Comey Testifies

By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent NewsThis 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 IdahoThree 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 RejectedFour 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 JobFormer 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 NewsJohn 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.