Former Arizona Senator Carolyn Allen has died at the age of 78, after suffering many years from the scourge of rheumatoid arthritis.
The late senator was hailed as a heroine by the left-stream flag carrier for our state, The Arizona Republic, and leftists on both sides of the political aisle. Allen was praised for her support of the arts and for warring against conservatives.
Allen also deserves credit for helping Democrat Janet Napolitano defeat conservative Matt Salmon in the 2002 governor’s election. She helped suppress Republican support for Salmon in Scottsdale by criticizing him in public, and he lost by one percent of the vote. Napolitano, who spent Arizona into massive debt, over-performed among Republicans in Scottsdale and that made the difference in her election.
Planned Parenthood lost a great friend in Allen. In a state legislative biography booklet, she described herself as a “Planned Parenthood activist.”
Intolerant of her opponents, Allen once saw the executive director of Arizona Right to Life in the state Senate lobby and bluntly exclaimed, “I didn’t know they allowed crooks in here.”
Allen was also a friend of Big Government, amnesty and homosexual pressure groups. While she faithfully clung to her “Republican Party” affiliation, it was the GOP platform principles she distained.
Amid a long absence from the legislature due to illness, The Arizona Conservative expressed concern about her constituents being disenfranchised and called on Allen to resign and devote herself to getting well. She later sent an email to our editor threatening him with physical harm.
The former chairwoman of the GOP legislative district in Scottsdale exhorted Allen to train up current Secretary of State Michelle Reagan, then a state representative. But Reagan was already comfortably established in Planned Parenthood’s abortion camp.
Conservatives repeatedly tried to beat Allen at election time, but the liberals in Scottsdale kept re-electing her until she retired from public office.
Last night was supposed to belong to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But the biggest story of the first debate wasn’t the candidates answering the questions — it was the person asking them. In one of the most talked-about plots of the first head-to-head, moderator Lester Holt seemed intent on making the debate a three-person affair — injecting himself with almost as many challenges to Trump as the person officially opposing him. For most of the night, the Republican nominee was fending off not one — but two — attackers, repeatedly put on the defensive with topics that had nothing to do with the major issues facing America.
Meanwhile, the former Secretary of State, who’s probably spent as much time under investigation by Congress as she did as a Member of it, skated by virtually unscathed by Holt’s one-sided fact-checking. While he fiercely pressed Trump on his tax returns and concerns over President Obama’s birthplace, he couldn’t spare a single question on the corruption of the Clinton Foundation, her role in Benghazi, or the intentional deletion of tens of thousands of sensitive emails, or her outrageous “basket of deplorables” comment. Social media lit up with criticism for the NBC anchor, who many accused of shilling for the Clintons.
Holt’s bias is difficult to argue when you consider that he interrupted Trump 41 times demanding clarification — six times the amount he interrupted Clinton (seven). He “emerged as bruised and partisan,” The Hill argued. “Holt entered the evening largely respected as non-partisan. He [exits] as the toast of left-leaning media…” Part of the problem was Holt’s lack of focus. At a time when America is dealing with terror attacks on our own soil, a military in complete disarray, and a culture melting down before our very eyes, voters deserved to hear about more important things than Trump’s tax returns.
As for the actual substance of the debate, viewers were probably surprised to see a more restrained version of Donald Trump than they’re used to. Trump landed plenty of good jabs on America’s devastating trade and Iranian deals, but sidestepped some key opportunities to go on offense, especially when it came to Clinton’s email scandal — which made up a whopping 15 seconds of the hour and a half event. “I will release my tax returns — against my lawyer’s issues — when she releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted,” he said. It was almost surreal, then, when the former Secretary of State tried to talk about the importance of cyber security — after committing one of the most dangerous breaches of it in U.S. history. “We are not going to sit idly by and permit state actors to go after our information, our private-sector information or our public-sector information,” Clinton had the audacity to declare, after risking countless lives with her own carelessness on top-secret emails.
The real estate mogul’s biggest payoff came in the first 30 minutes when he assumed complete control of the economic issues, hammering back on the Left’s prosperity-is-evil doctrine. Of course, the reason liberals hate personal success is because it makes people less reliant on the government they’re desperate to grow. Wisely, Trump refused to run from his success and instead embraced it as an example of what’s possible when Americans are left (unburdened by Washington) to pursue their own ingenuity. Clinton, meanwhile, was all but drowning in her disgust of the more fortunate, alienating plenty of voters along the way with her mockery of the trickle-down economics made famous by Ronald Reagan.
Like the ghost of former Democratic candidate Walter Mondale, she recycled old talking points about the ineffectiveness of the approach (which happened to produce three times as many net jobs as President Obama’s debt-funded “recovery”). Then she continued her party’s push to make government the unofficial police of income equality. That’s not only a terrible idea, but an unnecessary one, as author Arthur Brooks points out in his book Who Really Cares. Combing through piles of financial data, he found that the 30 percent of Americans who think the government should do little or nothing about economic inequality gave away, on average, four times more of their income than the 43 percent who said the government should do something. And the majority of those Americans are religious. Conservatives — the same ones who oppose this redistribution of wealth — are among the most generous people on earth. But contrary to Hillary Clinton, they call what they give to churches contributions, and what they give the government, taxes.
It was one of the many profound differences in philosophy on display last night. Another was the role of the judicial system. In a largely overlooked section of the debate, the Yale Law School graduate declared that the courts had struck down the Stop-and-Frisk program because it “did not do what it needed to do.” “Stop-and-frisk,” she insisted, “was found to be unconstitutional, in part, because it was ineffective.” As Secretary Clinton well knows, however, such a simplistic characterization of the law based on the specific circumstances in one case is not accurate; the procedure is perfectly legal in many situations. Secretary Clinton owes the American voter an honest assessment of the problems she attempts to describe – as these voters are already weary of activist judges of dishonest politicians.
By the end of the night, if voters wanted a clear contrast, they found it. In one candidate, they have a continuation of the last eight years. In the other, an agent of change who terrifies the Left. Let’s pray America chooses wisely. For more on the stark differences between the two candidates, check out FRC Action’s updated presidential voter guide, available here. For more on my reaction from inside the debate hall, make sure to follow me on Twitter @TPerkins
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton claims progressivism is the better plan for business. That’s what he actually told the Phoenix Business Journal.
It seems that ever since the last time a haboob passed through Phoenix area, the mayor’s vision and ability to reason have been severely clouded!
Obviously, the mayor has not been able to see the moving trucks coming in from California and heading for Texas. They’ve left the socialist state for a state that welcomes businesses and doesn’t overburden them with excessive taxation and regulation.
It is evident the mayor doesn’t know that where the minimum wage has been raised — to the lofty heights of $15 an hour in some locations — some have lost their jobs. Many small businesses cannot afford that exorbitant rate, which also means fewer part-time jobs are available.
Stanton also fails to acknowledge that America’s Socialist In Chief, B.H. Obama, has threatened to put out of business those who refuse to provide abortion coverage in their health insurance plans. Through his Obama abortion mandate, the prez would rather harm the business community and the economy, putting families out of work, raising money for Planned Parenthood. He’d rather stand in the way of small businesses, religious colleges and faith-based organizations than allow the economy and the business market to thrive. That’s astounding, mayor.
Progressives have long been strangling businesses in red tape, over-regulation and interference with their ability to survive. This is why we hear about American workers forced to train foreigners to take their jobs and why we lose business to other nations. Think Government Motors moving auto plants to Mexico — where Mexicans gain employment and Americans lose employment.
Progressivism is socialism, which means Big Government, small citizen, small private business.
Obama actually once told businesses, “Now is not the time for profits.” But that’s not surprising for a socialist progressive who prefers that government keep its all-powerful thumb on business.
And that leads us right to unions. Progressives reap huge campaign contributions from unions because they are downright anti-business.
Progressives are also bullish on illegal aliens — future Democratic voters and underminers of the American worker.
Furthermore, progressivism has damaged our public education system for decades, eroding America’s ability to train the workers we need for an efficient business climate and economy. Foreign nationals are getting engineering and doctor’s jobs here because the schools are not preparing enough Americans for those high-paying jobs.
So, bottom line, Mayor Stanton: stop dreaming and stop lying. Clear out your vision and admit the truth. Progressivism is a detriment to business. Conservatism, capitalism create the optimal business climate and represent the best interests of the American worker and the families they feed.
Remember this as election time nears and as you vote. Vote smart. Vote against progressivism, which is the perfect recipe for economic and business failure. Remember also: it was progressive socialists who forced the housing market fiasco that cost many a good American his/her retirement.
By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, issued a stern warning to voters that “the election of Donald Trump would risk undermining our opportunity to blunt Russian imperialism in Syria. The United States is far stronger than Putin’s Russia. We must not let them succeed.”
“In contrast,” the Diehl pointed out, “Secretary Clinton understands the importance of maintaining a balance of power between the Assad regime and the Islamic State in the region and can be counted on to reject Putin’s plea that the United States and Russia forge a common front against Islamic terrorism.”
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called the Post editorial “as clear a proof of the need for change in this country’s leadership as we could have hoped to see. Mr. Diehl and Hillary Clinton are mired in the last generation’s cold war ideology. Russia is no longer the Soviet Union. While we may have our differences with Putin it should be obvious that the main threat to peace and civilization in our current era is Islamic terrorism.”
Conway’s remarks on behalf of Trump were labeled “ignorant” by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. “They illustrate why the steady hand of a person like Secretary Clinton is needed at the helm. Her experience in government as First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State have prepared her for making the hard choices regarding international affairs. She has participated in decisions to kill our enemies—experience Trump can only imagine. She has worked side-by-side with President Obama to craft the nuanced policy that has served this nation so well during the current Administration. Voters would be daft to throw that away.”
In related news, Presidential Press Secretary Josh Earnest complained that “Trump’s repeated use of the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ undermines our battle to win the narrative. It’s the Islamic State that is touting the conflict as a jihad inspired by the Quran. Our goal has to be to short-circuit their bid to define what is happening. Use of neutral terms like ‘man caused disaster’ are essential if we are to control the narrative.”
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton seconded Earnest’s interpretation and went one step further by contending that “Trump’s words give aid and comfort to this nation’s enemies. That’s treason. He must be held accountable for that and he will have to face the consequences of his actions after I’m elected president.”
IRS to Warn Uninsured
Irked by the decision of 20 million Americans who have declined to sign up for Obamacare, the IRS is crafting a letter to advise them of the “antisocial implications” of non-participation.
Commissioner John Koskinen explained that “failure to enroll evinces a lack of cooperation with a policy that the government has determined is necessary. Non-compliers may feel that enrollment is optional. It is not. That’s why there is a fine. Paying the fine doesn’t get them off the hook.”
Koskinen pointed out that “not only does the amount of the fine ratchet up each year, our Agency has other tools at its disposal to try to encourage obedience. We can conduct audits, freeze bank accounts, and seize assets as a means of compelling the recalcitrant to yield to the government’s wishes. We regard advising people of their peril by letter to be a most considerate measure to help them avoid unwanted complications from continued noncompliance.”
In related news, Koskinen told the House Judiciary Committee that he doesn’t deserve to be impeached for lying to Congress because “I was not fully informed that Agency subordinates had illegally destroyed documents under House subpoena. I, like so many others, at the highest levels of government, have been betrayed by feckless or malicious subordinates.” Koskinen blamed “civil service regulations that tie the hands of those appointed by the President to carry out his policies. We don’t have a free hand to replace disloyal employees with others committed to his cause.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) characterized Koskinen’s stance as “ludicrous. First, the IRS engaged in illegal discriminatory treatment against conservative groups. Then they covered up the evidence. Now the Commission wants us to believe that non-political civil service employees are the real problem? It looks like the rot at the IRS seeps down from the uppermost level.”
Treasury Says Billions Paid to Iran Not Used to Fund Terrorists
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told the House Financial Services Committee that “we have no evidence that the billions of dollars we have released to Iran in the past year have been used to fund terrorism. In fact, the government of Iran has assured us, in no uncertain terms, that not one dollar has been used to directly finance any terrorist group.”
Lew admitted that “we have no real way of knowing. We didn’t record the serial numbers of any of the bills we handed over” as “this would not have shown good faith. Friendship is built upon a certain measure of trust. If we don’t trust, if we’re always demanding proof, I don’t see how our two nations can ever hope to be friends.”
Committee Chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) called Lew’s position “stunningly naive. Iran has been a major funder of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East. The Obama Administration has been funneling cash to the regime by the bucket load, apparently ‘no questions asked.’ They are either insane or stupid beyond belief.”
In related news, members of Libya’s parliament have christened former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “the butcher of Libya.” MP Jaballah Al-Shibani complained that “this evil witch took credit for killing Gadhafi, but we are worse off than we ever were under his government. Thousands of families have been destroyed by the radicals, with the women now living under Shariah law with no education, no good health, no schools, no good food, because of Hillary Clinton’s policies. Allah forbid she should gain even more power as America’s president.”
Is the Clinton Foundation a “Phony Charity”
Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency has sparked greater interest in the activities of her family’s famous charitable foundation. The interest has uncovered some disquieting information.
For starters, a remarkably tiny share of all the donations to the Clinton Foundation end up financing aid to the needy. A recent accounting indicates that less than 6% goes out as charity. Over 90% funds the lavish travel expenses of the Clintons themselves and a bloated bureaucracy of Clinton family followers and political sycophants. In a well-run reputable charity the normal split is 75% to the needy, 25% to overhead and expenses.
Even the 6% flowing to needy recipients is not an unmixed blessing. The CHAI program to help AIDS victims appears to have distributed adulterated and diluted AIDS drugs to Third World victims. The Foundation has had a long-term relationship with Indian drug manufacturer Ranbaxy despite mounting evidence of persistently poor quality control. Although Ranbaxy’s drugs are now barred from being sold in the US, former President Clinton continues to praise and the foundation to distribute the company’s HIV/AID drugs to patients abroad.
Then there’s the case of Haiti, where the Foundation used 2010’s devastating earthquake to boost its donations. After Hillary promised to “make Haiti better than it was before the quake,” the Foundation’s efforts mostly netted lush construction contracts for a few (including Roger Clinton and Tony Rodham—Hillary’s brother) and amazingly minuscule benefits for Haitians. After promising to create 60,000 “good paying jobs” an estimated 9,000 jobs with an average wage of less than $4 per day have been generated. After promising to build 15,000 homes, fewer than 3,000 have been constructed.
Clinton rebuffed the criticisms as “nitpicking” founded on a “bean counting mentality. I don’t know much about the numbers, so I’m not concerned with how much goes where. In my mind, providing jobs for all the good people who work at the Foundation is a valid use of the funds. In the end it’s what’s in people’s hearts that really matters.”
Obama Says Americans Have to Give Up Freedoms
In his speech at the United Nations President Obama said that “in order to realize the promise of the UN, the US must give up freedoms. As we work toward the dream of a world government we have to realize that compromise is necessary. Much of the world is less free than America. We could stubbornly refuse to budge and try to hold onto our special status. Or we could be more adult and recognize we have to meet the unfree segment halfway.”
“For example, freedom of speech and religion are not as common elsewhere,” Obama pointed out. “We can’t expect to cram our values down the throats of the rest of the world. Likewise, Americans are far wealthier than they have the right to be. The world and its resources are the common inheritance of all humanity. We cannot justify our having more when others have less. A more equitable redistribution is the price we must pay for a unified world.”
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed Obama’s sentiment, but counseled that “getting there from here won’t be easy. There will be a lot of resistance by Americans grown fat by hogging a disproportionate share of the world’s resources. That’s why I have proposed a universal right to emigrate from anywhere to anywhere. This is something that can be accomplished by executive action once I am president. As the population around the world becomes more homogenized in its values political institutions will be reformed to speed the implementation of social justice everywhere. We will abolish distinctions between rich and poor and empower common people everywhere to attain the equality that our progressive agenda has promised.”
Dems Assail Skittles Analogy
Donald Trump Jr.’s analogy employing a bowl of Skittles sparked outrage among defenders of increased Muslim immigration to the United States. In the analogy, the son of the presidential candidate took on the argument that only a few terrorists would be able to sneak into the country by hiding among the throng of refugees from Syria. Trump asked “suppose I offered you the opportunity to grab a handful of Skittles from a bowl in which just a few were poisoned, would you take them?”
The astoundingly dense Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) called Trump Jr. “a rotten apple that hasn’t fallen very far from the tree. Junior would have everyone believe that children fleeing the war in Syria are like poison candy. We know that the vast majority are not. And even if there are a few dozen terrorists hiding in the mix, well, the number of Americans that might be killed by them is tiny. The chances of being killed in an automobile crash are far higher. If we continue to allow Americans to be exposed to this risk surely the lesser risk of being murdered by a terrorist can be tolerated.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed, saying “instances of genuine Islamic terror are vanishingly rare. As we have seen again this past week, the bigger threat is cops shooting unarmed black men. Until we can find a way of putting a stop to this menace I can’t see the purported urgency of stemming Muslim immigration just to placate xenophobes like Trump. As my good friend Sadiq Khan has urged, we need to adapt and realize that terror attacks are part and parcel of modern urban life.”
Meanwhile, London’s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan continued his campaign tour on behalf of Hillary Clinton, telling American voters that “immigrants into the West shouldn’t have to assimilate. The Quran commands the faithful to go forth and claim the world for Allah. Insisting that these immigrants must give up this holy quest and accept western values violates their freedom of religion.”
In related news, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services admitted that it mistakenly granted citizenship to more than 800 Muslims slated for deportation as “security risks.” An additional 953 were naturalized despite outstanding deportation orders. Director Leon Rodriguez maintained that “these were honest mistakes that could’ve happened to anyone. On the one hand, we have the statutory law. On the other, we have the President’s ‘special action’ mandate. Charting a proper course between this Scylla and Charybdis is no easy task. Frankly, I’m surprised the errors didn’t amount to thousands or tens of thousands.”
A Satirical Look at Recent News
John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties our Founding Fathers tried to protect.
Please do us a favor. If you use material created byThe Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.
By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
This week GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump backed away from his previous questioning of President Obama’s birthplace. His announcement was greeted by an outpouring of venom from assorted Democratic sources.
A bevy of members of the Congressional Black Caucus took turns denouncing Trump as a racist. Rival presidential contender Hillary Clinton asserted that “this proves the man is racist to the core. Anyone who would smear America’s first black president with an insinuation that he was not born in this country is unfit for office.”
The sincerity of the outrage has to be dubious since both Obama and Clinton played key roles in giving the suspicion that Obama might have been born elsewhere life. In 1991 Obama’s publisher bragged “he is the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and was born in Kenya.” This claim sat for 16 years until Obama corrected the record in 2007 during his ultimately successful campaign for the presidency in 2008.
The possibility that Obama might have been born elsewhere was promoted by the campaign of his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton in 2008. Former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher says he was personally pitched the story by longtime Clinton operative Sid Blumenthal in 2008. However, Hillary says she doesn’t recall ever talking to Blumenthal on the matter at the time and insisted that “if it occurred it had to have been on Sid’s own initiative because I would never have approved anything so deplorable.”
Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2008 until she was fired after Obama won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, acknowledged that someone with the campaign had circulated the rumor of Obama’s foreign birth, but insisted that “it was strictly a ‘lone wolf, rogue operation.’ The person believed to be responsible was summarily terminated.” Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and Clinton 2008 strategist, also wrote a memo in March 2007, citing Obama’s “lack of American roots,” as a factor that could work against him in the campaign.”
Police Union Endorses Trump
Following a meeting of the group’s national board where two-thirds voted to support GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, the largest police union—Fraternal Order of Police—announced its endorsement. Chuck Canterbury, the FOP’s national president, called the choice “an easy decision. The contrast between the candidates is as stark as any we’ve ever seen. Trump is for law and order. He supports civilized behavior and public safety. Mrs. Clinton appears to have sided with the enemies of these values.”
In contrast to Trump’s avid courting of the police union, Hillary Clinton disdained “to stoop so low as to try to curry favor with the armed thugs that are gunning down unarmed black men across the nation. They invited me to answer their ‘candidate’s questionnaire,’ but I refused to play their game. It is the police union that is out of step with all the other major labor organizations that have endorsed me. It is a decision that they will come to regret after November.”
The fact that FOP endorsed Hillary’s husband Bill in his 1996 race against Republican Bob Dole didn’t phase the candidate. “It was a different organization back then,” Hillary contended. “They shared America’s values. Since then they’ve been infiltrated by some of this country’s worst elements—racists and gun nuts who actually support arming citizens for self defense. Their reign of terror in the minority community will come to an end when I’m elected.”
In related news, Clinton vowed to stop raids and round-ups of illegal immigrants once she moves into the Oval Office. “The persecution of people whose only crime was breaking laws that shouldn’t exist must cease,” she declared. “Republicans in Congress will be given the opportunity to do the right thing and once Donald Trump is rejected by the voters I’m pretty sure they will come around and legislate a broad amnesty. However, my patience won’t be endless. If legislation isn’t passed within my first 100 days I will follow the lead of out great President Obama and issue the executive orders necessary to get the job done.”
Merkel Demands German Firms Hire Immigrants
Impatient at the slow progress toward integrating Middle Eastern immigrants into the German economy, Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that businesses “step up the pace of hiring. It’s a disgrace that only 100 of the million refugees that have entered the country this year have jobs. The refusal of the private sector to offer enough jobs forces the government to bear the burdens of meeting the need to house and feed these people.”
Hans Volle, Director of Human Resources for Deutsche Tech, complained that “Chancellor Merkel’s aspirations are unreasonable. Hardly any of these refugees understand our language, a majority of them appear to be illiterate, and the level of technical skills we require is nowhere to be found. The notion that we could employ more than a tiny fraction of the refugees is pure fantasy.”
Merkel was unmoved by German industry’s lack of enthusiasm for hiring the immigrants and recalled that “German businesses weren’t so finicky during the 1940s when millions of foreign workers were brought into our factories and put to work on projects of vital importance to the country. Where is their ingenuity? Germany has done great things before and we can do them again if only we have the will to do so.”
In related news, a surprising number of “refugees” in Germany are taking “vacations” to the war-torn sites that they supposedly were fleeing when they arrived in Germany. Merkel maintained that the revelation “shouldn’t be so mysterious. You could run for your life yet still experience homesickness. The idea that these people could be jihadi infiltrators strikes me as far-fetched.”
Hillary Campaign Caught Stealing from Donors
Some supporters of Hillary Clinton are coming to rue giving out their credit card data to the campaign. It seems that individuals who thought they were agreeing to one-time charges are discovering repeated levies on their accounts in their monthly statements. Upon inspecting her recent Visa Card statements, Carol Mahre found multiple charges amounting to $94. “On the phone they asked me to give $25, which I said was okay,” Mahre recounted. “But when I looked at my bill there were three deductions of $25 and one for $19.”
Campaign manager Robby Mook attributed the unauthorized charges to “simple human error. As everyone knows the campaign has been hit hard by pneumonia. Hillary hasn’t been the only one afflicted with memory loss and neurological seizures. It’s easy to see how this could’ve happened. Thankfully, the overcharges were all of relatively small amounts the loss of which should not result in any major hardship for the victims. At worst it’s a case of petty theft, not even a felony. And it pales in comparison with the much bigger stakes of this election.”
Keeping the cumulative overcharges under $100 may be a key to the scheme avoiding scrutiny. Roger Mahre, Carol’s lawyer son, speculated that “a lot of people don’t look carefully at small charges on the credit card bill. So, it wouldn’t surprise me that this scam goes largely unnoticed.”
Whether the overcharges are just random mistakes or a conscious strategy is a good question. The New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton’s first campaign for president in 2008 was forced to reimburse $2.8 million in unauthorized credit card charges. Obama’s campaign was forced to reimburse $900,000. And this was just in response to donors who questioned the charges. There’s no telling how many donors might have been unaware of the thefts.
MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews wondered whether “we are making too much of this whole business. Most of the money these people are spending is wasted on unessential junk. Is the redirection of some of these squandered resources toward the important objective of aiding the election of a person who will advance the progressive agenda really a bad thing? I would have to say that on balance that it is not.”
Democrat VP Candidate Says “Denouncing KKK Is Not Enough”
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine insists that Trump’s multiple denunciations of the Ku Klux Klan and its former leader David Duke “is not enough. Neither Trump nor Pence will use the word ‘deplorable’ in their efforts to evade being pinned down on this issue.”
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was similarly adamant about the GOP candidates’ refusal to use the word “deplorable” as he badgered Pence in an interview. “Why not say deplorable?” Blitzer demanded to know, rejecting Pence’s determination not to engage in name calling.
“We hear the Republicans saying they don’t want the support of Duke and the Klan, yet they decline to take the logical step of labeling them ‘deplorable,’” Blitzer observed. “The only conclusion I can come to is that they don’t want to use the same terminology that Hillary Clinton used to denounce half of Trump’s supporters. This allows them to continue to portray Mrs. Clinton as insensitive. That’s pure politics aimed at heading off our attempt to neutralize her characterization by showing that both sides belittle those they disagree with.”
CNN followed up the interview of Pence with the headline “Pence Won’t Deplore Duke,” a turn of phrase that Blitzer proudly called “ingenious. It doesn’t really matter what Trump or Pence say or don’t say. We control the narrative. The American people will see and hear what we want them to.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield and Dylan Byers declared that widespread popular distrust of the media “threatens democracy.” Byers, citing a recent Gallup poll indicating that only 32% of Americans trust the media to report the news accurately, worried that “a loss of faith in the press could deal a mortal blow to the way the nation is governed. We are the voice of government. We have the awesome responsibility to ensure that its message gets through to the people. The scoffing and ridicule heaped upon us by the targets of our message runs the risk of severing this vital link.”
Byers dismissed accusations that the media might bear a share of the responsibility for this loss of faith, saying “the people don’t know enough to pass judgment on whether our reporting is accurate. It’s like a parishioner doubting whether what his priest is relaying to him is God’s will. Going down that path of disbelief endangers us all.”
A Satirical Look at Recent News
John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties our Founding Fathers tried to protect.
Please do us a favor. If you use material created byThe Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.
Hillary Clinton is the leading member of a generational cohort of elite liberals who brought fascist themes into mainstream liberalism. She and her cohort embody the maternal side of fascism—which is one reason why it is not more clearly recognized as such.
Hillary Clinton is conventionally viewed by her supporters as a liberal—or by conservative opponents as a radical leftist in liberal sheep’s clothing; but it is more accurate to view her as an old-style progressive and a direct descendant of the Social Gospel movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
Hillary increasingly draped herself in the rhetoric of the movement—the youth movement, the women’s movement, the antiwar movement—and gravitated toward others who believed that both her generation and her gender had a rendezvous with destiny.
After graduation from college, Hillary was offered an internship by her hero Saul Alinsky—famed author of Rules for Radicals—about whom she wrote her thesis: “There is Only the Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.” In an unprecedented move, Wellesley College sequestered the thesis in 1992, even refusing to divulge the title until the Clintons left the White House.
Alinsky would invent his famous “method” of community organizing, borrowing tactics from Al Capone’s mobsters, University of Chicago sociologists and John L. Lewis’s union organizers. His violent, confrontational rhetoric often sounded much like that heard from Horst Wessel or his Red Shirt adversaries in the streets of Berlin. Alinsky joined forces with the CIO—then chockablock with Stalinists and other communists—learning how to organize in the streets. In 1940, he founded the Industrial Areas Foundation, which pioneered the community activism movement. He became the mentor to countless communist activists—most famously Cesar Chavez—laying the foundation for both Naderism and the Students for a Democratic Society.
Alinsky believed in exploiting middle-class mores to achieve his agenda, not flouting them as the long-haired hippies did. Alinsky believed that working through friendly or vulnerable institutions in order to smash enemy redoubts was the essence of political organization. He worked closely with reformist and left-leaning clergy, his chief patrons. He mastered the art of unleashing preachers as the frontline activists in his mission of “rubbing raw the sores of discontent.”
Alinsky’s methods inspired the entire 1960s generation of New Left agitators (Barack Obama, for years a Chicago community organizer, was trained by Alinsky’s disciples).
Hillary turned down Alinsky’s job offer in order to attend Yale Law School. He told her it was a huge mistake, but Hillary responded that only by marching through America’s elite institutions could she achieve real power and change the system from within. Hillary helped edit the Yale Review of Law and Social Action, which at the time was a thoroughly radical organ supporting the Black Panthers and publishing articles implicitly endorsing the murder of police. One article, “Jamestown Seventy,” suggested that radicals adopt a program of “political migration to a single state for the purpose of gaining political control and establishing a living laboratory for experiment.” An infamous Review cover depicted police as pigs, one with his head chopped off.
Hillary volunteered to help the Panthers’ legal team, even attending the trial to take notes to help with the defense. She did such a good job of organizing the student volunteers that she was offered a summer internship in the Berkeley, California law offices of Robert Treuhaft, one of Bobby Seale’s lawyers. Treuhaft was a lifetime member of the American Communist Party who had cut his teeth fighting for the Stalinist faction in the California labor movement.
The most revealing aspect of Hillary’s career prior to her arrival in Washington was her advocacy for children. Clinton wrote articles advocating the rights of children to “divorce” their parents. Hillary Clinton’s writings on children show a clear, unapologetic and principled desire to insert the state deep into family life—a goal that is in perfect accord with similar efforts by totalitarians of the past. She condones the state’s assumption of parental responsibilities because she is opposed to the principle of parental authority in any form. Clinton’s writings leave the unmistakable impression that it is the family that holds children back, the state that sets them free.
Selections from “Liberal Fascism,” by Jonah Goldberg (Brave New Village chapter)
By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s daughter went on ABC’s The View talk show to express her dismay at polls showing that a huge majority of Americans consider her mother untrustworthy.
“I realize that some of the things coming out from the emails she tried to conceal are raising questions, but I know my mother and I’m certain that if anything thing she did was wrong in some technical sense that she did it for a good reason,” Chelsea explained. “What a lot of people don’t understand is that her job as the nation’s top diplomat often required her to deliberately lie in order to protect the country. It should be understandable that it might be hard to turn this skill off and on from one situation to another.”
She contrasted “the patriotic motives behind the untruths my mother has spoken with the greed-based dissembling that businessmen like Donald Trump habitually deploy to market their wares. The billions that Trump made via this tactic were deliberate and dwarf the hundreds of millions my parents have incidentally acquired in the course of their careers in public service.”
“There is no one I trust more than my mom,” Chelsea continued. “Her efforts combined with those of my father have built up a hefty inheritance that will ensure that my material needs and those of my children will be met for the foreseeable future. I am proud of the entrepreneurship they’ve shown in extracting such generous fees for speeches. I doubt the self-proclaimed ‘deal maker’ could come close to matching their profit margin.”
The former First Daughter said she has “no qualms about entrusting the care of my children to my mother in the event anything happens to me. They are safely out of the womb and fully protected as persons under our laws—a distinction my mother has had occasion to point out during the past year.”
In related news, Chelsea herself showed she has learned from her parents’ example. In an appearance at an event hosted by College Progressives at Penn State University, students were offered an opportunity to see and hear Chelsea speak for a $500 per head admission. Photos with the former First Daughter were available for $1,000 a pop. And for an additional $2,700, attendees would be granted access to a special reception with her afterwards.
Mentioning Hacked DNC Emails Called “Unfair”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) called GOP mention of the content of the Democratic National Committee’s emails hacked and published by Wikileaks “unfair. It’s like a football team purloining a copy of the other team’s playbook and using that to win a game. It’s cheating. It’s dishonest.”
Pelosi brushed aside email content revealing that the DNC cheated by rigging their primaries against Hillary Clinton’s main rival for the nomination Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt), saying “since when do two wrongs make a right? We are calling on the GOP to turn aside from a tit-for-tat. Attempting to get even by mimicking disreputable tactics escalates the conflict. This is a chance for the GOP to take the high road.”
The former House Speaker’s plea addressed to the current House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) urged that “Democrats and Republicans must present a united front in the face of the threat posed by Donald Trump. This outsider does not understand the unwritten rules and long standing traditional ways the two Parties interact. He will mercilessly batter us with evidence that was never meant for anyone to see.”
Ryan’s responded that “I have no authority to issue the cease-and-desist order that Rep. Pelosi is requesting. For one, the RNC is an independent body outside the span of the Speaker’s reach. For two, I can’t see that there could be any justification for suspending freedom of speech on the grounds that it makes Democrats uncomfortable.”
Pelosi characterized Ryan’s response as “misogynistic and callous. Here we have the first woman with a realistic chance to become president and all he can do is prattle on about freedom of speech. Where are his priorities. When we add in the toll the stress of the campaign is taking on Hillary’s heath it’s like he’s kicking her when she’s down. Is there no chivalrous bone in his body?”
In related news, Clinton ended her long press conference drought this week as she was mercilessly grilled for 89 seconds by media hounds demanding to know “how was your Labor Day weekend?” and “are you ready to be president?”
Bill Clinton Calls “Make America Great Again” a Racist Message
Former President Bill Clinton made an effort to stir opposition to Donald Trump’s promise to “make America great again” by claiming its intent is “racist. These are code words understood by all white people as a pledge to put blacks down.”
“The main targets of Donald Trump’s vow to bring law and order to our inner cities are black youths,” Clinton asserted. “Look at what he’s saying about black gangs killing each other in Chicago. Clearly, these are the people who will be suppressed by Trump’s knee-jerk support for law enforcement.”
“What is his promise to bring jobs back to the inner cities other than a subtle effort to re-institute black servitude?” Clinton asked. “It would undo the liberation of millions from dreary lives of daily toil just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I urge every voter to seriously weigh whether they really want to go backward or whether they are willing to trust Hillary to further the progress made during the Obama Administration.”
President Obama also weighed in on the topic and predicted that “voters will reject Trump’s ‘wacky’ idea. America is as great as its ever been right now. I can’t conceive of a way to make it any better than to continue the progress we have achieved over the last eight years.”
Ironically, a promise to make America great again isn’t a new one. Bill Clinton made this same promise when he ran for president in 1992.
New ISIS Commander Was Trained by US
It turns out that Gulmurod Khalimov, the new ISIS military commander, was one of the “moderate” terrorists who received training from the US State Department. From 2003-2014 Khalimov participated in five counter-terrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program.
Department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala insisted that Khalimov had “been properly vetted.” The thoroughness of this so-called vetting was called into question by the revelation that he had appeared in a video in which he called Americans pigs and boasted “we will find your towns, we will come to your homes, and we will kill you.”
Jhunjhunwala maintained that “the Administration was fully aware of Khalimov’s threat, but went ahead with the training as a show of sportsmanship. One of the things President Obama is trying to overcome is the perception that the United States is just a big bully. We outgun these jihadis by a considerable margin. Training a few of their leaders is meant to restore a measure of gallantry on the battlefield. It’s sort of like handing your opponent his dropped sword so the duel can continue.”
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter added that “Khalimov only rose to power because Russia’s attacks on ISIS are killing people we trained at great expense. The Administration considers this a hostile act of interference with its aims for the Middle East region. Russia must mend its ways or face retaliation.”
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump labeled the Obama foreign policy “a disaster” and the Department’s various arguments in defense of it “stupid. It’s just one more illustration of the kind of failed leadership provided by Obama and how horrible it will be for our country if Hillary Clinton is allowed to continue it.”
Clinton called Trump’s open criticism of President Obama “disgraceful and unpatriotic. Our country is at war with these terrorists. It is every American’s duty to stand behind our President and show their support. To do less is to invite our enemies to divide and conquer us.” Averring that “President Obama has been far too lenient with his critics,” Clinton assured voters that she “will take sterner measures to crack down on disloyalty.”
In related news, Clinton declined an invitation to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on the grounds that his prior meeting with Trump “marks him as a man of such astoundingly poor judgment that he cannot discern the difference between an unfit poseur and a legitimate claimant to the office of president.”
Meanwhile, Mexican Senator Armando Ríos Piter is pushing an initiative that “would disavow the Treaty of Guadalupe and resume the state of war that existed between the United States and Mexico prior to its signing in 1848. The gringos stole half of our country. We will call upon the tens of millions of our compatriots residing in the United States to carry out ‘lone wolf’ attacks until the Norte Americano occupiers vacate our land.”
Dem Adviser Minimizes Risk of Vote Fraud
Democratic operative James Carville sought to reassure Americans that the scope of any potential election fraud is too small to be concerned about.
“It has been my experience that the maximum number of fraudulent votes from any one voting machine is around 100,” Carville said. “I know of no presidential election that has ever been decided by 100 votes one way or the other. It would take an army of hackers to rig enough machines to reach a decisive impact on the outcome. And I just can’t imagine that anyone would be willing to go to such lengths to steal an election.”
Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, issued a stern warning to voters that “the election of Donald Trump would risk undermining our opportunity to blunt Russian imperialism in Syria. The United States is far stronger than Putin’s Russia. We must not let them succeed.”