NLRB Tosses Anti-Union Votes
By John Semmens — Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
The Biden Administration's acting general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board P
eter Sung Ohr ordered the votes of 800 poultry workers who didn't want to be members or have the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) represent them to be trashed. He justified this ruling by saying “a prior agreement between the UFCW and the owners of the Delaware processing plant overrides the wishes of the affected employees.”
Oscar Cruz Sosa, the employee who championed the vote to decertify the UFCW as the workers' representative complained that “this Union doesn't represent the workers. It exploits and abuses them. The NLRB's ruling means we will be forced to continuing to pay our abusers for another three years.”
Similar agreements between business owners and union leaders have been ruled invalid by courts in recent years. Ohr pointed out that “these rulings occurred before the November 2020 election. The President has determined that voters opted for a different policy when they cast their ballots for him. I am just carrying out the mandate he was given by the people.”
A possible alternate rationale for the new policy might be that the UFCW donated $1.2 million to Democrats during the 2020 election cycle. Ohr acknowledged this, but denied it played any role in the NLRB's shift on the issue. “Democrats believe that individual workers are not qualified to deal with the complex issue of union representation,” Ohr said. “They can be mislead by propaganda that is not in their best interest. Rather than fight against what the union is trying to accomplish, workers should appreciate what unions do for them and pay the cost of supporting those services.”
FTC to Fine Man for “Wrong” Advice
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may fine Eric Nepute as much as $500,000 for advocating the use of vitamin D and zinc to help the body's immune system resist COVID infection. While science has validated the positive anti-viral effects of these two natural substances, the FTC labeled Nepute's statements “false.”
FTC acting Chairwoman Rebecca Slaughter asserted that “since the Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) has a different narrative on the COVID pandemic Mr. Nepute's contradiction of that narrative undermines people's faith in the government's preferred strategy for combating this disease. This contradiction could confuse people and result in them making the wrong decisions about what they should do to protect their health.”
“Mr. Nepute wasn't authorized to make his opinions public,” Slaughter said. “It is everyone's duty as a good citizen to fllow the guidance of the government experts who have been designated to handle the strategy for fighting this disease. To allow nonconforming ideas to gain a foothold would imperil the unity that the Biden Administration is trying to achieve, which at this point is to have everyone vaccinated.”
“We are not totally merciless,” Slaughter insisted. “If Nepute admits his error and promises to keep his unacceptable opinions to himself in the future, we may not seek the full amont of the penalties that could be assessed against him.”
In related news, President Biden told Americans that “it is your patriotic duty to get vaccinated. Don't be among the shameful doubters that shun the shot. Get it to show your respect for authority and concern for the health of your neighbor.”
BLM Activists “Storm” Oklahoma Capitol
Angry over anti-rioting legislation under debate in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, a couple of dozen Black Lives Matter activists noisily invaded the capitol building. The legislation under discussion seeks to increase the penalties for intentionally blocking street traffic and to protect drivers who unintentionally hit persons blocking traffic, A separate bill would establish penalties for “doxxing,” i.e. publishing the names and addresses of police officers.
While she was famously public and strident in her condemnation of the January 6 “storming” of the US Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) refused to criticize the Oklahoma incident. “Look, there are several important differences between the two situations,” she maintained. “First, Oklahoma is just one state. Whatever happens there cannot compare with what happens here in Washington. Second, the grievances of the BLM protestors were more meritorious than the false allegations of election theft that motivated the invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Third, the targets of the BLM protestors were Republicans who, as we all know, are doing their best to undermine our democracy. They deserve to be frightened that they will be held accountable for their crimes against the people.”
Republican State Rep. Kevin West called the incursion “disruptive. The police had to clear the gallery of the noisy mob, but no one was shot. So, in that respect I can see a difference between my perspective and that of Speaker Pelosi. We weren't cowering in fear. We aren't slandering the disrupters by calling them 'traitors.' We're not demanding that anybody be imprisoned for disagreeing with the legislation we passed. On balance, I'd say the way we handled the situation in Oklahoma might be a model for DC to emulate rather than the other way around.”
In related news, perhaps in response to Minneapolis City Council candidate Margarita Ortegain's suggestion that protestors ought to target white neighborhoods, a man was blocked from driving his car to his house by BLM protestors. When he pleaded that he was only trying to go home he was mocked, as one protestor told him that “home ownership is a bourgeois fallacy. All property ultimately belongs to the collective. The dictatorship of the proletariat will decide who lives where and when they will or won't be blocked from accessing their assigned accommodations.”
Kerry Pushing Climate Alarmism
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry expressed disappointment with the widespread lack of appreciation for his efforts.
“I have been tirelessly jetting all over the globe to try to impress upon people the need to reduce carbon emissions,” he said. “People are polite, but not panicky. It's frustrating as Hell. Leaders everywhere are short-sightedly focused on what they call bigger problems.”
“What are these 'bigger problems?” Kerry asked. “Well, in place after place they say they are more concerned about poverty and starvation. They say they need to modernize to fight these problems. Modernization requires more fossil fuels to produce more goods and to move them to areas of need. They want power plants to produce electricity to make everyone's lives easier and healthier. They don't realize how selfish they are being.”
“I know it is politically important for them to focus on the well-being of their current population, but from a broader perspective, their current population is the source of the climate crisis. If the population were smaller the stress on the climate would also be smaller. If we make life healthier and easier the population is likely to grow and that would be bad for the environment.”
“It may not be popular for me to say this, but letting backward countries govern themselves may not be sustainable,” Kerry observed. “I think we need a centralized global leadership comprised of the best experts to save the planet. The best model we have of how to do this is provided by China where elites are free to devise and impose the absolute best policies free of interference from the less informed masses of ignorant common people. I believe that President Biden may be coming to the same conclusion and I hope he will issue the executive orders needed to make it happen.”
Psaki Blames Columbus Shooting on “Racial Bias”
Biden's Presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the police shooting of a knife-wielding black teenage girl “yet another example of systemic racism in this country.” The incident originated from a dispute about household tidiness that escalated into a situation where one black teen was attempting to stab another black teen in the driveway of a home.
“The problem with the police is that they use violence to intervene in violent circumstances without giving a thought to the cultural norms of the persons involved,” Psaki said. “It is a cultural and historic fact that household violence is much more common among blacks than whites. In this instance, a police officer brought a gun to a knife fight and unfairly influenced the outcome. By shooting the girl with the knife before she pierced the body of her intended victim he prevented a potentially less deadly outcome. The girl doing the stabbing was not a professionally trained knife-fighter. She might well have missed a vital organ. She may have only meant to frighten or wound rather than kill.”
“Whites who don't share the same life experiences of blacks are not qualified to correctly judge and resolve confrontations,” Psaki contended. “The President is very disturbed by this incident and is considering reforms to prevent similar shootings in the future.”
“Among the ideas under consideration are for police to explicitly request permission to shoot before they fire their weapons,” Psaki said. “Another is to get a racial profile of the participants for all 911 calls so dispatchers can determine whether black or white officers should be dispatched to the scene. A third option would be to ensure that multi-racial teams of cops be dispatched. That way if the person needing to be shot is black, the black officer could do it and if the person needing to be shot is white, the white officer could do it. Any of these ideas could help to diminish the frequency of racially biased shootings.”
Satirical Look at Recent News
John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire for The Arizona Conservative for 16 years. 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. Please do us a favor. If you use material created by Mr. Semmens, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.
