White House Outraged over Boehner Invitation to Netanyahu
By John Semmens – Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
The invitation House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) issued to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress has the Obama Administration in a state of apoplexy.“The Speaker did not have President Obama's permission to issue such an invitation,” complained Press Secretary Josh Earnest. “Prime Minister Netanyahu did not have the President's permission to accept the invitation. It's a major breach of protocol that undermines Executive Supremacy.”House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) characterized Boehner's move as “a critical blunder. I wouldn't be surprised if the President were to use this as an excuse to disband Congress.”Confidential sources inside the White House report the President's anger as “unconstrained. There no telling what he might do to levy an appropriate punishment for this disobedience. When subordinates spit in the President's face, as Boehner and Netanyahu have done, it calls for harsh retaliatory measures. He can't just let it go.” Ideas said to be under consideration include assisting Hamas in reprisals against Israeli civilians, tacitly acquiescing in Iran's efforts to wipe Israel off the map, and strategically leaking embarrassing information contained in Boehner's FBI files.
Secretary of State John Kerry professed to be confused by the unfolding events. “The Israeli Prime Minister already met with President Obama last October, I don't see the point of his proposed speech to Congress,” Kerry said. “There is nothing that Congress could do for him that the President wouldn't veto. Netanyahu is foolishly betting on the wrong horse. In the process he has angered the world's most powerful man. This cannot turn out well for him or his people. The only hope for the voters of Israel is to elect someone more in tune with President Obama's wishes. Their country's very survival is at stake.”
In related news, Kerry continued his campaign to clarify Islamic doctrine by insisting that those committing atrocities in the name of Allah are not Islamic. “We reject the notion that violence aimed at reigniting the holy war of Islam against unbelievers is a genuine form of the religion,” Kerry maintained. “Making war for religious reasons is not a 21st century way of thinking. It has no credibility in our modern society.”
Kerry contended that “it would be more accurate to characterize these barbarians as 'Islamish' rather than Islamic. Mere mimicry of the actions taken by Muslims 1400 years ago cannot be the behavior of a truly civilized person. It simply cannot succeed.”
Bush/Romney Political Wedding Falls Through
Hopes that a political wedding between former governors Jeb Bush (R-Fla) and Mitt Romney (R-Mass)--both potential Republican contenders for the presidency—would sweep aside other rivals fell through this week. While both the Bush and Romney camps were loath to release many details, insiders say the chief sticking point was who would be on top.
Romney spokesman Richard Butz laid the blame on what he termed “Bush dynastic aspirations. It was our feeling that Mitt ought to be the one at the top of the ticket. Our polling shows that a substantial number of voters wish they had voted for Mitt in 2012. Giving them a second chance—to kind of right the wrong they'd done—would be the stronger ticket, in our opinion.”
“The Bush people, though, felt that people really miss the fact that the United States has no royal family, so to speak, and that the previous electoral success of Jeb's father and brother had erected the beginnings of a foundation for a quasi royal family,” Butz said.
The two are now expected to go their separate ways. Romney seems likely to focus his bid for the GOP presidential nomination on a theme of completing former President Johnson's unfinished war on poverty and combating global warming. Bush, in contrast, looks to remind GOP voters of the good times that prevailed when his father and brother led the fight for a kinder, gentler future through military interventions in the Mid East.
In related news, expected Democratic presidential contender former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has vowed to crush all opponents under a massive wad of campaign cash. Clinton donor Don Peebles boasted that “we will raise enough money to overwhelm anyone who would think of trying to deny Hillary the nomination and the presidency. Early projections point to a war chest in excess of $1.5 billion. The smart money, the big money is all behind Hillary. The 'grassroots' will be mowed down and mulched. It's that simple.”
Reid Can't Read
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) acknowledged that injuries to his eye sustained in an exercise apparatus mishap last month prevent him from reading. Rather than being an impediment to his legislative performance, though, Reid insists that it will be an asset.
“The premise that a lawmaker needs to read the words he is enacting into law is erroneous,” Reid asserted. “Attempting to read the 1000 page bills we are asked to act upon is time consuming and, ultimately, unnecessary. Even when I could read I couldn't bring myself to wade through the 2000 pages of the Affordable Care Act. But as everyone knows, we passed it anyway. And now millions of people are enjoying the health insurance it mandates.”
More important than undertaking the tedious task of reading the fine print of pending legislation according to Reid, “is knowing the answer to one simple question: 'what does President Obama want us to do.' As long as we act to carry out his will I'm confident that we'll be on the right track.”
President Issues Statement Commemorating 42nd Anniversary of Roe vs Wade
President Obama hailed the 42nd anniversary of 1973's Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion at any time for any reason throughout a woman's pregnancy.
“Since 1973 over 50 million unwanted births have been prevented,” Obama pointed out. “That's 50 million mothers spared the toils and troubles of rearing children they did not want. That's 50 million individuals spared the indignity of being an unwanted child.”
The President also took this anniversary as an opportunity to call for “continued vigilance against those who would have us backtrack on this vital human right.” Two instances of “backtracking” as the President sees it are HR36 (the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act) and HR7 (No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act).
As Obama sees it “the evil of HR36 is that it would elevate an undue concern for the momentary pain suffered by a late term aborted fetus to a level that could neutralize the right given to all women by the 1973 Supreme Court decision.”
“The equally pernicious HR7 would relieve taxpayers from bearing their fair share of the burden of financing abortions,” the President added. “Once a right has been decreed it is everyone's responsibility to support its full implementation. No woman should have to pay an out-of-pocket expense in order to exercise her right to an abortion. No person should be allowed to cite discredited moral objections in an effort to avoid paying for it.”
In related news, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis) have introduced a bill aimed at “preventing states from getting out of step with national policy on abortion.” “Abortion is too crucial an issue for us to allow individual states to deviate from the path set by our President,” Blumenthal argued. “If the Supreme Court has ruled that any woman is entitled to an abortion for any reason how can we sit back and allow states to chip away at that right? Contentions that restrictions are intended to spare the fetus pain have no standing. The Court didn't provide for an exception in the case of pain to the fetus. We must not allow states to try to sneak restrictions on abortion into their laws via an illegitimate concern for fetuses' so-called rights.”
President Touts Expansion of Welfare State to Boost “Middle Class”
In his 2015 State-of-the Union address, President Obama lamented the unfairness of a society where only the few do spectacularly well. He proposed to rectify this injustice by expanding government programs that would offer pittances to a broader number of people who comply with specified behaviors. One stark example was the President's proposal to penalize individuals who set aside money for their own children's education with higher taxes that would be used to partially fund community college for all.
“Why should those who have the means to finance their own children's college be permitted to do so when the children of others have to forgo college because they can't afford it?” Obama asked. “The decision on who goes to college and who doesn't should be made using a collective benefit calculus. The government, as the representative of the collective will of the people, has the moral authority to decide who will and who won't best serve society by being further educated. My plan will move us closer to realizing this ideal.”
The President made a similar case against individuals profiting from their own efforts to save and invest. “Investing society's scarce resources is too important to be left to the anarchy of private choices,” Obama contended. “Individuals are narrowly focused on how profitable an investment might be. We need to shift away from a system that leaves the bulk of our financial resources in private hands to one where the major part of the money and decision making are in the hands of the government. Only the government has the scope of expertise to determine the rightful allocation of resources and benefits for all the people.”
A Satirical Look at Recent NewsJohn Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire column for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties that our nation’s 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.
