IPFS John Semmens

SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News

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SEMI-NEWS/SEMI-SATIRE: November 7, 2021 Edition

Vaccine Mandate Helps People Feel Safe

US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh says "President Biden's insistance that everyone be vaccinated is essential to restoring economic growth. Right now too many people are afraid to go back to work out of fear of catching COVID. Once everyone is vaccinated this fear will be eradicated. This is not a mandate. It is a reminder to do the right thing if you want to keep your job if you're an employee or be fined if you're an employer."

Walsh dismissed emerging evidence of the vaccines' dwindling effectiveness as "beside the point. We're asking everyone to remember when they were children and how the opportunity to cuddle with a favorite teddy bear or doll could banish fear of monsters. Even though we adults recognize that stuffed toys couldn't possibly fend off monsters, the belief that they could made us feel secure. Today, we're asking all loyal Americans to place the same confidence in the vaccines to protect them from disease. The majority have already done this voluntarily, but a disloyal minority threatens to break the spell of confidence that is required if we are to defeat COVID."

"If anything, the current opportunity for all employers of 100 or more workers to enforce a vaccination protocol doesn't go far enough," the Secretary complained. "That's why I have ordered OSHA to include all employers, no matter how few workers they have, to compel their employees to get vaccinated. We all must share the same faith in the government's plan to battle this disease. Once we achieve this unanimity victory will be at hand and the fundamental transformation of this country begun by President Obama will be complete."

To help incentivize compliance, the Department of Labor is also drafting regulations that will bar those who are fired for refusing to be vaccinated will from being eligible to receive unemployment compensation. "Willful disobedience is insubordination," Walsh argued. "Unemployment benefits are meant only for those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own—like a recession—not for employees who won't follow orders."

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) heartily endorsed OSHA's efforts to compel universal vaccination, saying that "there's only one thing that's gonna get us through this completely and that's to get people vaccinated. I wish everyone would just voluntarily obey the President's wish that they get vaccinated. Since some won't fines and firings are our last resort short of forcibly holding them down and jabbing them with hypodermics."

High Energy Prices Good for Economy

Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laughed off the idea of encouraging more domestic oil production as a means of making transportation more affordable. "The whole point of cancelling pipelines and drilling leases was explicitly to deter cheap energy from luring people into unnecessary and unproductive travel," she pointed out. "For us to turn back now would impede the Presidents build back better program."

"Look, for what it's worth, President Biden already asked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase oil production, but they refused," the Secretary said. "He figured that since it was his executive order that crippled US energy production and gave OPEC a golden opportunity to raise prices they'd show some gratitude. But they haven't."

OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo explained that "it is not in the interest of our members to agree to anything that reduces their profits. At this point, President Biden is boxed in by his own radical anti-oil agenda. He has made much of his intention to dismantle the Trump policies that sought American energy independence. There is no way Biden can credibly rescind his decrees against US oil producers. Their is no good reason for us not to exploit our advantage."

NJ Dem Says "Still Time to Turn Election Around"

Long-time New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney brushed off his election day defeat at the hands of a political novice, insisting that "this ain't over yet. I just heard that another 12,000 ballots have been found in the trunk of a car in Newark. That's more than enough to change the outcome. Just last year they were still counting votes in the 2020 presidential election long after election day. So, there's still time to turn this election around if we keep working on it."

"Besides, the notion that a truck driver who spent a total of $153 on his campaign could defeat one of this state's most beloved public servants defies all logic," Sweeney argued. "Money is what decides election outcomes these days. Every professional knows that. Big donors determine which candidates are best to govern and injects sufficient funds into the campaigns to make sure they are the winners. We just need a little more time for this well-tested model to work and restore me to my rightful place in the State Senate."

Sweeney went on to deride his opponent Edward Durr's assertion that "he won because voters believe he will fight for their rights. C'mon man, no one with any sense believes that a state can be governed by people with such naive ideas. Trying to use such out-dated concepts in modern America will lead to disaster. I'm confident that our search for more ballots will prove that voters are too smart to have elected a rube like Durr."

Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison called the election of Durr "proof that the Republican Party has become a party of fascism and fear. Replacing a man with elite political skills with an ignorant bumpkin who delivers furniture for a living is a mistake we cannot allow to happen."

In related news, the success of the GOP at the polls this week spurred the Whitmer Administration in Michigan to order the destruction of all official correspondence related to COVID. A Whitmer spokesperson called this "standard procedure for when an enemy army seems likely to overrun your position. There's no sense in leaving anything behind that could be used against you."

Biden "Perfectly Comfortable" with Payments He declared "Garbage"

When news broke a few days ago that his Department of Justice was negotiating a deal to pay some illegal immigrants $450,000 in damages, President Biden declared the news "garbage." Now that he has had time to confer with his advisors, he has pronounced himself "perfectly comfortable" with the idea.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained that "when the President was informed of the very real suffering endured by these people—trekking hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of miles to get to the United States—he immediately saw the justice behind the demanded payments. The United States advertises itself as the 'land of opportunity.' Well, one of those opportunities is the right to sue someone for damages. By paying these people what they ask we are reaffirming our country's promise to welcome the wretched refuse of other countries. What could be more welcoming than a large sum of cash?"

Psaki also pointed out that the money to be paid will be tax-free because "these poor unfortunate people have already suffered enough without having to be inflicted with the burdens and intrusions that are meant for the affluent and selfish American citizens that former President Trump sought to defend and enrich at the expense of the world's poor. Voters rejected that approach in the 2020 election. Now we are reaping the rewards of that wise decision."

In related news, the Federal Election Commission has ruled, by a 4-2 majority, that foreign money can be used to fund US election campaigns. A commissioner anonymously explained that "what happens in US politics has effects that extend beyond our borders. Since foreigners who may be impacted by these effects can't vote in our elections allowing them to invest money to persuade others to vote the way they want seemed a fair way for us to address their rights in these matters."

Italian COVID Death Toll Revised

The Italian Higher Institute of Health has revised the February 2020 to October 2021 COVID death toll from a previously reported 130,468 fatalities to only 3,783. The reason for the revision is that the higher figure included all deaths in which the deceased tested positive for COVID, while the lower figure counted only those who actually died from COVID.

This revision was soundly denounced by Dr. Anthony Fauci who called it "the wrong message at the wrong time. It clashes with the protocol we've adopted here in the United States that anyone dying with COVID should be classified as a COVID fatality. The Italian nit-picking over whether COVID is the actual cause of death undermines the message that everyone must be vaccinated. We have carefully managed the reporting during the pandemic to emphasize the possibility that it could kill you. Even using the dying with COVID standard to inflate the number of deaths, the less than 1% chance of dying with COVID is barely scary enough to convince everyone to take the jab. Italy breaking ranks is going to bolster resistance to our goal."

"As it is, the Italian government is seeing a lot of resistance to its 'Green Passport.'" Fauci observed. "The 97% decline in deaths attributed to COVID can only hurt their attempt to disqualify the unvaccinated from work and other social activities. It makes the Green Passport seem an unnecessary restriction of freedom. A widespread grasp of how low the odds are for dying from COVID could seriously undermine our drive to mold the general public into more obedient followers of the government's designated expert advice. It's just a shame."

In related news, an investigation of data found in the USA's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has revealed that nearly 100% of COVID vaccination deaths have been linked to just 5% of the batches of vials containing the mRNA vaccines. Dr. Fauci expressed the hope that "vaccine resisters will be encouraged that they have a 95% chance of surviving the inoculations."

Call for Military Campaign Against Climate Change

The United Kingdom's Prince Charles called for "a vast military-style campaign to combat climate change" as he opened the COP26 summit in Glasgow. "If we were to bomb refineries, oil wells, coal mines, and nuclear power plants we'd 'break the backs' of our chief environmental enemies and restore life to the cleaner pre-industrial age we carelessly tossed aside in a faulty quest to uplift commoners to lifestyles they were never meant to have."

"Let me remind everyone what smashing job our air forces did in flattening the Third Reich during the 1940s," the Prince boasted. "Civilized values prevailed over Nazi tyranny by means of uncivilized warfare. To my mind, the threat posed by climate change is far more dangerous than the Nazis ever were. Lets not forget how kind they were to my Great-Uncle Edward. Climate change won't be anywhere near as merciful. It will massacre Jew and Gentile alike with searing waves of heat and ice that will destroy humanity."

Ironically, Prince Charles and the 400 other would-be climate change combatants traveled to the summit by private jets, which produced more fossil fuel emissions than the entire population of Scotland did last year.

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