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

This week, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified before the House Intelligence Committee. Johnson became the latest former Obama Administration official to verify that there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Perhaps more relevant, however, was his puzzlement at the Democratic National Committee’s refusal of his proffer of assistance in the wake of their computers being hacked.

“Considering what was at stake, I would have thought that putting the federal government’s expertise into play to protect the DNC’s confidential communications was a ‘no-brainer,’” Johnson said. “But despite my entreaties and offers from the FBI to do a forensic analysis to try to identify the origins of the hack of their email system, Chairwoman Wasserman-Schultz repulsed our aid.”

Former DNC vice chairwoman Donna Brazile, confirmed that federal officials had been in contact with her regarding hacking. “I talked to the general counsel of the DNC and he assured me that every step along the way we were notified of these issues,” Brazile said. “At no time did we ignore the warning from the FBI or any other federal officials.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla) charged that “Johnson’s implication that I ignored his or the FBI’s warnings is a lie. I didn’t reject their help. From our perspective, even more important than keeping hackers from accessing our confidential files was keeping our covert operation to ensure that Hillary would have a clear path to secure the Party’s presidential nomination from being exposed. I’m proud to say that mission was accomplished.”

Wasserman Schultz lamented that “this extra boost we gave her was wasted by a lackluster campaign that neglected to make a case for voters to choose her over Trump. Now she’s trying to make that hack and me the scapegoat for her whole bogus ‘Trump cheated’ theme. Well, I’m not taking the rap.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) characterized Wasserman-Schultz’s comments as “essentially, an admission of a crime.” Wasserman-Schultz professed herself as “unconcerned” because “Sanders will never file a complaint. Without a victim’s complaint there is no crime to be prosecuted.”

Dems Stunned by Ossoff Loss in Georgia

In an election once widely touted by Democrats as “a referendum on the Trump presidency,” Democrat Jon Ossoff lost to Republican Karen Handel in Georgia’s 6^th congressional district race. Ossoff nearly won the race in April’s open primary—garnering twice as many votes as his nearest competitor—but fell short of the 50% +1 vote majority required. Democrats were also buoyed by a five-to-one campaign spending edge and polls showing Ossoff with a comfortable lead (on the Monday before election day, Democratic polling guru Nate Silver gave Ossoff a 70% chance of winning).

Some Democrats blamed Ossoff’s attempt to appeal to moderates as “the fatal flaw in our Party’s strategy,” a masked antifa demonstrator opined. “As our street protests have shown, the way to succeed is to shutdown the other side by any means necessary. We’ve stopped dozens of conservatives from voicing their opinions in public forums. Who knows how many others we’ve deterred from even trying? If Ossoff had walked across the stage at that debate and punched Handel in the face it would have prompted more Democrats to get out and vote.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) blamed the non-stop talk about Russia for Ossoff’s defeat. “Trump has cleverly manipulated the media meme to focus on a non-existent Russian threat that has diverted everyone’s attention from his cruel domestic policies,” Murphy contended. “Trump has discouraged immigration to the extent that border crossings are down by 70% from last year. He has egged on state governments to enforce work requirements for welfare that have driven millions to take jobs they’d rather not have just to survive. In Maine alone, the GOP governor has pushed policies that have brought the state’s unemployment level to a 32-year low. Our Party’s ability to exploit the negative consequences of Trump’s policies at the ballot box needs to be revived.”

Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Tex) blamed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, saying that “I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top. The Party needs a new face if we hope to retake the House in the 2018 election cycle.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla) countered criticism of Pelosi by insisting that “whether Nancy Pelosi inspires voters or not, she is a remarkable strategic legislator who has skillfully obstructed everything President Trump wants to do. It doesn’t matter whether we ever gain the majority in congress. Blocking Trump and the Republicans is crucial to a strategy focused on allowing the courts to enact the laws needed to transform the country into the progressive utopia we all envision for the future. Let’s not forget that it has been the courts that have legalized gay marriage. It has been the courts that have opened what used to be single-sex rest rooms a showers to the transgendered. It is the courts that have blocked Trump’s efforts to close our borders to immigrants and refugees. We mustn’t turn on a person that has done so much to make all of these gains possible.”

FBI Asserts Shootings at GOP Baseball Practice “Random Violence”

At a press briefing this week, Tim Slater, who leads the criminal division of the FBI’s Washington field office, endeavored mightily to portray last week’s assault on dozens of Republicans gathered to practice for a charity baseball game as a “purely spontaneous and random act of violence.”

Slater dismissed the testimony of witnesses who identified the shooter as the same man who moments earlier asked them if the men practicing were Republicans or Democrats as “insufficient to determine intent. Granted, he did go on to fire numerous rounds at these men, but we have no way of knowing whether he would’ve held his fire if he had been told they were Democrats.”

The discovery of a “kill list” comprised solely of the names of Republican congressmen in the gunman’s possession was deemed “inconclusive,” by Slater. “Mr. Hodgkinson could easily have had a similar list of Democrats that we have not yet been able to find. So far as we can tell the list of Republicans we recovered from his weapons locker was just a piece of paper.”

Likewise, Slater averred that “Hodgkinson’s numerous rants against Republicans in social media posts and letters-to-the-editor weren’t seen as especially useful in terms of discerning a motive for his actions. His anger at the way Sen. Bernie Sanders was treated in last year’s primaries could just as easily be taken as a motive for striking out at Democrats like Hillary Clinton or Rep. Wasserman-Schultz. Who’s to say that if he had not been shot by Capitol Police he wouldn’t have gone on to shoot those Democrats?”

Reports that Hodgkinson had previously told family members that he would be heading home later on the same day of the baseball field assault “doesn’t prove that he wouldn’t first have shot some Democrats,” Slater argued. “At the Bureau we require that there be evidence before we leap to any conclusions about the actions and intent of anyone we investigate.”

In related news, gunman Rollin Anthony Owens Jr. kidnapped a family in North Carolina and forced them to shop at a local Target store. After his arrest, Owens told Durham police that “my intent was to implement a ‘bottom up’ stimulation of the economy.” He contrasted his approach with “the Republicans’ failed ‘trickle down’ methods” and said he hoped that “my example of direct action will inspire other Democrats to get off their duffs and try to make a difference before Trump wrecks this country.”

Quake Alert Comes 92 Years Late

This past week the U.S. Geological Survey sent out an email alert warning of a 6.8 magnitude earthquake near Santa Barbara, California. A 6.8 magnitude is considered a “strong” quake and likely to cause moderate to severe damage to poorly constructed buildings. The fact that the alert was for an event that occurred in 1925 caused many to question the timeliness of the USGS warning.

USGS Director Suzette Kimball acknowledged that “while the specific utility of this particular alert was low, we shouldn’t discount the progress our Agency has made in the way of early warnings. The fact that we can send alerts out via email greatly enhances the speed and breadth of the alert. Everyone connected to the Internet can obtain this information much quicker than in the old days.”

“Looking on the bright side, the 92-year lag due to the exacting processing and verification procedures we must follow did result in an amazingly accurate estimate of the magnitude of the event,” Kimball boasted. “We avoided the haste that might have resulted in the kind of inaccurate projections that have plagued the National Weather Service, Congressional Budget Office, and Bureau of Economic Analysis. I, for one, would rather be late with the right information than early with the wrong information.”

European Union Threatens Poland, Hungary

The absence of Islamic terror attacks in Poland and Hungary has been attributed to these countries’ refusal to take in an adequate portion of the flood of Muslim refugees that have swarmed into Europe over the last few years. The leaders of Hungary and Poland think this is a good thing. Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban called these migrants “a poison” and said “every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.” Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło called the European Union’s policy of allowing mass migration from the Middle East “folly.”

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos slammed the governments of both countries “for not bearing their fair share of the grief that accompanies free migration. It is the policy of the European Union that all member states must accept an allocation of this grief as assigned by the Brussels authorities. Failure to do so will force us to impose sanctions.”

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak vowed his country will “choose the lesser danger of enduring EU sanctions over inviting savages to roam among us assaulting our women, attacking gays, and bombing our public places. We have seen the consequences in countries that have welcomed these migrants—rapes in Sweden, murders in London, nightly riots in Paris—and we say ‘no thanks.’”

Former US President Barack Obama said “this latest deterioration of the unity we all worked so hard for during my administration is disheartening. It’s frustrating that there is no court that can overturn Poland and Hungary’s racist anti-immigration policies like the US courts that have thwarted Trump’s similar animus against Muslims in America. I wish I could do more than urge Chancellor Merkel and President Macron to be patient. We’re working to unseat Trump and install a progressive alternative, but it will take time.”

In related news, the last remaining police station in the Järva area (a suburb of Stockholm with a majority Muslim population) is slated to be closed because “it is too dangerous for police.” Stockholm area regional police chief Ulf Johansson said “we can no longer justify putting our officers’ lives in danger. The area is too violent even for armed police to dare venture outside the building.” As for the Swedes still living in the area, he suggested that “as I understand it, they have the option of converting, submitting to Muslim rule, or moving—if they can get out without being killed. They will, of course, have to leave their non-portable property behind.”

McCain Says He Won’t Be Bought

Disclosure this week that George Soros, financier of international leftist agitation, has donated to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s Institute for International Leadership has sparked some of the Senator’s critics to question his judgment.

In a bid to reassure everyone that he can “take money from anyone without compromising my principals,” McCain pointed out that “I have taken millions of dollars from Republican donors without letting them influence my views. In fact, the Institute was initially funded with $9 million in campaign donations that I never spent. The $100,000 Soros gave the Institute is tiny in comparison. So, I think people can be confident that my ability to ignore the wishes of my contributors is one of my stronger traits.”

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
In the wake of former FBI Director James Comey’s admission that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians to rig last year’s presidential election, independent counsel Robert Mueller has initiated a major expansion of his staff.
“Inasmuch as it is inconceivable that a person as qualified as Secretary Clinton could be beaten by a boorish amateur like Donald Trump in a fair contest, there has to have been some sort of underhanded manipulation involved,” Mueller reasoned. “My good friend James Comey valiantly tried to soldier on before he was improperly dismissed by his obviously guilty target. Clearly, this calls for ramping up the effort to generate actionable charges against an illegitimate usurper.”
Thus far, Mueller has added 13 new attorneys—all with notable ties to the Democratic Party—to his prosecuting team. “One of the things that I think hampered Jim’s effort was his reliance on the politically unvetted staff of career FBI personnel,” Mueller opined. “It’s likely that some of those personnel harbored secret sympathy with Trump and the Republican Party. I can see how that would have impeded the investigation. My recruitment of a staff that has a unified worldview ensures that everyone will be coming at this from the same direction.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) warned Republicans against questioning Mueller’s actions or integrity. “Rather than assail the political affiliations of the most qualified lawyers in the country Republicans ought to be asking themselves why those at the top of the profession are all Democrats,” Schumer advised. “Why should the Independent Counsel have to bypass the best in a vain attempt to simulate a balanced or unbiased image?”
One Republican who is not heeding Schumer’s warning is President Trump who labeled Mueller’s actions “the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history” and suggested that Mueller’s long personal relationship with Comey and his connections to the Democratic Party manifest a “conflict of interest.”
The language of the special counsel statute would seem to require Mueller to recuse himself from serving. According to the statute, a person cannot serve as a special counsel if he has “a personal relationship with any person substantially involved in the investigation or prosecution.” Mueller’s long-term personal relationship with the “substantially involved” Comey appears disqualifying.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) insisted that “Mueller’s friendship toward Comey shouldn’t be used against him. If anything, it should reinforce our confidence that the two of them could work together in a common cause. Let us not forget that it was Comey’s leak of a memo he wrote that got the ball rolling on the whole special counsel thing. Removing Mueller and bringing in some stranger would jettison the symbiotic benefits of allowing a proven partnership to continue this vital persecution.”
Schiff went on to add that “Trump may think that as president he can control who works for the executive branch, but previous presidents who tried to act on that premise were impeached. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing a cabinet member without consulting congress. In 1974, President Nixon only escaped impeachment by resigning after he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Trump may think that because there is no evidence of any illegal collusion between his campaign and the Russians that further investigation would be fruitless, but he is wrong. Bush adviser Scooter Libby committed no initial crime, but his inconsistent answers under interrogation obstructed the investigation and sent him to prison.”
In related news, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) demanded that Trump desist from using social media while he is under investigation, contending that “his ‘tweets’ are akin to ‘jury-tampering.’ The ‘jury’ in the case of Trump is going to be the US Senate after the House impeaches him. Allowing Trump to attempt to influence Senators by tweeting to their constituents would poison the jury pool. Senators need to be free from outside influences so we can vote to remove him from office without fear of political repercussions.”
Dems Respond to Attempted Massacre of GOP Lawmakers
This week’s rifle assault by former Sanders for President volunteer James Hodgkinson on Republican members of congress practicing for the annual charity baseball game with their Democratic colleagues severely wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La) and injured several others. The assault had apparently been planned after the New York Times published the location of the GOP practice back in April.
Law enforcement authorities profess themselves baffled and unable to conceive of a motive for the attack. Hodgkinson’s Internet post asserting “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time To Destroy Trump & Co.” and the fact that he was a member of “Terminate the Republican Party” Facebook Group was described by Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe as “too ambiguous and vague to provide much of a clue.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) blamed Republicans “for instigating the cycle of violence when they smeared President Bill Clinton for having sex with a White House intern. That a nation’s ruler would have sexual liaisons with a variety of women is a time-honored tradition extending back to David and Bathsheba. More recently President Kennedy hooked up with many nubile young women. This right of rulers was disrespected by Republicans when they impeached our president for being a normal man.”
“The cycle was reinvigorated when the GOP refused to support President Obama’s transformation of the United States,” Pelosi continued. “At virtually every turn they resisted him—claiming that his programs were unwise or too expensive. Then there was the misogynistic denial of Hillary Clinton’s rightful claim to the presidency. We shouldn’t be surprised that the GOP’s racist, anti-progressive and sexist attitudes have spurred downtrodden individuals like Mr. Hodgkinson, who no doubt was upset by the injustice done to Secretary Clinton, to take desperate measures.”
Malcolm Harris, who writes for The Washington Post called Hodgkinson’s sniper attack “an act of self-defense. As Rep. Pelosi so aptly pointed out, the Republican health care bill will literally kill Americans. So they shouldn’t be surprised if some of their intended victims try to preempt this threat. What saddens me is that Hodgkinson wasn’t a better marksman.”
In Nebraska, Chelsey Gentry-Tipton, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party’s Black Caucus, found the shooting and its aftermath humorous, saying that “watching the congressman crying on live TV about the trauma they experienced—why is this so funny? I’m having a hard time feeling bad for them.”
In related news, right-wing vandals in New York altered a freeway exit sign on Sagtikos Parkway changing it from “Crooked Hill Rd” to “Crooked Hillary.” Governor Andrew Cuomo called the stunt “an ill-timed escalation of the tensions between the Republican Party and the rest of America. Instead of joining with Democrats to enact sensible gun-control they’re taking this latest tragedy as an opportunity to insult a great American. This plumbs new depths of depravity from a segment of the political spectrum that has a sordid history of disrespect for manners and justice.”
Trump Ends Y2K Spending
Though it may come as a shock to many, a government program designed to prepare the nation for the devastation that would be inflicted when the calendar rolled over from a century in which the years began with the number “19” to one in which the years began with the number “20” is still incurring expenditures 17 years after the “crisis” fizzled.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney declared that “the amount of useless trash that is still being funded way past any reasonably conceived purpose is phenomenal. To begin with, the hysteria attached to the effect that the turn of the century would have on computers was unwarranted. If there was ever any need for any spending on this project in the years leading up to 2000 that need has long since expired.”
J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees took a different stance. “The termination of a program with what can only be described as a solid history of success is short-sighted,” he said. “To penalize the employees responsible for this success by eliminating their jobs because they are no longer necessary is both cruel and unusual and, consequently, clearly unconstitutional. Neither the Bush nor the Obama Administration tried to take the nation down this treacherous path of ingratitude. That Trump would do so is yet another affront that should be added to the growing list of crimes and misdemeanors supporting his impeachment.”
Londoners Arrested for Anti-Muslim Internet Posts
London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the bravery and initiative of City police in their quick response to anti-Muslim commentary following recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. “The adherence of Muslims to the tenets of their faith is protected by laws guaranteeing freedom of religion,” he said. “As pointed out by Shaikh Mohammad Tawhidi in Australia earlier this week, it is not a sin for a Muslim to kill a non-believer. It is a sin for a Christian to not turn the other cheek. By the tenets of the two faiths there is no justification for the criticism leveled against Islam by those non-believers who have not yet been killed by Muslims.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick seconded the mayor’s comments. “Islamophobia is intolerable,” Dick proclaimed. “Members of the Muslim community should not have to live in fear that their faith will be assailed by the survivors of a religiously justified strike against unbelievers. Our police force stands ever ready and alert to stamp out the anti-Muslim hate crime of slandering those who fight the unbelievers.”
To make sure the message of official intolerance of Islamophobia is received, Dick announced a doubling of patrols near mosques “to deter a repeat of the heinous hate crime perpetrated after the jihadist attack on London Bridge.” The heinous crime: strips of bacon left on automobile windshields. “Being murdered doesn’t imperil a Christian’s hope of salvation,” Dick explained. “Coming in contact with pork condemns a Muslim to damnation. Clearly, this is the greater threat and we must allocate our limited resources accordingly.”

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

This week, former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. While he confirmed that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Trump, he raised the issue of “whether a person so creepy and obnoxious deserves to be president. He is so different in every way from President Obama that I got a queasy feeling just being in the same room with him. I just didn’t know how to react, so I joined the parade of government insiders who have been leaking confidential matters to the media in the hope that someone would rid the nation of this meddlesome interloper.”
“Let me compare and contrast my experience with the previous administration to help make my point,” Comey continued. “When Attorney General Lynch told me that President Obama wanted the FBI to ease up on the Clinton email matter, the directions were clear. When Trump said he hoped that since General Flynn had done nothing illegal that further maligning of his reputation could be dropped, I didn’t know what to do. Was this some sort of code instructing me to have the man ‘whacked?’ I think everyone with experience in government can see how confusing Trump’s behavior is for all of us.”
Under questioning from Sen Rubio (R-Fla), Comey defended his acquiescence to Lynch’s pressure to go easy on Clinton, saying that “compared to how we looked the other way at Holder’s request when hundreds of weapons were delivered to Mexican gangs and subsequently used to murder hundreds of people, it seemed like brushing off Clinton’s unsecure email system and unauthorized deletion of government records was a minor issue.”
After the testimony, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) contended that “this clearly puts the option of impeachment into play. I mean, how much longer are the Republicans going to sit on their hands given the ammunition this heroic patriot has handed us? Even if there is no evidence of a crime, per se, the impression that there is something that is just not right has to be factored in. We’ve already seen that Trump is out-of-step with the world on climate. Comey has portrayed him as out-of-step with the way things have traditionally been done in government. Is this the kind of person we want as our president for the next three-and-one-half years?”
In related news, Reality Sara Winner, the 25-year-old woman who was recently arrested for illegally leaking classified documents she stole from government files to The Intercept, has been discovered to be a first-class loon. To her earlier FaceBook posts giving a “thumbs up” endorsement to Iran’s “death to America” slogan and her proclamation that “being white is a form of terrorism,” we must now add her belief that she will be acquitted because she is “pretty, white, and cute.” Though, by her reasoning this ought to mark her as a terrorist. On top of this, photos of the woman posted on the Internet appear to contradict her “pretty” and “cute” claims.
Muslim Rapists Go Free in Idaho
Three Muslim youths who orally and anally raped and urinated on a 5-year-old girl got off with probation and no time served. Bizarrely, Janice Kroeger, the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, called the rapists “the real victims of this tragic turn of events.”
“These three boys are all doing well in school,” Kroeger said. “We shouldn’t discourage this accomplishment by subjecting them to the scarring effects of incarceration. They are already suffering PTSD from their arrest and these judicial proceedings. There’s no need to compound this by putting them in a juvenile detention center.”
Kroeger lashed out at the little girl’s mother for her “incendiary statements designed to spur anger against these boys. The damage to her daughter is already done. That she is having nightmares can’t be undone by harshly treating these boys. She needs to forget about this and get on with her life.”
Concerned that public disclosure of the proceedings and sentence might reflect poorly on the state of justice in Idaho, Judge Thomas Borreson of Idaho’s 5th Judicial District imposed a gag order on the girl’s parents. “In fairness to the defendants, their actions were well within the boundaries of their faith and culture,” Borreson maintained. “I can see how they can’t understand why what they did might be considered wrong in America. Allowing the victim’s mother to take her plea for justice to the public airwaves or newspapers would not serve the government’s goal of promoting cultural tolerance. It would only serve to bolster President Trump’s efforts to impede the flow of immigrants from Islamic countries.”
In related news, Judge Stephen Reinhardt a senior judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals complained that enforcing the nation’s laws on immigration is “humiliating and dehumanizing for judges. Almost to a man, those of us on the Ninth Circuit feel that every person has a right to be wherever he or she wants to be. The laws saying otherwise are an imposition on our ability to enforce this universal human right. We wish the INS would stop bringing the cases that end up in our laps.”
US States, Cities Seek to Enforce Climate Pact Trump Rejected
Four states–California, Connecticut, Washington and Oregon have joined together to form the United States Climate Alliance. The objective is to bypass Trump’s decision and implement the terms of the Paris Accord on climate.
California was the first to take action by ratifying a separate climate pact with China. “We had to pick a side,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D) declared. “Looking at the options we determined that Trump is the greater threat. So we made our own deal with China.” The deal reportedly will increase the importation of “green technologies” manufactured in China. The irony is that Chinese factories are among the world’s worst polluters.
Brown said he is “not concerned” because “most of the Chinese pollutants are heavy metals, noxious chemicals, and soot particles—all of which, I am told by experts, will tend to have a cooling effect on global temperatures. And any health consequences from their emissions are likely to be predominately local in nature.”
In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed an executive order committing the City to abide by the provisions of the Paris Accord that President Trump rejected. “President Trump is wrong,” Emanuel insisted. “The trillions of dollars and millions of American jobs that abiding by this agreement will cost are necessary to reduce the projected 0.3° rise in temperature by the year 2100.” The Mayor said he is “confident that federal welfare programs will adequately offset the impacts of Chicagoans thrown out of work by adherence to my order.”
Whether Emanuel confidence that the feds will buffer his city’s residents from negative economic repercussions is warranted seems dubious. Trump’s proposed budget asks for considerably less in welfare spending compared to the trend of increases from a continuation of the Obama years. White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders emphasized that “the President’s promise was to put Americans back to work. Democrats who hope to buy votes from their welfare clientele shouldn’t count on federal money to subsidize idleness.”
Romney Says Hillary Encouraged Him to Seek SOS Job
Former Republican presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “encouraged me to actively seek her old job. ‘Don’t let your differences with Trump scare you off,’ she told me. ‘I had differences with Obama, but I put those aside to take the job.’”
“She was very sympathetic to the fact that I had spent tens of millions of dollars of my own money running against Obama for the presidency,” Romney recalled her saying. “’You can get that back and more just like I did. When you’re Secretary of State you have say-so over a lot of things businesses and foreign governments want. You could just make decisions based on merit, but you could also ask for some kind of payback. I’m not saying you should do something you wouldn’t otherwise do, but why do it for free?’”
“Unfortunately, President Trump went in another direction,” Romney lamented. “Now, we’ll never know what great things I might have been able to accomplish.”
In related news, Clinton also advised that “the best way I know of to counter terrorism would be for Americans to gain a better understanding of Muslim culture. The first step in that process is to try their food. It is so flavorful that once you’ve tried it your fears melt away and a true bond of understanding and merger of interests becomes possible.”
Drop in Food Aid Applications Called “Horrific”
The Alabama Department of Human Resources reports that since reinstating the work requirement for able-bodied recipients in 13 counties, the number of people requesting aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has declined by 85%.
The steep decline in program participation was decried as “horrific” by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). “The idea that any level of government would be permitted to resort to such an extortionate scheme is as clear a demonstration of the local government tyranny inspired by the illegitimate Bush Administration. Forcing a person to choose between two evils—work or starve—is not the America I know and love.”
“In fact, this is the kind of thing they do in Russia,” Pelosi contended. “That it would appear here in America at this time is, in my mind, yet further evidence of Russia’s undue influence since they rigged the November election against Secretary Clinton. I think we need to add this to the list of charges we draw up in response to the Comey testimony.”

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

This week, President Trump announced that the United States is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. The move was widely denounced.

Former President Barack Obama, who unilaterally committed the US to the accord without seeking the consent of the US Senate, denounced Trump’s action as “a betrayal of the future” and called for state and local governments to ignore Trump’s stance and “independently implement the agreement.”

California Governor Jerry Brown (D) followed Obama’s advice and announced that “California will sign a separate climate treaty with China. I cannot remain passive and allow an insane and deviate President Trump to undermine the commitments made on behalf of the world by President Obama.”

In step with the incivility that has marked much of the opposition to to the Trump Administration, the German newspaper Berliner Kurier ran a story with the headline “Earth to Trump: F*** You!”

The governments of Germany, France and Italy flatly rejected Trump’s suggestion that the Accord be renegotiated to better balance the obligations imposed on the participants. “Let me say to the Americans what they said to Germany so many years ago: ‘we will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender,’”Chancellor Angela Merkel declared. “The European powers are united on this matter and will not hold back in our efforts to accomplish this goal.”

The first blow in the “European powers” campaign to force the US to yield will be shining green lights on public landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building. Both New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo professed “our solidarity with our European allies in opposing Trump’s crimes against humanity. We look forward to the day when he and his henchmen can be put on trial and hanged like the crypto-Nazis they are.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron promised that “France will open its borders so that Americans seeking to escape from Trump’s tyranny can find refuge in our country. I call for all scientists and responsible citizens of America to join the resistance if they can. And if they can’t, flee and we will help them organize a ‘Free American’ army that can take back their country.”

The antagonism for Trump was undiminished by National Security Agency whistle blower Edward Snowden’s assertion that “I have documents showing that the CIA invented ‘Global Warming’ to both scare people, and divert their attention from other human-made dangers.”

Global warming hoax profiteer and former US Vice-President Al Gore dismissed Snowden’s claim as “irrelevant. How the idea originated isn’t as important as the fact that it is now the universal consensus of those who control the levers of power around the world. No one can stand against us, especially someone with such a puny core of support as Donald Trump. He will be taken out one way or another, as Kathy Griffin so artfully predicted just a few days ago.”

In related news, the desiccated comedian Kathy Griffin, who posed for a photo with a simulated severed head of President Trump, has hired celebrity lawyer Lisa Bloom to protect her from the Trump family harassment she claims “is ruining my career and peace of mind. Can’t they take a joke? I never had any negative feedback for my humor from the previous administration.” A Trump tweet asked “Why would she? As obnoxious as her ass-kissing of Obama was, I’m sure he loved it.”

New Cache of Clinton Emails Released

This week, Judicial Watch released a cache of over 2,000 of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. The documents confirm that classified information was being illegally shared with persons lacking the security clearance to receive them.

In a bizarre twist, Clinton attempted to characterize this as “evidence of the massive Russian conspiracy to deny me my right to be president. If you will notice, one of the emails alleges that my trusted aide Huma ‘hooked up people from the Russian American Foundation with the right people at the State Department.’ Since this email dates from 2010 it proves that Trump and the Russians engaged in a long-term plot against me and that Donald Trump is not legally our president.”

“An additional email reference to a mysterious US-Russia Cultural Sub-Working Group shows that Russian naval forces were deployed to smuggle in the 1,000 robots who fabricated all the incriminating emails later published by Wikileaks,” Clinton contended. “Surely, this is this smoking gun that Congress is looking for in the quest to oust the usurper and award the presidency to me.”

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton had a different take on the email contents: “The casual violation of laws concerning classified material and noxious influence peddling show the Clinton State Department was ‘corruption central’ in the Obama administration. No wonder Clinton’s allies in the State and Justice Departments have been slow-walking and hiding these emails.”

In related news, former Democratic National Committee Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla) blamed Congress for not stopping her from committing a series of network security violations while she headed the DNC. “The multiple offenses would have been far fewer if someone had stepped in early to prevent me from breaking the law,” she rationalized. “I mean, if what I did was really so bad, wasn’t it someone’s responsibility to intercede before I went too far? Why should all the blame be put on me?”

Senator Says Knowingly Infecting Someone with HIV Shouldn’t Be Felony

California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has drafted legislation that would downgrade knowingly exposing someone else to HIV or AIDS from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Weiner called the current law “unfair. It discriminates against gays who must engage in anal sex because they were born without the vaginas, which are exclusively provided to women. Requiring a gay man to disclose he has HIV effectively shuts down his sex life. Threatening him with a felony conviction is too steep a penalty given that advances in HIV therapies have greatly extended survival time for those infected.”

The Senator also angrily demanded that GOP opponents of his bill “butt out. They’re not gay. Their voters aren’t gay. They don’t have any skin in the game. Why should they have a say in whether the law is changed?”

Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta) disagreed, saying “it’s not a gay issue. It’s a public health issue. By lessening the penalty for infecting another person this bill would increase the risk to the gay community Sen. Weiner wants to free from discriminatory treatment under the law. The current law seeks to deter those with HIV from having unprotected sex with an unsuspecting victim, just like our DUI laws seek to deter impaired drivers from killing unsuspecting victims in traffic crashes.”

Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a physician, voted for Weiner’s bill arguing that “imprisoning those who infect others will just throw them into an environment where anal sex is rampant. The impact on the prison population is proportionately larger than the impact on the general population outside of prison will be if we simply let violators off with a nominal fine, as this reform legislation would do.”

In related news, the city of East Lansing has barred Steve Tennes and his family from selling their organic produce at the local farmers market because the family doesn’t support gay marriage. Tennes is mystified by the City’s action. “I don’t ask the sexual orientation of my customers,” he pointed out. “Gay or straight, if they want to buy, I want to sell.” Democratic Mayor Mark Meadows rejected Tennes’ “noncompliance with City policy. Approval of gay marriage is a crucial part of who we are and who everyone in town needs to be. It is Mr Tennes obligation to know the sexual orientation of his customers. Blandly offering to sell, no questions asked, won’t get him out of meeting this obligation if he hopes to do business here.”

ACLU Opposes Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken a stand in opposition to a proposed Maine law that would make it illegal for parents to mutilate the genitals of their daughters.

“This bill unfairly targets Muslims for carrying out traditions of their faith,” charged ACLU spokesman Oamshri Amarasingham. “Jews are allowed to mutilate their sons. Why shouldn’t Muslims be permitted to mutilate their daughters?”

Sponsor of the bill Rep. Heather Sirocki (R-Scarborough) disputed the comparability argument. “Circumcising males only removes a portion of the penis’ foreskin,” she pointed out. “It does not destroy the possibility of sexual performance or satisfaction that the removal of the clitoris does. The female mutilation targeted in my bill would bar this barbaric practice for anyone who is not a consenting adult.”

Amarasingham countered that “this ‘barbaric practice’ is protected under the Constitution’s freedom of religion clause. As much as some might object, the state has no authority to intervene. The advocates for humane treatment of little girls have no more right to intervene than the opponents of abortion have to stop a mother from terminating her unwanted baby. Cultural norms are changing. I believe the day is not far off when a Muslim majority will reshape our laws to respect their way of life.”

Times Editor Rejects Concept of Thoughtful Disagreement

This week, Pulitzer award-winning New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told a gaggle of leftist loons that “we don’t need to subject ourselves to the erroneous views of our antagonists. The concept that liberal society has room for thoughtful disagreements is out-of-step with the modern progressive way of thinking.”

“Its long past the time when progressives had to put up with the rantings of the right as a sop to supposed civilized behavior,” Baquet said. “The need for us to pretend to be tolerant of our enemies no longer exists. Why should we listen to ideas that have been discredited? Why shouldn’t we be smashing the faces and cracking the skulls of those who assert that individual freedom to deviate from the path of social justice is an inalienable right? The struggle against bourgeois reactionaries can’t afford to be squeamish. They want us to have a discussion? Okay, as long as we can kick the crap out of them while they talk.”

Baquet hastened to remind his audience that he was “of course, speaking hypothetically. I’m a journalist and these are just my objective observations on the current state of affairs under the Trump tyranny. And even though I sympathize with those fighting against this tyranny, I would never officially take a position one way or another as to who is right and who is wrong.”

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.
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