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

This week FBI Director James Comey announced it might have to revisit the criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. “In the course of our investigation on another case we came across a device that held emails pertinent to our earlier probe of Secretary Clinton,” Comey said in his letter to Congress.

Coming on the heels of recent Wikileaks revelations of stunning examples of corruption and obstruction of justice in emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s computer, as well as Project Veritas’ videos implication the Clinton campaign in dirty tricks and election fraud, the FBI’s announcement was not well taken by the Democrats.

Podesta called Comey’s action “an unprecedented betrayal and a violation of the agreement we reached with him four months ago that Secretary Clinton would be found innocent of any criminal intent regarding her illegal system. This hint of scandal so late in the campaign threatens to derail the election of the most qualified person to ever seek the office of president.”

Former President Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich questioned the “irresponsible” timing of the release, saying that “it should be up to whoever is elected president in 11 days to decide whether there need be any further effort expended on a matter ruled closed last July by Comey himself.”

Left-wing economist Paul Krugman went on a tweet rampage alleging that “Comey is trying to swing the election” and claiming that “reneging on his earlier verdict of innocent constitutes ‘double jeopardy.’ This is expressly forbidden by the Fifth Amendment.”

David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, condemned Comey for “placing institutional loyalty to the FBI over his loyalty to President Obama. The FBI has taken a lot of flak for letting Hillary escape indictment for her extraordinary carelessness. But taking flak is the role of loyal subordinates. Comey’s wilting under the damage to the FBI’s reputation as a law enforcement agency exhibits a weakness that demonstrates his unfitness to serve in government.”

Vice-President Joe Biden defended Clinton’s decision to resort to using a secret illegal email system, calling it “a natural response to the unrelenting abuse she’s received from Republicans and their media hatchet men over the past 30 years. I don’t blame her and Bill for racking up all the cash they’ve pocketed since leaving the White House. I’m sure they see it as deserved compensation for the torment they’ve suffered.”

In related news, Attorney General Loretta Lynch declined to comply with an investigation by Congress of the Obama Administration’s secret efforts to pay Iran $1.7 billion in ransom money. Melanie Newman, Director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs justified Lynch’s refusal to cooperate as “a matter of prosecutorial discretion. As the nation’s chief law-enforcement official it is within her power to determine whether any legal action needs to be taken in any particular case. In this case she has determined that there is nothing worthy of further inquiry.” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan) characterized Lynch’s position as “the equivalent of a crook who pleads the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination.”

ACLU Files to Force Catholic Hospitals to Sterilize Patients

This week the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights demanding that it force Catholic hospitals to sterilize patients. The complaint alleges that the refusal to provide a service the religiously supported hospitals deem a violation of their faith is unlawful discrimination against women.

ACLU spokesman Bertram Petty asserted that “religious dogma must yield to the government’s right to determine what kinds of medical procedures are essential human rights under the Affordable Care Act. The government represents everyone. The Catholic Church represents a minority. Clearly, democracy requires that a minority’s preferences must give way to the mandates derived from majority rule.”

Petty dismissed the argument that there are many non-religious hospitals where patients could seek the services not available at Catholic institutions, saying that “the abundance of secular alternatives evades the main point. The ACA has laid out a list of procedures patients are entitled to receive from every health care provider. If we start allowing providers to decline to comply with requests we are elevating idiosyncratic notions of individual or religious rights to supersede the definition of rights granted to us by the government.”

“While we have some sympathy for the idea that there is a zone of personal freedom for individual choice, we also must adjust when government decides to narrow that zone, as it has with the ACA,” Petty added. “To do less would be to permit individualism to trump equality.”

In related news, a recent poll conducted by Politico and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 58% of voters oppose using taxpayer money to fund abortions performed under the Medicaid system, while 36% favor it. Hillary Clinton has pledged to repeal the law that currently bars the federal government from spending tax dollars on abortions. Robert Blendon, the Harvard professor who conducted the poll, doubts it will negatively affect her election chances “because few voters are aware of her actual views on the topic.”

Democrat Election Fraud Continues Across America

In Florida, Gladys Coego, a temporary worker for the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, was caught altering mailed in ballots by coloring in “bubbles” that the original voter had left blank. Coego justified her effort “to salvage votes that otherwise would’ve gone to waste. If a person doesn’t fully exercise their right to vote where’s the harm in me finishing the job they left undone?”

In a separate incident, Tomika Curgil was accused by the State Attorney’s office of filing voter registration forms for five individuals without their consent, 17 additional forms for fictitious persons and several for persons recently deceased.

Juan Cuba, executive director of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, urged that “we not overreact to these minor infractions that obviously stem from misplaced enthusiasm. Granted, they shouldn’t have done what they did, but it was not for personal gain. It was out of a zealous concern for the good of the nation. At worst, it couldn’t result in more than a few dozen unwarranted ballots being cast. The odds that it might change the outcome are incredibly small.”

In Virginia, Vafalay Massaquoi is facing felony charges for using fake names to fill out voter registration forms. Massaquoi said he viewed his actions as “fair payback for the hundreds of years of oppression of blacks in this state and the country. I felt it was long past the time that we needed to balance out all the voices that were silenced by slavery and Jim Crow.”

In Virginia’s Fairfax County, voters requesting mail-in ballots received a letter from Governor Terry McAuliffe urging them to vote Democrat. Including partisan campaign material in the mailings is illegal. Nonetheless, McAuliffe labeled the incident “an honest mistake. Can we really expect county employees to know that it would be against the law to insert a letter signed by their state’s governor into the mailing? I’m sure this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened. So let’s not make too much of it.”

In North Carolina, Hillary supporter Robert Dougherty bragged on Facebook about how he voted for some of his Facebook friends using their identities and saving them the bother of “having to wait on line to vote the straight Democratic ticket we all support.” Dougherty vowed to “continue voting everyday right up to November 8^th using names and addresses I got from Google. I can’t believe how easy it is.”

Longtime Clinton campaign operative James Carville advised “everyone should chill out. Of course there will be some election fraud. Rather than crying about it the Republicans need to show some initiative to come up with their own schemes to offset what we Democrats are doing. That’s what competition is all about.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice warns that “private citizens challenging voters to prove their identity and videotaping or photographing alleged fraud is a violation of federal voting rights laws. Oversight of the election process must be left up to the authorized public officials.”

Dem VP Candidate Says Hillary Will Seek Broader War-Making Powers

In an appearance on the CNN program The Axe Files, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) reassured David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Obama, that “Secretary Clinton wants to unleash the president’s ability to move more quickly deploy military force against this nation’s enemies. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that Congress passed to enable the Bush Administration to invade Afghanistan is too restrictive. The next president needs the authority to strike quickly without warning.”

Kaine cited the current stalemate in Syria between US and Russian forces as an example of where broader presidential war-making authority is needed. “Despite the atrocities carried out by the Russians on behalf of the Assad regime, President Obama has been unable to intervene because of Congressional interference,” Kaine contended. “He has drawn ‘red lines’ that have been violated, but has hesitated to retaliate out of fear that Congress might impede a successful use of force like a ‘no fly zone.’”

The authorization Hillary would pursue was characterized as “a sort of ‘power-of-attorney’ that she could employ to take action on the nation’s behalf without having to get an explicit congressional okay on a case-by-case basis,” Kaine said. “If such an authorization had been put in place during the early years of the Obama Administration the perpetrator of the Wikileaks invasion into private emails that are now threatening to overthrow the election could have been ‘droned’ as Hillary urged President Obama to do.”

In related news, Hillary is said to be considering appointing current Vice-President Joe Biden as Secretary of State in her administration. Jake Sullivan, a foreign policy adviser to the Clinton campaign touted Biden as “a man with the kind of ‘hands on’ experience that could be very valuable in the critical task of dealing with the leaders of other nations. His suggestion that home owners get a shotgun for personal self-defense and fire it through the front door to scare off intruders reveals a solid grasp of the practical aspects of mounting an appropriate show of force to deter foreign aggression.”

Obama Says Consumers to Blame for Health Insurance Cost Hikes

With the price of health insurance under Obamacare continuing to spiral upward many consumers are concerned they won’t be able to afford to purchase the mandatory coverage. While the average projected increase for next year is around 25 percent, in many places it is much higher. In Arizona, for example, cost hikes are expected to exceed 100 percent.

President Obama, the guy who promised that the cost of insurance would decline under the ironically misnamed Affordable Care Act, blamed consumers for “failing to shop around to find the best bargain.” Unfortunately the choice of providers needed for this advice to work has also been a casualty of the ACA. In parts of Arizona where some of the price hikes have been most severe only one provider is offering qualifying policies.

Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who designed Obamacare, acknowledged that “a key flaw in the program is that the penalties for not buying health care insurance are too low. If the fines for noncompliance are only hundreds of dollars while the cost of the insurance is thousands or tens of thousands a year, too many will opt to pay the fines. Hillary’s plan to fix the program by boosting the penalties up to where they are higher than the cost to buy the insurance will force these scofflaws into compliance.”

A deterrent to buying the mandated policies that went unmentioned by the program’s advocates are the high deductibles. Under the “affordable” Bronze plan no benefits are paid to the insured until he or she has already incurred and paid for $6,000 in covered medical expenses for each policy-year of coverage. Those who don’t have to be hospitalized won’t likely meet the deductible.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, however, pointed out that “a simple visit to a hospital emergency room lasting less than a full day will easily added up to several times the amount of the deductible. The bill for an x-ray can easily exceed $1,000. Dosing a patient with a couple of Tylenol capsules can be billed at over $100. Those without insurance will have to pay all of these amounts out of their own pocket. So they should stop whining about deductibles.”

A saner approach to health care would ask why care rendered in a hospital should be so outrageously expensive. Perhaps critics who argue that the ACA is better understood as an intended coerced transfer of wealth from consumers to the moneyed interests from the health sector—hospitals, drug manufacturers, and insurers—who lobbied to get the legislation passed by an all-Democrat, Party-line vote back in 2010.

German Court Overturns Rape Conviction

The Iraqi immigrant who raped a ten-year old boy in the changing area of a swimming pool in the Austrian capital of Vienna had his conviction overturned by the German Supreme Court this past week.

The assailant, Amir A, had previously offered a “sexual emergency” argument in justification of the rape. “It had been more than four months since I had seen my wife and I had to receive sexual release for the sake of my health,” he claimed. The health of his victim was negatively impacted by the encounter. The child suffered severe anal injuries and is still plagued by serious post-traumatic stress disorder.

The trial court rejected the “sexual emergency” plea and Amir A was convicted of sexual assault and rape. On appeal, Supreme Court President Thomas Philipp overturned the rape conviction on the grounds that “the fact that the  defendant did not have a fluidity with the German language supports an argument that he did not understand that the his struggling victim was objecting to the sexual encounter. The notion that the boy’s age or physical resistance would be adequate evidence of lack of consent unfairly imposes Western standards on a person from a non-western culture. It is my understanding that where Amir comes from violently subduing a child for the purposes of sexual gratification is an accepted practice.” Consequently, Philipp vacated Amir’s conviction “lest we make him a victim of rules he neither understands nor consents to.”

In related news, a Syrian refugee with four wives and 23 children has been receiving nearly $400,000 a year in welfare benefits. The migrant, whose name was withheld by the German government “to protect him from the wrath of outraged taxpayers,” maintains that the benefits are his due since “it is the obligation of unbelievers to pay the jizya to Muslims as commanded in the Quran if they don’t want to be killed.”

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 by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.

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

 The Democratic National Committee Chairperson Donna Brazile assailed videos from Project Veritas declaring that “these stolen tapes should not be permitted to be viewed by voters prior to the election. Posing as a Democratic Party intern for the purpose of secretly gathering inside information is just a lowdown dirty trick.

In a testy exchange with Fox News’ Meagan Kelly, the DNC replacement for the previously disgraced Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who was forced to resign after leaked emails revealed that she was leading an effort to rig the Democratic nomination process to benefit Hillary Clinton, Brazile attempted to divert attention from the content of the video expose´ by asserting that the manner in which the evidence was obtained “renders it inadmissible” and predicted that “no prosecutor will ever bring charges against the Democratic Party.”

In the videos, Democratic “black ops” officials Scott Foval and Bob Creamer boasted of “paying mentally ill ‘street crazies’” to instigate violence at Trump campaign rallies and carting around bogus voters to cast multiple ballots “in states with weak voter ID laws.” Brazile contended that “the deception and betrayal of trust by Veritas’ phony volunteers goes beyond anything that we have previously seen. Campaign practices that have enjoyed 50 years of success are now threatened with neutralization by O’Keefe’s criminal trespass.”

Brazile also argued that “the emails stolen and published by Wikileaks are, as Secretary Clinton pointed out in the debate, a conspiracy by the Russians and Trump to undermine the November election. These emails were confidential communications. Their misappropriation by a foreign government is evidence of the threat to our democracy that Trump and his co-conspirators represent. No reputable news outlet will participate in repeating these lies to the American public.” She went on to forecast that “after she’s elected, President Clinton will most likely instruct her Attorney General to root out these enemies and put them out of commission.”

Ironically, in one of the leaked emails Brazile lamented “the despair of many Americans over the state of the economy. There are new jobs, but they are low-wage and part-time jobs. The economic stagnation that has hit this country puts President Obama, his policies, and his supporters in the Democratic Party in an extremely unflattering light that does not bode well for how voters may react when casting their ballots.”

In related news, the 69-year-old Sharon Teeter who claimed that Trump supporter 73-year-old Richard Campbell punched her in the face at a rally earlier this year now “remembers” that “he might have brushed me accidentally.” It seems that her memory was enhanced by her identification as a Democratic Party operative on the Veritas video of Foval calling her “one of our trained political activists.”

Administration Promises Saudis it Will “Fix” 9/11 Victims Law

Still smarting from a Congressional override of his veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, a law that allows victims of the 9/11 jihadi attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon the right to sue foreign governments that aided the terrorists, President Obama has ordered Secretary of State John Kerry to work out a scheme with the government of Saudi Arabia to nullify the law.

In a meeting held this week, Kerry assured Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir that “we will figure out how we can adjust the law in a way that is mutually satisfactory to both our governments.”

Al-Jubeir warned that “numerous countries are looking at reciprocal measures to retaliate against this affront to Islam. If the Americans think that the alleged puny assistance my country may or may not have provided to the 9/11 attackers warrants this disproportionate response just let me remind them that there is much much more we could’ve done or might do in the future to make their lives miserable.”

The implied threat that Saudi Arabia might join the ranks of those Islamic nations openly financing terrorists moved Kerry to contend that “a compromise is essential if we are to avert a blood bath we are not prepared to rebuff. The wiser course is to accept the lesser evil of the ‘pin-prick’ attacks that we have seen since 9/11 than to provoke the enmity of our long-time Saudi allies.”

Madonna Makes an Offer

Included in her introduction of comedian Amy Schumer at a New York City performance, pop star Madonna told the audience that “if you vote for Hillary Clinton, I will give you a blow job.” It was not clear whether this was an inducement or a threat.

Audience member Richard Long of Queens found the prospect appealing. “Madonna said she’s not a douche and that she swallows,” Long pointed out. “That’s classy. Hillary’s got my vote.”

In contrast, audience member Anne Chester of Manhattan wondered “whether this is the kind of thing a Clinton supporter ought to be saying. Look at all the trouble Trump got himself into for his lewd talk. I mean, blow jobs from Monica are what got President Clinton impeached. It makes you wonder which side is more tawdry.”

For her part, Schumer saw the offer as “f*cking fantastic” and predicted that “there’ll be a stampede of guys who were going to vote for Trump racing to get in line for their turn to be serviced by a true artist.”

Obamacare in “Transition Phase”

Health insurance premium hikes and dwindling service alternatives under the Affordable Care Act were described by President Obama as “a transition phase of the program.”

“Right now a lot of people are whining about having to pay more or having no choice of doctors or plans where they live,” Obama remarked. “All of these complaints originate from a selfish individual perspective. Sure, some isolated individuals may have to pay more and get less, but in the more crucial issue of our progress toward collective social justice we are on track.”

Before Obamacare, annual family premiums for employer-provided coverage cost an average of $13,000. This year those premiums are $18,000. For next year the already over-priced health plans mandated by the ACA have been authorized to jack up payments the insured must bear by 20% to 90% in various locations around the country. On top of these boosted prices, typical $5,000 annual deductibles result in most basically healthy individuals essentially getting zero benefits.

Meanwhile, the President’s unilateral and unauthorized multi-billion dollar bailouts of selected health insurance companies have not been sufficient to prevent a continued cascade of exits from the market by these companies. The resulting decline of options has been characterized as “a simplification that has spared many the difficult task of evaluating medical services that are really beyond their competence to evaluate,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell. “Few are qualified to to assess what they need and how to get it. By pealing off the excess suppliers the ACA has lightened the burden of choosing for millions.”

Despite the unfavorable trends overtaking the ACA, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has vowed “to make it better.” One of her proposed improvements is to make illegal aliens eligible for enrollment in the program. “Right now there are 30 million individuals living in the shadows because of their undefined immigration status,” she declared. “Making them eligible for health care is the humane thing to do.” The financial problems will be overcome “by the injection of money” obtained from “increased taxes on those who can afford it.”

In other health news, a Democratic National Committee tour bus was caught illegally dumping human waste from its on-board toilet onto a Lawrenceville, Georgia street this week. The DNC issued an apology for what it claimed was “an honest mistake. We had no idea that dumping hazardous waste onto a street could be illegal.”

Libertarian Bewails “Double Standard”

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson complained about the media’s “double standard” after they ignored Hillary Clinton’s geographic inaccuracy regarding Mosul while lampooning him as “an ignorant dope” when he failed to recognize “Aleppo.”

“I wasn’t Secretary of State for four years like Hillary was,” he pointed out. “I was peacefully minding my own business. Why should I be expected to know such minutia? But she is the one who supposed to be the world’s smartest woman. She is the one who never ceases to remind us that she’s got 30 years of experience in government. If she’s so smart and experienced why doesn’t she know where Mosul is?”

MCNBC interviewer Mike Barnicle, who ambushed Johnson with the Aleppo question back in September defended the double standard saying that “Hillary Clinton’s bona fidesare not in dispute. She has already been thoroughly vetted by every major news outlet. We are confident that she knows what she is talking about even if she messes up. Johnson or Trump, on the other hand are the outsiders whose suitability for governing is questioned by every reputable source. Consequently, every misstep by these guys warrants our skepticism.”

In related news, President Obama forgave Hillary for revealing classified information on nuclear response times during her debate with Donald Trump Wednesday night. “These ‘senior moments’ are something that anyone of her age might experience,” he said. “I’m confident there was no intent to illegally divulge this information. Besides, even if our adversaries are aware that it takes four minutes to initiate a retaliatory nuclear strike I don’t see what advantage they’d gain by having that knowledge. So I forgive her and urge voters to make her our next president.”

Hillary “Horrified” by Trump’s Abortion Comments

At this week’s debate, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton professed herself “horrified” by GOP rival Donald Trump’s denunciation of partial-birth abortions as “ripping babies out of the womb” and criticizing the practice as “terrible” and “unacceptable.”

“Granted, the elimination of these near term fetuses is a gruesome procedure,” she admitted. “But what’s more gruesome is Trump’s attempt to use these tragic medical interventions as a scare tactic to overturn the rights established by Roe v. Wade. For too long state legislatures across the country unfairly prohibited or restricted a woman’s right to an abortion. Fortunately, in 1973 the Supreme Court courageously stepped in to overrule these states. They didn’t let rigid adherence to out-dated notions of separation of powers deter them from voiding clearly unjust legislation.”

Trump found fault with Clinton’s position and averred that “the role of the Court is to enforce the Constitution and laws made legislatures. It is not authorized to make new laws if it is dissatisfied with what the people’s elected representatives have done.” Trump pledged that he would appoint judges who “will be pro-life,” “have a conservative bent,” and “interpret the constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted.”

Clinton rebutted Trump’s position by pointing out that “the number of individuals harmed by partial-birth abortions is tiny compared to the millions of women who have benefited from the Court’s reinterpretation. Rather than try to rehash this issue it is time that we all adjust to the fact that the right to an abortion is now settled law and move forward instead of backward.”

In related debate news, Hillary defended using her role as Secretary of State to enrich herself, her husband, and the Clinton Foundation, insisting that “everything I did as secretary of state was in furtherance of our country’s interests and our values. That I and my family have prospered while I was doing that is what I would call ‘collateral benefits.’ I see no harm that it was a ‘win-win’ outcome.”

Media Assails Trump’s “Wait and See” Stance on Election

The broadcast news “talking heads” went into hysterics following Republican presidential contender Donald Trump’s refusal to automatically concede on election night if it looks like the votes go against him. On CNN, the commentators proclaimed Trump’s stance “a threat to our democracy.” All professed to have never heard such a statement at any previous presidential debate. Which is true because no other candidate was ever asked this question.

Whether Trump might have good reason to wait until he sees the election results for himself seems to be supported by several facts. On the one hand, there have been a number of pieces of evidence suggesting that fraud may play a significant role in deciding the outcome. The Wikileaks’ publication of DNC emails that detailed how the Democratic Party leadership rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders is a veritable “smoking gun” from the current election cycle. The Veritas videos exposing DNC-financed efforts to commit fraud also make a compelling case for scrutinizing the returns.

On the other hand, there seems to be an ample opportunity to perpetrate fraud given the large number of invalid names on voter rolls. Nearly two million deceased persons are still registered to vote. Nearly three million persons are registered to vote in more than one state. Then there’s Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s suggestion that non-citizens could use state-issued driver’s licenses to register and vote. And leftist judges have voided state efforts to adopt voter ID requirements virtually everywhere except Indiana, where Democratic dirty tricks expert Scott Foval says “it’s easy to cheat.”

The same media that castigates Trump’s reluctance to simply accept the November media-reported outcome as final hypocritically defended 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Vice-President Al Gore’s refusal to accept the reported outcome on election day. Instead, he embarked on a legal challenge that took over a month to resolve.

President Obama tried to put it all into perspective by characterizing Trump’s objections as “whining. Nothing different is going on now. Every other Republican has accepted the verdict on election day, even though GOP complaints about election shenanigans have always been part of the rhetoric. His inability to take it like a man is further proof of his unfitness. I’m not surprised that genuine Republicans have universally condemned Trump’s caterwauling and sought to distance themselves from him.”

Whether Obama should have any credibility on this issue is in serious doubt. Bob Creamer, one of the architects of the long-running election fraud scheme uncovered by Project Veritas, visited the Obama White House more than 300 times and met with the President more than 40 times. However, Press Secretary Josh Earnest discounted the significance of these meetings because “the President is not the kind of person who would condone the kind of ‘dirty tricks’ of which Mr. Creamer is accused.”

In related news, Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) called Trump’s fear that the election could be rigged “ridiculous. My good friend George Soros’ company owns about half of the voting machines that will be used and he assures me that the election will be fair.”

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 by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

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

The flood of emails obtained from Clinton confidants detailing repeated instances of illegal, dishonest, and despicable behavior has provoked a howl of protest from the Clinton for President campaign.

“Lest anyone forget, let me remind them that these emails were purloined surreptitiously and illegally,” campaign manager Robby Mook complained. “By invading the privacy of people actively supporting Secretary Clinton’s election they have been forced to unwillingly testify against themselves. This compelled testimony is as flagrant a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee against self-incrimination as we have ever seen in a political campaign in our nation’s history.”

Among the revelations contained in the Wikileaks’ document release were emails disclosing that Hillary herself was the one who deleted the missing 33,000 work-related emails, that Phillipe Reines, then Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested ways of obstructing the handing over the emails that had been subpoenaed, and that Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon was receiving illegal inside information on the Department of Justice investigation of Hillary’s email security breaches.

Mook likened the Wikileaks operation to “the illegal wiretaps that police sometimes tried to use against suspected members of organized crime. The courts have always tossed this kind of evidence and we are fully confident that they will toss any emails obtained without the writers’ freely given consent if this matter ever goes to trial, which is something I doubt President Obama would allow.”

In the meantime, Mook expressed gratitude that “the nation’s major media outlets have pretty effectively tossed the Wikileaks garbage out of the ‘court of public opinion.’ They realize that there is no need to get voters stirred up over events that should have no bearing on the upcoming election. What’s done is done. The bigger issue is whether this country will permit a person as unfit as Donald Trump to become president.”

Interestingly, a significant number of the emails exposed by Wikileaks revealed a close coordination between the Clinton campaign and the supposedly “objective” media. Nevertheless, Mook brushed this aside as “irrelevant,” claiming that “it should be no mystery that those who believe in truth and justice would share a common interest in determining who should run the government.”

In related news, another email exposed by Wikileaks showed former Clinton administration official Bill Ivey advising Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to “conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry,” but warned that “the unawareness remains strong, but compliance is fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious thinking and demographically-inspired messaging.”

Wikileaks Exposes Democrats’ Disdain for Catholicism, Latinos & Blacks

One of the latest batches of emails made public by Wikileaks revealed that key Clinton supporters have expressed low opinions of Catholic doctrines. Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri labeled them “backwards.” Center for American Progress (a public policy advocacy organization founded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Director John Podesta) senior fellow John Halpin called conservative interpretations of the religion “an amazing bastardization of the faith.” And Podesta has been working with billionaire financier of left-wing causes George Soros to promote a “Catholic Spring” modeled on the “Arab Spring” that has successfully replaced the secular government of Egypt with jihadi fanatics.

Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist, appeared on Fox News to defend the disdain, saying that “reform of the Catholic Church is long overdue. The majority of Catholics disagree with the hierarchy’s positions on abortion and same-sex marriage. Why shouldn’t the Democratic Party assist this majority to throw off the shackles of an erroneous dogma and rewrite beliefs using a majority rule approach?”

Roginsky hailed the Obama Administration’s progress “in breaking down out-dated thinking that would bar the government from funding pregnancy termination services that benefit women of all faiths. Churches must not be allowed to refuse to participate. Religious rigidity must yield to social justice. We have elections to select those who govern us. These elections give moral weight to the policies that are decreed by the government. It is everyone’s obligation to submit to the rules laid down by the president and the courts.”

“There is no downside for the Democratic Party from these Wikileaks disclosures,” Roginsky insisted. “First of all, few people will see or hear of the comments made in these emails. Second, whatever scraps of information do sneak through will be filtered and interpreted by our allies in the media. Finally, polls show that the majority of Catholics are with us on this. So, I think that’ll be game, set, and match for Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic slate up and down the ballot.”

Another Podesta email lamented the necessity of having to deal with “needy Latinos. All we want are their votes, not their policy ideas. Hillary knows how to govern. These amateurs need to play the role we’ve already laid out for them.” Podesta also took a swipe at blacks calling them “never-do-wells who fare badly almost irrespective of circumstances. Luckily, they appreciate that while Democrats have sawed off the lower rungs of the ladder to success they see that we have enacted the welfare benefits that allow them to survive.”

CNN Irked at Chant

In a post-debate campaign rally GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump continued his charges of media bias by referencing the three-on-one (two moderators and Hillary Clinton vs. Trump) format of the Sunday night face-off. The crowd began chanting “CNN sucks,” much to the dismay of a few CNN “talking heads,” including Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, Brian Stelter, and Bill Carter.

Cuomo characterized the crowd response as “dangerous and unprecedented. We haven’t treated Trump any differently than any other Republican nominee. All of them—Romney, McCain, Bush—took it in stride without complaining. That Trump would make an issue out of it shows his political naivete.”

Stelter agreed saying, “this is much worse than what we’ve seen in the past. I mean, it’s not as bad as the mobs that have burned down buildings and assaulted people after cops have shot another unarmed black man, but, jeez, these are Republicans. They’re supposed to have self control.”

Camerota found “the disrespect for reporters intolerable. We are the eyes and ears of America. We bring the news into everyone’s home. Impugning our integrity as Trump has so wantonly done undermines the public’s faith in the accuracy of our reports. And as you’ve said, Chris, no Republican before Trump has ventured into this uncharted and dangerous territory.”

“You’re right Alisyn, we are the ‘fourth estate,” Cuomo asserted. “Trump’s irresponsible attack on our objectivity threatens the very foundation upon which our way of life depends. Something bad is going to happen and it will be all his fault.”

RAF Has “Green Light” to Fire on Russian Jets

The risky nature of the United States’ entanglement in the Syrian civil war ratcheted up a notch when pilots of our NATO ally, the United Kingdom, were given the okay to shoot down Russian fighter aircraft if they feel threatened by them.

Current Secretary of State John Kerry and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both spoken of the “need to confront Russia” in Syria. At last Sunday’s presidential debate Clinton contrasted her strong stance in support of a “no fly zone” in Syria with presidential rival Donald Trump’s “cowardly preference for avoiding the steps necessary to counter this nation’s chief adversary.”

For his part, Trump questioned the logic of the US policy in the region. In his view the main adversary is ISIS. He went on to suggest that the United States and Russia joining as allies to fight these terrorists might be the more sensible course of action. “I know that our two countries have had differences,” Trump said. “We may not see eye to eye on some things, but Russia seems civilized compared to the Islamic terrorists who bomb innocent civilians, behead hostages, stone women who object to being raped, and throw homosexuals off of high rise buildings.”

This weekend President Obama and his top foreign policy advisers have scheduled a meeting to discuss options for dealing with the Syrian military crisis. One option entails US bombing of Syrian military deployments. The downside of exercising this option is the co-mingling of Russian and Syrian forces in the target zone. “No one likes the optics of US planes bombing Russian troops,” said a source requesting anonymity. “It would be orders of magnitude worse than the Cuban missile crisis that almost led to nuclear war in 1962.” Clearer heads are said to be favoring providing more weapons to the al-Qaeda forces opposing the Assad regime that governs Syria.

As if this weren’t unsettling enough, the US Air Force has been practicing simulated nuclear bomb missions in the Nevada desert. In one test run B-2 bombers dropped a pair of dummy 700-pound warheads. Over at Langley, the CIA is prepping a covert cyber attack designed to harass and embarrass the Russian government.

Meanwhile, Russia has ordered relatives of government officials living abroad to return home. “This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites for some big war,” said Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky.

Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev concurred, “I think the world has reached a dangerous point. I don’t want to give any concrete prescriptions, but I do want to say that this needs to stop. It is necessary to return to the main priorities. These are nuclear disarmament, the fight against terrorism, and the prevention of an environmental disaster.”

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein found the deteriorating situation “ominous. We may be closer to nuclear war than ever. That the Obama Administration and the Clinton campaign appear ready to escalate further is pure insanity. Though it pains me to say it, after watching the latest debate, it looks like Trump was the one with his head on straight on this issue.”

In related news, it appears that the $1.7 billion in ransom paid to Iran for the release of four hostages earlier this year was used to fund the missiles used by an Iranian-backed terror cell in Yemen to attack a U.S. Navy ship in the Red Sea this week. Press Secretary Josh Earnest maintained that “there’s no way to tell whether is was the same money or not. But even if it was, Iran is a sovereign nation and has every right to spend its resources as it deems best for its people.”

Clinton Boasts of Diverting Funds from Terrorists

In one of the Clinton emails Wikileaks published this week former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that American “allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL (ISIS) and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have also been very generous to the Clintons. Back in August they each ponied up a million dollars as a birthday present for former President Bill Clinton. Far from being embarrassed, Clinton boasted that “this represents $2 million that was diverted from funding terrorists. I challenge Trump to prove he has diverted a single cent from going to terrorists.”

The birthday gift isn’t the only generosity displayed by the Clintons’ Middle Eastern friends. After receiving a $10 million donation to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia in 2011, Hillary Clinton approved a $29 billion sale of advanced fighter jets to that nation.

While the sale to the Saudis was the single biggest sale, it wasn’t the only one she approved under questionable circumstances. In total she authorized over $160 billion in sales to Middle Eastern countries that her own State Department had criticized for human rights abuses, corruption, and aiding terrorists. The only saving grace was that these countries had donated a total of more than $50 million to the Clinton Foundation.

One supposes that “diverting” $50 million from being handed over to terrorists is a good thing. But perhaps arming the nations that help sponsor terror with $160 billion in the latest weapons is not a good thing.

More Democrat Election Fraud

In two new undercover videos obtained by Project Veritas Democratic Party workers openly talked about “dirty tricks.”

In Florida, Wylie Mao, a field organizer for the Clinton campaign said that ripping up registration forms from Republicans would be “cool strategy. It works on several levels. Every Republican we sign up can be completely neutralized as a voting threat. He thinks we’ve turned in his registration form. So he doesn’t go and register with the County Recorder on his own. He tootles along until election day when he tries to vote. Since his name isn’t on the official list the best he can do is cast a ‘provisional ballot’ that will later be discarded. It’s another win for the good guys.”

In New York, Alan Schulkin, the New York Democratic commissioner of the Board of Elections, confirmed that  vote fraud “is organized and widespread. Party workers will load up buses with volunteers who will be driven to different precincts to cast the ballots of people registered but not voting because they are dead or no longer living in the area.” Schulkin disapproved of the fraud and blamed it on “Mayor DeBlasio’s edict to issue non-verifiable ID cards to any person who asks for one. There’s no vetting of any of these people. Anyone can get as many ID cards for as many different identities as he wants. I think this effectively eliminates an honest election in this city.”

In related news, a leaked strategy memo from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party outlined the activities of a “Black Pod” operation. The activities include stealing Trump/Pence yard signs, posting Clinton/Kaine signs without the homeowner’s consent, and vandalizing cars that have Trump bumper stickers “to create a psychological climate unfavorable to such displays.”

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 by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.

 

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

Within the latest Friday evening document “dump” from the FBI was evidence that Hillary Clinton’s lawyers deleted 1,000 emails between General David Patraeus. At the time Hillary was Secretary of State Petraeus led US Central Command and later became director of the CIA.

While it would appear that communications between the Secretary of State and Patraeus would be work-related, Hillary offered a different explanation. “David is a very avid yoga enthusiast,” she said. “He and I were in regular communication comparing notes and engaging in some friendly competition to see who could complete the most exercises each week. So, it should be no mystery as to why my lawyers erased those emails.”

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex) called Clinton’s explanation “as ludicrous a lie from a high ranking government official as one could imagine. The idea that these two were yoga workout buddies is laughable. It is obvious that this woman has no shame. It is also obvious that the FBI investigation of her emails was a charade. Clearly, Secretary Clinton lied under oath on several occasions. Clearly, there was a pattern of obstruction to the erasure of emails and disappearances of numerous mobile devices. Heck, there’s even an email chain with the words ‘Hilary coverup operation’ in the ‘subject’ line in messages sent to and from Hillary Clinton. For FBI Director James Comey to assert that he found no evidence of intent to break the law defies logic and common sense.”

A possible rationale for Comey’s willful blindness on the matter may have been the discovery of emails from President Obama among the recovered deleted messages. Interestingly, the President used a pseudonym to sign his emails. For the record, Obama has denied that he had any knowledge of Clinton’s illegal email practices. Yet, amazingly, he was still able to communicate with her using this illegal arrangement.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisted that “the presence of the President’s emails in this system doesn’t prove he consciously knew anything about it. He could have merely been replying to emails originated by Secretary Clinton. He could have used a fake name as a security precaution. In any case, all of this is moot because the investigation has been closed by the Department of Justice and all of the principal co-conspirators have been granted immunity. So, even if a ‘smoking gun’ were to be uncovered there’d be nothing anyone could do about it.”

In related news, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released 1700 of Clinton’s emails that he says “show her role in the absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, which led to the occupation by ISIS of large segments of that country and facilitated weapons going over to ISIS affiliated jihadists in Syria. She was the instigator of an expanded conflict and must bear responsibility for the deaths of thousands of noncombatants at the hands of the bloodthirsty Islamists that were armed and emboldened by her actions.”

Clinton Sics Machado on Trump

At this week’s presidential debate Hillary Clinton contended that rival Donald Trump had “cruelly abused” Alicia Machado, 1996’s Miss Universe, alleging he called her “Miss Piggy” for getting fat during the year she held the title. According to Hillary “this shows the kind of deplorable disrespect for women that proves him unfit to be president.”

For her part, Machado admits that she has no witnesses to back up her claims of “mental abuse,” but insists that “Trump is a horrible person.” What recorded evidence there is suggests that contrary to abusing Ms, Machado, Trump actually tried to help her. When his CBS partners in the Miss Universe consortium wanted to replace Machado with the less rotund runner-up, Trump worked to give her a second chance. While acknowledging that stress can make a person overeat, like he himself has done from time to time, Trump recommended weight reduction training so she could fulfill her contractual obligations.

Since completing her term as Miss Universe Machado went on to engage in some dubious behaviors including threatening a Venezuelan judge in 1998 who was handling the case of her boyfriend who was charged with attempted murder. In 2005 Ms. Machado apparently had sex with host Fernando Acaso on an episode of the La Granja Spanish TV show. This escapade broke up her engagement with then Philadelphia Phillies baseball player Bobby Abreu.

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook didn’t dispute the checkered past of Ms. Machado, but questioned its relevance. “The issue is Trump’s treatment of women,” Mook argued. “Whether these women be of high or low caliber shouldn’t matter. Voters need to focus on only one thing: do we want a man like Donald Trump as our next president? Or do we want a woman of dignity and distinction like Secretary Clinton? It’s that simple.”

In related news, in an effort to deflect potential criticism of how she has treated women that “became involved with her husband,” Hillary told Washington Post reporter Shawn Boburg that “both Bill and I felt for these unfortunate misguided souls. Sadly, there are many mentally unstable women who fantasize about receiving the attentions of a powerful man. We always tried to reach out to those who accused Bill of improprieties and reassure them that they were always in our thoughts, that we were willing to do whatever we could to help because, as you know, Bill is hypersensitive to the pain of others and would do whatever was necessary to try to end it.”

Passenger Bumped from Seat to Appease Muslims

Booking her flight in advance and paying for her “guaranteed” seat didn’t ensure that Mary Campos would get what she ordered. As she arrived at the boarding gate she was bumped to a different seat to “accommodate the cultural beliefs” of two Muslim men.

United Airlines spokesperson Amir Fuol explained that “we regret that Ms. Campos was unhappy with the handling of the seat assignments on her flight. United holds our employees to the highest standards of professionalism and has zero tolerance for discrimination.”

Campos complained that “this blather from Mr. Fuol explains nothing. How do the beliefs of a pair of foreigners trump my right as an American to equal treatment?”

Fuol maintained that “the switch was as much for Ms. Campos safety as it was a show of respect for different cultural practices. Would she really have preferred to be seated next to two men whose inexperience with scantily clad American women may have resulted in her being fondled or worse? She would be suing us for sure had we rashly seated her so close to these men.”

In related news, YouTube has blocked trailers for the faith-based movie I’m Not Ashamed on the grounds that “its overt and unbalanced promotion of the Christian religion may be deemed offensive by persons of other faiths and as such it can be construed as ‘hate speech.’”

Dead People Submit New Voter Registrations in Virginia

A number of new applications for voter registrations recently submitted in Harrisonburg, Virginia were discovered to carry the names of persons recently deceased. The “anomaly” came to light when an employee in the registrar’s office noticed that one of the new registrations was for Richard Claybrook Sr., the late father of a well-known local judge. Ultimately, 19 of the applications submitted by Andrew Spieles, a member of the Young Democrats club at James Madison University, on behalf of the community activist group “Harrisonburg VOTES” were deemed suspicious.

Republicans are incensed. Virginia House Speaker William Howell (R-Stafford) asked “how often do we hear our Democrat colleagues suggest that voter fraud doesn’t exist or is a myth? Well, this is just one piece of evidence that continuing efforts to defraud the election process are real.”

Del. Marcus Simon (D-Fairfax) pooh-poohed GOP concerns and called the recent flap “small potatoes” and the perpetrator “inept. Registering ineligible voters doesn’t mean illegal votes will be cast in their names. Votes would still have to be cast either in person by elderly impostors or through absentee ballots. There are additional steps that would have to be taken before the scheme would be successful. Besides, 20 bogus votes aren’t likely to sway an election. Republicans are getting all worked up over nothing.”

In related news, it was discovered that Arcan Cetin, a resident alien from Turkey who shot five people to death at a mall in Burlington, Washington, illegally voted in three elections since 2014. A study done by professors from Old Dominion University and George Mason University estimated that about 6% of non-citizens illegally cast ballots in the 2008 election. Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman told a Seattle TV station that “the State is barred by the feds from verifying citizenship status. They claim that verification is a federal responsibility. Yet, the Obama Administration steadfastly refuses to share the data they have with the states. We are left with no choice except to take the applicants’ word for whether they are citizens.”

Presidential Candidates Name Favorite World Leader

In a bid to probe one dimension of the presidential candidates’ perspectives on world politics and foreign relations, the media asked each of them to name their favorite foreign leader.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tabbed Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel as her favorite. “Chancellor Merkel has been an extraordinarily strong leader,” Clinton asserted. “She has opened the doors of her country to more than a million Muslims from the Middle East. She has bravely faced down opposition to her policies in the midst of the difficulties of acclimation for these refugees.”

Clinton went on to contrast “Merkel’s generosity with our own country’s xenophobic hesitancy to welcome those fleeing from war and atrocities in their home countries. Sure, we’ve let a few thousand in, but if we were to be as openhearted as Germany we’d be allowing millions to find safety on our shores. When I’m president this will change.”

GOP presidential contender Donald Trump chose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his favorite foreign leader saying that “here we have a person whose tiny country is surrounded by hostile nations who repeatedly vow to annihilate the Jews. Yet he has the courage and toughness to stand firm on behalf of his people. It’s a model that I will strive to live up to if I become president of the United States.”

Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson acknowledged what he termed “an Aleppo moment” and admitted that “I have no favorites that I can think of, but the notion that we need to be so active around the world strikes me as the bigger problem. It wouldn’t really matter who led other governments if the United States were to mind its own business. I’d like to see a more mellow and relaxed America. Bringing our troops home and legalizing marijuana will go a long way toward accomplishing this.”

Green Party candidate Jill Stein opted for Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, saying that “while she doesn’t yet lead a nation she embodies values that I think are aimed at a better world—ending the rape of the planet by humans, abolishing industrial society, and equal sharing of income and wealth. The fact that she is a woman gives greater credence to her Party’s message. Men have played too big a role in ruining the environment. It’s time we gave women a chance.”

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 by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.