[SATIRE] Secret Service counter-offer to crowd-funded assassination: "We shoot for free"

In response to a new, anarchist-driven “dark web” site that offers bounties on the heads of various government officials ranging from President Barack Obama to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the Secret Service released a statement Friday offering to shoot any would-be assassins in the head “totally for free.”

“We believe in the free market,” said Secret Service chief Julia Pierson, “and our services are being offered at a much leaner, competitive price. We offer to shoot would-be assassins in the head for no bounty at all. In fact, we kind of like it.”

Pierson said the Secret Service is also more reliable than competitors, assuring would-be killers a “bullet through the brainstem” at high velocity and surprising distances for only a modest government stipend already paid to all Secret Service employees.

“I mean, we already have them on the payroll standing around the president,” Pierson said, “In today’s competitive market you really do have to offer a full range of products. Shooting anarchist assassins through the face is just one of the many services we provide.”

[SATIRE] Major Retailers Let You Hunt Employees for Sport, Set Deadly Snares This Thanksgiving

In the arms race of holiday shopping, several major retailers will permit you to hunt their employees for sport and discounts this Thanksgiving Day.

Realizing well-off people who have never had family or friends in retail just don’t give a damn about who has to work on Thanksgiving, the retailers decided, why not? Just hunt them for sport this year.

“We’re already open 24-hours on Thanksgiving Day,” said Mike Duke, Wal-Mart’s CEO, “so we have to offer something competitive to get our dick head customers to choose us over K-Mart. We’re offering an additional 15 percent discount to anyone who can bag at least 150 pounds of Wal-Mart employee in the first four hours.”

Asked whether he thought that letting people hunt his employees for sport was bad for public relations, Duke said, “Yeah, we really don’t think anyone will care. We’re not sure society even recognizes our employees as fully human.”

Other major retailers are mimicking the bold move and employees of Sears were asked to bring in their children to bolster the store’s perishables, although children will offer lower discounts since they are slower and not very clever.

In a push back against economic pressures to open their stores on Thanksgiving Day, an unknown number of major retailers will transform one or more of their bricks and mortar locations into human death traps to deter shoppers from all stores equally.

One store, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed they have transformed 21 locations into a more humane safe-release trap made from plexiglass. Their employees will then drive to the residences of the shoppers trapped therein and eat all of their Thanksgiving leftovers while leaving the shoppers locked in the store all night, hungry and separated from their families.

Added the anonymous store owner, “Holy shit, we really don’t want to be open on Thanksgiving – I know you guys don’t believe us, but we’d really rather not. It’s just that we’re worried all those middle-class, aggressive shoppers will go to some other retailer first. I don’t say this often, but could, like, the government pass a law or something? This is getting ridiculous.”

Other retailers, including Costco, Apple, Home Depot, and Nordstrom, simply won’t be opening this Thanksgiving. Costco CEO W. Craig Jelinek said, “All the cool people shop here anyway, and none of the cool people will be out on Thanksgiving.”

Also, Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island will not let any major retailers open on Thanksgiving because they were founded by Puritans and apparently our society is so far gone that the Puritans are starting to make sense again.

Edited Dec. 1, 2013 to note that the story is satire. In case you could not tell.

[SATIRE] GOP Plan: Escape Big Government through Space Launch of Firstborn

Republicans on Thursday unveiled their fix to Obamacare, a plan to launch their offspring into outer space. The party hopes their children will carry their ideas to another, distant planet more inclined to laissez-faire economics.

The $1.2 trillion effort would see the firstborn of every Republican loaded onto a rocket and fired across the solar system with only a swaddling cloth and their choice of a selected work of Ayn Rand to keep them company across the vast emptiness of the interstellar abyss.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, who has called Obamacare “a devouring flame” and has twice warned the Obama administration that the planet’s fate has been sealed, hailed the plan.

“With the disastrous rollout of the website, the cancellation of individual policies, and the flawed economics of this law, it is clear that there will be no escape from a fiery chain reaction that will consume our world,” said Boehner, before holding his wife in a final embrace.

Asked whether the Republicans could attempt more modest fixes to the law, Boehner laughed without interruption for three minutes and then declared the tides of the apocalypse unstoppable. “We warned you,” added Majority Leader Eric Cantor while tucking his child into a rocket. “We warned you all and you didn’t listen!”

The newly-unveiled space program is slated to roll out across a period of four weeks, but rocket production has already been delayed by miscommunications between NASA and numerous defense contractors.

Edited Dec. 1, 2013 to note that the story is satire. In case you could not tell.