Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and Politics
It's hard to know what to believe in the run-up to this years Presidential election. The Republicans and Democrats are now pretty much lying through their teeth every time they open their mouths. There's still more than two months to go. Of course you can refer to fact-check websites - but you can't even be sure those tell the truth.
As a public service of sorts, Mixed Meters is presenting some big lies to watch out for over the remainder of the campaign. I guarantee that I'm making these up. Well, that's not completely true. Some of the ideas come from online news stories which I didn't really believe to begin with.
If any of these stories actually do happen to come true there can only be one reason: truth is stranger than fiction.
Disclaimer ... I have no inside information.
Disclaimer ... I am not a psychic.
Disclaimer ... these are not ntended to be funny.
Hurricane Isaac gives the Republican convention a near miss. The name Isaac reminds many Republicans of Jews and several delegates take this as a sign of the End Times and impending Rapture and are severely injured by debris when they stand outside in a heavy storm. The convention resolves to abolish the National Weather Service in order to prevent future hurricanes.
Pat Robertson claims that the hurricane is God's punishment because the Republican party allows Blacks and gays to vote for their candidates. Many prominent Republicans ask him to leave the party but he refuses saying God has told him that gay and black Republicans do not really exist. While Blacks represent only 1% of the delegates, they are shown on screen 23% of the time.
It is revealed that Paul Ryan has had a long term sexual affair with a female Wall Street investment executive. The woman produces a RED dress which she claims is stained with his semen. When pictures of the two of them together surface, Ryan explains that he only wanted insider trading information that he could pass along to his blind trust. Asked about this, Mitt Romney compliments Ryan's business ethics.
It is reported that face recognition software at the Democratic convention identifies 30 Tea Party organizers, 10 convicted felons, two of Osama bin Laden's sons and Pope Benedict in the vast crowd. None of the identifications are proven correct but most news sources do not print the retraction.
At a fund raising dinner Ann Romney asks a black man in a tuxedo to hang up her coat and get her a glass of chardonnay because she assumes that he's a butler. It turns out to be Herman Cain. Herman, interviewed the next day on Good Morning America, says that he thinks Ann is a tremendously sexy woman.
The frequency of mass shooting using automatic weapons approaches one per week as election gets closer, including at least two at mosques and one at a political rally. Both candidates respond immediately to each event saying things like "oh, that's too bad", "I'm so sorry" and "I don't know what more we could do to stop this."
Secret Service agents subdue and arrest a man wearing what appears to be a suicide vest at an Obama speech. The "explosive canisters" are actually insulated beer can holders and the "wires" are tubes through which he can drink. The man has a tattoo which reads "God Guns and Beer" which quickly becomes the title of a new Ted Nugent song.
In the Vice-Presidential debate Paul Ryan describes the policy differences between the two parties as being "as simple as black and white". Although he denies that he is talking about race, "Simple As Black and White" buttons and bumper stickers are distributed by the Republican Party for the remainder of the campaign.
A Democratic SuperPac runs a "Harry and Louise" style ad campaign showing the now elderly couple worried about Medicare and Social Security under Romney/Ryan. The Republicans blast the ads as "un-American" not because of anything in the script but because the couple is no longer portrayed as white. Instead the new actors have indeterminate mixed racial characteristics.
Making an issue out of Attorney General Eric Holder, Republicans start showing the movie Fast and Furious at campaign events and simultaneously hold gun sales nearby. Showing the movie is declared a violation of copyright but selling guns at political events is deemed legal.
When asked about the Guantanamo prison at the Presidential debate, Romney actually compliments Obama saying "I wouldn't do anything differently than the President on that."
The Republican party asks the Koch brothers to stop making donations to Republican Super Pacs because those funds already have far more cash than they can spend. Offended, the Kochs offer to pay Paul Ryan's taxes while he is vice-president.
The man whose hair Mitt Romney forcibly cut as a school boy because he was thought to be gay comes forward and admits that he indeed is gay, lives in Massachusetts, is married to another man and the couple is raising two adopted boys, whose names, by a staggering coincidence, are Willard and Paul.
A Republican congressional candidate charges that Osama bin Laden is not dead and is really living in Chicago under the FBI witness protection program. To counter this a picture purporting to be the dead Osama is leaked but it is eventually identified as a still photo from CSI New York.
Mitt Romney, trying to bolster his credibility as someone who can create economic growth, refers to his time as governor as the "Massachusetts Miracle". Democrats laugh but don't remind him about what happened to Michael Dukakis.
Controversy erupts when Republicans use a picture of Michelle Obama working in the White House garden which shows her skin tone many shades darker than it really is. After suggesting that this is merely dirt on her face, Mitt Romney also quips "Latinos make better gardeners because their skin reflects more sunlight."
Television stations in toss-up states start preempting nightly news so they can sell more political ads. One station sets a record by broadcasting the same clip 14 times in a single hour. Sales of feminine hygiene products, McDonalds fruit smoothies and lite beer plummet because, without constant advertising, consumers forget they need those products.
News reports report that Osama bin Laden, who has been living in Syria under an assumed name, has asked the U.S. for asylum to escape the turmoil there. To counter this a picture purporting to be the dead Osama is leaked but it is eventually identified as the same still photo from CSI New York.
Calls for Mitt Romney to release his tax returns so overwhelm the political discussion that he actually releases his returns revealing that he would have lost money and paid no taxes in most years except for his investments in contraceptive pharmaceuticals, Nevada brothels, riverboat gambling, privatized prisons and Iraqi oil companies.
Obama, courting the remaining three hundred undecided gun-owning Democrats in North Carolina, visits a shooting range for target practice. He fires 20 rounds, hits the target once. The NRA responds by issuing press releases claiming that lives would be saved if more people including Obama would carry concealed weapons and offering the President a free Glock after he leaves office.
Mitt Romney alludes to Barack Obama's birth certificate so often that he asks Donald Trump to appear at his campaign stops, but when the two get into a shouting match each telling the other "No, you're fired" the relationship ends abruptly.
Protestant voters in Western states pledge to convert to Mormonism if Romney wins. When told that Mormons are expected to tithe, they modify their promise to convert only their ancestors. Taking a cue from Mormon baptisms, the Democrats symbolically re-register "liberal" Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon as Democrats. Republicans immediately charge them with ancestral voter fraud. Democrats respond by re-registering Ronald Reagan as a Democrat as well and also paying his back dues to the Screen Actors Guild, bringing his union membership up-to-date. Republicans try to re-register Joseph McCarthy as a Republican but are surprised to discover that he already was a Republican.
Many right-wing candidates sign a pledge agreeing with Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri that women who are "legitimately" raped will not get pregnant. Polls show that 43% of the electorate agree that this is a logical argument against abortion. It is also shown that over 85% of Republicans disbelieve the theory of evolution and 18% have doubts about the theory of gravity.
It is revealed that Ayn Rand, then in her sixties, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then in his twenties, had a brief sexual affair at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
Members of the Occupy movement and supporters of Ron Paul, trying to prove they are not hopelessly marginalized in this election, throw rocks at one another. When they run out of rocks they throw mud. When the mud runs out they use their own excrement. This becomes the top news stories for 6 days running.
Obama is accused of racism when he tells an audience that members of the KKK in full regalia should not be allowed to attended Tea Party rallys, as happens in several small Southern cities.
Paul Ryan, trying to capture some Gen-X voters, jams on stage with Kid Rock, Pat Boone and Gene Simmons - all Romney supporters. Hank Williams Jr. makes a surprise appearance and tries to get Ryan to tell the crowd that President Obama is really an alien socialist Muslim. Video of the event quickly appears in television ads for Obama.
Democrats, shaking Etch-a-Sketches to protest Romney flip-flops, discover one Etch-a-Sketch has accidentally produced a picture of Jesus looking suspiciously like Jim Caviezel in that Mel Gibson movie. The unit sells for a 7-figure amount on E-Bay. The buyers are revealed to be David and Charles Koch who suddenly become the largest contributors to the Democratic campaign as well as to the Republican. As soon as they take possession of the unit Charles shakes it and clears the screen.
In the last few days of the campaign a tired Vice President Biden accidentally refers to "President Osama".
Knowing that Americans cannot focus on foreign affairs during an election, Israel secretly bombs Iran to no effect. Iran claims that they were actually attacked by U.S. Predator drones. U.S. news media fails to cover the story at all and both candidates deny the reports from Iranian news sources. Years later it becomes known that both Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran simultaneously - a total coincidence.
The night before the election Mitt Romney makes a nationwide television broadcast in which he says that the election is not really about the economy or about jobs or the fact that Obama is a Black alien Muslim. "This election is about God, Guns and Beer" he screams. He then hoists a cold Miller as a choir starts to sing the new Ted Nugent song, now the official campaign theme song, "God, Guns and Beer". Romney pumps the air twice, then high fives and chest bumps Paul Ryan who has been standing nearby.
On Election Day fistfights between voters and Republican pollwatchers challenging their right to vote are too numerous to count. Repeated instances of concealed weapons being drawn to stop suspect voters are reported. In one Texas town, a "citizens committee" surrounds a polling station allowing only White people with Southern accents carrying weapons to vote.
In several toss-up states thousands of people line up at over-crowded polling stations but are not allowed to vote before the polls close. One state's vote count is deleted by a computer virus. Lawsuits are filed in eighteen states challenging state-wide election results. The winner of the Presidential race and the balance of power in the Senate is not decided until Pearl Harbor Day. Half the U.S. population spends the next 4 years refusing to believe that the sitting President holds his office legitimately.
If you found this depressing, I have news for you - the truth is bound to be much more of a downer. I had hoped that writing this post would somehow be cathartic. I was wrong.
If you found this one-sided, I have news for you - I'm a liberal progressive and proud of it If you're an easily-offended fascist Republican Tea-Party fundamentalist my best suggestion is that you go away and get your own blog.
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