Weekly World News XI

Seeing as how we're in the midst of another Debate Season, here's a Weekly World News story I wrote in August 2005, referencing the last time the candidates did the Dance of 1,000 Lies.

TOP PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR IS A MOUSE

© Weekly World News

Washington, D.C. – Karl Rove. Condoleezza Rice. Dick Rumsfeld. Familiar names to many as advisors to President George W. Bush, but the identity of the commander-in-chief’s very top advisor is a closely guarded secret known, until now, to only a select few.

Because the president’s ranking confidant is a mouse!

This unique relationship was caught on tape by a security camera in the corridor of a Los Angeles hotel where the president was speaking to a gathering of the Republican leadership.

Weekly World News has obtained a copy of this remarkable footage, starting as the president pauses before entering the ballroom to deliver his speech. He moves to a corner where, behind a screen of Secret Service agents, he takes a little white mouse from his pocket and has a hurried whispered conversation with it:

POTUS: I ain’t sure about this speech, Topo.
MOUSE: The speech is fine, W.
POTUS: It doesn’t go far enough!
MOUSE: So, they’ll have to give a little to get what they want.
POTUS: Oh, I get it.
MOUSE: You don’t have to. It’s what I’m here for.

“The president likes to call him Topo Gigio, after the Italian mouse puppet that appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the 1960s, but his real name is Irwin,” said a high-ranking administration official who confirmed the story on condition of anonymity.

“The president doesn’t make a move without Irwin. Carries that little mouse around with him everywhere he goes.”

Ann Trey, a former White House cook, has seen and heard Irwin for herself. “The president would come into the kitchen for his graham crackers and milk, or sometimes a Pop Tart, and I’d see him sneak little pieces of cheese to the mouse,” said Ms. Trey.

“Well, one time, I heard the mouse say, ‘Give me a piece of that Pop Tart.’ The president said no, that mice ate cheese, but the mouse said it was sick of cheese and wanted some Pop Tart. They got into this whole argument but stopped when they saw me staring. He shoved that mouse into his pocket and skedaddled out of there.”

When asked about Irwin, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters, “I can categorically state that, were any rodents involved in policy discussions, and I’m not saying that any are, they would be involved, not that they necessarily are or are not, on a strictly informal basis.”

But the anonymous administration source said, “Remember that bulge on the president’s back under his suit jacket during the debates? That was Irwin, staying close to whisper answers in the president’s ear.

“Irwin’s pretty darned smart for a mouse. He’s been involved in almost every major policy decision of this administration. The one time the president didn’t take his advice was on how to conduct the Iraqi war and look how that’s turning out.”

A reporter shouting questions about the mouse to the president during his latest five-week vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch received this response from the commander-in-chief, “Irwin’s just a family friend.”

White House chief of staff Karl Rove amended the president’s statement, saying, “What he meant was, if there was an Irwin, he’d be happy to have him as a friend. But there isn’t. So he doesn’t.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, reportedly jealous of the president’s special advisor, has been seen placing mousetraps around the Oval Office.

Weekly World News VI

Here’s a Weekly World News piece I wrote in September 2005. I’m a regular Nostradamus, ain’t I?

BYE-BYE, BUCKS, HELLO TARS

New Currency Issued on U.S.'s New Oil-Based Economy

© Weekly World News
DISNEY DOLLARS © Disney

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- According to a secret report leaked to Weekly World News, the U.S. Mint has been busy printing new bills like money was going out of style.

That’s because it is! At least, the money we knew.

"The president felt it was time to replace the old dollar with a new unit of currency," admitted Assistant Deputy Treasury Secretary Mindy Doe. "Look at our cash -- all those pictures of dead presidents, buildings and sayings most people don’t recognize. Is that the kind of thing to have on currency?

"And gold -- what’s that about? Except for jewelry and teeth, what do we actually do with it? Is that a substance on which to base an economy?"

According to the White House, the answer is no.

"Beginning in 2007, the familiar greenback, or dollar bill, is to be phased out and replaced by the newly created ‘tarback,’" said Doe. "Its value will be backed by the price of oil as we switch from a gold-based to petroleum-based economy."

"I personally think it’s a great idea," confided Representative Tom LeDay (R-Alaska). "One tarback will be worth the price of one barrel of oil. That should help take the sting out of the so-called ‘high cost of filling your gas tank.’

"First, of course, Americans will have to turn in their current currency," LeDay added. "It will cost at least eighty dollars to purchase one Tarbuck."

The new currency is the same size as the current bills, colored gray rather than green. The pictures of former American presidents will be replaced by images of gas pumps through history. The picture of the pyramid on the $1 bill is being changed to a Texas oil rig.

The government plans to eliminate coins altogether, since they will be practically worthless.

"That will also solve the problem of all those homeless people annoying us by rattling coffee cups filled with change," Doe added.

Weekly World News III

In 2005, with the Senate in a deadlock over whatever partisan bullshit they were deadlocked over and Cindy Sheehan staking out President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch to protest the bullshit war in Iraq that cost her son his life but on which Bush insisted he would "stay the course" (even though his course lead straight to the edge of a cliff), I wrote this article for Weekly World News. The editor passed on it, but I throw away nothing:

TRAPPED SENATORS “STAY THE COURSE”

© 2008 Paul Kupperberg

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Six senators were heading down to the lobby of the Senate Office Building on their way to lunch when the escalator they were riding on lurched to a stop.

When passersby on the adjacent staircase suggested that the senators walk down the rest of the way, Senator Robert Byrd (R-West Virginia) said, “No, we started this by riding the escalator and we intend to stay the course.”

Chip “William” Rutherford, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said, “Look, the escalator company obviously has an agenda that goes beyond moving people up and down between levels. I think we have to ask ourselves, what do they gain from this so-called ‘unexpected’ breakdown.”

Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) said, “As Americans, these senators have the right to expect quality, people moving conveyances.”

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) said, “This is all another right wing smokescreen designed to divert the attention of the American people from what’s really important, which is that the right wing is always wrong.”

In a special session of the House Appropriations Committee, $8 billion in emergency escalator repair was voted on and a no-bid contract awarded to Haliburton to begin efforts to get the senators moving again.

The president issued a statement in sympathy and support of the trapped senators but, declaring that he needed to “keep his own life moving forward even if the senators couldn’t,” left on a two week vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch.

Arnold Schwang, a retired escalator repair man, began a vigil outside the ranch, vowing to stay there until the president was “properly and completely embarrassed.”