BREAKING: Traffic Remains Clear

UNITED STATES - Today local television traffic reporters unanimously noted "clear" or "green" traffic conditions in every metropolitan area around the nation.

Eating a Doordash-ed burrito from Taco Bell, local T.V. personality Jake Jacobs (from award-winning KFAKE news) told IRREVERENT what reporters across the nation have been saying for weeks: "Traffic is terrific, there's no congestion.  Nothing to see here."

Grounded from the KFAKE news chopper for 18 days so far, Jacobs waxed philosophic.  "It's weird being stuck inside like this after spending every morning gliding above it all, watching the traffic, hearing all those honking horns," Jacobs said.  "The silence....  It's strange, terrifying, yet wonderful.  And deafening."

Jacobs, who may have been high, then drifted into a mid-morning nap.

Relaxing in her bathtub, Pam Olive from WBOG agreed. "Yeah, I miss the chopper too," Olive admitted.  "It was fun cruising over all those losers stuck down there, honking in futility.  Plus the pilot was cute.  Wonder if he's on Zoom?"

Olive, who hit her 17th day today in home isolation, also offered her own reflections on her job's changing role.  "Pretty sure they're going to fire me soon," she said.  "There's no traffic to report, and there's only so many internet stories and stupid pet fluff pieces you can file from home before everyone's like 'who cares?'"

Others remain optimistic.  "This will be over one day, and then, oh boy are people gonna hit the highways!" said Frank Franklin from Detroit's KBULL-TV.  "Our jobs as local T.V. traffic guys is gonna be more important than ever.  Just wait until it takes you three hours to drive across town to finally go out to eat, you know, at whatever restaurant is still open.  Then everyone will be tuning in like crazy!  Ratings through the roof!"

Illustrations: screenshot from WISN.com, photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash.

Statisticians Conclude Study of Trump's Non-Zero Approval Rating

NEW YORK – Prominent statisticians today unveiled their analysis of why President Trump does not have a 0% job approval rating.

 “According to recent polls, 39% of all registered voters, and 85% of Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing as president,” said Heaven Wallace, who headed the three month study and is currently the Mark Twain Chair of Improbable Statistics at Princeton University.  “Of course the logical question to ask is ‘why is this non-zero?’  None of us could explain that, so that really was the kick-off to our study.”

The group – which includes statisticians from Ivy League and 12 other schools with advanced statistics programs – took an independent, deep analysis of political polling data, combined with demographic and lifestyle data across a broad range of American voting age adults.

“We learned a lot about how people make choices, in general, based on basically nothing,” said Jovan Short, Professor of Mathematical Chaos at Holcolm College.  “For example, there are roughly 19 – 28% of the American population who just won’t believe anything they’re told, no matter whether the source is one they consider credible or not.  But stated party affiliation seems to matter here: self-professed Democrats end up on the lower end of the scale, 9-16%, whereas Republicans are on the opposite side at 38-43%.”

“We started calling them the ‘black hole’ group – information goes in, but never makes it out in any useful fashion,” said Trevor Wilcox, from M.I.T.  “This includes themselves, which we found fascinating: when their own responses were read back to them, they denied they responded the way they did, even after we began videotaping the sessions and playing back the tape.”

“This refusal to acknowledge outside information was a point of considerable pride for this group,” said Cameron Gibbs, Chair of Public Policy Statistics at Yalvard University.  “This seems to indicate that whether you have Donald Trump, or Josef Mengele, or Winnie The Pooh running on a Republican ticket, they can poll somewhere in the 30-40% range, no matter what they say or do.“

Read more: Statisticians Conclude Study of Trump's Non-Zero Approval Rating

Trump Administration Invoices Uber, Lyft for Latest Executive Order

WASHINGTON – Today a spokesperson for the Presidential Office of Business Oversight (POBO) said that the office has “already invoiced” both Uber and Lyft for President Trump’s latest Executive Order, which “invalidates” California’s Assembly Bill 5 that attempts to enforce stricter guidelines over which employees can be categorized as “independent contractors.”

“This is both consistent with Administration Policy and the right thing to do,” said POBO spokesperson Forest Bardo.  “If the US Government helps out a company, companies, or even an industry, shouldn’t the American People get a cut?”

Over a modest diner breakfast, IRREVERENT’s budget National Security correspondent Irv Michaels called the move “slightly different” than Trump’s demand for a finder’s fee on the Microsoft acquisition of Chinese social-media sensation Tik Tok’s US operations.  “The difference between this shakedown.. sorry, I mean fee, and what he demanded from the Tik Tok deal is that with Tik Tok there was no direct meddling with a court ruling, simply a demand for payment for services rendered,” said Michaels, drinking his third free coffee refill.  “Directly interfering with a court decision on behalf of those adversely affected by that decision, well that’s mafia stuff.”

Read more: Trump Administration Invoices Uber, Lyft for Latest Executive Order