“MNN–STILL BUILDING OUR NEWS PRODUCTS RIGHT HERE IN THE GOOD, OLD USA. UNTIL SOMEONE MAKES US A BETTER OFFER.”

***(Camp X-Ray, Cuber) Despite whining about Gitmo for years and years, the administration has only now formulated a Guantanamo Replacement Plan.

“We will first open a new facility called “Camp Time-Out”, where detainees will learn to play well with others and use their inside voices,” said spokesman and former Bee Gee Robert Gibb.

“To get around the congressional NIMBY problem, the new facility will be virtual and the un-detainees will be required to wear ankle monitoring devices. The ankle bracelets won’t transmit a homing signal; they’re just a fashion accessory,” said Gibb in a high, nasally but passable falsetto. “But the bracelets will be a constant reminder to these young men and women that we have high expectations of this graduating class.”

Gibb added that the truly hardcore cases would be ineligible for “Camp Time-Out”, but would instead be sent to “Camp Self-Esteem”.

***(Rae Dawn Chong, South Korea) North Korea denied that it had launched a missle, claiming that it was merely making an infomercial for the the new Plutonium-Powered Pot-Belly Ab-Rocket.

In dramatic before and after photos, customer K. J. Il of Pyongyang says “The Ab Rocket Launcher helped even me to get rid of my pot-belly. It also helps that the entire country has been on a diet of tree-bark for more than a decade.”

But wait, there’s more; if the US acts now and makes North Korea the largest welfare recipient in Asia as it was during the Clinton administration, North Korea will also include the USS Pueblo, free of charge! Just add $10,593,236. for shipping and handling. Plus 42 cents. And if you throw in the towel on missile defense, The People’s Republic will also send you a bag full of shiny promises…absolutely free! Trade them with all your State Department friends! Call today!

***(Funky Hot Medina, Saudi Arabia) The International Press reported today that President Obama’s trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia was a smashing success, solving all the region’s problems and paving the way for world peace. This despite the fact that Obama will not actually be leaving Washington until tomorrow.

“We like to try and look over the news horizon and get ahead of the story,” said AP’s Gulliver Travell.

“I am…uh…looking forward to visiting Memphis and, uh, seeing my…uh…the King again,” a visibly all shook up Obama told reporters.

Obama will also visit other sites, including the Pyramids of Giza, the 900 Million Dollar Pyramids of Gaza and an event in Mecca called “Black Rock: Concert at the Kaaba”, which White House spokesman Hodge Tripp calls “a once-in-a-lifetime-chance for the president to visit and mingle with the folks.”

***(Bureaucrat Falls, Virginia) In hopes of creating a single-payer health care system, the administration is looking at many different ways to wring even more efficiencies out of current operations.

“We have already instituted our Tax Simplification Program,” said bureaucrat Fred P. Myrtle, (famous in bureacratic circles for designing OMB’s Form #887-291, parts A…and B!) “Of course, no taxes will actually be simplified. But we will hire thousands of new workers from ACORN to do your taxes for you, so you never even see a tax form.”

“We were all sitting around one day,” Myrtle continued “and someone said ”Hey; wouldn’t it be easier if all these different W-2’s came from the same place instead of being scattered all over the country?’ And that’s when it hit us: a Single Employer system to help pay for Single Payer!”

“Under our Single Employer program, the government will take over every business in America. It will decide how much you earn, how much you owe, how much to put in your Government Bank account and where you’ll be going on your new mandatory paid vaction!”

Sources said President Obama will issue the Executive Order as soon as he gets back from Mecca.

***(Washington, D.C.) While making the rounds on Capitol Hill today, Judge Sonia Sotomayor addressed a group of senators:

“Look at me. If any of you vote against me, I will personally kick you in the groin, punch your teeth down your throat, drag you behind an Amtrak train and throw you out of Air Force One high above the Statue of Liberty, until a team of a dozen surgeons can’t put you back together again. Are we clear?”

When reached for comment, President Obama explained “Her words are being taken out of context. You know–just like they did with Reverend Wright’s. I bet those are some she’d like to have back, but she just misspoke. Clearly, she was talking about the lack of affordable health care.”

***(Detroit, Russia) Government Motors unveiled its new Chrysler line today.

“We were trying to evoke the Muscle Cars of the ’70’s,” said Government Motor’s spokesman Johnson Junior, “without all that pesky horsepower and stuff. That’s why Government Motors/Chrysler is proud to present the new Plymouth Pectoral, the Dodge Duodenum and the Satellite Sphincter!”

Meanwhile, across town, arch-rival Government Motors/GM is planning their own line of Muscle Cars, including the new Trans Am Achilles Tendon (including a special Burt Reynolds “Smokey and the Bandit” 30th Anniversary Commemorative Hernia and Hamstring Edition).

GM is also said to be under pressure from anonymous bureaucrats in Washington to trade its German Opel line for Russia’s Zil limousines. Apparently, it is a sentimental issue with many Democrat staffers. Which is odd, because the only one who had Zil limos in America was the Soviet Embassy. Huh.

Anyway, Zil would be marketed under the slogan “Zil–For Limousine Liberals In a Hurry!”

***(Salteen, Georgia) The Justice Department has withdrawn guilty pleas from members of the New Black Panthers Party who stood outside a polling place with baseball bats, hurling racial taunts at voters.

Instead, the Voting Rights Division will “award the young lads a Good Citizenship Award for providing security,” said Justice spokesman Connor Bull.

“These boistrous little rascals will be given AmeriCorp jobs and sent to Georgia, where they will help the Justice Deptartment stop the vicious, threatening practice of asking voter to present their free IDs before voting,” said Supervisor Maddox Lester. “Because of the voter intimidation, you see.”

***In Bridal News, Dick Cheney approves of waterboarding at gay weddings.