By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
Former Secretary of State John Kerry hailed Biden’s win over Trump in the 2020 election as “the spark that will give birth to the Great Reset that so many world leaders have been touting” and professed himself “blessed to be alive at the dawn of an extremely exciting time.”
“We are going to transform the United States and the globe away from the chaotic interlude of ‘America first’ and its insidious fomentation of selfish individualism that Trump tried to force on everyone,” Kerry bragged. “By electing Biden voters have voiced their disdain for the wrong turn taken after the 2016 election. The 80 million votes for the Biden-Harris ticket reveal an enthusiasm for a new, more socially united, and collectivist lifestyle that even the most astute observers did not predict. The day when the whole world is united in thought, word, and deed is at hand.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says she is encouraged “that we will have a friend in the White House who will cooperate with our agenda to bring industry under social control, monitor and enforce proper behavior, and ensure that the Earth’s bounty is distributed more equitably. The notion that persons who are born smarter, stronger, and more enterprising should be permitted to hoard what they produce is inherently unjust. All humans have needs. It is up to enlightened leaders like ourselves to determine how these needs can be met. Taking from those who have more than they need and giving to those who have less is the obvious answer.”
New York Times columnist Ben Smith boasted that “the mainstream media institutions have become a bit more confident in trying to set the national agenda, trying to establish priorities that they think are the priorities rather than simply reporting the ‘news.’ The media’s greater dedication toward humanity’s ultimate destiny was demonstrated by the almost universal refusal to cover the Hunter Biden scandal. An unbiased approach could have undermined, or at least severely delayed, progress toward achieving the Great Reset.”
Massachusetts Passes Abortion Bill
Concerned that the addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court might result in a future decision to allow more limits on abortion, the Massachusetts legislature attached a rider that loosens restrictions on the procedure in the state onto a budget bill. Current state law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks unless the mother’s life is at risk. Still, nearly 19,000 children died from abortions in 2019 under the current law.
The use of a rider to an unrelated bill was protested by the GOP Minority Leader Bruce Tarr who complained that “this backdoor maneuver is both unfair and unnecessary. A big policy change like this should have been preceded by a robust debate and an opportunity to consider amendments. That would have been the right way to handle such an important revision to our statutes. The Democrats have the majority and could still have gotten what they wanted even after a healthy debate.”
Senate President Emerita Harriette Chandler, who sponsored the pro-abortion legislation, characterized Tarr’s complaint as “an unwarranted waste of time. His admission that we had the votes to approve the change in the state’s abortion rules proves that we efficiently bypassed a fruitless discussion. Rather than dawdle while waiting for the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade we will now have rules in place that will guarantee that no woman in this state will have to endure the horror of giving birth to a child she doesn’t want.”
Did Voting Machines Steal Votes?
This week, lawyers challenging the reported results of the presidential voting in several states raised the issue of whether the internal Smartmatic programming of the Dominion voting machines used in these states may have altered the counts. It turns out that the software inside these machines allows for operators to insert formulas assigning a different weight to given votes. In 2017, Smartmatic Director Antonio Mugica boasted that the Smartmatic machines and software created a million phantom votes in the national elections in Venezuela.
Sidney Powell, one of the lawyers challenging the reported 2020 election results, wondered “why would a vote-counting machine need a feature that can assign a different weight to different votes? Isn’t each vote cast supposed to be one per person? Well, it seems to me that the ability to assign a different weight to votes for opposing contenders for an office allows a corrupt manipulation that is difficult to detect. If each vote for Biden were given a weight of 1.1 and each vote for Trump a weight of 0.9 a systemic bias would distort the real choices made by voters. For example, in an election where voters actually chose Trump over Biden by 54% to 46%, the weighted totals would show a 50.6% to 48.6% Biden lead.”
Dominion has vociferously denied Powell’s accusations. Eager to sort out the conflicting statements of the two sides, the Pennsylvania’s State Government Committee invited Dominion to attend a hearing to help discover the truth. However, none of the company’s executives showed up. State Representative Seth Grove, Chair of the Government Oversight Committee, voiced his disappointment, saying “last evening Dominion voting systems lawyered up and backed out of their commitment to provide input in a public format. Instead of bolstering public trust in our election integrity, dodging our hearing lends credibility to their accusers’ allegations. Why have they done this?”
Romney Dismisses Election Fraud
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) dismissed President Trump’s accusation that fraud altered the outcome of the election “because he said before the election that if he were to lose, it would be because of voter fraud. That right there is enough to persuade me that Biden won fair and square.”
Asked if he would be as skeptical of a woman who predicted her boyfriend would beat her and she later showed up with cuts and bruises claiming that he did, the Senator replied “that’s a totally different situation. She probably had ample reason to predict the outcome. He may have exhibited anger issues that would have warranted her prediction.”
“Were you aware that prior to election day Vice-President Biden bragged that ‘we have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics?’ or that last September, Dominion executive Eric Coomer guaranteed that ‘Trump’s not gonna win. I made f*cking sure of that!’?”
“No, I never heard either of those statements,” Romney said. “But even if I had it wouldn’t have changed my mind. Biden clearly is not of sound mind. We shouldn’t put too much credence in anything he says. And Coomer is someone I never heard of. He can’t possibly be in a high enough position to carry out his promise.”
“What about all the reported irregularities—votes cast in the name of persons long dead, precincts with more votes than eligible voters, boxes of votes delivered after GOP poll watchers were sent home, unsigned mail-in ballots, and computer glitches—shouldn’t these raise legitimate concerns?”
“Look, these so-called irregularities have been a feature of our elections for a long time,” Romney argued. “I think it’s time we recognized that they are more aptly described as ‘regularities.’ It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that I was cheated out of victory in 2012, but in my way of thinking making a big deal over cheating does more damage to voters’ confidence in the system than quietly accepting a raw deal. That’s the difference between a patriot like me and a narcissist like Trump.”
Vietnam Threatens Facebook
The Communist government of Vietnam has threatened to ban Facebook if it doesn’t step up its censorship of content critical of the government. At stake is an estimated billion dollars a year in revenue to Facebook.
It’s not like Facebook hasn’t been assiduously editing out or blocking anti-government statements. “We made an agreement in April,” said a Facebook spokesman. “We upheld our end of the agreement, and we expected the government of Vietnam to do the same, but now they want to exert even more control over us. It’s like they never heard of freedom of the press.”
Minister of Information and Communications Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng insisted that “it is the People’s Republic’s right to control communications in our country to ensure unity of thought and action. Bourgeois notions of free speech open up society to destructive anti-social misinformation. Facebook has already accepted this premise. We are only asking that they follow through as we require them to.”
The Vietnamese government’s position received a sympathetic expression of support from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) who agreed that “the goal of national unity is of supreme importance in every country. We have been having similar problems with Facebook and Twitter in America. They think their suppression of nonconforming opinions has been sufficient, but it’s not. They need to do more. In fact, they need to do whatever the government wants them to do. If our Party can win the two Georgia senate runoff elections in January, Democrats will have control of both houses of congress and, once Biden is inaugurated, the presidency. We will have the power to compel their obedience.”
In related news, Biden has named Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. Last year Stengel wrote a Washington Post op ed in which he warned that “free speech is a threat to social and political harmony” and called for “government to more actively drive out lies” because “the average person isn’t capable of judging for himself what is or isn’t true. We don’t yet have the technology to detect and suppress incorrect thoughts, but until we do we must eradicate incorrect speech.”
Cuomo Wins Emmy
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has won this year’s International Emmy® Founders Award for his “dramatic and convincing portrayal of a man who cares about people” during the 111 daily briefings he gave on the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.
International Academy President & CEO, Bruce L. Paisner said “Gov. Cuomo effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure. The way he wheedled more than his state’s fair share of medical equipment out of a befuddled President Trump was masterful. The quantities of ventilators and hospital beds he persuaded Trump to hand over resulted in a massive unused surplus unmatched by anything seen in any other state. It was a genuinely spellbinding performance.”
The Founder’s Award is presented to an individual or organization who “crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity.” Previous recipients include former Vice President Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Spielberg.
Not everyone was impressed by Cuomo’s performance. President Trump was especially critical, pointing out that “it was the ingenuity and generosity of the federal coronavirus response team that made it possible for the State of New York to escape the health disaster that Gov. Cuomo’s improvidence would have inflicted on its inhabitants. It is the benefactor, not the beggar, who deserves credit for the lives that were saved.”
The Emmy Award wasn’t the only unmerited commendation the Governor received this year. Despite his imposition of a cruel and excessive lockdown of the state’s economy that forced thousands of small businesses into bankruptcy and caused tens of thousands of wage earners to lose their jobs, Cuomo has been rewarded with a $25,000/year raise in his salary. This will make his $250,000 annual pay the highest for any governor in the country.
Crackpot COVID Cures
In response to the perceived “second wave” of COVID-19 cases, various luminaries are advancing lame ideas for dealing with it.
Though the largest controlled study of masks found no significant differences in COVID infection rates between those who did and didn’t wear masks, media proclaimed President-Elect Joe Biden recommends “that everyone wear a mask until my inauguration. This is the surest way to guarantee that there will be enough survivors for me to govern when I’m president.” Biden dismissed contentions that the type of masks that almost everyone has been wearing offer little to no protection, saying “I know that’s not true. I always wear a mask and have not gotten the virus. Trump often did not wear a mask and did get infected. There couldn’t be any clearer proof that masks work. Besides, wearing a mask shows your patriotism.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) is recommending that “we fight the virus by paying everyone to stay home. All the previous lockdowns were only partial. So-called essential businesses were allowed to remain open. Well, a study found that the most common place visited by those testing positive for the virus was supermarkets. Yet, supermarkets were designated as ‘essential businesses’ and allowed to stay open. We need to close this gap in our defenses against COVID. As I see it, if everything is closed down for six weeks, like President Biden has recommended, no one will get infected and the virus will die off.”
Gov. Kate Brown (D-Ore) announced a “two-week freeze” on virtually all business and recreational activities and penalties of up to 30 days in jail and/or fines up to $1,250 for anyone who violates her freeze decree. Ironically, the leading virus super-spreader sites—supermarkets—will be allowed to operate at up to 75% of capacity. “If everyone would just stay home for two weeks we can beat this plague,” Brown predicted.
Despite being told more than once by state court judges that she lacks the authority, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich) instituted a new “pause to save lives” and banned indoor dining. She also decreed that “for Thanksgiving no more than two households may gather at the same place for dinner. This is my moderate restriction. Ideally, if everyone were to dine alone for the remainder of the year we would beat back the COVID monster once and for all.” Reps. Beau LaFave, Matt Maddock and Daire Rendon threatened to launch an impeachment effort against her “for usurping powers that belong to the legislature.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif) declared that “it’s time to pull the emergency brake for all counties in the purple tier. People living in this high-risk zone must refrain from any non-essential movements or gatherings between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am unless they work in the entertainment industry, which I have determined to be an essential business. Holiday gatherings must be limited to a maximum of ten persons, all dining must be outdoors, participants must remain at least six feet apart, and masks must be worn at all times.” Newsom himself was observed attending an indoor dinner party where participants sat shoulder-to-shoulder and no one wore masks. Accosted for breaking the rules he prescribed, Newsom replied that “I forgot” and blamed “the stress of governing when so many are disobeying or criticizing” for his lapse of memory.
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.” His work has been cited on the Rush Limbaugh program. 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.
