IPFS John Semmens

SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News

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SEMI-NEWS/SEMI-SATIRE: December 13, 2020 Edition

Biden Thanks "Courageous Few" Who Saved Election

Media-anointed President-Elect Joe Biden acknowledged that "Trump beat the living hell out of us across the country" and thanked "the courageous few in the swing states who went the extra mile to overcome the massive lead he held before our special ops team found the votes needed to change the outcome."

"While I can't name all of these heroes, I want to thank the governors and judges whose late changes in the rules for mail-in ballots allowed us to bypass the ID requirements that would have deterred the acceptance of ballots cast by unidentified persons and in the names of deceased voters," Biden said. "I also want to thank those who stayed up through the night to ensure that these additional mail-in ballots could be privately counted without the interruptions of pesky poll watchers."

"Finally, while the algorithms programmed into the Dominion voting machines were inadequate to overcome the unexpectedly large surge of vote-in-person ballots for Trump, the margins they generated in my favor greatly reduced the number of votes that had to be created in the early hours of November 4th," the grateful winner exclaimed. "I guess we truly did unleash the most extensive and diverse vote fraud organization in American history. I hope that future generations will learn more about these heroes and give them the credit they deserve for preventing the deplorable voters from reelecting a monster."

COVID Accelerated Gov't Repression Everywhere

CIVICUS Monitor, an international civil rights alliance, issued a report detailing how governments around the world—including the United States—"have used the pandemic as an opportunity to introduce or implement additional restrictions on civic freedoms."

According to the report, "the Covid-19 pandemic has had a dire impact on civic freedoms globally. Increases in the aggressive use of force against protesters and censorship of criticism have become widespread. In fact, 87% of the world's population now lives in nations with strongly negative civic freedom ratings, a 4% increase from last year."

The report was especially critical of enforcement policies that use detention. Lead researcher Marianna Belalba Barreto pointed out that "the virus is more likely to spread in confined spaces like prisons. Our research reflects a deepening civic space crisis across the globe and highlights how governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to further curtail rights, including by passing legislation to criminalize speech."

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) defended detention of "those who violate lockdowns, congregate illegally in churches or homes, or walk around without wearing face masks. These scofflaws are literally murdering their fellow citizens." Ironically, New Jersey has been releasing jailed felons to make room for COVID restriction violators. However, Murphy contends that "with the pandemic decimating the population, those who won't follow the rules pose a greater threat than those we are releasing."

Barr Defends Hiding Biden Probe

Prior to election day, the misdeeds of presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter were largely hidden from the general public. Part of this was achieved by the mainstream media's refusal to publish or air any of the evidence of Hunter's suspicious business dealings. It has now been acknowledged that US Attorney General William Barr also gave orders to the FBI to put the clamps on any evidence they found "so as not to influence the election."

Barr cited a post election poll indicating that "a potentially decisive percentage of those who voted for Biden said that if they had been aware of the scandal they wouldn't have voted for him. I think this vindicates my decision to withhold information from our investigation until it could no longer affect the outcome of the election."

The AG dismissed critics who contend that withholding this information may have tipped the election in Biden's favor. "The important thing is that no one can claim that we did anything that might have tipped the election in Trump's favor," he contended. "By bending over backward to avoid appearing to help Trump the reputation of the Department of Justice and the FBI has remained untainted. As an appointee of President Trump that will be my greatest legacy. Whether President Biden's son is a crook or whether Joe Biden himself is a crook is of lesser significance, Previous presidents and their family members have been crooks—Johnson and Clinton come to mind—but the nation has still survived. I don't think the same could be said if the sterling reputation of the DOJ were besmirched. So, I'm confident I did the right thing."

In related news, the FBI admitted that they've been sitting on 20,000 pages of evidence in the Seth Rich murder case for the last four years. Rich was an employee of the Democratic National Committee when he was murdered in July of 2016. Rich was rumored to have handed over incriminating emails to Wikileaks. FBI Director Christopher Wray explained that "it's too late now for anybody to do anything about it, so it's okay for the general public to be aware of what the Agency has been doing. Knowing we have the power to help or hurt those who oppose government authority can serve as a lesson to them that resistance is futile."

Counties Discover Flaws in Voting Machines

Two counties—Antrim in Michigan and Coffee in Georgia—have conducted forensic examinations of the Dominion voting machines used in the November election. Both have found anomalies in the machines.

Antrim is the county where a "glitch" in the Dominion machine caused 6,000 votes cast for Trump to be credited to Biden. The forensic examination did not support the "glitch" theory. Attorney Matthew DePerno said "it appears to be more of a 'feature' of the machine than a 'glitch.' The lack of simple round numbers in the vote tallies suggest that there is an algorithm in the device that counts each vote as a fraction rather than a whole number. Further tests are required to figure out the precise fractions involved, but clearly, fraud is involved."

Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast rejected DePerno's allegation, saying "no other county has deemed it necessary to conduct a forensic examination. They've all certified their votes as final and erased the memory in their machines. The state needs to step in and overrule the Antrim County officials who refuse to certify their votes. Even if Mr. DePerno's allegations are true, the 6,000 votes aren't enough to change the statewide results."

Coffee County's discovery of problems with their Dominion machines has inspired Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to open up an investigation. "When one county is out-of-step with all the others it raises a great deal of suspicion in my mind," he said. "Why would the people in Coffee County want to taint the election by raising an issue that no one else has raised? Do we need to fire someone? Do we need to prosecute them? Unless they get in line I can't see how we can avoid some sort of punitive response."

Meanwhile, Matt Braynard, the head of the Voter Integrity Project, has sent evidence of more than 21,000 election anomalies and irregularities to Gov. Brian Kemp, Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr. "We reached out to voters that the state said had requested an absentee ballot but not returned it," he said. "A great number of these voters denied that they had requested a ballot. Many voters remembered sending their ballots in, but the state had no record of them being received. Others voted from more than one address. In short, there seem to have been thousands of illegal votes counted in Georgia."

In related news, State Representative Cynthia Johnson (D-Detroit) is demanding "payback from the Biden-Harris Administration for what we did for them in Detroit. Without our extraordinary late-night efforts Trump would have won Michigan. He was hundreds of thousands of votes ahead, but we were able to scrounge up enough extra ballots to turn the tide. They need to spend big time in our city to reward our efforts."

Cuomo Gets Another Award

This week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) received received the Edward M. Kennedy Institute Award for Inspired Leadership.

The Governor professed himself "humbled to be recognized as someone worthy of being associated with the late, great Senator Kennedy. His life was a model that I aspired to imitate. His political brilliance was demonstrated by his ability to survive the death of Mary Jo Kopechne early in his career. The incident would have ruined anyone else. He was driving drunk for a sexual hook-up with this young woman when the car plunged off a bridge into a tidal pond. He swam to safety and for the next several hours worked diligently at avoiding blame. Meanwhile, Mary Jo was suffocating trapped inside the submerged car. Failure to render aid, neglecting to seek help for a rescue attempt, fleeing the scene of an accident, the situation looked pretty grim for the young Senator."

"But by perseverance, connections with powerful people, an adoring media, and excellent acting, he was able to avoid serious charges and be reelected to the senate seven more times," Cuomo admiringly recounted. "I was only 12 years old at the time of this tragic incident, but I knew right then that I wanted to be like him when I grew up. This award tells me that my dream came true."

Interestingly, Gov. Cuomo's emulation of his boyhood hero resulted in him ordering that COVID-19 patients be sent into nursing homes. This resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths as infected individuals were mixed in with the highly vulnerable residents of these nursing homes. Just like Senator Kennedy, Cuomo has survived this blunder through perseverance, connections with powerful people, an adoring media, and excellent acting. Why, he even got an Emmy earlier this year for his role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Squad" Wants Biden to Rule by Decree

The infamous left-wing "squad" comprised of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) are urging Joe Biden to rule by decree once he is inaugurated as president.

"We've all seen what it's like trying to get meaningful legislation past Republicans in the Senate," Omar lamented. "They say our plans are too expensive, too unconstitutional, and too foolish. Unless the two Democrats in the Georgia win the senate runoff races this obstructionist nonsense will continue. The President needs to bypasses the legislature and rule by decree like they do in my home country of Somalia."

While the "Squad" may be more vocal in supporting authoritarian rule, most Democrats are behind the idea. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) points out that "if the pandemic has taught us anything it is that the American people are ready to be ruled. Governors around the country have been issuing decrees ordering businesses to be shut down, people to wear masks and stay home, all without any significant opposition. On the contrary, many citizens have volunteered to spy on and rat out their neighbors for not following these orders."

For his part, Biden has already vowed to "undo everything that Trump did the last four years on day one of my term in office. As my good friend Barack said not so long ago, 'when you've got a pen and a phone there's no limit to what a president can accomplish. If Congress won't make the laws I want I'll make them myself."

Chinese Army "Training" in Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had ordered the Canadian Armed Forces to train members of the People's Liberation Army in Canada. Trudeau explained that "we have a three thousand mile undefended border with the United States. While Trump was president there was nothing to stop him from ordering his army to conquer Canada. Our own armed forces are too small to fend off an invasion. However, I thought that if the People's Liberation Army were to have a substantial force located here an invasion from the US could be deterred."

The Prime Minister pointed to the lack of a US invasion of his country "as proof of the success of my decision." He also boasted that "a Canadian company supplied most of the voting machines used in the US presidential election in November. I don't think I need to tell you how instrumental these machines were in helping rid America of the tyranny Trump was imposing there. It was a bit reminiscent of 'The Mouse that Roared.' This should earn us some significant brownie points with our Chinese overlords."

Swalwell Spy Scandal Pooh-Poohed

This week it was revealed that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had been seduced by a Chinese spy during the Obama Administration. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) called for Swalwell to be removed from the Intel Committee as a security risk.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) pooh-poohed the idea, saying that "if we oust everyone who's a security risk who will we have left? There's no proof that the four year long intimate relationship with Christine Fang resulted in any state secrets being compromised. Eric insists he never told her anything. Singling him out for demotion would be unfair. Over in the Senate, a Chinese spy was Sen. Feinstein's chauffeur for 20 years. We didn't see Republican senators demanding her ouster."

"Besides, we have a new president coming into office in January," Pelosi said. "I can't believe that Joe Biden would be disturbed in the least by Eric's behavior. Why, Biden's own son has been doing deals with the Chinese and kicking back a cut to his dad for years. If a big fish like Joe can keep his job then a little fish like Eric should be allowed to keep his. If we start punishing people for things like this we'll undermine our entire government."

For his part, an indignant Swalwell is demanding an investigation to find out who leaked the story of his indiscreet relationship. "That this would come out after the statute of limitations has passed evinces a degree of malice that is unforgivable," he charged. "Speaker :Pelosi knew about my affair and forgave me. But disclosing previously suppressed facts to destroy a person is the kind of political smear tactic we've come to expect from Trump. If he hadn't lost the election I'd be pushing him to be impeached again."

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