The Weekly News Update for 2/1/06
This is your weekly News Update by Cory!! Strode, who has put in a request to the White House for recordings of some of his phone calls, since he'd like to have a copy of times when women would call him on purpose. You know, back in historical times.
The Weekly News Update is brought to you by the National Association of Auto Insurance Companies, who would like to remind you that: That's probably not covered in your state. Sorry.
In our top story this week, it was revealed in a hearing on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina that the White House was given information that the levees had failed at midnight on the day of the failure, which contradicts the White House version of the story where they say they were not notified by local authorities and instead read in the paper that New Orleans had made it through the hurricane with minimal damage. White House officials said that they are going to investigate if the story is true or not, but that they would be releasing a lot of information over the next week to get people to stop paying attention to this revelation, including:
-That they had stopped an attack on LA a few months after
9/11.
-They had foiled a plan for more nudity at this year's Super
Bowl, but were able to get Keith Richards to wear pants.
-Hillary Clinton seems awfully angry.
If none of these work, the White House is planning on catching the number three person in al Qaeda again.
Speaking of one of the Bush Administrations stories of mass distraction, President Bush announced in LA that in 2002, they had stopped a planned attack on the “Liberty Building” in LA. Bush announced that terrorists had planned to take over a plane by using shoe bombs to destroy a cockpit door and then fly the plane into the Liberty Building. The current mayor of LA said that he was not briefed on this revelation before it was made, the head of intelligence in the FBI played down the story saying that the threat was not as clear as the President had stated, and a look at a map of LA shows that there is no such thing as “The Liberty Building”. A White House spokesman dismissed all of these details saying that “It was a long-term plan to attack a building that is going to be built in a few years. Besides, it highlights what we have been saying, The Terrorists Hate Our Liberty.”
No word yet on speculation that the President got his intelligence on the supposed attack by watching reruns of the series “24”, but it should be noted that in the speech he told reporters that he feared his daughters Jenna and Barbara were going to be attacked by a cougar.
A former CIA official who was in charge of intelligence on Iraq said that in the buildup to war, the White House “cherry picked” the information he gave them, and told him that they were looking for things that would justify an invasion. He said that he knew that the intelligence was being manipulated when he would give briefings on how Iraq had no weapons program, or workable weapons, and Vice President Dick Cheney would interject “Or do they? Bwa-ha-ha!” after each statement.
In the investigation into whether the White House illegally leaked the identity of CIA Operative Valerie Plame, Irving Libby said that he was authorized by his superiors to leak the information to reporters to “bolster the case for War in Iraq.” Since Libby's only superior was Vice-President Dick Cheney, and when asked for a statement on Libby's claim, Cheney himself said, “"Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever. " Cheney then told reporters to take the gun by leave the canoli.
As part of the investigation, Libby has said that he was authorized to do a number of things in his position as the Vice-President's chief of staff, including:
-”Liberate” leftover bagels from staff meetings
-Restrain the Vice-President from giving President Bush pretzels
when he went “off script.”
-Making sure there were fresh puppies and kittens for the
Vice-President to strangle first thing when he gets up.
In international news, the riots of a 5 month old cartoon depicting the prophet Mohamed continued, with protesters burning Danish Embassies, rioting and chanting “Death To America”, even though America had nothing to do with the cartoons. Rioters said that they did it out of habit, and it was hard to get the same rhythm with “Death to Denmark,” especially after having had to go all over town to find Denmark flags instead of going to “Riots R Us” where American flags are on clearance.
The White House changed their reaction to the violence in the middle of the week. The week started with Bush stating that the cartoon was offensive and that people should think before making controversial statements about religion. Later in the week, Bush stated that he believed in free speech and that news people should have the freedom to print political statements. This is because Bush often forgets about freedoms unless they have to do with owning gun, praying constantly or drilling for oil as far as his eye can see.
Back in Washington, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez faced questioning from a Senate Committee on the Domestic Wiretapping program that came to light a little more than a month ago. In his testimony, Gonzalez claimed that every President has done this during a time of war, “President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.” What Gonzalez is referring to, of course, is the famous case of George Washington listening in on phone calls made by Benedict Arnold to the British, Lincoln's tapes of calls made from Robert E. Lee to his mistress and Millard Fillmore's taping of conversations so that he had something to listen to while he sat in the White House playing Solitaire on his computer, trying to look busy.
Gonzalez also answered either “I don't know” or “I don't recall” more times than any other person in front of Congress in history, even after it was announced that he was not required to swear in that what he was about to say was true. Gonzalez said that he would have been able to give more information to Senators but he had been locked in a spare room for most of his time as Attorney General, and was only able to supervise the wiretapping program in the loosest sense of the word, but any time someone came to him and tried to tell him something about it, he turned up his iPod and kept working on the Suduko so that when asked to testify on anything, he could be just as in the dark about it as President Bush.
Senate committee chairman Arlan Specter said he was aware of the situation with Gonzalez being kept in the dark and didn't want him to be sworn in because he now had been convinced by White House staffers that his name was no longer Alberto Gonzalez, but was instead the nickname Bush had given him “Sacrificey the Lamb!”
That's the news! If you don't like it, make your own!
The Weekly News Update is copyright 2006, Solitaire Rose Productions. So there.