Presidential Candidates Compete to Promise Most 'Free Stuff'

By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent NewsThis week, the number of announced Democratic presidential contenders reached 23. The crowded field left many desperate to generate interest in their candidacies. Front-runner, former Vice-President Joe Biden vowed to give free health care to illegal aliens. Reminded that these immigrants already receive this benefit, Biden insisted that “it's not free enough. They're forced to seek out clinics to get these services. When I'm president we'll have an outreach program that requires doctors to make house calls so immigrants can enjoy these services in the comfort of the free public housing the government provides for them.”Nomination rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass) pointed out that “sick people aren't the only ones desperately in need of free services. Many are overburdened having to care for children they neglected to abort. The kinds of day-care available now are meager. Under my plan, every parent will be awarded $15,000 per year, per child. This will give them the purchasing power to afford the high-quality care that they deserve.”“Not good enough,” complained Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt). “Sen. Warren would leave the task of choosing providers to the parents, who are not qualified to make the right choices. True socialism mandates that all children be enrolled in a collective system that can guarantee identical treatment is meted out to every child from birth to college graduation. This is the only way to ensure that all are properly indoctrinated.”With the concurrence of Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif), Sen. Cory Booker (NJ), and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Warren called Sanders' approach “too communistic at this stage of the country's transformation. We need to work toward that ideal more gradually by using some of the mechanisms already in place. That's why we advocate federal grants to pay down student debt. It's too early for an overtly regimented fully communist system. The current ideological indoctrination being carried out by most public and private schools is fully compatible with the recommendations laid out by Marx and Engels in their 1848 Manifesto.”Concerned that this approach “neglects the less intellectually endowed,” nomination rivals South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, former Rep. John Delaney (Md), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) call for a “universal basic income.” “A traditional core constituency of the Democratic Party has been those lacking the ability to cope with the educational environment or to master the skills and self-discipline required to hold down a job,” Buttigieg said. “By guaranteeing every American a basic income regardless of whether they're unable or unwilling to work we will extend the benefits of prosperity to all.”Financing all the promised free stuff received little attention from the majority of the contenders. In a bid to sell himself as the “centrist” among the leftist horde, Biden explained that “I will personally repeal the Trump tax cuts and enact any new taxes needed to secure the money necessary.” The newest contender, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio declared “There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands. When I'm president we will seize that money so it can be utilized to fund whatever the government determines is most useful for the benefit of the masses.”In contrast, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke offered voters a free viewing of him getting a haircut and massage. He claims that “letting the common people see how their betters live is an inexpensive way of boosting their morale. Their existence is pretty dull compared to ours. Celebrities like the Kardashians have brought joy to the masses by generously sharing their daily activities with them. I'm just following their good example.”Trump Praises Buttigieg's “Healthy Choice”Confounding the media's efforts to characterize President Trump as “anti-gay,” the President praised South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg's marriage, calling it “absolutely fine. I think it's something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it's good.”“By restricting himself to having anal sex with a single faithful partner he is avoiding the type of health risks that plague individuals who seek out multiple hook-ups with random strangers,” Trump explained. “So, I think he has made a wise and healthy personal choice. His political choices, on the other hand, aren't so wise or healthy. He's immersed in the insanity of the Democrat Party's big-government agenda to promote programs and policies that will bankrupt the country and impoverish the American people.”Unmoved by Trump's tolerance, Buttigieg pointed out that “your vice-president refuses to accept anal sex as a natural appetite and bodily function. This kind of homophobia is hurting other people. Having him as your running mate proves you are unfit for public office.”In related news, Buttigieg, a self-proclaimed devout Christian, asserted that “Christianity has extremist factions that are just as dangerous as Islamic jihadis. For example, many Christians reject the idea that gay marriage is legitimate. How is this different from Muslims stoning gays?” Apprised that Muslim stoning definitely does not entail making gays smoke weed until they get high, Buttigieg acknowledged “well, maybe I chose a bad example to illustrate my point, but there is no denying that Christians can be as bad as Muslims. That's why I believe in turning the other cheek.”Dems Assail State Laws Restricting AbortionThis week, Alabama and Missouri enacted legislation severely restricting abortions carried out in their states. In Missouri, abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy were banned. In Alabama all abortions except those necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother were outlawed.Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif) called these laws “an invitation to inflict the nightmare from The Handmaid's Tale on the women of this country.” Unfortunately for her argument, in The Handmaid's Tale fertile women are enslaved, raped, and forced to bear children for the ruling class. Neither of these state laws does anything remotely like that. These laws aim to protect unborn humans from being murdered in the womb.Margaret Atwood's novel wasn't the only textual source cited by Harris for her opposition. She also claimed that “these laws are an unconstitutional violation of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decree that a woman's right to abort her unwanted child is an unalienable right. The Court, in its wisdom, discerned that the fetus has no rights which society is bound to respect.”Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) concurred with her colleague and added her contention that “these laws violate our Christian faith. Christians believe in free will. A woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy is an exercise of free will. Government has no authority to interfere in such a decision. What it does have is an obligation to make sure that every woman in America, no matter what state she lives in or how much money she has in her pocket, can have guaranteed access to safe, legal and free abortion. This means public funding of the procedure. That's why the Court should also overturn the Hyde Amendment that prohibits federal taxpayer money from being use to finance these procedures. If the Court hasn't done this by the time I become president, I will do it by executive order.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif) also insisted that “preventing mothers from disposing of unwanted children is unconstitutional. It's the type of cruel and unusual punishment that is banned by the Eighth Amendment. Trump's refusal to send federal troops to arrest the Alabama legislators who committed this atrocity will be added to the list of offenses for which we will impeach him.”Meanwhile, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has banned Coloradans from traveling to Alabama, “lest they be stranded there without access to safe and free abortions. Abortions are a constitutional right enacted by the Supreme Court. Until such a time that the Court slaps down Alabama's attack on this right I cannot allow our state's inhabitants to take the risk of traveling to this dangerous 'no-go zone.'”New York May Move to Restrict Residents from LeavingAs the flow of residents leaving the state has negatively impacted the taxes that can be extracted from these mostly well-off individuals, the government of New York is weighing options to rectify the situation. An idea gaining traction is the imposition of a “certificate of need” to determine whether each resident desiring to emigrate can demonstrate a sufficient urgency justifying the request to leave.Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) averred that “we need to reconsider the notion that a resident can decide whether to leave the state without justifiable cause. We understand that the desire to avoid the high taxes we impose is a strong motivating factor for the individual to move out. However, such a decision has anti-social connotations and negatively affects both those left behind and the governments that must care for them.”“The really bad aspect of the situation from our perspective is that the out-migration is heavily weighted toward those who have money,” Cuomo explained. “They leave behind a growing cohort of persons who depend on the government for necessities like food and housing. This aggravates a cycle of dwindling means to sustain a proportionally increasing dependent population. I believe we have a moral obligation to intervene to prevent this from spiraling out of control.”“We have regulatory precedents on which to craft an appropriate response,” Cuomo continued. “On a personal level, residents of this state must prove to the satisfaction of the government that they have sufficient need for a firearm before we issue them permission to carry one. I think we can use a similar approach to the emigration problem in that before anyone can legally move out of the state he must persuade regulatory authorities that his need to do so is sufficiently dire to justify it. If authorities are not persuaded that the proposed move benefits both the individual and the state, permission would be denied. The individual and his taxable assets would be required to remain in New York.”California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Cuomo's idea “intriguing. For too long we've allowed a knee-jerk acceptance of individual freedom to run roughshod over every individual's duty to do what's right for the collective welfare of society. This 'rugged individualism' is not a modern way of thinking. It's time we realize that letting everyone do as he pleases at the cost of leaving his fellow man to fend for himself is morally wrong. Maybe it's time for government to step in to force wayward individuals to do what's best for all.”Comey Credits Communist Past for His “High Moral Character”Under continuing investigation by Attorney General William Barr for his “strange” decisions and actions regarding the Trump candidacy and presidency, former FBI Director James Comey cited “my earlier communist ideology for providing a steady ethical weather vane to guide me toward doing the right thing.”Comey dismissed contentions that federal law enforcement officials should not interfere in political matters as “bourgeois delusion. The higher duty is to the collective well-being of mankind. Sometimes following the law fulfills this duty. At other times going beyond the bounds of the law may be required in order to achieve this duty. The clear consensus of those of us working for President Obama was that Donald Trump presented the most severe threat to the collective of any of the candidates running in the 2016 campaign. Recusing ourselves from using the vast powers at hand was not an option.”“We would have succeeded if Rosenstein hadn't double crossed us,” he complained. “He was supposed to testify that Trump ordered him to write the memo advising that I be fired. That would have clearly established the charge of obstruction. But he weaseled out, saying he needed to preserve his options in case things went south. Now he's out there pretending he was some sort of a mole inside our conspiracy to save the country from Trump. It's disgusting to see that some people have no sense of honor or integrity.”The former FBI Director expressed “profound disappointment at the failure of our efforts to accomplish the mission” and admitted that “I am also hurt that fellow communist John Brennan is now breaking ranks and trying to save himself by blaming me for all the laws that were broken. I wrote the book on loyalty. Brennan should follow the lead that I laid out in my book. We still have allies within the government and we should all stick together during the perilous times to come. In the long run, communism will win. Marx clearly laid that out in his dialectical materialism analysis of history. Getting there with as little damage as possible to the true patriots must be our common goal.”For his part, Brennan questioned “whether Comey truly understands the principles and methods of the fight for the communist revolution. Accusing others has a long history within the communist movement. Lenin and Stalin set the example. That Comey would complain rather than accept the blame the movement has decided he must in order to advance the revolution is a betrayal of the ideals the movement is trying to implement as the new ethos for the working class utopia.”Colorado/New Mexico Immigration TiffColorado's Gov. Jared Polis (D) is miffed that New Mexico's Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has been busing unwanted illegal immigrants into his state. “She's the one who left the border open for the swarms of immigrants and asylum seekers that have caused her state so many problems,” Polis said. “Now she trying to smuggle them into Colorado. It's a sneaky underhanded trick.”Grisham defended her actions saying that “it is only fair that the burdens be shared among the states. Gov. Polis is a supporter of open borders. Why shouldn't his state welcome the arrival of people all we Democrats agree ought to be allowed into America? It's not as if I acted unilaterally. We coordinated with Annunciation House, a nonprofit that works with migrants along the El Paso, Texas/Juarez, Mexico border to accomplish the transport of our excess supply of asylum seekers to an area comparatively deficient in the quantity of these public charges living within their state. Besides, the number transported so far is only 55 persons. Polis is making a mountain out of a molehill.”“It's not the quantity that is the issue,” Polis objected. “The issue is our being forced to take people we don't want in our state. If we had been consulted in advance we would've contributed money to have these people bused to Mar-a-Lago. That's where all the refugees should be sent to teach Trump that the transformation of the United States via floods of immigrants cannot be stopped.”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.” His work has been cited on the Rush Limbaugh program. This post is also available on Facebook.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.