Palm Beach, FL—Rush Limbaugh is not backing off The Discord’s totally fictitious headline today. But come on, Rush, you were thinking it. After last night’s Democratic National Convention, Limbaugh also tweeted, “I’m just calling a spade a spade” and “I wish those bitches’ parents had used birth control!” Come on, Rush…admit it, you blankety, blank, blank!

A note from Mick Zano:

Sorry about that. Getting into Rush’s brain brings me to a dark place sometimes. While on a road trip yesterday, I unfortunately subjected myself to hours of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity. None of them addressed a word of Clinton’s speech. Not a word. Umm, sorry to burst your bubble, literary, but your entire economic worldview was dismantled in 48-minutes by a man who actually balanced the budget. Oh, he also said how the GOP keeps lying all the time and now lives comfortably in an alternate reality. Sounds like he reads The Discord.

Instead of addressing Clinton’s damning economic appraisal of conservative “ideas”, the right wing media chose instead to cover the Dems flip-flopping on removing “God-given” from their platform language. This was their coverage ALL day. Sure the Democrats understand, as our founding fathers did, the need for a separation of church and state, and sure there’s a growing number of atheists out there, so what? But how about a compromise? I know, that’s a joke too. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll leave the part about the magic Santa-like man who lives in the clouds in our platform, if you add science and arithmetic to yours!

A team of psychiatrists led by Dr. Sterling Hogbein of Hogbein Institute and Buffet have used the DSM-IV (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) to successfully diagnose the entire GOP:

Axis I: Cognitive Disorder NOS

Axis II: Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Paranoid Traits

Rule out: Fictitious Disorder

Axis III: erectile dysfunction

Axis IV: socioeconomic problems caused by numerous unfunded programs and wars, while supporting ongoing unsustainable tax cuts to the rich

GAF: 35

Head of the American Psychological Association, Dr. John Oldham, added, “Republicans primarily suffer from a personality disorder, which is fairly untreatable. Whereas rigidity of thought remains pervasive in this group, we added the Cognitive Disorder NOS to the Axis I primarily so we could bill Medicaid for the evaluation.”

Dr. Hogbein remains more hopeful, “We do have a cluster of personality disorders here, a rare Cluster-F, actually. We could have picked borderline, anti-social…really any of them can apply during any given news cycle, but if Fox News and AM radio agreed to start broadcasting non-stop DBT therapy sessions, or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, it could at least raise the average Republican to a level where they can safely navigate the community.”

If this doesn’t happen, Dr. Hogbein and Dr. Oldham agree the Republican’s prognosis poor. “It’s not uncommon for self-harm behaviors to start occurring, like supporting big oil or blocking climate change policies, which we’re already starting to see happen,” said Dr. Oldham.

The Psychiatric community fears things could culminate in a fit of histrionics not seen since that last Hannity episode. “And involuntarily committing approximately 40% of our society poses some logistical issues for sure,” added Dr. Hogbein. “But let’s start with Bachmann and see how it goes.”

New York, NY—Midtown Manhattan was once again ablaze with gunfire as several police offers opened fire on pedestrians today outside of the Empire State Building. NYPD is claiming the tragedy started out as a mock reenactment of the recent shooting on August 24th.

NYPD chief, Ray Kelly, told the press, “We don’t know why all of our officers had live ammunition. They were supposed to be fitted with blanks prior to the exercise. This time we were lucky. No one dealt a fatal blow to the officer playing the role of the gunman. Actually, he was never hit. And, thank God, the other 12-pedestrians suffered only minor injuries.”

When asked about the three critical injuries, Kelly said, “I have requested to only be briefed on the minor injuries, because I’m having a bad enough day already.”

When asked why one officer kept firing into the crowd at random for “what seemed an eternity” to witnesses, Kelly said, “There’s always going to be one guy who really gets caught up in the moment and keeps mowing down innocents until someone taps him on the shoulder and brings him back to reality. Luckily, my guys can’t shoot for shit. We can only hope we shot some assholes today. There are, in fact, a lot of assholes in New York, so, statistically speaking, we probably shot some today.”

NYPD is postponing their 9/11 reenactment and their 64 Harlem Riots reenactment, pending a full investigation.

“Well, we might go ahead with the riot,” said Kelly. “It’s Harlem, lot of assholes out there.”

Tampa, FL—God is reportedly “very unhappy” with Republican values, which he feels have reached almost oxymormon levels. “That’s not a typo,” said God. “It’s a Romney Mormon joke, heh, heh. That one killed ‘em in Nazareth. No, I’m sick of the GOP. They’re getting what they deserve.”

Tampa Mayor, Bob Buckhorn, feels God is “raining on his parade” and demanded God send Moses to part the hurricane’s tidal surge, so this important convention could proceed as scheduled. Buckhorn also added, “Stop being such an omni-buttinsky!” and later, “Why don’t you say that shit to my face, bitch?!”

God responded with a targeted storm surge that swept the Mayor and his family out to sea, where they are presumably damp.

God said, “Look, I turned Isaac west. This was more intended as a warning shot across the bow kind of thing, or a time out. I didn’t want to derail the entire convention, but maybe shorten it a bit. You have to understand, I’m omnipresent, so I have to sit through this entire fucking thing.”

When asked about dropping the F-bomb, God said, “I’m also omnipotent so by definition I don’t make retractions.” Then God recited an excerpt from what he called the Gospel of Isaac. “God will show no mercy!”

Biblical scholars believe God meant to say the Gospel of Isaiah, and he kind of reversed the meaning of the original quote a bit.

God reiterated his ‘no retractions ever’ policy using five of George Carlin’s Words You Can Never Say on TV…quite creatively. He then warned if the GOP didn’t “wise up”, he would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a Snooki tirade.

Tampa, FL—The Republican Convention is set to go, but the weather is turning ugly in Tampa and so is the rhetoric. The GOP is honing its policies and positions into one focused, laser-like-beam of bad ideas. Majority Leader John Boehner said, “Never mind the weather, we have so many bad ideas we may need a bigger venue to fit them all anyway.”

When asked about Todd Akin’s ban after his controversial rape remarks, Boehner said, “Look, a lot of us have the same views. It’s not about the dumb ideas themselves—we embrace that shit. For example have you seen Paul Ryan’s budget proposal?—but we support only bad ideas that win elections, not ones that lose them.”

Mitt Romney immediately distanced himself from Boehner’s remarks. “I don’t think bad ideas are the way forward,” said Romney. “Having ‘no ideas’ is the approach that resonates with real America. Being completely devoid of any viable position whatsoever is the way to go. If we open our mouths, we’re toast. In fact, I plan on missing all the Obama debates by contracting some type of botchalism.”

Romney later corrected his statement, “I meant botulism, but I haven’t decided between that or West Nile Papyrus.”

Saying something stupid, but getting a bounce in the polls, is fine with the GOP, but if you lose support with said dumb idea then it’s hast la vista baby. On a related note, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is also banned from attending the GOP Convention.

“We really don’t want anyone attending from California at all,” said Romney, “unless it’s Nancy Pelosi in piñata form.”

Amsterdam, NL—Congressman Kevin Sea of GaliWeewee Yoder and Prince Isn’t it Supposed to Stay in Vegas? Harry plan to double down on their recent antics. The pair is scheduled to meet in Amsterdam over Labor Day weekend to kick things up a notch. After imbibing heavily on the Blood of Christ, Rep. Yoder plans to strip to some reggae music outside of the Anne Frank Museum. “Oh, and I have an announcement,” said Yoder. “Where better to come out of the closet, eh?”

Meanwhile, Prince Harry is planning an English style pub-crawl that will culminate at the Space Cake cart over on Blitzedbuggerstraat.

Rep. Yoder told the press today, “It’ll be like in the Wonder Twins. We touch rings, we say, ‘team drunkenness activate, form of nakedness’. It will be kind of like that, only way cooler.”

At the designated hour, the two will rendezvous at the Heineken Brewery, strip off their clothing, and then dive into the Amstel River to the cheers of adoring fans. EMTs will be standing by as the Amstel River makes New York’s East River seem like a Poland Springs’ commercial.

“No one is going to even know who Lady F-ing Godiva is after this stunt,” said Prince Harry.

Her majesty, the Queen, is forbidding the young Prince to participate and the GOP is warning Yoder that he may take increased criticism from his Kansas constituents.

Prince Harry replied, “Piss off! The Queen will let me out of the Tower of London by Labor Day, guaranteed. See you in space cake land, Yoder!”

Rep. Yoder added, “Look, no one in Kansas is going to elect a Democrat. I could get high on meth one night and dig up Reagan and I’m still a shoe-in.”

Xiangyin, China–General Tso, a man famous for his oriental deep fried chicken, is being sought in the disappearance of several #17s from the menu at the Jade Fountain over on 4^th Str…umm, to be honest, Zano hasn’t submitted anything in awhile. He’s fallen off the radar again and, to complicate matters, so has the Ghetto Shaman. If I didn’t know any better, I would say it’s a Bruce Wayne/Batman kind of thing. But I‘ve seen both of these cats in the same place. The last time was at our company Christmas party back in 2010. I got them both very nice pen sets that turned out to be pencils. Besides, back to the Batman analogy, I’m afraid neither one of them can be described as mild-mannered. I think with Zano and the Shaman, it’s more like if Robin had a sidekick…and then Robin’s sidekick had a sidekick. That’s getting close to capturing the essence of these bananas, who, apparently split. See? These are the jokes I write when the main writers go MIA.

I really don’t know where this project is going anymore. I can’t control these people. Submission and deadlines are passé. Try envisioning the Marx Brothers on acid and you begin to understand the herding cats-type, Herculean task I deal with on a post-to-post basis. Really, it’s more like if the Marx Brothers hung around Cheech & Chong for a couple of “sessions” and then went to the Amazon together to gnaw on some hallucinogenic roots. Yeah, it’s something like that…only more out of control.

I am seriously considering going with my original idea—a psychiatric food blog. Stay with me here. So if you’re depressed, I’ll have a series of culinary recipes designed to offset some of those specific symptoms. Are you a little manic because of a bi-polar disorder? Try my Depakote Devil’s food cake. A little hyper? How about some Ritalinguini and clam sauce? Are you hearing the voices again? Try my famous chicken Thorazzini. I think it could taste great and really cut down on the mass shootings in this country. If my writers don’t resurface soon, get ready to order some of my FDA-approved psychotropic suppers!

Brugge, BE—Dr. Sterling Hogbein, of the Hogbein Institute and Lube, stunned the archeological community today by speaking at an important conference in Brugge, when he was not invited to do so. For his antics, the Police Fédérale in Belgium have detained the good doctor and are planning to deport him to either Syria or to a pirate ship off the cost of Somalia.

Before security could intervene, Dr. Hogbein addressed the scholarly audience. He said, “I have proof Stonehenge was formed by rain, wind, and fire. The site is a geological anomaly created over the last 17-million years by volcanism and other natural forces. And I have 100% proof to back my claims!” He then chugged the remainder of his bottle of Evan Williams Kentucky Whiskey, hurled the empty bottle at the nearest security personnel and was finally dragged off stage.

One archeologist who witnessed the spectacle said, “When he was being escorted out, he shouted something about buggering the Loch Ness druids. I would have liked to have heard more about that, but Rain, Wind, and Fire? Weren’t they just that funky American band from the seventies? How could they have created Stonehenge? Preposterous. We’re pretty sure the site is older than that.”

State College, PA—Penn State University announced its replacement pick for the recently dismantled Joe Paterno statue. The Dean of the University, David H. Monk, announced his institution’s decision to honor the first Penn State fan to ever drink all 80-beers at a favorite local watering hole, Zeno’s Pub.

“The decision wasn’t easy,” said Dean Monk. “We also considered the dude who mooned the ‘87 graduating class from the Old Main clock tower. And then there’s always the first guy to throw up at the Rathskeller back in 1958. What a mess. See? There’s still a lot to honor here in Crappy Valley.”

When asked why the University failed to choose the Rathskeller for selling the most Rolling Rock cases in a single day, Monk replied, “We considered that, we really did, but they kind of lost me by breaking the Guinness Book of World Records with a beer other than Guinness. Who the hell drinks Rolling Rock? I’m supposed to be proud of that?”

Instead, Penn State ultimately chose Zeno’s first man to go ‘Around the World in 80-Beers.’

Dean Monk added, “We’re honoring the first guy to ever accomplish this feat. He’s the first name on the first plaque among an ever-growing line of winners lining that pub’s southern wall. It’s been a standing tradition here at Penn State for decades, unless you try doing it all in one night…in which case, you won’t be standing. I learned that one the hard way, heh, heh.”

When asked for the name of the man, Monk replied, “I don’t know. It’s on the statue and it’s on that damn plaque. Can’t we just get passed this shit now and play some foosball?!”

With Penn State unable to participate in football anymore, scholarships are now available for those who excel at the foosball table in the back room.