Massachusetts Newspapers Endorse Coakley
By John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News Massachusetts’ largest newspaper, the Boston Globe, urged voters to elect Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) to the senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy last Fall.The paper characterized the Republican candidate for the seat, state senator Scott Brown, as “an enemy of the Obama Administration and, by inference, an enemy of the hope and change themes of our newly elected President. The challenging times in which we live call for audacity, a quality possessed in great measure by the late Senator Kennedy.”“While it is true that Attorney General Coakley, unlike like Senator Kennedy, hasn’t had to sacrifice anyone’s life, she has helped subject an innocent man to nearly two decades of imprisonment for a crime he did not commit,” the editors wrote. “This demonstrates a willingness and ability—the audacity, if we may say so—to do a difficult deed in order to attain the power necessary to promote a progressive agenda. Mr. Brown has nothing in his background indicating he would live up to this Kennedy legacy.”Charles Pierce, writing for the Boston Globe Magazine, sought to remind voters that “the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne transformed Senator Kennedy from an irresponsible playboy into a champion for the underclasses. There is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Kopechne would be proud that the sacrifice of her life enabled Senator Kennedy to craft legislation that would have comforted her in her old age, had she lived.”Cape Cod Today derided Brown as “an anti-candidate.” “We know what he’s against,” the editors wrote. “He’s against wasteful spending. He’s against higher taxes. He’s against the Islamic terrorists. He’s against social control of healthcare. But what is he for?”“In contrast to Brown’s knee-jerk anti-government approach, Ms. Coakley keeps a more open mind on these same issues,” the editors pointed out. “She’s willing to consider whether deficit spending and high taxes may be needed to alleviate the maldistribution of society’s wealth. She’s willing to contemplate whether the focus on Islamic terrorists is a racist diversion from the much larger threat of right-wing terror from gun-nuts and anti-abortionists. And, perhaps most importantly, especially at this juncture, she stands with President Obama in his bid to wrest control over healthcare from an anarchic status quo and place it under social control.”Obama Press Secretary Discounts Possibility of Brown Win in MassachusettsObama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says his boss isn’t worried about polls showing that voters favor the Republican candidate, Scott Brown, over his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, for the Massachusetts senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy.“Polls don’t decide anything,” Gibbs declared. “It is those who count the votes who decide the outcome.”Gibbs pointed out that “having a Democrat in charge of overseeing the tabulation of the votes will ensure that the late Senator Kennedy’s seat will not be stolen by underhanded Republican trickery. In fact, the President will meet with key Democrats in Massachusetts on Sunday to help make sure they don’t forget this.”Chavez Calls on Citizens to “Expropriate the Expropriators”Venezuela announced a devaluation of its currency ranging from 17% to 50% depending on a complex formula to be determined by the government. The lowered purchasing power of the currency will make replacement of existing business inventories more expensive and effectively expropriates a portion of all fixed dollar assets, like savings accounts, annuities, bonds, and pensions.Following his announced devaluation of his nation’s currency, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez warned businesses that “any attempt to adjust prices to prevent losses from the devaluation are forbidden.” To help enforce his policy, Chavez asked citizens to “monitor businesses and take action to punish those who attempt to undermine my authority.” “We will expropriate the expropriators,” Chavez boasted.“We will rely on vigilante justice as our first line of defense,” Chavez said. “Those who would thwart the will of the people by raising prices forfeit all claim to the goods in their possession. Citizens are empowered to seize the goods of the offending businesses and distribute them as socialist principles decree. Physical resistance may be met by such force as deemed necessary by those carrying out the seizures.”NYC Mayor Proposes Blocking Consumer Access to SaltArguing that “a loving parent wouldn’t allow her child to eat asbestos or smoke cigarettes, so why should she allow him to eat salt?” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing banning consumer access to salt in restaurants.“Doctors all agree that salt is bad for us,” Bloomberg contended. “Yet, like disobedient children, too many of us can’t resist reaching for the salt shaker. For our own good, this has to be stopped.”Admitting that “control over household use of salt is beyond our grasp given current technology,” Bloomberg said his plan is to “focus on food consumed in public places and served by licensed professionals.”Under Bloomberg’s proposed plan, restaurants would be prohibited from allowing customers to apply salt on their own. “This means no salt shakers on the tables and no salt packets in bins at fast food joints,” he said. “Only chefs will be permitted to apply a closely regulated quantity that is deemed essential for food preparation. Pop inspections and paid informants will be deployed to make certain regulated limits are not breached.”“Once we get restaurant consumption under control, we can think about ways to deal with home consumption,” Bloomberg added. “Whether that involves pop inspections and informants or a ban on the retail sale of salt is still up in the air.”Reid Defends Accuracy of Remarks, Refuses General ApologyUnder fire in some quarters for remarks many consider to have been racially insensitive, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) refused to make a general apology and defended the accuracy of what he said.“Look, events have borne out the astuteness of my observation,” Reid argued. “Barack, a light-skinned African-American with no Negro dialect was elected president. Darker-skinned men with buffoonish dialects were not. I think that pretty well substantiates how on-target my observations were.”It is believed that the darker-skinned individuals to whom Senator Reid was referring include Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both men unsuccessfully sought the presidency.Reid insisted that he has “already apologized to the only person who matters. I mean, I could’ve cost him the election if this news had come out when I originally made the comment. Thankfully, the media withheld it until the danger had passed.”Last weekend, Reid apologized to President Obama. The president accepted the apology.China Mulls Options for Dealing with Gender ImbalanceThe Chinese government’s one-child per family policy has produced an imbalance between the sexes born over the last generation. Chinese culture heavily favors male offspring. This has resulted in the abortion of over 20 million female fetuses. It is now projected that over 20 million Chinese men of the upcoming generation will be unable to find wives. Government officials are now pondering remedies.Outlawing abortions is not considered a viable option since the government needs to use abortions to enforce the one-child policy. It also would fail to address the existing imbalance. Discussion has focused on two alternate approaches that have been dubbed “liberal” and “traditional.”Under the liberal option, Chinese men would be encouraged to seek out “unconventional” sex partners. Advocate of the liberal approach, Minister of Education Gai Manchu urges that “alternative lifestyles could form the foundation for resolving the disparity. Destigmatizing homosexuality would enable male-to-male attachments that could meet sexual needs in the face of the shortage of females. Further, the lack of offspring from these attachments would amplify the effectiveness of our population control efforts.”The traditional option rejects homosexuality as “an affront to China’s cultural heritage.” “The imbalance would be better handled by castrating the surplus males,” argued Minister of Defense No Dong-Now. “Eunuchs have a long and storied history in our country. Some of our fiercest warriors have been eunuchs. Unlike the liberal option, the threat of sexually transmitted diseases would be nonexistent. And the detached biological material can be reprocessed for fertilizer—boosting our agricultural output.”The Chinese government’s Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sagely observed that “the resolution of our dilemma does not require one all-or-nothing choice. Both the liberal and traditional approaches can be implemented simultaneously. We do, after all, have more than 20 million units of human resource to work with.”John Semmens’ Archives
