Scott Ott

Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Satirist leaves Examiner to spend more time with Obama

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Examiner Columnist Scott Ott, editor of the world's leading family-friendly news satire site, ScrappleFace.com, announced Thursday he was "stepping away from my important journalistic endeavors at The Washington Examiner in order to spend more time with the man who has been the inspiration for so much of my work, President Obama." Although Ott refused to confirm it publicly, White House insiders say Ott will ghostwrite even more of the president's speeches, now that he's not burdened by the nerve-jangling daily pressure of producing two newspaper columns each week. "The State of the Union address took me nearly as long to script as it...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: NOW demands CBS yank Tebow pro-life ad, Heisman

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. The National Organization for Women on Monday called on CBS to yank a pro-life Super Bowl ad featuring former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow, and it started a campaign to demand that authorities withdraw Tebow's Heisman Trophy and pull his National Championship ring. The ad, sponsored by Colorado-based Focus on the Family, highlights Pam Tebow's high-risk pregnancy and her decision to give birth to Tim despite a medical recommendation to abort the fetus. The women's rights group said Mrs. Tebow's decision, 23 years ago, "set in motion a cascade of events ending in this tragic Super Bowl TV advertisement." "If Pam Tebow had...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: State of the Union speech pivots to employment reform

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. With his health care agenda on the back burner in the wake of Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts, President Obama plans to use Wednesday night's State of the Union address to unveil sweeping employment-reform legislation that would provide a good job to every American regardless of his ability to work, and would prevent companies from declining to employ applicants who suffer pre-existing conditions like laziness, incompetence, or kleptomania. While critics contend that Brown's election signals a rejection of centralized government control of the economy and its accompanying loss of liberty, senior Obama adviser...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama: Coakley victorious if Brown gets less than 60 percent

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. As voters in Massachusetts go to the polls today to decide who will complete the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's unexpired term, President Obama declared that "anything less than a 20-point win by Scott Brown represents a resounding endorsement of my entire domestic and foreign policy agenda." "If Brown ends up with less than 60 percent, there's gonna be a lot of sullen Republicans, moping around, hanging their heads," said the president to a crowd of supporters that greeted him upon his return from stumping for Democrat Martha Coakley. "Such a thin margin against such a historically weak opponent would be tantamount to a crushing loss for...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Reid: Martha Coakley 'more than just my 60th Yes-Man

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. With just hours to go before Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts to fill the unexpired term of the late Edward M. Kennedy, Sen. Harry Reid said that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley would be "much more than just my 60th yes-man." "Sure, she'd be a rookie senator, who's never functioned in a legislature, with no power, eager to please, inheriting the onus of the longest liberal dynasty in history," said Reid, "but that doesn't mean she'd be just a rubber stamp, or some kind of inert mass of protoplasm that responds predictably to the stimuli of her partisan overlords ... no, not at all." Coakley, the attorney general of...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Reid adds 'skin lightening therapy' to health reform bill

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Sen. Harry Reid, in an effort to increase the popularity of the imperiled health care reform bill, on Monday added a provision requiring insurance companies to pay 100 percent of the cost of treatments intended to lighten the skin of African-Americans. The news came a day after the revelation that in 2008 Reid had said Sen. Barack Obama's presidential chances were good thanks to his relatively pale pigment and lack of "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." "It's not fair that the path to the Oval Office is blocked for my darker-hued friends," Reid said Monday. "Skin-lightening therapy will open the corridors of power to a new...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama: C-Span ban protects private health information

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Today, the White House said President Obama's alleged failure to keep an oft-repeated campaign promise to televise high-level health care reform negotiations on C-Span was necessary to protect the "private health information of the participants" under so-called HIPAA privacy rules. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 prevents unauthorized disclosure of patients' health information, according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "and this reform debate has already had serious health consequences for several members of Congress." Indeed, Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., announced this...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Zorn dumped, Redskins source says 'the system worked'

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Just hours after Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder fired coach Jim Zorn, following a 4-12 season, an unnamed source in the team's front office said, "The system worked." A second-year coach who led his squad to win 25 percent of the last 24 games, Zorn was escorted to his car by Redskins team security at 4:43 a.m. Monday. Snyder has now successfully protected his franchise from seven unsuccessful coaches since 1999, which the source called "a testimony to the effectiveness of our system for screening out threats to our Super Bowl hopes." In 11 seasons, Snyder's teams have also been kept safe from the dangers of the playoffs eight...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama warns against NWA 253 backlash, intolerance

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, President Obama, in a news conference from the Pacific White House in Hawaii, on Monday cautioned Americans to avoid "lashing out against folks in puffy underpants." Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, faces charges of attempting to destroy an airliner by detonating a high explosive sewn into what the FBI described as "boxers or briefs ... but clearly not adult incontinence undergarments." "Our future as a nation depends on how we react to this incident," the president said. "If we start profiling people based on the...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: White House inadvertently blames Bush for drop in crime

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. President Obama on Tuesday inadvertently blamed George W. Bush for a startling drop in U.S. crime in the first half of 2009. According to the FBI, murder and manslaughter fell by 10 percent, all violent crimes were off 4.4 percent, rape was down 3.3 percent and property crimes declined 6.1 percent, continuing trends begun in 2008. Crime rates haven't been so low since the 1960s, and when a reporter unexpectedly pointed this out during a presidential news conference, Obama initially bristled. "Well, of course, a lot of key indicators were dropping when we took office," Obama said. "I inherited these anemic crime statistics, and...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama Copenhagen speech solves climate crisis

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Delegates to the global climate conference in Copenhagen sat in stunned silence today as President Obama solved the global warming crisis with a single 25-minute speech. "While the challenges we face may seem insoluble," the Nobel laureate said, "the solution is actually quite simple. It's historically reliable. It works every time it's sincerely tried." "Basically, the problem is that poor nations are broke," Obama explained, "and rich nations don't want to throw their money down a totalitarian rathole, into the hands of tyrants who see this treaty as a gold mine and who have no intention of reducing carbon emissions. Since we need...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama admits infidelity to Constitution, takes hiatus

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. In a brief post on the White House blog, President Obama on Wednesday confessed he had been unfaithful to the U.S. Constitution "in various ways, on many occasions" and would take a hiatus from his high-profile position in order to "spend time healing my relationship with the Founding Fathers." Obama's announcement came just days after golf pro Tiger Woods made a similar statement. However, the White House denied any connection between the two hiatuses. The president's unfaithfulness to the Constitution became public knowledge as his dalliances with centralized government control of the economy became increasingly open. "First he was...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: RNC chief offers alliance with Tea Party chief

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. With a recent Rasmussen poll showing a generic "Tea Party" candidate outpolling a generic "Republican" candidate by five points, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Friday announced plans to negotiate an alliance with the chairman of the Tea Party. "I have written a letter inviting the chair of the Tea Party to meet me at RNC headquarters, or perhaps a neutral site, to draft a peace treaty and formal alliance in order to defeat the Democrats in 2010 and beyond," Steele said. "As soon as I find the name and address of their leader, I will FedEx this letter to him, or her." The RNC leader said he admired the...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Climate summit opens with warning about giant insects

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. House-straddling tarantulas, mosquitoes the size of German shepherds, ants with the speed and mass of a diesel locomotive -- all of these threats and more face humanity unless delegates to the Copenhagen Climate Conference agree on the wording of a treaty that would put an end to greenhouse gases once and for all, according to two well-known climate scientists. Phil Jones, currently on involuntary sabbatical from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, as well as Penn State professor Michael Mann, agreed that global citizens "face near-certain doom -- crushed in the massive, venomous mandibles of insects and arachnids...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama Main Street tour reveals shocking ignorance

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Just hours before he started his "White House to Main Street" jobs tour with a visit to Lehigh County, Pa., President Obama reportedly told top advisers he was "shocked at the level of ignorance among the common people regarding what it takes to generate jobs," according to unnamed aides. The tour is billed as an opportunity to get the president out of the White House, where he's been holed up for nearly a full working day, to mingle among the citizenry in order to "take the temperature on what Americans are experiencing during these challenging economic times." But even before Air Force One touched down at Lehigh Valley International...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: U.N. retaliates against Nuclear Iran with 'utter neglect'

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. The U.N. Security Council today retaliated against Iran's newly announced plans to build 10 nuclear enrichment facilities in defiance of previous U.N. resolutions by passing a resolution punishing the Islamic Republic with "utter, devastating neglect from the global community." "We are sorry it had to come to this," said Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon after the vote, "but the leaders of Iran must know that there is a limit to the patience of this august body." Diplomatic efforts and existing sanctions have not only failed to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions, but have led to ever more bellicose proclamations...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: President's 'Thanks-giving' order perplexes Dems, pundits

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. [From The Washington Examiner ScrappleFace Archives, DATELINE: Nov. 24, 1863] Two days hence the United States will mark, for the first time, a new holiday created by a presidential proclamation last month, which has generated substantial furor among Democrats and journalists alike. Leading congressional Democrats see in President Abraham Lincoln's so-called "Thanks-giving day" declaration not only "a disturbing streak of irrational mysticism," as one senator called it, "but a view of human nature inconsistent with the modern enlightenment understanding." Reporters and columnists from the New York Times,...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama hails phony stimulus jobs as faux GDP boon

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. President Obama on Friday hailed the "amazing growth" in phony stimulus jobs, especially from nonexistent congressional districts, as a "sure sign that we're seeing a make-believe recovery and an encouraging spurt in faux GDP." Faux gross domestic product usually trails other false economic indicators, the president said, but with projected unemployment plummeting, the federal government's top alleged experts predict ill-founded consumer confidence will bounce back "before the end of the year at the latest, and quite possibly before supper time tonight." While Republicans and other skeptics have slammed the...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama: Palin book shows need for memoir public option

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Decrying the lack of "choice and competition" in the U.S. memoir market, President Obama today backed a House bill to create a "single-writer public option" autobiography to serve the needs of an estimated 47 million Americans who can't afford Sarah Palin's $28.99 hardcover "Going Rogue." Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the measure at $1.7 trillion over 10 years, the president said it would "not add a single dime to the deficit" because funding would come from a 55 percent tax on sales of "Going Rogue" as well as on any future Palin books, radio and TV shows,...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama says jobs summit won't hike deficit

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. As he left for a weeklong trip to Asia, President Obama announced he would hold a U.S. "jobs summit" in December, and promised that the convention of experts in government, business and academia would figure out how to get tens of millions of Americans employed and "won't add a dime to the deficit." Obama said funding for the summit would come from millions of dollars worth of savings squeezed from existing government employment programs. "The very act of holding a jobs summit," Obama said, "will create or save some 37,000 jobs at the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and in the private sector airline, hotel, dry...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Journalists raise funds for troubled Fort Hood shooter

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Journalists across the nation, moved by the plight of a troubled Muslim psychiatrist whose "understandable emotional turmoil" broke out in gunfire last week at Fort Hood, Texas, will hold a major fundraising event in the coming weeks in honor of the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. News coverage of the tragedy sparked reporters and anchors in the mainstream media to "reach out to Hasan in love and brotherhood because his righteous indignation at the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led him to express his outrage in the only avenue open to a non-journalist," according to an unnamed organizer of the upcoming charity...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama plans joint library with Bush

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. As President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of his election by blaming his predecessor for the failure to convert the promise of "hope and change" into legislation and policy, a top White House official reported ongoing talks with associates of George W. Bush about "presidential library co-location." "What we have here," said the unnamed official, "is really one legacy. So, it makes sense to have one presidential library. Not only is it less expensive that way, but it will reduce the carbon footprint for the structure, as well as cut greenhouse gas emissions generated by the cars and planes of those who wish to visit libraries...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama marks election anniversary with sabbatical

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of his election by announcing he would take a nine-month sabbatical "to rest and refresh after a grueling year of staggering accomplishment." The former college professor said fulfilling his campaign promises has been "exhausting, but satisfying," and he needs time to regroup, retool and make plans for his remaining seven years. "My historic election, followed by my landmark inauguration kicked off an unprecedented burst of accomplishment beyond the wildest dreams of our forefathers," said Obama. "In just 365 days, we've already talked about restoring U.S. moral leadership, we've...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama girls get H1N1 shot, but still exhaling CO2

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. After a week of national angst over Barack and Michelle Obama's delayed vaccination of their daughters against the H1N1 virus, Americans let out a collective sigh of relief at news that the girls finally got the shot. However, an unnamed top White House official said today that the danger has not completely passed, because the girls continue to exhale climate-changing carbon dioxide. "A lot of people thought the president was a hypocrite for hyping the urgency of swine flu without inoculating the girls," the unnamed official said. "But, as everyone knows, the threat posed by global warming is much greater, and yet Obama has...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama adds public option to World Series

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. President Obama today announced his plan to add "choice and competition" to the World Series of Major League Baseball by adding a 'public team' to the traditional end-of-season championship duel. The president said the public option was needed because the American League champion New York Yankees and National League victors, the Philadelphia Phillies, were "motivated by greed to put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people." "Without a public option," said Obama, "you would just see two teams trying to run up the score, without any consideration of the price a ticket to the ballpark, which is out-of-reach for...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Czar cuts exec pay, allows just one buffet trip

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Obama administration pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg announced today that, in addition to severely slashing paychecks of top executives at firms which the federal government bailed out, he would also limit them to a single daily trip to the "all you can eat" buffet in the company cafeteria. Feinberg, the Treasury Department official tasked with revitalizing the executive head-hunter industry by setting pay rates at bailed-out financial firms, said, "Americans have little tolerance for corporate fat cats who feed at the public trough, and then make two, sometimes three trips, to the buffet for soup, salad, vanilla pudding and...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Hillary talks with Fox News, offers bilateral fact cuts

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. As tensions mount in the cold war between the White House and Fox News, Obama administration sources say the president could soon dispatch Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for direct, high-level talks with Fox News President Roger Ailes. The furor erupted when Fox unilaterally "fact-checked" an Obama administration source, a practice unheard of in television news. Clinton hopes to "reset" the dialogue between Ailes and Obama by proposing "joint fact cuts without the normal monitoring and compliance protocols," she said this morning. "This is a goodwill gesture from President Obama," Clinton said. "He's willing to let bygones be...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Limbaugh sparks NFL to ban divisive 'trash talk'

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Just days after controversial radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh was dropped from a syndicate seeking to purchase the St. Louis Rams pro football franchise, the NFL announced that stiff fines, suspensions and possible banishment would face players, coaches or owners who engage in divisive rhetoric. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that while the league has no current problem with divisiveness, or so-called "trash talk," "we want to send a clear signal of zero tolerance." "The last thing that the NFL needs is an atmosphere that pits one group of people against another," said Goodell. "Football is such an American favorite because...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: U.N. warns Obama on unilateral climate action

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. The United Nations General Assembly today voted to rebuke the United States for its "unilateral, saber-rattling against climate change," and encouraged President Obama to allow time for negotiations, inspections and monitoring to produce a win-win solution. U.N. diplomats expressed concern that Obama's increasingly bellicose rhetoric about "weather of mass destruction" (WMD), that he claims will be spawned by alleged secret stores of greenhouse gases, is nothing but an effort "to gin up a sense of urgency to benefit the president's corporate cronies in the non-petroleum energy sector." The U.N. resolution...

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Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Reid to print health bill on back of donor checks

News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has seized upon a new strategy for passing the increasingly unpopular health care reform bill, including a public option, according to an unnamed source close to Reid. Pundits and politicians have speculated that Reid would seek to pass "empty shell" legislation to dodge a filibuster, and then amend the "vapor bill" to include the public option health insurance plan, because amendment approval needs only a simple majority. However, the anonymous source said today that Reid actually plans to print 100 campaign contribution checks, $250,000 for each senator, with the Democrat health...

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