News from Zontar: US President takes on Zoronavirus

Once again, the alert interns on the Spy's Deep Space Desk have monitored a faint transmission from the planet Zontar, the largest planet in the Remulac galaxy, millions of light years from Earth. These transmissions indicate the presence of intelligent life in the far reaches of our universe. Notwithstanding the apparent similarity of some of their concerns and issues, the thoughts and actions of these alien beings are incomprehensible to rational humans like us. Nevertheless, for the young astronomers and exobiologists here on Earth, we present a transcription of the latest transmission . . . [Could the setup be any more obvious? – Ed.]

By Azhley Parker
The Wazhington Post

WAZHINGTON, D.Z. – President Zillary Clinton, continuing her practice of providing daily briefings on the U.S. response to the continuing Zoronavirus pandemic, addressed the press today, flanked by the senior public officials and epidemiological experts who have led her Pandemic Preparation Task Force since her inauguration.

“There is no doubt that we face a serious public health issue that all of us should take seriously,” the President said.  “However, I shudder to think how much worse the crisis wold be had we not taken prudent steps over the past three years to prepare for an infectious disease emergency like this.”

She pointed out that the prepositioning of protective equipment such as N95 respirator masks and hazardous material containment suits for first responders and hospital personnel had allowed such officials to provide urgent care and safe quarantine to those exposed to or suffering from the virus, without endangering the health of the responders or the public at large.  She defended her decision to limit the sale of such respirators to first responders and health professionals, and urged everyone to wash their hands and stay inside if they felt ill.

“For example, last week we were able to charter a plane with full hazardous material gear to pick up Americans from Wuhan, China.  These Americans and those who assisted them all took full-scope precautions on the flight back to the United States, with the result that they are now safely under observation at one of the 52 specially-prepared facilities, most located on military bases, equipped to observe and care for them.”

“Can you imagine what might have happened had we let those exposed to the virus on a plane with other passengers, and then let those passengers freely fly about the country without monitoring?” she asked, presumably rhetorically.  After chuckling, she said, “Of course, I am being facetious.  I could never imagine a U.S. administration inept, blundering, and negligent enough to allow such a thing to happen.  I'm just noting how proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance,” the President said.

She said that she had ordered additional quarantine facilities to be prepared by repurposing closed alien detention facilities and the former torture site at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Her comments caused an immediate stir on Zhlox News, which has opposed President Clinton during her campaign against the disgraced and bankrupt self-proclaimed real estate mogul, Donald Zhumpf.  “Have you ever heard such horrible language from a U.S. President?” whined portly pistol-packing Zhlox host Zean Hannity.  “We haven't seen such unpresidential behavior since Obama wore a tan suit!”

The President praised first responders for
preparing for epidemics like Zoronavirus

As for the man she beat handily in 2016, Zhumpf, he has not been seen outside his penthouse New York apartment since the first cases of Zoronavirus were reported.  However, he has sporadically Tweeted about his panic and fear, including “Don't believe Crooked Zillary's hoax about controlling the virus.  We're gonna die!”

The President's political opponents on Capitol Hill also continued to criticize her handling of the crisis, although she has received generally high marks from pandemic experts and the World Health Organization.  “Why hasn't she closed the Southern border so those Mexican and their diseases can't invade our country with their spicy food and crimes?” asked House Minority Leader Zooey Gohmert.

Senate Minority Leader Zitch McConnell criticized the Administration's 68-point virus program, saying “the only way to respond to this pandemic is tax cuts for the rich.  Also a good man with a gun.”

And the same Zhlox News talking heads continue to bash her for unspecified crimes.  From her broadcast studio located at an undisclosed rehab facility in the Adirondacks, former mob moll Jeannie Zirro mumbled repeatedly, “Lock her up!  There, I said it.  Now where can I get a drink around here?” before the broadcast suddenly ended.

Her enemies on the op-ed pages of the nation's leading newspapers were similarly unimpressed by President Clinton's cool-headed detailed response to the pandemic.  “Why isn't she showing more sympathy for the victims of this disease.  If she carries out her contingency plans to ban cocktail parties, how am I ever going to get a husband?” complained Maureen Zowd in the New Zork Times.  “Also she's inauthentic.”

Her colleague, family-basher David Brookz, while reluctantly conceding that President Clinton had effectively marshaled the vast resources of the federal government in preparing and executing the nation's emergency response plan, noted that at the same time she refused to reach out to Republicans by seeking universal health care paid for by higher taxes on corporations.  “Pandemics come and go, but plaguing rich white men with higher taxes forever could have an even more serious unraveling effect on the warp and woof of our social culture,” he pontificated.

And yet another of the Times's Op-Ed geniuses, Monsignor Ross Zoothat, said that she was being hypocritical by focusing on saving lives threatened by the pandemic while cheering the murder of millions of unborn babies, some of whom were larger than a grain of rice.

For the moment, public opinion appears to support the President's Zoronavirus control program, but already signs of unease are being heard especially in America's rural heartland.  At one local diner in the back woods of Zennsylvania, one patron complained, “ I was waiting in line at the store and in front of me this Chinese woman was coughing.  Why don't they send them back where they came from and let me smoke cigarettes in peace?”