WreckingBallReport.com

General David PeTreeus?

Showing their generally Machiavellian nature, the trees of Middle Earth have seized on the crisis in the global markets to strike a devastating blow to long-time antagonists in the newspaper industry.  It was revealed yesterday that the legion of creepy yet grandfatherly anthropomorphic trees had been organizing through wide-ranging efforts that go far beyond the well-publicized “huggers and hippies” militia movement of Northern California. Among the shocking revelations was the disclosure that Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is the bi-species son of a white woman and a juniper tree from outside Twentynine Palms, California.

When pressed by reporters at a news conference held at a picnic shelter in Sequoia National Park, Newmark conceded that one of the central aims of Craigslist since before  the site’s inception has been the annhiliation of the newspaper industry through a choking off of one of its central streams of revenue – classified ads.

It was also revealed that an  underground campaign among all Americans of partial arboreal ancestry contributed to the current crisis in the auto industry, which also helps to support newspapers in large part through large ad purchases.  Forested-Americans had been leading purchasers of American-made SUVs and light trucks until just recently, when a nationwide boycott was organized, driving sales down and leading to the discontinuation of new Hummer lines and massive layoffs.

“These charges of conspiracy are ridiculous,” a thousand-year old spruce near Olympic National Park in Washington state told WBR. “Forested Americans are simply voting with their hard-earned dollars. Which are still made largely of cotton, by the way.”

Unconfirmed reports have also indicated that alleged Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff is of at least one-quarter Elm ancestry. Speculation has also been swirling around the true species and genus of Alan Greenspan and a number of former Wall Street CEOs.

At least one greenhouse filled with saplings of unknown origin has been raided on the roof of a luxury apartment building near New York’s battery park.

Reaction to the news has led to a spike in wood-burning stoves across the country, as leaders of the ACLU continue to call for tolerance and a temporary moratorium on new wood chipper sales.