By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO-Conservative commentators have chided President Obama for appearing on Zach Galifianakis’ on-line talk show “Between Two Ferns” to plug the Affordable Health Care Act and encourage young adults to apply for it on healthcare.gov. They charged it was beneath the dignity of his office, but their real reason seems to be that the interview with Obama attracted more viewers than C-Span coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference even though it was not as funny.
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Senator Dianne Feinstein denounced the CIA for hacking into the computers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and deleting incriminating documents it had previously released to the Committee. To protect other key documents from disappearing, staffers for the Committee stole the paper copies and placed them in a vault. After her speech, Feinstein could not answer reporters’ questions since she was too busy running from the drones that were pursuing her.
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The Vatican published the first issue of a new magazine devoted to the activities of Pope Francis. Each issue contains a centerfold of the Pope. The next Vatican venture into mass media will be a television show called The Celibate Bachelor where Francis will have audiences with many young women and gradually eliminate all but one whom he will pick to get married to Christ and become a nun.
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President Obama issued an executive order for the Department of Labor to develop guidelines for overtime pay. Though many in Congress viewed this as another way of buying off voters, they overlooked the more sinister side of the executive order, namely, guidelines for paying less for undertime, something which lower congressional salaries.
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Crimea’s referendum on independence from the Ukraine or admission to the Russian Federation will be held this Sunday. The Russian Federation has guaranteed the fairness of the election by stationing generically uniformed soldiers throughout the Crimea, not giving enough lead time for a campaign, and not offering an option to remain as part of the Ukraine. Pravda will provide exclusive coverage of the referendum and will issue the results an hour before the polls close.
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com