SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News, October 26, 2014 Edition
Amnesty Needed for "Shared Prosperity"
Labor Secretary Thomas Perez reassured the National Press Club that amnesty for illegal immigrants will be forthcoming after the mid-term elections.
"Right now, it would be too risky for the President to declare the kind of big and bold legalization of the millions of undocumented persons in this country that everyone agrees is desperately needed," Perez said. "The Republicans would use such an action to hammer Democrats running in Congressional races. Once the elections are past, though, there will be nothing anyone can do to impede this reform."
Granting legal status to the millions of immigrants in this country illegally is, according to Perez, "a crucial piece of the puzzle for the President's vision of shared prosperity. It's long since past the time that the wealth being hoarded by Americans is more equitably shared with those less well off around the globe. The streams of people entering through our southern border are a small vanguard for the comprehensive redistribution that is long overdue."
Perez cited Department of Homeland Security orders for an additional 34 million green cards as solid evidence of Obama's intentions. "After November 4th we will be able to hit the ground running," he boasted. "By 2016, not only those currently in the country, but millions more will have all the documentation they need to fully participate in American life, including driver's licenses, public housing, food stamps and voting."
Job Losses Due to Minimum Wage Hike Tolerable
Charlie Christ, the Democratic candidate for governor in Florida brushed aside the prospect that 50,000 low wage workers would lose their jobs if the legal minimum wage is raised.
"First of all, 50,000 is a relatively small number compared to the total workforce in the state," Christ pointed out. "Few will notice them or be aware of the cause of their unemployment. And it won't be as if their suffering would be severe. Most will qualify for government assistance. So, I think adding another 50,000 to the state's welfare cohort is a tolerable price for Florida to bear."
"Second, the much larger portion of low wage workers who hold onto their, now higher-paying, jobs will be eternally grateful to the government that boosted their income," Christ continued. "Their votes will help solidify progressive control of the levers of power and allow further gains in the redistribution of wealth over the coming years."
Emerging Evidence of Vote Fraud Attributed to "Bad Luck"
Several recent events indicating that Democrat efforts to steal the upcoming election were labeled "bad luck" by various spokespersons for the Party.
In Arizona, a man wearing a "Citizens for a Better Arizona" T-shirt was observed stuffing hundreds of vote-by-mail envelopes into a ballot box in Maricopa County. The man refused to identify himself and complained that his actions were "not anyone's business, but mine. It's supposed to be a secret ballot. No one has the right to watch me, much less question what I'm doing."
In an "off-the-record" interview, an Arizona Democratic Party official bemoaned the negative impression the video of the ballot-stuffing episode has caused for the Party. "Under normal circumstances no one would've seen anything," he lamented. "Now because of a video taken by an overzealous poll watcher it appears as if we are cheating. It's pure bad luck."
In Chicago, Illinois Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan noticed that the voting machine automatically switched his intended vote for GOP candidates into votes for Democrats. Cook County Board of Elections representative Jim Scalzitti attributed the phenomenon to "calibration error. The algorithm is supposed to flip one out of every five votes. We don't know whether the formula misfired or whether it was just bad luck that a high profile Republican voter who was paying attention was that one-in-five voter in this particular instance."
"It's not like the Democrats are stealing every vote," Scalzitti rationalized. "Sometimes we lose. Over the long run, though, the one-in-five formula has been found to be a pretty reliable buffer. Even if the GOP candidates get 60% of the intended votes, the 20% flip brings their percentage down to 48%--enough to ensure that all but the most heavily detested Democrats are safely elected."
In North Carolina, State Board of Elections officials discovered that 145 names on voter rolls belonged to illegal immigrants who were granted "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" status by President Obama. Attorney General Eric Holder called the discovery "unfortunate. We have been doing all we can to discourage these kinds of scrutinizing of voter rolls. Identifying individual voters like this flies in the face of the whole concept of a secret ballot. We will be investigating this and assessing the penalties we deem warranted."
In Colorado, Meredith Hicks, director of the political canvassing group Work for Progress, was covertly recorded urging that campaign workers retrieve discarded and unused ballots and cast them for progressive candidates. "If the owner of the vote-by-mail ballot doesn't want to cast it himself there's no good reason why we shouldn't salvage it for our cause," Hicks said. Hicks' characterized the covert recording of her illegal strategy by conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe as "underhanded. This invasion of my privacy is an unfair and unfortunate intervention that may encourage some of our workers to shun this opportunity to try to ensure victory for the forces of good in November."
Kerry Says Israel Responsible for ISIL
US Secretary of State John Kerry maintains that Israel is the reason why ISIL exists.
"Let's face it, if there were no Jews in the Middle East there would be no need for ISIL," Kerry argued. "The misguided attempt to provide a homeland for Europe's displaced Jews after World War II was a provocation. The land currently occupied by Israel was duly conquered by Muslims fourteen hundred years ago. Any effort to roll back any part of that conquest gives Muslims a legitimate grievance."
Kerry suggested that "a better choice for a Jewish homeland would have been a less volatile location like Madagascar or Alaska. That's if we assume that one was even necessary. I mean, the number of Jews in the world is tiny, only 12 million. There are about 12 million Mormons. They don't have their own country. Why should the similarly small population of Jews be accorded this privilege?"
"In contrast, there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world," the Secretary observed. "If we truly believe in democracy and majority rule shouldn't we be siding with this substantial majority instead of the Jewish minority? Perhaps resisting this democratic principle is at the root of all our troubles in the Middle East. Maybe we need to assess whether we are on the wrong side of history here."
Homeland Security Confiscates Underwear
The Department of Homeland Security nipped a budding threat to Americans' safety by seizing dozens of women's panties from a Kansas City boutique. The panties displayed an unauthorized "KC" logo on them.
"This logo is owned by the Kansas City baseball team," explained Secretary Jeh Johnson. "For the team to be deprived of the revenues to which they are entitled tears at the very fabric of our nation."
Peregrine Honig, owner of the boutique, said "we were only trying to show our support for the team. It's been nearly 30 years since the Royals were last in the World Series. I wasn't mounting an attempt to overthrow the government or anything."
Johnson declined to say whether the seizure of merchandise would be the end of the matter. "We are reserving our options," he declared. "If we need to put this shop out of business and jail the proprietor as an example to others is something we'll have to consider."
Dem Insists that Republicans Are Responsible for Obama's Low Ratings
DNC Chairwoman Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla) contends that President Obama's low approval ratings with voters is due to "persistent GOP resistance to his policy agenda. Voters showed that they decisively support the President when they reelected him in 2012. Instead of helping him act on this mandate, though, Republicans have worked to thwart him at every turn. They have a terrible record, which I'm sure will be repudiated at the polls on November 4th."
Wasserman-Schultz ticked off the issues she feels will redound in her Party's favor in the upcoming vote. "The electorate wants higher spending, yet Republicans have repeatedly characterized many of the President's programs as 'wasteful,'" she complained. "Voters know that the President's plan for open borders and amnesty are the best way to guarantee that progressive policies can be entrenched in our government. The influx of reliably Democratic voters from Mexico and Central America are a key to achieving this goal. Voters also appreciate Democratic efforts to move more people out of the workday rat race and into government support programs like public housing, nutritional sustenance, and even free cell phones. They'll vote Democrat if they want to continue these vital initiatives."
The DNC Chair said she understands that many Democratic candidates are wary of associating themselves with the President in this election cycle, but maintained that "this is wrongheaded thinking. We mustn't let ourselves be swayed by the propaganda that the President's ideas are being rejected. If we buy into this message we won't have a mandate to move forward when our Party wins."
Unmentioned in Wasserman-Schultz's list of the benefits the government has provided under Obama were the funds invested in giving test rabbits Swedish massages, teaching monkeys how to gamble, and putting lions, monkeys, rats and cows on treadmills. These dubious expenditures were a few of the hundreds of instances of wasteful government spending cited by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) in his annual Wastebook compilation of ridiculous and outrageous items in the federal government's budget. "I think it's safe to say that if these types of waste of the taxpayers' money were more widely known, voters might be tempted to tar-and-feather the Democrats than to vote for them," Coburn speculated.
NY Governor Says Safe Act Needs More Vigorous Enforcement
New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) says that despite barring over 30,000 individuals deemed "too unstable" to be allowed to possess firearms, "the State's 'Safe Act' stills leaves too many free to obtain these weapons."
"In my view, anyone who thinks he needs a gun is, prima facie, too unstable to be allowed to have one," Cuomo ventured. "This would include virtually every member of the National Rifle Association and a considerable portion of registered Republicans. Can a civilized society really condone the possession of weapons by such people?"
As an example, Cuomo cited a recent statement made by the Republican candidate for the US Senate in Iowa, State Senator Joni Ernst. "This woman believes it should be her right to have a gun in case the government decides her rights are no longer important," Cuomo incredulously recounted. "This is taking individual freedom too far. In our democracy we have empowered our elected representatives to draw the boundaries of where everyone's rights end and government authority begins. Views to the contrary are obviously evidence of mental instability."
The Governor said that he hoped that "by speaking out on this issue doctors would be inspired to more closely scrutinize patients for instability and that local police would be more restrictive about who they issue permits to."
"In an ideal world, only government law enforcement personnel would be permitted to bear arms," Cuomo maintained. "If personal possession of a firearm were universally outlawed anyone spotted with a gun could simply be shot on sight by police. Threats to the civil order would be more quickly and easily suppressed. Important government officials would be more thoroughly protected. And the domestic tranquility promised by the US Constitution could become a reality."
North Korea Announces New Travel Restrictions
The Government of North Korea is closing its borders to tourism because of fears it might spread Ebola to the reclusive nation.
The nation's lone tourist, former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman, is reportedly "heartbroken that his desire to visit with his 'best friend,'" dictator Kim Jung Un, may be impeded by "this cruel barrier."
