Obama to Receive 'Profiles in Courage' Award

By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent NewsThe Kennedy Presidential Library's annual “Profiles in Courage” Award for 2017 will go to former President Barack Obama. The Award, named after the 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning book ghost written for then Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John F. Kennedy, is given to individuals displaying extraordinary political courage by taking an unpopular course of action. The award ceremony will take place in May, when former First Daughter Caroline Kennedy and grandson of the late JFK, Jack Schlossberg, bestow the prize.“Faced with unrelenting adulation and widespread demands that he declare himself 'president for life,' President Obama courageously agreed to follow the law and step down after two terms,” Schlossberg said. “This gracious emulation of our nation's first chief executive put him at odds with the majority of Americans who clearly would have supported his continuation in office as a down payment on the reparations for slavery that he has championed during his political career. That he would exit the presidency in a move that his core constituency would characterize as 'acting white' demonstrated an 'off-the-charts' level of personal fortitude.”Obama is the third former president to win the award. In 2001, former President Gerald Ford was honored for the unconditional pardon he granted to Richard Nixon in 1974 for “all offenses that has committed or may have committed or taken part in” while president. In 2014, former President George H.W. Bush was honored for joining with Democrats to break his 1988 campaign pledge of “no new taxes.”The speed with which the “Profiles in Courage” award was made to Obama mirrored that of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Ironically, the United States was constantly at war for his eight years as president when bragged that he was “really good at killing people” with drone strikes. Schlossberg expressed confidence that there wouldn't be any similar embarrassment over the “Profiles” award since “the refusal to seize power can't be undone now that he has surrendered the reins to his successor.”French Candidate Targeted by EU ParliamentThe European Parliament cleared the way for the French government to prosecute populist candidate for the presidency, Marine LePen, for her 2015 tweet of “terroristic images.” The images showed ISIS atrocities. If convicted, LePen could be imprisoned for up to three years and fined 75,000 Euros.LePen, who has been highly critical of the virtually unrestricted immigration of Muslims into France, assailed the EU's actions, calling them “yet more proof of everything we've been saying. The government's misguided attempts to be compassionate have endangered the lives of our citizens and pose a threat to our nation's survival. Right now, swaths of our cities have been turned into backward Hellholes where French men and women dare not set foot lest they be assaulted, raped, or killed by Muslim thugs.”“The refugees from Africa and the Middle East make no effort to learn our culture and minimal effort to obey our laws,” LePen said. “They replicate the squalid and violent conditions of the homelands they are fleeing. They boast of the day when they will outnumber us and Islamify the entire country. If it is to be illegal for us to point out the danger we are laying the groundwork for our subjugation and massacre by these aliens and their murderous ideology.”EU Member of Parliament Laura Ferrara contended that “Ms. LePen is only making matters worse by her repeated defamation of this religious minority. The handwriting has been on the wall for some time now. Europeans do not reproduce at a high enough rate to fend off the inundation of our land and culture by the more fecund Muslim immigrants. Inciting them will not save us. Submitting to the will of Allah will. If all the world is for Islam the terror will cease. We will all be part of the umma and be entitled to the common respect all Muslims pay to each other.”The kind of respect Ms. Ferrara can expect as a Muslim female seems dubious. Further, despite the rhetoric, Muslims do a lot of fighting among themselves. Many of the victims of ISIS brutality are Muslims deemed insufficiently compliant with the group's rigid expectations for obedience. Making the whole world Muslim is more likely to permanently institutionalize terror than abolish it.In related news, Syrian refugees living in Modum, a small municipality in the south of Norway, complain that the modest apartments provided to them free-of-charge are inadequate. “We are Muslims,” Abdulhadi Alkhalaf pointed out. “We are entitled by our faith to accommodations superior to those enjoyed by the unbelievers. We demand suitably-sized houses be provided.”Governor Vetoes Investigation of Vote FraudGov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va) vetoed a bill that would have prompted investigations in counties where the number of persons registered to vote exceeded the total number of citizens eligible to vote. The Governor defended his veto, saying that “the right to vote is a fundamental human right. Republican attempts to limit this right based on country of origin is inherently racist and unfair.”The bill's sponsor, Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), called the Governor's action “outrageous. Voting is a civil right exercised by the citizens of this state. Immigrants need to go through the procedures laid out in the law to become citizens before they register and cast ballots. Waiving this requirement as the Governor would have us do dilutes the civil rights of every lawful voter.”McAuliffe derided Obenshain's position. “The onerous process of naturalization is one that few native-born citizens could accomplish,” McAuliffe maintained. “I don't see the 'diluting' the votes of ignorant natives as a negative. Immigrants, especially those in the country without proper documentation, have as great an interest in the government programs providing them with benefits as anyone. Their voices deserve to be heard. Voting is the way to ensure that they are heard.”Trump Speech Rankles DemocratsPresident Donald Trump's speech to Congress this week rankled key Democrats. While some, including CNN's Van Jones saw it as “presidential” in tone, others, including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) insisted it was “detached from reality. The real Trump is a snarling, mean-spirited hater. This speech was an attempt to conceal that reality behind a tired call for the country to unite behind a common goal to make America great.”“He says he wants to work with Democrats, but he hasn't reached out to us,” Schumer complained. “Everything is about his promises to the American people. Well, more than half the American voters favored his opponent. Until he recognizes and accommodates this reality we will have to try to block him every step of the way.”House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) took a similar stance. “The notion that Trump can make America great by reversing the policies of President Obama is ludicrous,” she asserted. “Promising to put people back to work may serve the interests of the rednecks who voted for Trump, but it has got to be scary for the tens of millions relieved of this onus by the increased government benefits the Democratic Administration gave them. When the government gives you a place to live and food to eat do you still really want to be put to work at some soul-numbing job?”Pelosi praised “the courage of my fellow Democrats who vocally expressed their displeasure with Trump's new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement proposal. Now is not the time for initiating a new entitlement for what has got to be a tiny minority, especially when the immigrants who will have to bear the brunt of his deportation scheme are far more numerous. Even worse, his proposed 'merit-based' approach to immigration would block the most needy while selfishly allowing a preferential treatment to the smaller self-sustaining and productive fraction of those wanting to come to our country.”In related news, Trump's preference for having his steak well-done and eating it with ketchup repulsed gourmets around the globe. “Putting ketchup on a steak is something a child would do,” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) observed. “Can we really abide having a person of such inappropriate tastes as the leader of the free world? When we add his reluctance to go to war with Russia, I think we must seriously reconsider his fitness to lead.”Dems May Look to “Transracials” to Boost Non-White StaffStruggling to make the racial composition of staffers more closely resemble the general population, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is urging more of the 93% who are Caucasian “to look deep into themselves to see if they may be Black, Latino, or Muslim.”“We have made great strides incorporating transsexuals into the workforce to help boost the female cohort of our staff,” Schumer remarked. “This got me to thinking that there must be a contingent of transracials out there who could help us meet our non-white quota. Maybe Rachel Dolezal was out ahead of the curve on this. I mean, the people that mocked her for declaring herself to be Black may have missed the boat. Who's to say she is wrong? If a person with a penis can declare himself a woman, then why can't a person with pale skin declare himself Black? There's probably more physical evidence for a white person being biologically part Black than there is for a man being part woman.”Meanwhile, the woman formerly known as Rachel Dolezal has finalized her transition to Black by adopting the name Nkechi Amare Diallo—a West African name that means “gift of god.” Perhaps if more of the Congressional staffers were to simply adopt African names the concerns of Sen. Schumer would be assuaged.

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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