof I speak.”

He waved off any further questions and instead made a final statement. “Oh , and one more thing. These red, white and blue flags flapping around behind me? Take a good look, because come January 20, 2013 they’re gone. Wife #3, Callista says the stripes make me look fat. So no more stars and stripes. I’ll have a committee design a new flag. Just between you and me I think Callista’s hairpiece looks like it was cast in bronze, frankly, but at least it doesn’t make her look fat, just extraterrestrial.”

“Here we go again”, said Speaker of the House John Boehner, taking a moment from his his weekly summation of Republican filibusters to ridicule environmental regulations. “The patriotic petroleum industry finds a new way to tap fossil energy and keep America firmly in the 19^th century, and here comes the EPA to screw things up.”

He was referring to a recent EPA report that linked underground fracking done to release natural gas, to the sudden emergence of combustible drinking water in areas of Wyoming. “They act like benzene is a bad thing,” said Boehner, “and they go on and on about tremors, brain damage, anemia, cancer, coma, death…..without once mentioning that the average Wyoming citizen’s faucet has just become a gold mine. Think about it, now that the groundwater is flammable it’s much more valuable. Whenever they’re not using it to cook, brush their teeth, take showers or do laundry, they can use it to heat their homes, fill up the gas tanks in their cars and trucks and and fire up the barbecue. Think of all the money they’ll save! I hear you can also use it to strip paint, clean carburetors and make embalming fluid.”

Asked about the dangers to pregnant women and their unborn fetuses, Mr. Boehner called on the assembled members of the media to remember what Governor Rick Perry had said at one of the recent carnival-style presidential debates. “He said that if elected president he would move into the Alamo, criminalize illegal acts and do another thing that I can’t remember right now. Oops.”

In a move to head off further public outrage and ridicule, it was reported that Penn State has agreed as part of a settlement to change its name to Penn-a-Trate U before next year’s season begins. However, this move has done nothing so far to stem the loss of sponsors who have been pulling out in greater numbers as new revelations have come to light. For instance, Penn State’s trustees have reportedly sought help from Rome.

The Vatican dispatched its “Dream Team” of attorneys which has decades of experience in handling child sex abuse scandals. Bishop Guiseppe Cremora, Prelate in Charge of the Team, in trying to get ahead of the 24/7news cycle, held a brief news conference. He pointed out that while organized sports has its share of pedophiles, as do the Boy Scouts, elementary schools and swimming teams, most hardcore abusers opt for religious organizations where they are much less likely to be exposed.

“We inna the Mother Church were a-practicing boy-love for centuries before Satan came along anna pulled back the curtain. So what Im-a saying here is that May-December romance in the football locker room donna happen all that much. Parents donna have to a-worry themselves about every little grease stain inna their boys’ underwear. Iffa the boy says nothing happened, just accept it and keep out a sharp eye for those police types that wanna go anna make a big deal out of nothing.”

Bill Mahon, vice president for university relations stepped up next and made a statement for the gathered press and onlookers. “Honesty is the key. I know we’ve lost some credibility in these past weeks, but we at Penn-a-Trate U have embraced the ideas put forward by the representatives from the Vatican who have shown us how to circle the wagons in this, our moment of shame. I can say here and now that you will never again hear of a shower room scandal involving naked men and boys at our school. Not a word will reach the press. Our do-it-yourself, internal inquisition process will ensure that no more damage is done to our proud heritage. So in closing, there’s nothing to see here, move along.”

“Gonna melt it down to add 999 miles to the border fence,” was the answer given by GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain, when asked about his Statue of Liberty plan at the most recent Republican debate, or as anti-tax activist Grover Norquist calls it, “the Freak Show.” Mr. Cain expanded on his statue rhetoric when given a chance to respond for 30 seconds, after being chided by the 9^th most popular candidate, Governor Rick Perry. “Ain’t nuthin’ American about inviting masses and tribes of starving poor people right through our front door. Huh! ‘Give me your huddled masses’ sound more like handing you off a pile of dog poo or a Godfather’s pizza. I never got nuthin’ for free in my life so why should they!”

Would-be candidate Michelle Bachmann, while agreeing that the Statue of Liberty was a beacon for immigrants like leaving your door unlocked is a beacon for burglars, couldn’t resist sticking it to the former pizza seller when she challenged him about his “getting nuthin’ for free” claim. She said, “ I happen to know that your ancestors got a free boat ride from Africa a couple of hundred years ago, and were charged nothing for their upkeep at the various cotton plantations in the South where they were allowed to lay about and dabble in agriculture for generations,” she said. Bachmann added that when Paul Revere delivered the Liberty Bell to Gettysburg at the conclusion of Spanish-American War, President Lincoln, a Republican, had said absolutely nothing about slavery, proving that it didn’t exist.

When Perry was called upon to reveal his plan to relieve America’s unemployment problem, the six term Texas governor ticked off his ten point proposal on his fingers saying, “jobs” ten times in a row. He then fleshed out his plan. “It really isn’t that hard to comprehend, he said, cocking his head to one side in a move reminiscent of a certain former president, “jobs are so plentiful in Texas that everyone has at least three of them, and we’re building more Taco Bells and Burger Kings every day to keep them coming.” And then, ignoring  Anderson Cooper’s time -cut -off hand signal, Perry plunged ahead explaining his flat tax proposal. “No one on this stage has a tax flatter than my flat tax. I call it the “flat out” tax. I say flat out, that the richest Americans have been screwed over for years and it’s time for working people and the poor to pick up the tab for once. And that includes any Kenyan who squats in the Oval Office pretending to be president, who shall remain nameless. Wink, wink.” (Governor Perry’s spokesman later defended the candidate’s saying, “wink, wink” rather than … you know… actually winking, because that would have had voters confusing him with Sarah Palin when he’s actually trying to convince them that he’s the reincarnation of Saint Ronald).

Mitt Romney, whose last presidential bid failed to gain traction, was the next to speak. “First off I’d like to get past the ongoing claim that I’m a flip-flopper, who will say whatever I think the audience wants to hear. Does anyone have a request for what they want to hear? (ba-dump-bump) Just kidding, folks…. seriously, I’m here all week and I’m in this race to win, despite my Mormon faith which has been branded a cult. To which I say, Christians, show me your underwear and I’ll show you mine. We’ll see who has magic symbols on their briefs and who doesn’t. Or not. Maybe Mormonism is a cult after all, who can say one way or another in a world where corporations are people, my friends. I don’t disagree with my opponents about tax issues in this country, but neither can I support what they’re saying until I find out which plan is most popular in the polls. Until then I’ll stand on my record of creating a basically socialist healthcare plan in Massachusetts which I have thoroughly disowned despite its obvious success. Believe me, I’m as unhappy as anyone that President Obama copied the plan that I didn’t come up with. And on these positions I am rock solid.

Last to speak was Ron Paul, who spent his first five minutes complaining about having to always be last and being the butt of jokes about his false eyebrows falling off at several of the debates. “At the core of Libertarianism is the belief that government is something we don’t need until we do. Like a fire extinguisher but not nearly as efficient. Think of a fire extinguisher that gets bigger and bigger until there’s no building big enough to put it in. And then someone yells, ‘fire’ and everyone says that someone else should have kept the size down because now the extinguisher is too big to carry to the fire. But that would have required regulating the size which is the last thing we need to argue about and which is why you never see me in public with a fire extinguisher. Of any kind. We should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and make them buy our fire extinguishers. It’s the least they could do after forcing us to invade them and drop sacks of money on them from the air for all these years. Has anyone seen my eyebrows? My last set walked off stage stuck to the bottom of Rick Perry’s boot.

Bank of America has announced a host of new charges for debit and credit card customers that will go into effect November 1, 2011.

 Phone Activation Fee: when you get your new card in the mail, there is $5 phone fee for activation by calling the 800 number on the card, which can be avoided by using our website: www.BoAgotcha.com

 Online Activation Fee: if you go to our website rather than calling to activate your card, there is a $5 fee.

 Purchase Fee: Most merchants accept BoA credit and debit cards and every time they accept yours a modest 2% of purchase fee is added to the retail price you paid. No additional computation fees will be added at this time.

 GPS Proximity Fee: Now that all newly issued BoA credit and debit cards are electronically linked through GPS, card holders will be charged a proximity fee whenever the card is within 200 yards of a BoA bank or ATM machine. For customer convenience, this charge will be added on at the end of the billing period to eliminate the nuisance of customers trying to steer clear of BoA locations.

 Out of Network Fee: should you find it necessary to use a credit or debit card other than your BoA, you will be charged a 1% fee on every increment of $100 forwards or backwards, whichever occurs first.

 Customer Service Fee: Our operators are standing by 24/7 to bill your credit or debit card should you have the audacity to contact our call center. Please note that our menu options have changed and that by requesting any language other than Spanish, a language upgrade fee will be added to the cost of the call.

 Stand By Fee: Our time is valuable. Customers who remain on hold, waiting to speak to a representative will be billed at the “standard hold time rate” of 50 cents per minute and “premium hold time rate” on weekends and holidays. The amount billed for premium time is not available nor negotiable, so the hold option is always at your own risk.

 Online Banking Fee: We are proud of our online banking services and encourage customers to run up a tab by using them in order to avoid the current charges for banking by mail. Paying your bills online has never been easier, nor this expensive. For your convenience, the charges for each click of the mouse are automatically added to your total monthly bill. And we never charge you for fruit or cheese unless you opt out (“opt out” charge figured separately).

 Overcharge Fee: If at any time you find that you have been billed for a service you never would have paid for had you known in advance, BoA will conduct an investigation (at current investigative fee rates) and bill you for our error plus any charges or fees previously missed through no fault of our own.

 Cancellation Fee: Your BoA credit or debit card account may be canceled at any time either by you or by BoA, subject to the customary cancellation fee and approval of your pre-request arbitration agreement. All legal fees are the responsibility of the BoA customer, his representative or heirs in the case of unforeseen death by misadventure or otherwise as provided by law.

 Regulatory Advancement Fee: For your convenience costs of lobbyists working on behalf of BoA and its subsidiaries to discover fees and charges not yet applied or imagined will be imposed on customers in increments disguised as regulatory fees imposed as taxes both local and federal in amounts to be determined by the estimated size of bonuses awarded to BoA executives in any and all cases herewith and forthwith, in settlement of grievances perceived or anticipated. Welcome aboard!

  Coming on the heels of its success with a re-release of Lion King in 3D, Disney announced today another re-release of its iconic money maker: Lion King: Black and White. “We’ve discovered a new way to separate movie goers from their money”, said Franklin Jessup, Disney Vice President in charge of separating movie goers from their money. “The response to our release of LK (Lion King) in 3D with absolutely nothing else added to the film, really opened our eyes. People were lined up around the block all over the country eager to pony up $50 per family to see the same movie they’d been watching on TV for years. We figured, what the hell, and programmed our digital video computers to take all the color out of the frames. Result: a Disney movie like you haven’t seen since  “Steam Boat Willy” in 1928. Just the opposite of what that shyster Ted Turner has been doing by putting color into old movies. Next we’re gonna re-release Lion King: Reversal, where we run the original film backwards. They’ll eat it up.”

“It’s so simple, I don’t know why no one has thought of this before. Maybe because they don’t have my head for politics (see picture of my head). The Jews and the Arabs have been going at it for like months now, right? The Arabs… or the Palestinians… whatever… they want the same territory the Jews… or Israelis…. whatever…want, right? I keep hearing all the political BS about a two state solution, but the fact is that neither wants the other to have a state, am I right? So here’s the deal. Give Israel to the Palestinians. All of it. The Wailing Wall the olive groves, the Red Sea or whatever…. all of it. So there’s one state. And the Jews? Give them Idaho. Hear me out, okay? First… it’s a state. No one can say it’s not. Second, it’s much closer to America than the Middle East which is in Middle Earth or….. whatever.

So all the Jews move to Idaho…. all the Arabs move to Israel…. badda boom, badda bing….

These two “states” are so far apart that they can’t throw rocks or lob missiles or whatever at each other, right? Plus the Jews could learn to ski…. with the snow and what all in Idaho. Plus I hear the fishing is great, and you know the Jews love fishing, am I right?

Now I know what you’re thinking? What happens when Jesus comes back to Mount Temple or whatever in Jerusalem to throw a Rapture. He’s gonna look around and say, ‘WTF… where’s all my chosen people’, right? So we post a big sign in Hebrew or Jewish or whatever that says ‘We’ve moved to a new location’ with one of those finger pointy things on it. He’s Jesus, he’ll figure it out.

Okay, so that’s solved. Now I hear there’s some crap going on in Iranistan with Vamoose Ima-dinner-jacket. I got some ideas on that, too. Everyone comes up a winner.”

Death need not be a somber occasion these days. Funerals don’t have to be filled with sobbing and rubbing elbows with relatives you never knew you had. With today’s microcircuits, Wi-Fi and animatronics, dead grandpa can now be as close as your big screen TV any time you want him to visit!

Welcome to the world of Hitachi’s Dead-no-More where those who have passed over can still be a part of the family. One call to DNM after “Pop-pop” has quit breathing and our trained staff responds to your home or the mortuary of your choice to put the life back where it belongs.

 With DNM’s active circuitry and plasticized makeover, granddad will still enjoy eternal rest in a beautiful silk lined casket six feet under ground, but with features unlike anything seen in the past.

Imagine the magical reunion that first Thanksgiving after the passing of the old duffer, when you switch on the 50 inch flat screen and there’s grandpa’s face brought to you through state of the art two way video transfer from the interior of the coffin,  right to your living room (up to 100 miles depending on terrain). What’s so magical about that, you ask? Why should a video feed of a dead man be of any interest? Because thanks to DNM’s proprietary engineering, what happens next is simply amazing. Imagine stunned grandma seeing her dead husband on the screen and clutching her chest as she gasps, “Herbert, is that you?”.  And at the sound of her voice, the corpse’s eyes fly open its mouth begins twitching and a moment later grandma’s dead spouse speaks to her in his own voice!

Yes, thanks to a cleverly hidden air tank, oxygen is forced through the dead man’s own larynx and lips meaning that he speaks as convincingly as if that final jolt from the paramedics’ defibrillator had worked after all . Using the remote keypad supplied with the deluxe DNM package, gramps can be programmed to say anything you like. He can wish you a Merry Christmas, offer birthday greetings or, in auto-clock mode, even provide the time of day on demand. His sayings are limited only by your imagination.

And if you choose the optional Hallowe’en package the grandkids can watch Pop’s animatronic fingers clawing at the coffin lid as he moans, “I’m coming to get you”,  just before the little ones are tucked in for the night.

For the budget minded family, DNM is proud to offer the popular “ Magic 8 Ball” combination. Although no keypad is included for individualized programming, your purchase allows any family member to ask grandpa questions which will be randomly answered with such statements as “without a doubt”, “signs point to yes” and “what are you asking me for? I’m dead”.

Keep watching this site as improvements are being made all the time. For instance, our much anticipated Christmas release in 2012 will allow gramps to play charades, floss his teeth and speak in sign language for the hearing impaired.