By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO─ Here is a review of some of the important developments of 2015
BLACK LIVES MATTER–A Pew Research Institute study found that African American teenagers are more likely than their white or Latino peers to own smartphones. Nevertheless, it discovered that they don’t use them for texting or posting on Facebook but rather to document instances of police brutality.
Freddie Gray died of a severed spine after being apprehended and transported to jail by the Baltimore Police Department. On the other hand, doctors who examined the arresting officers discovered that that they had no backbones.
Two investigators for a Cleveland grand jury determined that the police officer who shot and killed twelve year-old Tamir Rice acted reasonably because he could not tell the difference between a real gun and the fake one the boy brandished. Upon hearing of this, children of Cleveland police officers started surrendering toy guns at police stations throughout the city.
CULTURE WARS
Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which permits business owners to discriminate against any customer whose lifestyle offends their religious sensibilities. Although critics believe the law sanctions discrimination against the LGBT community, it already is having unintended consequences with Christian Scientists barring doctors from reading rooms, Indian restaurants denying service to monotheists, and dry cleaners refusing to clean the sheets of KKK members.
During a hearing on the constitutionality of Affirmative Action, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia commented: “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.” Clarence Thomas agreed and remarked that he might have been elected the first African-American president if he hadn’t gone to Yale.
House Republicans are fighting against the renewal of Michelle Obama’s guidelines for federally supported school lunch programs because they violate the American right to life, liberty, and gluttony and the 2nd amendment guarantee to bare arms and body fat.
THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
Hillary Clinton called for a clear path to citizenship for undocumented aliens who have lived productive and crime-free lives in the United States for many years. She also proposed a path for citizenship for foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation.
During an interview with Bernie Sanders, NPR reporter Diane Rehm asked him if he had dual citizenship with Israel. Sanders was relieved that she didn’t ask him if he were born in Moscow as many of his former Republican foes have charged.
Staffers in the Sanders’ campaign accessed names of supporters from Hillary Clinton’s database due to a breach in the firewall of the DNC’s server. The Clinton campaign charged that her data was stolen and recommended that Sanders protect his campaign information and communications from hacking by storing it on a private server.
EUROPE
Vladimir Putin is confiscating and destroying food imported from the European Union and the United States. While it is an exaggeration to compare him to Stalin, he already has attempted to subvert Ukrainian independence and deprive Russians of their sustenance.
Greeks decisively defeated the referendum to accept the European Union’s terms for repaying their country’s debt. Now that the future of whether Greece will keep the Euro as its currency is uncertain, some Greek politicians have proposed Drachmonian measures
European Union countries have decided to outsource their current refugee crisis to Donald Trump. Greece also has solicited his help in declaring bankruptcy without economic consequences.
ISIS
Continuing its production of appealing recruitment videos, ISIS released a new movie entitled “Fifty Shades of Slay.” Its tagline is: “All the S without the M.”
ISIS plans a chain of hotels called the Ramadi Inns. Each will offer unhappy hours all day because none will have a bar, café, or night club. The headboards on all the beds will be equipped with guillotines for guests who blaspheme the Prophet. The top floor of each hotel has been designated the 72 Virgins Suite. None of the martyrs who have booked the suite lived to sleep in it. Terrorists who want to stay at the Ramadi Inns can make their reservations on the internet site Extermia.
The United States announced that it killed Jihadi John in a drone strike. If John had only listened to Christmas carols, he would have known not to sit under the missile glow.
ISRAEL
Looking at the results of the Israeli elections, it is obvious that the biggest winner was the real estate agents and construction companies on the West Bank.
An ultra-orthodox Jewish man stabbed six people who were marching in Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade because God views homosexuality as an abomination. Actually, God considers anyone who would stab anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation an abomination.
Israel is developing an Underground Iron Dome system to locate tunnels being built by Hamas. The urgency of perfecting the system has been heightened by rumors that Hamas has outsourced its tunnel construction to El Chapo.
POPULAR CULTURE:
Brian Williams has taken a hiatus from his position as news anchor at NBC after admitting he fabricated a story about being on a helicopter in Iraq that was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Fact checkers are now investigating his claim that he parachuted out of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 shortly before it disappeared.
Sylvester Stallone has announced his plan to produce the final film in the Rambo series. It will chronicle Rambo’s heroic battle with a terminal disease and will be entitled: Rambo: Do Not Resuscitate.
A deposition Bill Cosby gave in 2005 revealed that he had drugged women to have sex with them. Although his accusers charge him with giving them Quaaludes, he claimed he gave one woman Benadryl presumably because he surmised she was allergic to rape.
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Kim Kardashian toured Armenia to visit the home of her ancestors and commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Who would have thought that President Obama and Congress would be challenged to keeping up with the Kardashians?
When the news that American Pharoah won the Kentucky Derby was flashed on the crawl at Fox News, the anchorman commented, “I didn’t know President Obama was a jockey.”
President Obama is drawing criticism from Fox News for referring to Congressional opponents of his policies as “crazies.” In a related story MSNBC has accused the President of understatement.
THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY:
During a campaign speech in New Hampshire, Senator Ted Cruz promised to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education and to staunchly defend the Second Amendment if he is elected president. In other words Americans will have extra income to buy more guns and be stupid enough to use them irresponsibly.
Marco Rubio announced his candidacy for president by criticizing the President “for looking backwards” and having “forgotten that when America fails to lead, global chaos inevitably follows.” To set an example of how he will break with the past and restore American power, he promised to invade Cuba.
Donald Trump confidently predicted he will win the Latino vote in a presidential election. In a related story the Supreme Leader of Iran confidently predicted he would win the Jewish vote if Palestine was restored as an Islamic State.
The Koch Brothers summoned five Republican presidential candidates to compete for their endorsement and funding. Charles Koch compared the conservative activism of him and his brother to the civil rights movement. Under the banner of “Rich Lives Matter More,” the brothers and the candidates sang the anthem of their cause: “We Shall Over Earn.”
Donald Trump awkwardly tried to make amends for belittling Carly Fiorina’s face by telling her how beautiful she was. Last week Kentucky Senator Jodi Ernst warned him to respect all the candidates regardless of their gender. If I were Trump, I’d be worried because Ernst campaigned on her record of castrating pigs.
Presidential hopeful Ben Carson claimed that the pyramids were built by Joseph to store grain for the seven years of famine he foresaw. Donald Trump retorted that they were built by Jewish slaves working for stupid pharaohs who should have concentrated on building a wall to prevent the Jews from escaping Egypt and to keep the Aztecs out.
Condemning Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai commented, “If your intention is to stop terrorism, do not try to blame the whole population of Muslims for it because it cannot stop terrorism. It will radicalize more terrorists.” Off camera, she added, “I’m the one who was shot in the head, but he’s the one who talks like he’s brain-damaged.”
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Baron is an author and professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. Comments below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s full name and his/ her city and state of residence. (City and country for those outside of the U.S.). For new readers, San Diego Jewish World points out that this column is satire and nothing herein should be taken literally.