Skip to content

Lying with Charts

Just over a week ago Congress held a hearing on Planned Parenthood to build the case for defunding them based on a series of “sting videos” produced by a pro-life group. Republican Jason Chaffetz showed the following chart, which seems to be making the point that Planned Parenthood is increasingly providing abortions while decreasing other services:

Americans United for Life

But this chart is extremely misleading and dishonest in several ways. First, if you look carefully at the actual numbers, you can see that the chart was drawn all wrong. For example, if you look at the numbers for 2013, you might notice that they drew 327,000 above 935,573. That is not how you are supposed to draw a chart!

Here’s what their chart should look like:

Vox 1

But the chart is also misleading in a second, more insidious way – they cherry picked data. For example, back in 2006 Planned Parenthood also provided 3 million treatments for sexually transmitted diseases, and that number went up to just under 4.5 million in 2013. But they left that data off the chart.

Also left off the chart is the fact that contraceptive services (which social conservatives also hate) provided by Planned Parenthood declined modestly from just under 4 million in 2006 to 3.6 million in 2013. Which means that contraceptive services declined in number around ten times more than abortions went up.

This is what the chart should really look like, showing abortion services almost down in the noise:

Vox 2

if Congress defunded Planned Parenthood and thus made contraceptive services more expensive and more difficult to obtain, would the number of abortions go up even more? It is hard to know, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that permanently defunding Planned Parenthood would actually cost the government $130 million over the next 10 years. The $520 million saved by not funding Planned Parenthood would be more than offset by increased costs of $650 million from Medicaid. The CBO:

projects that defunding Planned Parenthood would actually end up increasing government spending, because it would result in more unplanned births as women lost access to services such as contraception. Medicaid would have to pay for some of those births, and some of the children themselves would then end up qualifying for Medicaid and other government programs.

So we either get more unwanted births or more abortions. Both would be bad news.

UPDATE: PolitiFact reviewed Jason Chaffetz’s chart. They went back to the real data and drew even better charts, using almost yearly data:

PolitiFact

Here’s a simplified version of this chart, corresponding directly to Chaffetz’s chart. Abortions actually peaked in 2009 and are now going down, not up as Chaffetz strongly implies:

PolitiFact

PolitiFact also points out that the reason cancer screenings are decreasing is most likely due to the fact that the guideline for getting a Pap Smear (the screening test for cervical cancer) changed from every year to once every 3 to 5 years. And yet this, the most declining test, is the statistic they picked to compare to abortions.

The best part of the PolitiFact review are the quotes from experts on visual communication:

“That graphic is a damn lie. Regardless of whatever people think of this issue, this distortion is ethically wrong.”

“scandalous”

“The graph is absolutely misleading, and intentionally so.” For example, the “propagandized design choices” in the arrowheads used by Chaffetz, which imply a trend that simply does not exist.

PolitiFact gave Chaffetz a “Pants on Fire”.

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“Pope Francis arrived in Washington, D.C., today. I saw that President Obama actually picked him up at the airport. When asked how the Pope will get back to the airport, Obama was like, ‘Uber? I don’t know. It’s not my problem.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Pope Francis’ plane touched down in Washington at 4 pm. I knew the moment he was here because I felt a disturbance in the guilt. What is that? Catholic, you are. That’s what Yoda says.” – Conan O’Brien

“That’s right, President Obama picked up Pope Francis at the airport. Because what better way to alleviate the traffic the Pope is about to cause than sending out a presidential motorcade?” – Jimmy Fallon

“The Pope is a very humble man. He doesn’t believe in extravagance. He’s not a fan of commercialism or consumerism. With that said, this is how we welcome him here in the United States — with Pope Francis bobble heads, with Pope Francis dolls, T-shirts that say ‘Pope Is Dope.'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The Pope arrived in the U.S. today. I think that’s exciting. The Pope flew into Washington this afternoon on Lifelong Virgin Air.” – Conan O’Brien

“Pope Francis will fly on American Airlines while traveling between Washington, New York and Philadelphia, and not, as I had assumed, Virgin.” – Seth Meyers

“This is a historic day for the United States of America. Pope Francis visited our country for the first time ever today. The Pope is here until Saturday. He’s visiting Washington, D.C., New York, and Pennsylvania. Not even going to bother coming to L.A. He said it’s a lost cause, no point.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The trip to Washington, D.C., has actually been very educational for the Pope. You know, because he’s only ever read about purgatory.” – Jimmy Fallon

“I love this Pope, but I wonder about this tweet he posted last week where he wrote, ‘I ask you to join me in praying for my trip to Cuba and United States. I need your prayers.’ Should we be offended by that? Maybe I’m being paranoid.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“I saw that top congressional leaders sent a statement to the House and Senate with guidelines for Pope Francis’ visit, including a request to not shake his hand. Apparently, they’re worried that if politicians touch the Pope they’ll burst into flames.” – Jimmy Fallon

“In addition to the ‘no shaking hands’, Congress was given a lot of rules about the Pope’s visit. First, there’s ‘Don’t fake-sneeze just to get an easy blessing out of the Pope.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race last night. And in related news, a tree fell in a forest.” – Seth Meyers

“The last polls before Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race found the Wisconsin governor was polling at one half of 1 percent. Bobby Jindal said, ‘What’s your secret?'” – Seth Meyers

“Dr. Ben Carson defended his comments about Muslims being unfit for the presidency, and posted on Facebook that he believes Sharia law is the central tenet of Islam. While most people on Facebook believe ‘Sharia Law’ is a show about a black lady judge.” – Seth Meyers

“A company in Japan has released a robot that’s able to simulate some emotion. Either that or Hillary Clinton just made a surprise visit to Japan.” – Conan O’Brien

Share

America’s First African President?

More evidence that America is becoming a third-world country, from Trevor Howard on The Daily Show:

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“The Pope is coming to the United States and visiting New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, but not Los Angeles. The Pope said, ‘Let’s be honest. I probably won’t make it out of Philly.'” – Conan O’Brien

“The Pope is coming to America tomorrow. When the Pope’s plane lands in the United States, President Obama is going to be there to greet him. President Obama is going to be the guy at arrivals holding a sign that says ‘Pope’.” – Conan O’Brien

“The Pope’s going to be at the White House. As Trump put it, Obama is letting another Hispanic guy in.” – Conan O’Brien

“I read that certain data that measures how often a candidate’s name is mentioned showed that Donald Trump is actually fading from the media spotlight. You can tell Trump’s status has faded, because today, he was named a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“In politics, an expert is saying that Donald Trump’s handwriting reveals he is prone to anger and fear. After hearing about it, Trump was furious and then he got scared.” – Conan O’Brien

“Republican candidate Jeb Bush is struggling to get traction against Donald Trump. Trump is even dominating in Jeb’s home state of Florida, where the former governor is behind by 15 points. That makes sense that Florida likes Trump — they’re used to life-size cartoon characters with giant heads.” – Stephen Colbert

“Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has become the second GOP presidential hopeful to drop out of the 2016 race. He says he looks forward to his new job as the picture in the dictionary next to the word ‘duh’.” – Seth Meyers

“Scott Walker, the presidential candidate who is famous for riding a Harley, is dropping out of the race. Walker made the decision when he realized that all of his supporters could fit on his Harley.” – Conan O’Brien

“Tonight, I’ll be tangling with Texas senator Ted Cruz. He is the third presidential candidate I’ve had on the show. I want to interview all of them, but I only have 200 shows a year.” – Stephen Colbert

“Republican candidate and neurosurgeon Dr. Carson is quoted as saying a Muslim should not be elected president. He apologized for the mistake and said, ‘Hey, I’m no brain surgeon.'” – Conan O’Brien

“We have Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on the show tonight! First she’s gonna talk about the campaign, then she’s gonna help me fix the paper jam in our printer.” – Jimmy Fallon

“All the presidential candidates are trying to woo millennials. I’m not sure college kids can identify with 22 people desperately fighting for one job. No surprise, the leader in the race to attract them on social media is Hillary Clinton. After all, a Clinton in the White House is the ultimate #ThrowbackThursday.” – Stephen Colbert

“Hillary has already released a millennial-friendly plan to handle student loan debt, saying no student should have to take out a loan to pay for tuition if attending a four-year public college. Amen. Paying off my student loan debt is the only reason I took this CBS gig. Twelve more years.” – Stephen Colbert

“Political experts say it is increasingly likely that the federal government will be forced to shut down on October 1 due to the dispute over Planned Parenthood funding. That’s right — ironically if lawmakers don’t fund Planned Parenthood, there is no Plan B.” – Seth Meyers

Share

Helpless?

[this story is from The Onion, but it hardly seems satirical.]

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

ROSEBURG, OR—In the hours following a violent rampage in southwestern Oregon in which a lone attacker killed nine individuals and seriously injured seven others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Thursday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Ohio resident Lindsay Bennett, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this guy from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what he really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past six years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“Over on the Democratic side, people are starting to get worried about Hillary Clinton’s slow response to all the negative headlines about her. When asked if that was a valid criticism, Hillary was like, ‘No.’ … ‘It’s not.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Bernie Sanders popularity is surprising because he’s a self-described socialist, who would also be our oldest president ever. The man is 74-years-old. That’s five years older than Donald Trump and 50 years older than anyone Trump would marry.” – Stephen Colbert

“Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will be featured on the cover of Time Magazine this week. It’s part of their new cover series ‘People Who Still Read Time Magazine.'” – Seth Meyers

“Sanders had 27,500 in the sport arena in Los Angeles In August, 11,000 in Phoenix, 28,000 in Portland on a Sunday. A guy in his 70s filling stadiums? Who does he think he is, a Rolling Stone?” – Stephen Colbert

“A Joe Biden adviser was reportedly overheard on an Amtrak train this week saying, ‘I am 100% Joe is in.’ But to be fair, he may have been talking about going to Coachella.” – Seth Meyers

“Because the FEC does not let candidate names appear in the title of a Super PAC, Carly Fiorina’s organization has started claiming its name CARLY for America is an acronym that stands for Conservative, Authentic, Responsive Leadership for You and for America. And I think that shows her campaign is full of Strategic, Honorable, and Interesting Tactics.” – Seth Meyers

Share

Neutrality Rules!

Remember earlier this year Comcast and several telecoms (particularly Verizon and AT&T) were trying very hard to destroy net neutrality? So hard in fact that many customers of Netflix found that “network congestion” was slowing down or even disrupting their movie watching experience. These companies were claiming that that in order for internet capacity to expand they had to charge heavy users of the internet (and movies do transmit a lot of data) more because they use more.

Fortunately, they didn’t get their way. The FCC ruled that companies had to stop slowing down traffic in an effort to make more money.

And you know what? The “network congestion” magically went away. For example, one of the companies that was trying to alleviate internet traffic congestion was Cogent:

Speaking to investors during the Deutsche Bank 23rd Annual Leveraged Finance Conference, Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent, said that the FCC’s adoption of net neutrality rules that include Title II regulation, and passage of similar rules in the European Union, have led to ports on other networks becoming unclogged.

In particular, the service provider has seen its connections to Comcast become uncongested, while it continues to add capacity to AT&T and Verizon where it has signed agreements.

So is this going to hurt capacity in the long run? Nope! Cogent is seeing the growth rate of the internet to reaccelerate from 3% back up to 10%.

I just hope we remember this the next time some big companies try to hold the internet hostage.

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“At last night’s Republican debate on CNN, one of the big moments was when Jeb Bush admitted to smoking marijuana during high school. Marijuana denied having anything to do with Jeb Bush. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near that dude.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Jeb Bush admitted he smoked pot 40 years ago. And Ben Carson was like, ‘Dude, I’m high right now. Why do you think I speak so slowly?'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“We learned some shocking news last night about one candidate. Jeb Bush admitted to smoking pot in high school. That explains a lot. He isn’t low energy, he’s baked.” – James Corden

“During last night’s debate, Jeb Bush wanted Donald Trump to apologize to his wife but Trump refused. Trump said, ‘If I apologized to wives I wouldn’t be on my third one.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Every time [the CNN debate] went to Donald Trump, Jeb Bush got this polite but disgusted look on his face. The same look a librarian would give you if you returned a book with a slice of cheese in the middle.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Jeb Bush said last night that he wants to see Margaret Thatcher on the $10 bill. While Donald Trump said, ‘They make a $10 bill?'” – Seth Meyers

“There was a moment from last night’s debate that went viral. It was Donald Trump’s very awkward attempt to high-five fellow [candidate] Ben Carson. People today are describing it as the worst high-five in history. That was not a spontaneous gesture by Trump. Trump has been practicing that high-five for weeks. It was the only preparation he did for the debate.” – Conan O’Brien

“The most awkward handshake came courtesy of Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson. It starts a as a high-five, then Dr. Carson comes in low. Then it turns into a tug of war. That wasn’t slow motion by the way. That’s the speed at which Ben Carson actually moves.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Jeb Bush admitted last night that he smoked marijuana in college. Not that shocking. But based on the speed he was talking, I’m pretty sure Ben Carson smoked marijuana at every commercial break.” – Seth Meyers

“Ben Carson did not make a particularly strong impression last night. Ben Carson, to me, comes off like a guy who grabbed the wrong drink at Bill Cosby’s house. – Jimmy Kimmel

“Clearly last night the breakout star was former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. This woman last night brought it and crushed it, after an admittedly slow start. In her defense, everything from HP does take a little while to warm up.” – James Corden

“Last night’s debate at the Reagan Library was the most watched program in CNN history. CNN said they were thrilled with the ratings but even happier they could finally show a plane that wasn’t missing.” – Conan O’Brien

Share

Stuff Happens!

The news today is that Jeb Bush doesn’t even seem to be trying to run for president. When asked about the latest (45th this year, and counting) school shooting, he replied:

We’re in a difficult time in our country and I don’t think more government is necessarily the answer to this, I think we need to reconnect ourselves with everybody else. But I resist the notion—and I had this challenge as governor—because we had—look, stuff happens, there’s always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.

When asked later if his saying “stuff happens” was a mistake, Bush got defensive and responded:

No, it wasn’t a mistake. I said exactly what I said. Why would you explain to me what I said wrong? Things happen all the time — things — is that better?

You can watch him make both statements on video.

Where was this Jeb “stuff happens” Bush during the Terry Schiavo case, when he intervened in a deeply personal tragedy, and overruled multiple court decisions to order a brain-dead woman’s feeding tube surgically reinserted over the wishes of her and her husband. When nine people are shot in cold blood, he doesn’t think more government is the answer, but he got a new law passed just to keep force feeding Schiavo.

Or when some right-to-life group makes misleadingly edited videos about Planned Parenthood and Republicans start screaming about how we need to pass laws to make abortions illegal (even though the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional), or at least make them much harder to get, will Jeb now tell them that “stuff happens” and they should chill out?

And I’m now waiting for Jeb Bush to tell the Benghazi committee that is supposedly investigating the death of four Americans, that “stuff happens” and we don’t need any more investigations into it.

But absolutely most importantly, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, shouldn’t Jeb Bush have told his brother (the president) that “stuff happens” and that invading Iraq (a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks) was not “necessarily the answer to this”? Instead Jeb Bush is to this day still defending his brother’s actions.

Share

Much Ado About Nothing

The Republican threat to shut down the government unless the budget took away all funding for Planned Parenthood was even weirder and stupider than you can imagine. And even more amazingly, this news was pointed out by Republican Congressman Tom Cole, and even weirder, it was done on Fox News.

So what’s the news? There is no funding for Planned Parenthood in the budget bill that was being debated. None. That’s right, conservatives were threatening to shut down the government if they didn’t get something, and they already had that something.

How can that be? After all, Planned Parenthood receives around $450 million each year in federal funds. And if you also include state funding, that equals 41% of their yearly revenue.

But as Cole pointed out, 90% of that money comes from payments from Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program) for medical services performed (largely for poor people). And as most people know, Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP are entitlements, whose funding is mandatory and does not go through the normal budgeting process.

The remaining 10% of the government funding for Planned Parenthood is from annual grants, given out under Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Those are discretionary spending, but they aren’t in the current budget bill either. Why not? Because those grants are given out in the spring. The current funding bill is only to keep the government operating until December 11. So this year’s grants were already paid, and next year’s grants won’t happen until next year.

Cole said on Fox News:

Well, first of all, look, on Planned Parenthood – there’s no money in the short-term (spending bill) for Planned Parenthood. Ninety percent of their money comes from Medicaid, not from anything we’re going to do. And the remainder is awarded on what are called grants. They’re all done in about April. There’s none left to do this year, literally none. So, the idea that we’re fighting over money for Planned Parenthood is — it’s a canard. It’s just not true.

And if you don’t believe Tom Cole (or me), PolitiFact rated Cole’s statement True.

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“If you’re watching us after the big debate, you can turn your volume back up!” – Jimmy Fallon

“Earlier tonight the second Republican debate took place here in California. With 10 men and only one woman, everyone thought they were watching ‘The Bachelorette.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Tonight the Republican candidates for president gathered to debate at the Reagan presidential library, not too far from us here in Simi Valley. Debates are a great way to learn about candidates. For example, tonight I learned there were people running for president other than Donald Trump.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Jim Gilmore was the only GOP candidate not invited to the Republican debates tonight, but I saw that he actually planned to live-tweet it. When he heard that, Jeb Bush was like ‘Can I do that? I don’t want to be here!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Allowing 11 candidates to debate is the adult version of giving every kid on the soccer team a participation trophy. – Jimmy Kimmel

“A conservative super PAC just announced yesterday that they plan to spend $1 million on campaign ads attacking Donald Trump. Trump was like, ‘Make it $2 million and I’ll STAR in them!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says he thinks it would be great if Donald Trump was president. Which is really weird because I thought Brady didn’t like things that are filled with too much air.” – Conan O’Brien

“Trump gave a speech from the deck of a battleship where he warned us about crime and drugs coming from down below. ‘The drug cartels are going wild. They cannot believe how stupid our government is. They are making a fortune. The drugs come in, the money goes out, daily.’ He’s right, we have to start making drugs in America again, American drugs.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The New York Times is reporting that in recent speeches Donald Trump has seemed more composed and toned down, and has started using prepared notes. Now instead of just calling people ‘losers’ and ‘morons’, he reads it off a card.” – Seth Meyers

“According to a new poll, almost half of Florida voters think their own candidates, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, should drop out of the race. While the other half of Florida keeps asking what happened to Eisenhower.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The Olive Garden is bringing back its ‘Pasta Pass,’ which lets you eat as much pasta as you want for seven weeks. In a related story, Chris Christie just suspended his campaign.” – Conan O’Brien

“In Texas a high school student was arrested for bringing what authorities thought was a bomb to school but turned out to be a clock. Now the kid is in bigger trouble for carrying a device that could bring Texas into the future.” – Conan O’Brien

“After 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested because his teacher thought his homemade clock was a bomb, President Obama tweeted an invitation for the boy to come to the White House. Unfortunately, Ahmed never saw the tweet because his teacher thought his iPhone was a gun.” – Seth Meyers

“In China, people are selling their kidney to buy an iPhone 6. What’s going to happen when the iPhone 7 comes out?” – Conan O’Brien

“As you can imagine, with Hillary Clinton being here, security is very tight. The Secret Service has been here all day sweeping the halls, the offices, the hard drives… It’s tight.” – Jimmy Fallon

Share

Doublethink

Jen Sorensen
© Jen Sorensen

Doublethink is simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct.

While the outrage against Martin Shkreli for price gouging life-saving medicines was widespread, many of the same people want to repeal Obamacare, are adamantly against single-payer health insurance, and think that the US private for-profit health care system works just fine. Were they just not paying attention when insurance companies dropped sick patients, didn’t accept people with preexisting conditions, denied coverage to people with terminal or debilitating illnesses, all in the name of profit?

Shkeli may have overcharged by 5000%, but what about the hospitals who overcharge by 13600% for a $1 IV drip bag, or 3900% for a codeine pill.

Outrage is wasted if you don’t do anything about it.

Share

Partisanship

Kevin McCarthy is the House majority leader and the likely person to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House. He was interviewed on Fox News last night, and when pressed by Sean Hannity to list what McCarthy would fight for in the GOP-led House, he made a gaffe:

What you’re going to see is a conservative Speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win. And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?

“But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.

The Benghazi panel is the longest running Congressional investigation in the history of the US (longer than Watergate), and that doesn’t include the investigations by seven other congressional committees that went before it. But it hasn’t actually come up with any results or recommendations to help prevent any future terrorist attacks. Instead McCarthy is using it as an example of a successful Republican strategy because it fulfilled a partisan goal: to lower Clinton’s poll numbers.

Is this the new McCarthy witch hunt?

UPDATE: The chairwoman of the House Republican Conference was booed and hissed at a public forum when she defended the Benghazi committee, saying its work “is very important”. She further claimed that “We’ve not yet had important questions answered.” However, prior to the current Benghazi hearing there have also been 13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents, and 50 briefings. But the only question that the hasn’t been answered is the only one important to the Republicans, which is “how can we find something incriminating about Hillary Clinton.”

Special Bonus Update: Stephen Colbert talks about honesty:

Share

Muslims for Trump

[This is a guest post from Mahmood Shaukat]

In the election of Donald Trump may lie the salvation of American Muslims. My bags are packed; I’m ready to prove my loyalty to the United States of America by voluntarily moving into an internment camp. Hopefully, implemented under President Trump, these camps will be the biggest and best camps – ever. Obviously, built with my best interests in mind, these facilities will keep me safe from my Muslim self.

Decision making will come briskly under President Trump. His cabinet will be a match made in heaven. A triangle of portfolios to die (figuratively) for: Donald Trump as the President, Dr. Ben Carson as Dick Cheney, oops, I mean as the Vice President and Mr. Hukka-bee, as the Secretary of State. Other obvious appointments will have to be Mr. Sean Hannity as the White House Press Secretary and the very brief ceremonial appointment of UN Ambassador will be a toss-up between Michael Savage and Glenn Beck.

Those in the know predict: The Trump Presidency will have two most urgent top priorities. They will be even more important than repatriating the immigrants (illegal or not), to their homelands or building the Great Wall of Mexico (naming rights will belong to the builder):

1. Save the US from the United Nations.
2 Deliver the Muslims to their 72 virgins in waiting.

I clearly envision President Trump on TV, delivering his inaugural address and revealing the true meaning of the letters, “UN”. The letter U stands for the United States and the letter “N” stands for “No” to other nations, hence no need for the UN. The master deal maker knows best. No country dare challenge him or else. Say hello to the new big Trump United Plaza just off 1st Avenue and 43rd Street.

On the Muslim front, Prez Trump will have the inspirational advice of Vice President Carson and SOS, Hack-a-bee. Muslims of America will have to decide: live under the Law of Carson and Meccabee or bye, bye – go back to looking for a place to live under Sharia! Gone will be the days of living under the protection of the Constitution and believing in the separation of Mosque and State.

Meanwhile, if the SOS is successful and his prayers become a reality, Muslim countries from Tunisia to Indonesia can kiss their behinds good-bye. The nuke-fest they’ll experience will put Shock & Awe to shame.

There may be some unfortunate radiation side effects. Half of the Indian population may become ash due to the nuking of evil Iran, untrustworthy Pakistan and the hell-hole Afghanistan. Israel may suffer the same fate, an undue consequence of nuking Muslim Egypt, Jordan and ISIS Syria.

When the President will be asked for his comment on wiping out almost 1.2 billion Muslims, his reaction: “So?” will be for the ages. SOS Muckabee will claim ownership of the miracle: “The sacrifices of our Judeo Christian Jewish brothers and sisters have not gone to waste. The world is rid of the menace and the path is clear for the early arrival of the Messiah.”

I wouldn’t like to be around when the Messiah learns that He has been summoned unannounced for a re-entry and hears about the deeds done in His name to bring Him back.

I have recently became a US Citizen; My dilemma will be on how to manage the pledge I have made to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, Dr. Carson and Mr. Huckabee should avoid looking themselves in the mirror. They’ll be surprised to see their reflection with turbans on their heads and beards on their faces.

Mahmood Shaukat
New York

Share

Late Night Political Humor

“Donald Trump gave a big speech in Dallas last night, and began by pointing out that he wasn’t using a teleprompter. Then he yelled at Gary Busey to hold the cue cards higher.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Last night Donald Trump had a big rally at the American Airline center in Dallas. Thousands of people came out to see him. Arena staff estimated the numbers between 9,000 and 15,000 people. ‘USA Today’ put the crowd at 17,000 people. The Trump Campaign says there were well over a million people there to cheer him on. It really is incredible how much bragging Donald Trump can squeeze into speech.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Donald Trump said he would replace Obamacare with something called Donaldcare. He claims it would save billions by denying coverage to preexisting Hispanics.” – Conan O’Brien

“People started lining up hours before the door opened. Some made up their minds they like Trump and others were there to learn more about a candidate they are considering. He speaks to us as Americans because it’s not politics as usual anymore. This is politics as unusual.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“It seems like everybody’s weighing in on Trump. In fact, the creator of ‘Dilbert’ predicted that Trump will win the presidency, and also compared him to Jesus. And people hope he’s right – cuz they would LOVE a three-day break from Donald Trump.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Donald Trump is leading among Christian evangelical voters. They love him. Apparently, they like him because a Trump presidency would mean the world really is coming to an end.” – Conan O’Brien

“New national poll numbers show Dr. Ben Carson has pulled within four points of frontrunner Donald Trump. And I’m sure it’s not the first time Trump has been closely pursued by a brain surgeon.” – Seth Meyers

“I read that Jeb Bush has seen a drop in campaign donations lately, and has been forced to take commercial flights to campaign events. It got weird when the airline said they lost Jeb’s baggage and he was like, ‘You lost my brother?!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Tomorrow night’s second GOP debate will take place at the Reagan Presidential Library. So on behalf of librarians everywhere, let me just say ‘shhh…'” – Seth Meyers

“Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is struggling in the polls. According to political analysts, Hillary Clinton is now trying to make herself seem more relatable to the average person. Today, she spent the day criticizing Hillary Clinton.” – Conan O’Brien

“Mark Zuckerberg announced that a dislike button is finally coming to Facebook. Finally a way to tell your friends how you really feel about their baby.” – Conan O’Brien

“And a lot of people are getting really excited about the upcoming visit by Pope Francis. This Pope is very popular, but I saw that in a recent interview, he said that he’s felt ‘used’ by certain people who only pay attention to him when they need something. Then God was like, ‘Um, hello! That’s like 99 percent of my day!'” – Jimmy Fallon

“The government has unveiled a new website that predicts your financial worth after graduating college. It doesn’t give you a number, just tells you which Starbucks you’ll be working at and for how long.” – Conan O’Brien

Share