John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News

With a cascade of scandals dominating the news, a desperate President Obama pleaded with voters to “not give up hope. The mistakes of a tiny minority can easily overwhelm the good work of the many. Probably less than one percent of government workers are boneheads. The rest of us shouldn’t have to suffer because of it.”

To help illustrate his case Obama told a story about an unnamed federal employee “who foolishly put things in writing that she shouldn’t have. Despite explicit instructions that no documentary evidence be produced she negligently or maliciously, we don’t know, entrusted highly confidential material to email correspondence. Now my enemies are demanding copies of these emails. If it hadn’t been for the fortuitous crash of a number of key computers this material could’ve fallen into the wrong hands.”

Statistical experts place the odds of all these “fortuitous” crashes occurring at the same time as one in 80 billion—a long shot that Obama attributed to “the ‘Man upstairs’ looking out for our best interests.”

The President also sought to characterize recent criticism of EPA employees defecating in office hallways as “myopic. From a superficial perspective this practice looks idiotic. What many are overlooking is the fact that these excretions are perfectly natural and biodegradable. Furthermore, the health concerns raised place an inordinate value on conditions favorable to humans and totally disregard what might be beneficial to other life forms. The EPA’s mission is to preserve all creatures, even those some callously categorize as ‘germs.’”

In related news, Press Secretary Josh Earnest labeled Republican Representatives Louie Gohmert and Bill Flores’ proposed $1 million reward for any individual who can recover former IRS director Lois Lerner’s “lost” emails “an exercise in futility. Far more money is available to the Administration, if need be, to ensure that this doesn’t happen. And if money alone can’t do the job the President has the authority to take extreme measures to defend the government against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.”

President Denounces Boehner Lawsuit as “Stunt”

This week House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced he was going to sue President Obama for abuse of executive authority. “Time-after-time the President has acted without proper authority,” Boehner charged. “He has refused to faithfully execute laws that require his action. Worse, he has endeavored to exercise legislative authority that the Constitution relegates to Congress. We are going to ask the Court to put a stop to this.”

President Obama laughed off the lawsuit calling it “a stunt designed to cover for Congress’ failure to govern. If Congress were to do its job as pass the legislation I’ve directed them to pass I wouldn’t be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

“Aside from the substantive issues there is also the question of the appropriate procedural remedy,” the President added. “Under our Constitution it is not the Court’s job to take sides with one branch of government over another. If Congress believes that I am stepping on its prerogatives the prescribed course is for them to impeach me.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) concurred in the President’s analysis. “Clearly, Congress must be the guardian of its own powers,” Reid asserted. “It cannot punt the ball to the Court.” As for impeachment, Reid vowed that “the Republicans will get no cooperation from me in any effort to impede President Obama’s efforts to do what he deems necessary for the good of the country. As long as I’m running the Senate there will be no impeachment.”

Raid Characterized as “Routine Training Exercise”

A pre-dawn raid of a Florida home was characterized as “a routine training exercise” by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

The raid took place on June 10 when a dozen heavily armed Department of Homeland Security troops broke into Kari Edwards home and held her and her live-in boyfriend at gun point while they searched the premises. The invading DHS officers disabled the home’s security cameras as they thoroughly trashed the premises.

“I realize that from Ms. Edwards’ perspective the incident may have been harrowing,” Johnson acknowledged. “But we mustn’t lose sight of the big picture. Inflicting momentary fear and indignities on a few individuals is a small price for the nation to pay in our quest to combat potential threats to the government.”

“The notion that we need evidence that someone has done something wrong before we can take the steps necessary to protect against possible threats confuses judicial processes with those required to ensure security,” Johnson continued. “The goal is not to punish the guilty, but to neutralize our enemies in the most efficient way we can. Besides, even if we want to consider the judicial angle, it seems to me that a surprise raid might be the most effective way to obtain evidence of wrongdoing.”

Clinton Defends $225,000 Speaking Fee

Elias Benjelloun’s, the UNLV student body president, and Daniel Waqar’s, the student government’s public relations director, protest that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s $225,000 fee for a single speech is excessive was slapped down by the lady herself.

“Students angry that their tuition fees are being increased shouldn’t try to take it out on me,” Clinton angrily exclaimed. “I have unique credentials. I’ve been a First Lady and co-president, a United States Senator, and Secretary of State. Audiences should expect to pay more to hear me.”

Clinton compared her fee with the $230,000 per game salary paid to the NBA’s LeBron James. “Considering the relative importance of the contributions each of us has made to America I think it’s pretty clear that I’m the one being grossly underpaid,” she complained. “As skilled as LeBron may be, he’s never had to make the hard choices I have. He doesn’t have to worry that someone might die because he makes a bad decision. I did.”

Hefty speaking fees (over $100 million since 2001) have been the mainstay of the Clintons’ battle to escape poverty since leaving the White House in early 2001. The $16 million the Clinton’s have received from the federal government since 2001 has been “woefully inadequate when you consider the lifestyle we are forced to maintain,” Hillary contended. “For example, we had to pony up $3 million for our daughter’s wedding. The fact is, we can’t live like ordinary people—shopping at WalMart, eating home-cooked meals, scrimping on expenses. The people of America want us to enjoy the perks befitting the service we have rendered to the nation.”

President Offers More Flexibility for Federal Employees

President Obama is seeking to make being employed by the federal government a more pleasant experience. Along these lines he is introducing more flexible work hours.

“Analysis by the best work management experts shows that it doesn’t really matter how many hours government employees spend on the job,” Obama said. “Whether they’re at their desks or not doesn’t seem to make any difference in the output of meaningful work. So why not reduce the burden of reporting to work?”

Not being required to actually go in to work in order to earn a federal paycheck was described as “a major hike in the benefit of a government job for the employees affected” said the report referred to by the President. “The disutility of having to invest so many hours in preparing for work, traveling to work, and sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day can be significantly reduced if the number or employees required to make this investment is lower.”

Benefits for employees weren’t the only upside cited in the report: “The more federal jobs that are converted from ‘no-work’ to ‘no-show’ status the less stress will be placed on urban traffic. Those who must actually produce a product or service in order to earn a living will face less traffic congestion traveling to work.”

President Obama rejected the report’s implication that a considerable amount of expense could be avoided if the unneeded employees were terminated. “The idea that the government should simply release unneeded employees fails to take into consideration the impact that would have on our economy,” the President argued. “The money we spend on the salaries of these redundant workers is vital to sustaining our GDP. Think of all the businesses that depend upon the money federal employees spend. If they lose these customers our economy will tank.”

Constitutional Amendment to Curb Speech Pushed by Democrats

Sparked by fears that “many dedicated incumbents could be run out of office by well-financed campaigns by dangerously anti-government factions,” Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and 42 Democratic co-sponsors have drafted a Constitutional Amendment that aims to curb free speech.

“Right now as long as a person has enough money to afford it he can take out an ad, publish a broadside, or fund a TV spot against a sitting member of the Government,” Udall pointed out. “The men and women who have devoted their lives to serving the citizens of this great republic don’t deserve this kind of treatment.”

Under Udall’s proposed Amendment freedom of speech would be subject to whatever limits Congress determines would best suit the needs of the Government. “We want competition for office,” Udall agreed. “But it must be fair competition. Congress needs to have the flexibility to make rules that will ensure fairness.”

A Satirical Look at Recent News

John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire column for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties that our nation’s Founding Fathers tried to protect.

Please do us a favor. If you use material created by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit, and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.

John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News

Citing a lengthy list of suspicious coincidences—including the most recent loss of critical evidence due to a narrowly focused crash of the computers used by individuals involved in the discriminatory treatment of conservative organizations—many of the Agency’s critics have called for a “Special Prosecutor.”

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the House Ways and Means Committee, though, that “appointing a ‘Special Prosecutor’ to investigate alleged abuses in the Agency would be a colossal waste of money. Look, we’ve thoroughly frustrated every inquiry launched thus far. Why should anyone think we wouldn’t just as easily thwart a so-called Special Prosecutor?”

Representative Dave Camp (R-Mich), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, characterized Koskinen’s remarks as “the kind of arrogance that reeks of tyranny. This Administration and its agents act as if the law and Constitution do not apply to them.”

Koskinen taunted Camp in his reply asserting that “if Mr. Camp and his cohorts are displeased with the way we are running the Government the Constitution has a prescribed remedy they may follow. Their reluctance to take up this remedy is a testimony to their impotence. If I am construed as being disrespectful I think I am on solid ground when I say that they’ve earned it.”

Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) strenuously objected to “Camp’s rude behavior toward this dedicated civil servant. The IRS is tasked with the crucial and difficult job of recovering the nation’s resources from individuals who would siphon them off for their own personal gain. The conservative groups that the IRS targeted are aiding and abetting greedy individuals by resisting the tax increases and spending programs that are part-and-parcel of the implementation of the President’s plan to secure social justice for all.”

CFPB Announces Broad New Powers

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced in the Federal Register that it will “aggressively deploy cease and desist orders against businesses whose activities are a detriment to the nation’s well-being.” For the moment this new authority is “interim.” It is expected to become final on July 18.

“For too long the Government has sat idly by while businesses have foisted unsafe and unhealthy products on an unsuspecting public,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray charged. “Under Section 1053(c) of the Dodd-Frank Act, we are empowered to protect the general public by ordering offending businesses to cease and desist.”

Two industries that are expected to be first-in-line for a stepped up enforcement using this tool are gun manufacturers and fast food restaurants. “The sole purpose of a gun is to kill something or someone,” Cordray said. “It is an inherently unsafe product. By issuing a cease and desist order to manufacturers of these demonic devices we can bypass the inability of Congress to enact meaningful gun control laws.”

“Fast food is an even more insidious threat,” Cordray continued. “It’s probably responsible for more deaths than firearms. Yet, despite the best efforts of the First Lady businesses are still allowed to sell and consumers still allowed to buy these sickening comestibles. Well, the CFPB is going to ride to her rescue. Those who refuse to heed her request to offer healthier food choices will be shut down until they agree to comply.”

Businesses shut down by a CFPB cease and desist order could appeal the decision, but would remain closed as long as the CFPB deems warranted or until the CFPB order is overruled by a court. Either way, affected businesses could be without revenue for an extended period. Even if a court ultimately overturned a CFPB order the Agency would retain sovereign immunity for any damages suffered by shuttered businesses.

Concerned that the CFPB “may be overstepping its bounds to the detriment of both businesses and consumers,” Representative Sean Duffy (R-Wisc) has drafted legislation aimed at curbing the Agency. Whether it will go anywhere seems doubtful, though. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) denounced Duffy’s bill as “an unconstitutional infringement on the President’s right and duty to protect the American people from profiteers purveying unsafe and unhealthy products.”

In related news, First Lady Michelle Obama vowed she would “veto any legislative attempt to tamper with my school lunch program.” Schools have pressed Congress for relief from Michelle’s dietary guidelines on the grounds that students refuse to eat the food the guidelines require. The First Lady was unmoved. “Uneaten healthy food is better than eaten unhealthy food,” she argued. “Hunger will eventually bring the kids around.”

DOJ Wants to Boost Domestic Surveillance

Vowing not to allow himself to be distracted by recent events in Iraq, Attorney General Eric Holder called for increased efforts to monitor and interdict home grown threats.

“I know the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is garnering a lot of attention beheading captured foes and pledging to use the cache of poison gas it has stumbled upon while rampaging through Iraq,” Holder said. “But this must not divert our focus from the bigger threat from those in this country who have an anti-government animus.”

“ISIS is thousands of miles away,” Holder pointed out. “Bloody as their aims may be they don’t pose a significant threat to our Government. In contrast, anti-government enemies of the President are legion and much more dangerous. There are an estimated 300 million guns in private hands in this country. That’s a lot of firepower in the hands of a population that polls show to be increasingly hostile toward the President.”

“While ISIS has no known sympathizers in Congress, those with anti-government animus do,” Holder added. “Senators and Representatives think nothing of openly criticizing the President’s programs and initiatives. Worse, they engage in active stratagems intended to block them. Unlike the ISIS, the anti-government crowd in America could bring down the Administration if we don’t take more active measures to prevent it.”

One element of the active measures the Attorney General is relying upon is the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. Holder urged this secretive committee “to raise our surveillance of potentially disloyal citizens another notch. We must penetrate their organizations, intercept their communications, and acquire every bit of intelligence on them that we can get our hands on so we will know who they are, where they are and when to initiate the appropriate countermeasures.”

Obama Says Iran May Be Key to Pacifying Iraq

Desperate for a way out of having to accept blame for a resumption of civil war in Iraq, President Obama welcomed the intervention of Iranian troops.

“It’s a case of fighting fire with fire,” the President explained. “The ISIS are some bad folks, but so are the Iranians. ISIS is terrorizing the Iraqi countryside, but Iran has a long history of aiding terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.”

Obama suggested that ISIS’s acquisition of Saddam Hussein’s secret stash of weapons of mass destruction could be counterbalanced by Iran’s secret nuclear weapons. “While the United States couldn’t credibly threaten ISIS with nuclear retaliation for their use of Saddam’s poison gases Iran could,” the President argued. “The regime is already on record welcoming the annihilation of the planet in the name of Allah.”

In related news, Secretary of State John Kerry wondered whether the Iraqi government’s indifference to the threat of global climate disruption may have contributed to the rise of ISIS. “Climate disruption has the potential to kill millions, maybe billions of the Earth’s inhabitants,” Kerry asserted. “I’m not surprised that many Iraqis watching their government ignore this problem were won over to the insurgency.”

Presidential Candidate Clarifies Gun Control Views

Aspiring 2016 presidential contender former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to contrast her views on gun control with “the ineffectual dithering we’ve seen from the current Oval Office inhabitant.”

“Let me come right out and say it, the minority of private citizens with guns are terrorizing the rest of the population,” Clinton contended. “It’s got to be frightening for the average person when he realizes that his neighbor or the stranger passing him in the street may be armed and could shoot him at any moment.”

“If access to guns were limited to only those having a professional need for them—like police officers or body guards we could ratchet down the level of fear in our society,” Clinton continued. “Instead of having to worry that anyone might have a gun the number of those carrying would be reduced to a smaller pool. Awareness that the police have a virtual monopoly of firepower would tend to make everyone more compliant with police efforts to keep the peace. Stripped of the capacity to resist the only reasonable option would be obedience.”

Clinton brushed aside arguments that gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment. “When that Amendment was written people were reacting to a fear that some despot would oppress them unless they were armed,” she said. “They had recently fought a war against the despotism of King George. In today’s America, though, there can be no despotism. Everyone gets to vote for who shall rule them. In effect, the Government is us. So our right to bear arms is preserved collectively in the hands of our elected Government. There is no longer any need for the right to bear arms to be exercised by each of us individually.”

In related news, the Clintons defended their efforts to evade estate taxes that Bill helped enact when he was President. “As persons who have donated their lives to public service we have already paid-in more than the average person, by rights we ought to be exempt,” a joint written statement read. “The scandalous absence of an explicit statutory exemption necessitated the maneuvers we have taken to right that wrong.”

A Satirical Look at Recent News

John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire column for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties that our nation’s Founding Fathers tried to protect.

Please do us a favor. If you use material created by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit, and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.