Not *Not* the Onion

The Onion first published this on their website (where it is now 404) in 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20101208015207/https://theonion.com/video/obama-replaces-costly-highspeed-rail-plan-with-hig,18473/

... and they reuploaded it to YouTube earlier this year.

It is now suitable for posting here in !notnottheonion@lemmy.ml because it is coming true:

https://gizmodo.com/california-is-exploring-high-speed-buses-that-connect-la-and-san-francisco-in-just-over-3-hours-2000759206

(nottheonion post)

Edit to add: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
http://archive.today/2026.04.20-185455/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/business/infowars-alex-jones-the-onion.html

The Onion Has a New Plan to Take Over Infowars

A new deal, which would allow The Onion to use the Infowars name and website address, must be approved by a Texas judge.

When Infowars, the website founded by the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones, came up for sale two years ago, an unlikely suitor stepped up. The Onion, a satirical news outlet, planned to convert the site into a parody of itself.

That sale was scuttled by a bankruptcy court. Now, The Onion has re-emerged with a new plan: licensing the website from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site.

On Monday, Mr. Milligan asked Maya Guerra Gamble, a judge in Texas’s Travis County District Court overseeing the disposition of Infowars, to approve that licensing agreement in a court filing. Under the terms, The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, would pay $81,000 a month to license Infowars.com and its associated intellectual property — such as its name — for an initial six months, with an option to renew for another six months.

The licensing deal has been agreed to by The Onion and the court-appointed administrator. But it is not effective until Judge Gamble approves it, and Mr. Jones could appeal any ruling. That means the fate of Infowars remains in limbo until the court rules, probably sometime in the next two weeks. Mr. Jones continues to operate Infowars.com and host its weekday program, “The Alex Jones Show.”

Mr. Jones had no immediate comment.

https://redlib.catsarch.com/r/vfx/comments/1okqcz0/saw_this_in_graphic_design_today_and_had_to_share/

FRENCH POLICE have immediately ended all efforts to recover priceless Napoleon-era jewellery from the Louvre taken in a daring heist after it emerged the jewels were merely stolen for the purposes of training AI software.

“When we realised these jewels were only stolen to inflate the share price of a company whose entire value relies on the wholesale theft of other people’s art, we had no choice but grant these scamps immunity,” confirmed French prosecutor Alain Barbier.

ITHACA, NY—Citing numerous advancements in communication technology over the years, a study released Wednesday by researchers at Cornell University found that voices coming through walkie-talkies should sound normal by now.

“After countless hours of fact-finding and analysis, we’ve concluded that it’s 2025, and the speaker shouldn’t be all crackly anymore,” said lead researcher Jerome Thompson, noting that at a time when humanity was developing quantum computers, it was “pretty messed-up” that voices in two-way radio transceivers still came out tinny and could be difficult to understand.

“They should sound like cell phones, but instead they sound weird and staticky. Any handheld device should sound as though the person is standing right there in the room with you. And honestly, they should’ve sounded like that a long time ago—I mean, phones have sounded good for ages, so why not walkie-talkies?” The study follows a report out earlier this month that concluded people using walkie-talkies shouldn’t have to say “over” at the end of every sentence.

“In line with the terms of the deal, Hamas will release all remaining Israeli hostages, and Israel will still murder innocent Palestinian civilians on a regular basis, but at a slightly slower pace than we have been of late,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ratifying the accord that would temporarily promote the systematic discrimination, dehumanization, and persecution of the Palestinian people over their outright genocide.

“Once the hostages are freed, we will dial down the attacks on Gaza hospitals, schools, and aid centers by roughly 10%, give or take. I have had my staff lay out a less rigorous schedule for committing atrocities, and in the down time, the IDF can always fall back on horrific maiming practices and general torture.

It was a major concession on my part, but I have been convinced that it’s the only way to get our people home safe, and for Israel to continue committing human rights violations without consequence.” Netanyahu assured the rest of the world it would soon go back to never hearing about the routine slaughter of the Palestinian people, as opposed to barely hearing about it.

JERUSALEM—In response to an independent United Nations inquiry concluding that Israel is committing an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a defiant statement Thursday in which he criticized the commission’s finding, declaring that “these so-called genocide experts have probably never committed a genocide in their lives.”

“Until you’ve killed countless civilians, the word ‘genocide’ shouldn’t even come out of your damn mouth,” said Netanyahu, arguing that the pampered intellectuals at the U.N. were nothing more than a bunch of armchair human rights abusers. “Name one ethnic group you’ve attempted to obliterate. I’ll wait.

I mean, have you even bombed a single children’s hospital? Please, you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you read a book about the 1948 Genocide Convention? Well, I’ve read Sports Illustrated, but that doesn’t mean I’m a quarterback.

ST. GEORGE, UT—As questions continue to swirl regarding the motive behind last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation Monday that suggests alleged gunman Tyler Robinson, 22, once had a transgender Uber driver.

“In its thorough examination of the suspect’s activities in the years leading up the shooting, the Journal found evidence that in March 2021, Robinson rode for nearly 12 minutes in the backseat of a Nissan Sentra driven by a transgender woman,” veteran investigative journalist James Kovacs wrote in the article, which reports that Robinson appeared to have been satisfied with the experience, having given the driver a perfect five-star rating and a $2 tip.

OREM, UT—As law enforcement officials search for a person of interest in the assassination of 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, witnesses on the scene at Utah Valley University admitted Thursday they had assumed the shooter was just an ordinary gunman on campus.

“When that first shot rang out, we all figured it was going to be a run-of-the-mill mass shooting” said UVU junior Michael Tompkins, who explained that when students spotted a man clad in black and carrying a rifle on a roof overlooking the crowd, they had no reason to suspect anything unusual.

“It’s chilling that a person we thought was a normal, unhinged campus shooter was actually a political assassin. You see a deranged guy with a rifle on the quad every day. I suppose it was a little suspicious that he wasn’t shooting droves of students.” At press time, the FBI announced that the gunman had escaped by blending into the heavily armed crowd.

WASHINGTON—Stating that the country’s naturalization process was “highly outdated,” White House officials announced Thursday that the U.S. citizenship test would now include a four-year imprisonment section.

“Starting this month, all prospective citizens must complete a portion of the exam in which they will be forcibly detained, denied a fair trial, and locked in a cell,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, adding that applicants would be required to report to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office to be handcuffed and thrown into the back of an unmarked van, which would then take them to a remote detention facility where they would be held until at least 2028.

“While we still value the civics and language portions of our exam, we believe U.S. citizens should also have a deep understanding of the carceral state. Being approached by a masked man, whisked off the street, and disappeared for years is part of being an American. If they somehow get out of prison alive, they’ll prove they’ve earned it.” Reached for further comment, Noem said that anyone looking to bypass the imprisonment section of the citizenship test could self-deport at any time.

FOXBOROUGH, MA—In an effort to promote a safer environment at Gillette Stadium, the New England Patriots announced Wednesday that they would stop serving alcohol to players after the third quarter.

“We have unfortunately heard more than a few complaints about our players’ rowdy and aggressive behavior,” said Patriots spokesperson Aaron Kozachik, who stressed that while some may find the limit aggravating, he hoped the new rule would ensure a more orderly experience for all players in attendance.

WASHINGTON—Taking offense that European leaders had, in his view, disrespected the White House by showing up inadequately dressed to Monday’s closely watched Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Donald Trump reportedly fumed that not a single one of them had arrived in lederhosen and a tiny feathered hat.

“It’s rude and, frankly, very nasty that you would come here today in such inappropriate clothing,” said an irate Trump, interrupting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s pleas for Ukrainian aid as he chastised her decision to forgo painted wooden clogs, a puffy milkmaid dress, and Pippi Longstocking braids. “When you think of Europe, you think of the striped shirts with the scarf and beret, the Viking hat with the horns—hell, even a bullfighting costume would have been great.

Yet you choose to represent your countries at a meeting with the president of the United States in regular suits, without even carrying one of those hexagon accordion things? Disgraceful. Where’s the 20-foot-long trumpet? Keir [Starmer], where’s your monocle?

WASHINGTON—Calling the ongoing violence in the region “disgusting” while pledging America’s unwavering support, President Trump announced Monday that the United States would be the first country to recognize the state of Mega-Israel.

“We recognize the right of Mega-Israel to exist as an ever-expanding sovereign nation,” said Trump, who added that he believed the West had turned a blind eye to Mega-Israel for too long, and that Mega-Israel had the right to defend whatever they claimed their borders to be.

“Today, I called Giga-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and I told him that the U.S. stands behind Mega-Israel, its Mega-land, and its Mega-army. As such, we will continue to provide them with military support as they face attacks from the Micro-Middle East.” At press time, Trump announced plans for the United States to officially back a one-Mega-Israel solution.

Aguilar worked with UG Solutions between May and June this year and describes the entire operation as deeply dysfunctional.

“Nothing was open. Nobody could figure out how to get food there,” Aguilar said in an interview with France 24’s Jessica Le Masurier. “So we had the idea of [ordering pizza] in Beersheba and having them make 27 pizzas and deliver them through Wolt, which is the Israeli DoorDash, to the main operations center in Karem Shalom.”

The pizzas were then transported into Gaza in what Aguilar described as “an armored convoy,” eventually reaching Distribution Site 1, where they were handed out to Palestinian local workers, referring to the difficulties in feeding local workers who were assisting GHF operations.

Let me get this straight,” Le Masurier asked. “Safe Reach Solutions was able to bring pizza in when the entire population of Gaza is starving and there are UN aid trucks that are unable to enter Gaza and not allowed to distribute aid while people are starving. But SRS was able to bring in pizza to one of their sites?”

“It’s abhorrent. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be comedy. It’s not comedy, because it is absolutely tragic,” Aguilar said.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Friday that he had told his team to fire Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was nominated by Joe Biden in 2023 and began her role in January 2024.

“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” the president wrote.

“She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said, claiming without evidence that McEntarfer had massaged figures to help the former president.

LANGLEY, VA—A report released Tuesday by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters.

According to the report, sections of the documents— “almost invariably the most crucial passages”—are marred by an indelible black ink that renders the lines impossible to read, due to a top-secret highlighting policy that began at the agency’s inception in 1947.

cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/theonion@sh.itjust.works/t/2427379

In the latest of a series of escalations in President Donald Trump’s highly publicized war on “woke,” the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly removed all mentions of justice from its website Friday.

The purge follows a directive from the DOJ last week to roll back pro-justice programs and delete thousands of webpages that contained banned words, including “fairness,” “integrity,” “due process,” and “honor.” Citing an executive order from the president, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed her department to comb through all its articles, images, videos, and social media posts to remove any “un-American, leftist propaganda” related to upholding the rule of law, keeping the nation safe, or protecting citizen’s rights.

“Justice is a discriminatory form of woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our Justice Department,” Bondi said during a press conference, adding that pro-justice policies actively divided Americans, spread misinformation, and distracted from the DOJ’s core mission. “Anyone who says that justice is our department’s strength—or that we should promote dangerous ideals that imply Americans will be treated with dignity or compassion in the eyes of the law—is sadly mistaken.”
To ensure compliance, Bondi ordered the deletion of every word in the
phrase “equal justice under the law.”

“Thanks to Donald Trump, justice is dead,” she added. “And this is just the beginning.” [...]