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SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News

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SEMI-NEWS/SEMI-SATIRE: March 15, 2020 Edition

Ayatollah Says It's Okay to Accept Vaccine from Israel

Reports that Israel may soon produce a vaccine for the coronavirus prompted Iran's Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi to say "it's okay for Muslims to accept it." The revered cleric cited an instance in the Prophet Muhammad's life to support his ruling.

"Mohammed was the first man to receive Allah's command to exterminate the Jews," he pointed out. "Yet, there came a moment when he agreed to a truce with these vermin that both sides should lay down their arms. When the Jewish army complied with this agreement the Prophet ordered them seized and beheaded."

"If Muslims are to obey the command to slay the Jews we must survive," the Ayatollah explained. "If the Jews in their greed are willing to sell us a medicine that helps us to survive, it is our right to take this medicine so we may live to carry out our religious obligation to rid the world of Jews when we are well enough to do so. We must not make the same mistake that Hitler made by allowing a Jew named Einstein to escape his grasp and carry the knowledge of how to build the atom bomb over to his enemies. Hitler could have won the war and had the opportunity to thoroughly exterminate Satan's spawn."

Pelosi Defends Abortion-Funding Clause in Coronavirus Bill

President Trump's hope for bipartisan legislation to combat the coronavirus pandemic was put in doubt when House Democrats tried to include non-pertinent add-on spending to it. A particularly egregious add-on was a provision that would authorize spending federal funds on abortions.

After the US Supreme Court declared that women had a right to abort unwanted babies up to the third trimester in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill) led a bipartisan majority to enact a law barring the use of taxpayer funds to provide abortions. His reasoning was that since many taxpayers considered abortion to be murder, they shouldn't be compelled to finance it.

Since some members of her Party opposed adding this provision to the coronavirus emergency bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) was unable to garner a enough votes to support passage with language that included the abortion funding. Nevertheless, she still insists that "funding desperately needed abortions must be a critical element of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Every child born is a future potential victim of the virus. Parents who want to spare their children from suffering and possibly dying from this dreaded new disease should not be denied this human right just because they can't afford to pay for their own abortions."

"Individuals who have moral objections to abortion have a civic duty to put aside their personal beliefs for the sake of the collective well-being of society," the Speaker asserted. "Under our laws, abortion is not considered murder. For us to continue to tolerate idiosyncratic objections under the pretense of a moral code that has no legal foundation only rewards the inherent selfishness of these deviants. We need to take heed of China's more enlightened approach to religion. There, religious freedom is bounded by the necessity to comply with the moral directives decreed by a government that has placed the good of the whole ahead of the objections of a minority."

Media Dolts Praise "Courageous" and "Charming" Biden

In a campaign stop at a Michigan automobile factory, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden verbally chastised a worker, called him a "horse's ass," and threatened to "slap you in the face." The worker's offense was to disagree with Biden's position on gun control.

Atlantic writer David Frum called Biden's outburst "terrific. I think this lays to rest the contention that the Vice-President isn't up to the job of running the country. This was the kind of language the working class voters can appreciate. Joe is the father figure they've all been waiting for—a no nonsense guy who puts their juvenile ideas into their proper place."

Frum alleged that "Trump is too much of a coward to tell it like it is. He'd let every yokel out there decide for himself whether he wants to exercise his so-called Second Amendment right to bear arms, rather than calmly explain why the government has to limit firearm ownership to only those who can show a true need. Biden has already signaled that he will appoint 'hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47' Beto O' Rourke as his 'guns czar' when he is president."

CNN's John King found Biden's charge that the worker was "full of sh*t" to be "charming. It's authentic and earthy. Reminds me of the kind of vulgarity that LBJ displayed from time-to-time. And he won a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. I think verbally slapping down a 'gun-rights' voter will work in Joe's favor among Democrats."

Pelosi Condemns "Bigoted" Tweet

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) demanded that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) apologize for mentioning that the coronavirus originated in China. "Bigoted statements which spread misinformation and blame Asians for the coronavirus make us all less safe," she claimed. "This is just more of Trump's 'America first' garbage. The Chinese government doesn't agree that this disease originated in their country. Their theory is that the US Army covertly introduced the coronavirus by planting infected bats in Wuhan restaurants where unsuspecting gourmands would eat them and get sick."

"Sadly, McCarthy isn't the only racist to unfairly implicate China," the Speaker added. "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark), and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz) have each had their turn at it."

McCarthy characterized Pelosi's statement as "another in a long line of political smears that have supplanted civil discussion from the Democratic side of the aisle. Historically, it has been common to identify new diseases by their place of origin. A few weeks ago the media itself—including the Washington Post, NBC, and CNN—were using the phrases 'Chinese coronavirus' and 'Wuhan virus' to describe this new disease. Are they all racists too?"

NY Solution to Hand Sanitizer Shortage Inspires Sanders

Fear of the coronavirus has led to a run on hand sanitizer supplies leaving store shelves empty of the product. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced that inmates in the state's prisons are now producing hand sanitizer at a cost of only $6.10 per gallon.

Contender for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt) hailed this as "a model for how we take profiteering out of the process of meeting the needs of the people. Instead of allowing billionaires to rip off their customers we'll put them to work while they are behind bars. We'll convert them from being capitalist exploiters into honest laborers for the common good."

A second aspect of the hand sanitizer solution that Sanders found admirable is that "the product won't be sold in the markets, but will be distributed on the basis of need. Rather than having a corporate board of directors setting prices based on what the market will bear, government officials will be determining who are the most deserving recipients. This ensures that social justice will triumph over selfishness."

"We are fortunate that a disease pandemic has had the 'silver lining' of illustrating how true socialism can work miracles for the benefit of humanity," the Senator observed. "Where the market has failed, the State of New York has pioneered a remedy. Using prisoners keeps costs low. Since the state provides their room-and-board for free, they're satisfied to work for only 65 cents per hour. We are slowly relearning the truths demonstrated in the Soviet Gulags where social and political misfits were put to work for the common good. If we can overcome our ill-placed squeamishness, we can also harness these techniques for transforming our country."

In related news, Sanders has vowed to give a nonstop speech to America for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. He modestly explained that "it's the least I can do in this time of crisis. I have no medical skills or knowledge to contribute, but I do have the stamina to try to entertain those self-quarantined at home. There are many stories of heroic socialists—like Lenin who executed the Tsar and his family, Stalin who executed the counterrevolutionaries, and Fidel who executed the capitalist parasites—that I can tell to help boost everyone's spirits."

AOC Says Refusal to Eat in Chinese Restaurants "Racist"

Leary of the coronavirus, some people are avoiding eating in Chinese restaurants. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has branded people who do this "racists." She, herself, doesn't eat in Chinese restaurants, but insisted "I'm not racist because only whites can be racist."

"Actually, it would be cultural inappropriate for me, a person of Puerto Rican descent, to eat Chinese food," she maintained. "I only eat Puerto Rican food, as is appropriate for a person of my racial background."

CBO Urges High School Grads to Forgo College

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an assessment of the cost of a college education and advised recent high school graduates planning on getting one to "save your money. You're going to need it to help pay down the student debt of those foolish enough to have already incurred the cost of earning a degree."

The CBO report found that "a glut of graduates without marketable skills has led to a crash in the salaries many of them counted on to repay the loans they took out to be able to afford going to college. What America needs now is for more high school grads to enter the workforce and get real jobs producing products and services that consumers are willing to pay for. Not only will this likely boost individual gains, but it will also produce surpluses that can be taxed away to cover the losses the government has suffered from student-loan defaults. It may seem kind of a raw deal for one generation to have to pay the debts of a preceding generation, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the common good."

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