Gene Laughton – Page 4 – The Canard Press

Americans Struggle to Understand Or Care About Brexit

brexit

Faced with headlines screaming about the dire implications of Brexit, the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, Americans across the nation struggled mightily to understand what the fuss is all about.

“I know this is important, because Brexit is the most important meal of the day,” said Brittany Jessup, a junior in public policy at NYU, making a cute frown that caused a little vertical line between her impeccably groomed eyebrows. “And I like English Brexit, because they always have a lot of bacon and stuff. But Brunch is better, because of the mimosas.”

“Whatever the Brits do, ain’t no concern of ours,” said Charles McGinty, a truck driver from Chicago. “So, like, the Europeans were all invading and stuff, and the Brits said, hell with youse guys! And I respect that, even though the Brits are pansies with those fake accents. Who are they fooling, anyway? Huh?”

“Sounds to me like the English are taking a page from our book,” smirked Ebenezer Horlock, an insufferable hipster from Ashland, North Carolina. Ebenezer then twirled the end of his waxed mustache dramatically and took a deep drag on his vaping whatchamacallit, and that’s when I hit him, so I don’t know if he had anything more to say.

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“I think the British have been misled by populist fear mongering,” said Melissa Yurt sadly, a ten-year-old girl running a lemonade stand in the Fila Horchata suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. “It can be difficult to conduct a thoughtful debate about issues which are both complex and racially charged in the context of a public referendum. I think one could argue that it was unfortunate that the British government opted to put such a vulnerable and important issue up for public vote.”

This reporter cannot take Yurt’s comments seriously, because the lemonade was warm, and honestly, if you can’t even keep the drinks cold, why should anyone listen to you?

US Presidential Race Prompts Return of King Arthur

King Arthur returns to rule the land. — “Things are worse than I thought.”

Legendary monarch Arthur has returned from the misty timeless isle of Avalon, claiming that the uncertainty about the nation’s future leadership has prompted him to step out of his mystical retirement to save the nation and take up the mantle of King once more.

“I said I’d come back when things got really bad, and here I am,” said Arthur, the gleaming hilt of Excalibur at his side. “Something about a Trump. What’s a Trump?”

The near-mythical king appeared bemused by the lack of armor on the Secret Service detail which immediately surrounded his horse. Also, he apparently hadn’t heard of the American Revolution.

“But you guys used to be English, right?” persisted the king. “I mean, my divine mandate to rule is God-given. You folks in these colonies here can’t just decide to take it back with a show of hands. And face it: I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need me.”

Presidential candidate Donald Trump, fresh off a rally in which he declared that Canada “had to go” and that he would declare organic food illegal once elected, made six mutually conflicting statements about the return of England’s ancient leader on the White House lawn. After first declaring the English to be our oldest allies, then stating that they owed us “big time” for World War II and were a bunch of debt-dodging, unwashed slackers, he gave an appallingly inaccurate and insulting impression of an Englishman drinking tea and wetting himself.

“I know all the kings, the best kings,” said Trump. “I’m basically a king myself, you know. Trump Tower is a lot nicer than Buckingham Palace which, by the way, is mostly filled with little dogs. This Arthur guy, I don’t know who he is, he’s certainly not as rich as me. Just look at his hair.”

President Obama welcomed the confused monarch into the White House, where the two sat in the Oval Office over mugs of ale and commiserated about being unappreciated. The President apparently explained numerous things to Arthur’s satisfaction (including television, basketball, and the election cycle), because afterwards the once and future king stated that he was going on a vacation before the election, to see what had changed in the United Kingdom and America since his disappearance in 468 A.D.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton sent Arthur an enormous fruit basket and asked if he would consider running as Vice-President on her ticket.

Man Must Choose Between Crappy Chair and Girlfriend

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Aaron Greene, 26, is facing the greatest decision of his life as longtime live-in girlfriend Miranda Hendrick has put her foot down and demanded the ouster of Greene’s best friend, a decrepit armchair which he’s owned since he was a teen.

“Miranda’s great and all, but this chair has been with me forever,” said Greene, who has no sense of proportion and considers the early 2000s as prehistoric. “I mean, at the end of the day, she won’t always let me sit on her, but the chair never complains.”

“I’ve put up with a lot,” said Hendrick. “The X-box, the drinking, the Beanie Baby collectibles. I mean, you get a decent man, you have to expect a few bumps in the road. But I’ve reached a point where I can’t drown out the odor of the chair with even the strongest doses of Nicki Minaj’s Minajesty. That’s my go-to perfume for serious environmental problems.”

The chair, which is made of three kinds of leatherish material, wood, and some kind of crumbly foam manufactured from rendered horsehair, made its appearance in Greene’s garage when he was a sophomore in high school and was going to “make it big with his band.”

“It was great for crashing in after a really hard session,” said Greene. “I don’t really know where it came from, but it was, like, so non-judgmental.”

Since then the unwieldy chair, which weighs approximately 200 lbs and is prone to deposit both splinters and flakes of decaying leather and foam on the floor, has followed Greene to every house he’s occupied, often taking center stage in the living room “because it’s the most welcoming thing in the house.” The chair currently has pride of place opposite the X-box, lurking defiantly in the corner of the living room and scaring the cat.

“I think the chair hates me,” whispered Hendrick, with a worried glance at the malevolent heap of misshapen cushions. “I think Aaron talks to it sometimes, which is way creepy. And I think the chair talks back.”

The potentially possessed chair had no comment, but its pungent odor and aggressively decaying surface reminded this reporter that he had somewhere else to be and something better to do than write about a hideously funky chair and the dysfunctional relationship of a pair of entitled twenty-somethings arguing over the furniture.

“If I don’t survive the night, tell the police it was the chair,” said Hendrick. This reporter promises to do no such thing.

Infamous Rabbit Spreads Terror Nationwide Once Again

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The unrepentant terrorist commonly known as Peter “Boom Boom” Cottontail has once again strewn his dangerous wares in yards around the nation, causing widespread panic and pushing bomb squads to their limit as local law enforcement struggles to deal with the situation.

“Cottontail’s predictable, we expect him to strike according to his own bizarre calendar,” said Lieutenant Karl Lowry of the Chicago PD. “Every year, first Sunday after the first full moon of the Spring season. But this year it seems especially bad. Damn things are everywhere.”

Cottontail is known for his colorful bombs, which are garishly decorated and about the size and shape of an egg.

“They’re not usually well-hidden, but there are so many of them,” groused Lowry, grimacing as he watched a bomb-defusing robot carefully scoop a handful of the treacherous orbs into a kevlar-lined barrel. “We just don’t know how the bastard does it.”

Most perplexing to law enforcement is the fact that, although millions of the ovoid explosives are deposited in suburban lawns around the nation in literally a single night, Cottontail is commonly thought to work alone.

“Drones,” said Lowry. “I bet he uses drones.”

Although none of the orbs has ever exploded, law enforcement officials stress that families should stay indoors until the hazardous objects have been removed and disposed of properly.

“The worst part is how colorful and pretty the things are,” said Evelyn Wemple, a mother of three who stood huddled on her doorstep watching the bomb disposal unit tramp over her lawn until they gave the all-clear sign. “It’s almost as if Cottontail is trying to lure children to find them. What kind of sicko does that sort of thing?”

Thanks to years of practice, the bomb disposal teams across the nation expect to have the nation’s yards cleared of the fiendish devices by the end of the day.

“Until that time, we recommend everyone keep their kids indoors and away from anything colorful and egg-shaped,” said Lowry. “Can’t be too careful these days.”

Woodchuck Refuses FOIA Request

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Woodchuck “Chuck” Dubois has told petitioners that they can take their Freedom of Information Act request and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

“The quantity of wood I chuck is my own damn business,” snorted Dubois. “This is racism pure and simple. Nobody’s asking Obama how many goddamned pieces of wood he chucked, or whether he could chuck them in the first place.”

Dubois contends that his wood chucking activities are completely irrelevant to his job performance as Undersecretary of the Interior in charge of Arborial Product Aerial Dissemination.

“APAD isn’t just about the airborne relocation of wood and wood-related products,” said Dubois. “It’s about educational outreach, and meetings, and important government contracts! Leave me alone!”

The FOIA request was filed by Gwen Hawkins, age 7, of P.S. 35 in Staten Island, New York. The request was part of a nature project submitted to the science fair.

“I want to know if, how much, what the woodchuck chucks, and also what chuck means, and what is a woodchuck,” said Gwen in an exclusive interview with CBS News. “It looks like a gerbil, but it’s too big.”

“I am not a damn gerbil!” yelled Dubois, pounding the podium. “This FOIA request is illegal! I deny its legitimacy! I deny everything!” The agitated Undersecretary then picked up the wooden podium and tossed it across the stage before disappearing down a hole.

“Looks like about five and a half feet,” said a reporter, measuring the distance from the place where Dubois was standing and the resting place of the podium.

Gwen used the figure in her science project, but did not answer the question of whether or not woodchucks are large gerbils. It is unknown if she earned a passing grade.

Awkward Questions as Rick Snyder Wins Both Michigan Primaries

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Pundits on both sides of the aisle were speechless when Governor Rick Snyder won both the Republican and Democratic primaries in Michigan, despite not being on either ballot.

“The people have clearly spoken,” said the extremely unpopular Snyder, who seemed to be stalling for time at an impromptu press conference outside his office today. “And what they’ve said is, um, they’re really happy with the job I’m doing.”

“They’re not,” snorted political analyst Mitch Greenberg of the Chicago Times. “Snyder’s one step away from being lynched. For chrissake, they’ve had to put in a goddamned moat with piranhas around Snyder’s house to keep the angry mobs at bay.”

Snyder has taken incessant flak for his mishandling of the Flint water crisis, in which he set up an administration which caused the entire city’s water supply to be poisoned, covered up and suppressed evidence of the problem for a year, and then denied both the need for Federal aid and the need to spend any of Michigan’s own rainy-day fund to address the issues. The main reason he hasn’t been arrested yet is that a sitting governor hasn’t been arrested since the Whisky Rebellion and nobody is sure how to do it.

“What appears to have happened,” said Greenberg, “is an unexpected sneak preview of the next time Snyder is up for re-election, or a recall election or whatever. This is what happens when you use voting machines that run Windows XP.”

The Democratic National Committee expressed dismay, and demanded an immediate and lengthy investigation. The Republican National Committee loudly expressed shock and anger, and quietly asked Snyder if they could borrow his IT guys for the fall election.

Trump Announces Search for “More American” First Lady

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Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has decided that his wife, a Slovenian ex-model, might not be the right first lady for him.

“I love Melania, she’s the best, very classy,” said Trump in hour seven of his daylong press conference on Tuesday. “The best body, she’s got the best parts. But you know, she’s got the accent thing going, and whatever, but I think for the White House we need a homegrown American first lady.”

Trump has been repeatedly criticized by media observers for his wholesale and frequently racist condemnation of immigrant groups. His supporters, however, have embraced Trump’s xenophobic meanderings, and it is likely because of this that the presidential candidate is considering whether to trade in his Slavic wife for a home-grown model.

“Trump likes the Slavic ladies,” said writer Kent Wilshire, who wrote the unauthorized Trump biography ‘All That’s Gilded Sure as Hell Isn’t Gold.’ “Melania’s just the latest. Remember Ivanka? And then there was Marla Maples… She was actually a mistake – Trump met Marla on the set of a James Bond movie where she was playing a KGB spy with a heavy Russian accent.”

Trump was said to have expressed aggravation at having just sold his stakes in the Miss USA competition.

“That was a great competition, that was super, a great supply of lovely girls every year, great talent pool,” said Trump. “You know, in case I needed a pretty girl, I already had a list of the best. Shouldn’t have sold that. Shoulda kept them around, you know, in case I needed to pick a new first lady or whatever.”

It’s unclear how Trump plans to find his new first lady, though he has vowed to apply his usual taste in doing so.

“A Trump first lady needs to be classy,” he said. “She’s gotta have the height, the beauty, the skin. A great Midwestern accent. Tatas. The whole nine yards. Someone who’ll look great on the red carpet.”

It’s unclear whether Melania is aware of Trump’s plans, or if he even plans to divorce her before taking up with a new first lady.

“There’ll be plenty of room in a Trump White House,” said Trump. “She wants to stay, no reason she can’t. We can work out a sleeping arrangement. She may not like it, but these are minor details.”

Kal-El Doesn’t Think Super Tuesday Is So Goddamned Super

SupermanDrunk

The self-styled Man of Steel is feeling bitter about so-called Super Tuesday.

“Not even a freaking phone call, man,” said Kryptonian immigrant Kal-El, who changed his name to Clark Kent when he arrived at Ellis Island. “The Times said I ‘wasn’t available for comment’. I was totally available. Cellphone on and everything. This is lame.”

The invulnerable vigilante takes a dim view of the American political process, which he feels has lately been ‘yanking his chain’ and ‘messing with him.’

“I’m supposed to stand for truth, justice, and the American way,” burped the alien as he downed another shot of Johnny Walker. “Nowadays who the fuck knows what that means? I gotta check my Twitter feed every day just to figure out where the nation’s moral compass is pointing. Changes every goddamned thirty minutes, or every time one of these jackholes running in the primaries opens their goddamned mouth.”

Kent is particularly irked by the increasingly vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become par for the course in the Republican primary.

“Who exactly am I taking jobs away from?” fumed Kent. “What natural-born American heroes are standing up to save the planet from asteroids and alien invasions and shit? Most of the heavy hitters are immigrants like me. Wonder Woman’s Greek, you know, despite the stars and stripes on her costume. Aquaman is some kind of weird Atlantis guy – I guess that’s Greek too, isn’t it? And don’t get me started on Martian Manhunter. Who’s actually American-born? The Flash? I didn’t see him fighting those sixty-foot atomic robots last week. Batman? Guy’s a joke, and psychotic to boot. He’s like the superhero equivalent of Donald Trump – all branding and money.”

Kent denied rumors that he was considering legal action for trademark infringement of his name, but warned reporters that he was getting pretty fed up with the whole circus.

“First asshole that tries to make me pay for a wall on the border,” said Kent, cracking open another bottle, “gets a free one-way-ticket into orbit, courtesy of my foot.”

Cap’n Crunch Takes Out Toucan Sam With a Drone

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Animal-rights groups have condemned notorious military breakfasteer Cap’n Crunch for allegedly assassinating archival Toucan Sam with a drone attack over the weekend.

“There were only four talking toucans in the world, and thanks to Crunch, now we’re down to three,” said PETA regional commander Gray Huntsworth. “We’re talking the loss of an invaluable resource. His nose was irreplaceable. It always knew. Who do you think trained all those bomb-sniffing dogs?”

“Got that self-righteous bastard, didn’t we!” cackled Crunch in a leaked cellphone video. “Your goddamned nose didn’t smell this coming, did it!” The diminutive naval commander can clearly be seen hopping with glee as the drone delivered two Hellcat missiles directly to the palm tree where Sam’s international cereal production headquarters were located.

Crunch and Sam have been bitter enemies since the toucan first swayed impressionable kids away from the sweet, but monotone, Cap’n Crunch towards the nuclear-colored Froot Loops. Crunch has since rolled out various multicolored variants of his products with increasing desperation, to no avail.

“The real problem is, Crunch is convinced that the CIA provided Sam with assistance,” confided a source at the Navy. “The private sector had been trying to develop superchromatic toroidal breakfast cereals for years. Sam could only have achieved that technological breakthrough by using classified government research.”

The future of Froot Loops is unclear; only Sam knew the full recipe. It turns out that his three nephews, who everyone assumed were being trained to take over the business, aren’t actually sentient birds but instead repeat things mindlessly.

Despite the magnitude of the crime, it’s unclear how or if Cap’n Crunch will be prosecuted, as the attack was conducted from international waters.

“Why do you think I run my operation from a ship?” chortled the diminutive cereal magnate, rubbing his hands together. “Arr, matey. Who wants some breakfast?”

Terrorists Detonate Gluten Bomb in Portland; Thousands Sure They Will Die Any Minute

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Terrorists unleashed a chemical horror on the steps of the Central Library in downtown Portland, Oregon, flooding the area with weaponized gluten particles and causing almost certain health issues for thousands of potentially exposed citizens.

“The library is basically lost,” lamented Marlene French, a passerby who valiantly attempted, but failed, to rescue a calico cat wearing a bandanna from the billowing cloud of gluten as it menacingly disseminated down the street. “The city will have to evacuate downtown. Anything else would be totally irresponsible.”

Gluten is a toxin widely known by intelligent truth-seekers everywhere to definitely, probably, almost certainly, maybe cause a range of ailments including but not limited to psoriasis, chlamydia, tooth decay, cirrhosis, pentangular uvula failure, mange, diabetes, hair loss, hair gain, earlobe paralysis, peripheral vascular ennui, toe glaucoma, septic tank top, unrequited arterial plaque, follicular ectoplasmic neomandibular rupture, “dad bod,” patchouli sensitivity, partial nostril ablation, and excessive employment abridgment.

So far, nobody has claimed responsibility for the detonation, which ruthlessly unleashed billions of gluten particles into the atmosphere, but fingers have been pointed at the “Y’all Quaeda” sovereign citizen movement, ISIL, the “Big Gluten” military-industrial complex, and the Oregon State Police as possible perpetrators.

“My kids had to see this!” hissed Lars Brandt, owner of an independent bicycle tour company, who was across the street when the bomb was detonated. He was shielding his three-year-old twins from the scene with an issue of the Portland Mercury. “Naked gluten particles! Right there in the air! And their therapist is on a kayaking trip for another week!”

Dissemination of the toxin was thankfully limited by the fact that it was raining, although widespread concern was raised for the fauna living in the sewer system and a collection was started to provide medical care and habitat cleansing for the indigenous population of GMO-free alligators which inhabit the Portland city sewer system.

Terrorist groups around the world declined to admit involvement in the incident.

“What the hell is gluten?” said an ISIL spokesman.