Youth Issues Cry for Help from Manchester Arena
May 23rd, 2017 
Scott Ott 
Ariana Grande fans mill about the Manchester Arena lobby, wondering if they could have done more to help a troubled youth before he committed suicide with an improvised explosive devise.
(2017-05-23) — A troubled young person issued a cry for help last night from the lobby of a Manchester (U.K.) arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, leaving 22 dead and dozens wounded — most tragically, the emotionally-distraught youth himself.
Officials from Britain’s National Health Service offered regret that — despite having one of the world’s best-known socialized health systems — the government was unable to help the youth before his untimely death.
“We don’t know yet,” said one NHS official, “whether the victim suffered from the normal trauma brought on by income inequality, the social isolation associated with gender dysphoria, or if he was subject to bullying at school. We do know that the system failed him, because conservatives in Parliament have refused to adequately fund the National Health Service.”
Trump Orders Two Immigrants Deported for Each Arrival
January 31st, 2017 Scott Ott ![Trump orders two immigrants deported for each arrival. [ScrappleFace.com]](http://web.archive.org./web/20171126144238im_/http://scrappleface.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-31-at-09.56.00-300x157.png)
(2017-01-31) — On the heels of his Executive Order requiring elimination of two federal regulations for each new one, President Donald Trump signed an order today deporting two immigrants for each one arriving on U.S. soil.
The move should eliminate all foreign-born U.S. residents by the end of the Trump’s third presidential term.
A White House spokesman said, “At that point, the president would issue a new order deporting two second-generation Americans for each fresh immigrant — then third generation, and so on. Pretty soon, we’ll have the country whittled down to the true Americans.”
Streep to Receive Emmy Award for Golden Globes Role
January 9th, 2017 Scott Ott 
Meryl Streep, seen here in two file photos that span her long career. On the right, Streep in 1972, and on the left, what she looks like today.
(2017-01-09) — Hollywood legend Meryl Streep is now the odds-on favorite to receive the Emmy for Best Comic Actress in a Variety Show after her hilarious performance brought the house down at last night’s Golden Globe Awards.
Streep, whose Hollywood career has spanned some seventeen decades, became an Emmy shoo-in for her sharply-satirical portrayal of an aging, wealthy white woman, who lives in opulent splendor behind a security cordon, as she denigrates an elderly, wealthy white man for his failure to show respect to others.
The Hollywood Reporter said Streep’s performance, “Dripped with deliciously-rich irony.”
Variety gushed that, “Streep earned a permanent pedestal in the pantheon of comic pathos, reminding us all of the original Greek word for ‘acting behind a mask’: hypokritḗs.”
Electors Pick Popular Vote Winners Clinton, Gore
December 19th, 2016 Scott Ott 
Calm prevailed on the campus of the Electoral College before the surprising vote that overturned the November result.
(2016-12-19) — In an Electoral College upset, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were chosen over Donald Trump to serve as the 45th President of the United States.
The Chancellor of the Electoral College announced the decision shortly after 1:00 p.m. Eastern, noting that the pair of former Democratic Senators both won the popular votes for the office.
“The assembled electors felt it only fair,” said the Chancellor, “to correct an historical injustice perpetrated by the Framers of the Constitution, and to award the office to those who won the hearts and minds of We, the People.”
Although experts had predicted a perfunctory selection of Donald Trump, based on the November 8 state-by-state election results, a motivational speech by the coach of the college football team apparently swayed many electors to choose Clinton and Gore.
The electoral vote tally will now be submitted by the academic dean of the Electoral College, to the full college of cardinals for their approval on January 6, 2017.
Scalia Gone, Obama to Pick Black Lesbian Amputee Vet
February 15th, 2016 Scott Ott 
President Obama is already practicing his congratulatory handshake for his Black, lesbian, double-amputee, military veteran Supreme Court nominee, played here by a White stand-in.
(2016-02-15) — Just days after the sudden death of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, White House sources say President Obama will cast a wide net for a replacement nominee whose appointment Republicans won’t have the audacity to stall.
“The president already has in hand a short list of Black, lesbian, military veteran double-amputee jurists from which he’ll choose the eventual nominee,” according to an unnamed administration source.
Obama reportedly reviewed the list on Sunday, circled a favorite, then remarked, “Let’s see Mitch McConnell and the boys push that one to the back of the bus.”
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “I applaud President Obama, our dear leader, for striving to ensure that our highest court looks more like America — and frankly, less like me — than it would if a Republican were president.
Sanders Win Spurs Billionaires’ Offer to Leave U.S.
February 2nd, 2016 Scott Ott 
Billionaires said it would be relatively easy for them to leave the country, if Bernie Sanders becomes president. “After all,” said one, “we have fine fleets of luxury jets, and ostentatious motor cars.”
(2016-02-02) — In the wake of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ strong showing in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday, the trade association representing America’s billionaires announced that if Sanders wins the White House they would all “just politely leave.”
“There’s no need for a revolution,” said an unnamed spokesman for the billionaires. “We’ve all agreed that it would be better for the country, and for President Sanders’ coronary health, if we just politely leave.”
Sanders, a self-designated Socialist and registered Democrat, frequently rails against income inequality, and the high cost of a college education, and says he’ll tax Wall Street speculators and billionaires to pay for solutions to all of that and more.
“Most of us, with the exception of Donald Trump, live relatively quiet lives,” the billionaire spokesman said. “But revolutions are noisy and messy, and really not our style. No hard feelings toward President Sanders. Best of luck, old chap.”
Obama Fears Backlash on Muslims Who Pledge to ISIS
December 4th, 2015 Scott Ott 
President Obama in a somber moment as he mulls the likelihood of anti-ISIS backlash when news broke that one of the San Bernardino shooters had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
(2015-12-04) — Minutes after learning that one of the shooters in this week’s San Bernardino attacks, that left 14 dead and injured 21, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook, the White House urged Americans to remain tolerant of “differences”, in an apparent effort to head off an anti-ISIS backlash.
“Many devotees of ISIL are patriotic Americans like you and I,” President Obama said in a written statement. “They’re just peacefully reading the Koran and the Hadith and exercising their First Amendment freedom of religion, hoping and praying for the return of the Mahdi to reign over a global caliphate under Allah’s Sharia. In other words, they’re good people.”
A White House spokesman said the president knows that many Americans are prone to react harshly, even violently, against “people who aren’t the same as them,” adding “who can forget the atrocities committed by Christians during the Crusades, etcetera.”
Obama ordered the Homeland Security secretary to step up surveillance of anti-ISIL hate groups, and assured the Council on American-Islamic Relations that his administration will do everything it can to keep our “all too common bigotry and hate” from harming the peaceful people he called “Caliphate-Americans.”
Obama on Paris: At Least We’re Not Charlie Sheen
November 17th, 2015 Scott Ott 
Asked about what changes President Obama will make now that his ISIS “degrade and destroy” strategy has failed to even contain the terror group, the White House released this picture of a young Bindi Irwin, as evidence of American exceptionalism. “We’ll never let the terrorists take our eyes off what really matters to us,” the president reportedly said.
(2015-11-17) — President Barack Obama, at the G-20 summit in Turkey today, said the Muslim terrorist attacks in Paris this week were a “setback, but it could be worse. We could be Charlie Sheen, and have HIV.”
Under aggressive questioning from journalists who suggested his approach to ISIS has failed, Obama repeatedly sought to put the carnage in context by comparing it with other, similar, tragedies.
“Let me be clear,” Obama said, frustration evident in his voice and body language, “The loss of life and the gruesome injuries inflicted on hundreds of people by terrorists of no particular religion is very…very disappointing. And I mean very. But how many of us would want to trade places with Tamar Braxton? One day you’re dancing with the stars, and the next you got blood clots on your lungs and you’re off the show, watching at home as that little minx, Bindi Irwin, captures America’s heart.
“What about Miranda Lambert?” Obama continued. “I mean, you think everything’s going great in your marriage, and then you find out he’s cheating on you.”
Obama, known for his steady hand as “no-drama Obama,” urged the nation to emulate him, and take the long view when it comes to fighting ISIS.
“Look,” the president said, “if ISIL…which is an acronym that stands for nothing in particular…if ISIL drives a wedge between us — between me and the reporters who’ve come to love me — well then, the terrorists have won, haven’t they?”
