Are Space Aliens Running the Clinton Campaign? Sure Why Not?

Greetings, explorers and enthusiasts of the great unknown! Welcome to the Snake Oil Bulletin. Its mission: to seek out the best in hoaxes, scams, conspiracies, and assorted pseudoscientific nonsense that happens to roll across our tiny desk deep within the pleasure dungeons of the Wonkette Compound. First on our agenda, we profile the man who has been making a bit of a stir in the newsy world for his insistence on knowing DA TRUTH. And quite frankly, he's so nice and not-crazy about it that we're willing to indulge him a little.

Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta Wants To Believe...And We're Super Okay With That

First on our agenda, we'll be examining the wacky woolly world of UFOlogy, that tantalizingly promising yet ultimately disappointing field of study that every 6-year-old wanted to follow from the moment he realized aliens were even cooler than dinosaurs. While most of us (at least publicly) gave up our hopes of finding aliens hiding under our grandpa's porch, some of us kept believing right up until the day they took away our tinfoil beanies. Still others kept our love of possible Martian messengers locked firmly in the realm of reality, going all the way to our current job as director of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Wait, wah? Readers, meet John Podesta.

Podesta has been involved with Washington politics since the Clinton administration and actually founded and still serves on the board of the Center for American Progress . He acted as Bill Clinton's chief of staff, Counselor to the President in the Obama administration, and currently serves as Hilldawg Clinton's chief campaign manager. You know that night in which Hillary Khan rampaged through the American south , capturing all the delegates and laying waste to the tiny shrunken baby peenies of dudebros who hate hearing ladies talk words ? That was John Podesta's campaign.

It's a very impressive slate of accomplishments for a dude who can't stop talking about UFOs. Podesta's entire career has revolved around UFOs. According to Podesta's own words, Clinton's promise to investigate and release more documents related to UFOs were she to become President was a major condition for Podesta to join her campaign:

Hillary Clinton, while at the Sun, added that the chairman of her campaign, John Podesta, is a huge fan of UFO lore. She said he enjoys a sci-fi show on the FX network. Podesta served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton and counselor to the president for Barack Obama.

"He has made me personally pledge we are going to get the information out," said Clinton. "One way or another. Maybe we could have, like, a task force to go to Area 51."

Podesta has made declassification a hallmark of his public service records, even convincing notorious blabbermouth Wiley Willy Clinton to declassify as many documents as he could about the Roswell incident on the 50th anniversary of the event.

In 2002, Podesta put all his Xenomorph eggs in one basket by backing a landmark Freedom of Information Act case that sought to declassify information about a 1965 UFO incident in Keksburg, Pennsylvania. The judge ruled that NASA was required to go over and release multiple documents related to the incident in order to present them to reporters. But when that fateful day finally arrived NASA provided scores of docs that had nothing to do with the case, which Podesta considered a travesty. While he initially praised the order as a “a triumph for open government and the spirit of inquiry,” he seemed to sour on the case after NASA scuttled the big reveal.

Let it be known that we are the last to follow the "if they want to hide it, that must mean it's really juicy" line of fallacious thought, and for his part Podesta seems the same. While a member of the Obama administration, Podesta apparently pushed on a number of different UFO declassifications but was ultimately either blocked or he decided he had more important things to do. He didn't go running to the Alex Joneses of the world claiming that his poor performance reports were because he couldn't STOP TELLING THE TRUTH, and that you too could find out all about the biggest government coverup ever just by purchasing all the books from his traveling medicine show. Podesta seems to see the shortage of revelations not as a nefarious conspiracy so much as a bureaucratic hassle, and has called for a US-based panel to investigate UFO findings without the red tape of previous projects. In fact, when Podesta left the Obama White House a bit before joining the Clinton election campaign in 2014, he publicly lamented that his one regret was an inability to make headway in declassifying UFO docs.

From his public efforts and private conversations, Podesta might be one of the few sane or sane-seeming individuals who has tried to delve into this subject. Now OBVIOUSLY we'd all like to believe that strange visitors from the Planet Xaxyllon have beamed down to earth to rescue our precious bodily fluids from the evil grip of the fearsome Repto-Draconions from the alternate dimension of Nibiru and their nefarious plot to open a wormhole that would connect the Kessel Run all the way to the planet Transsexual in the Galaxy Transylvania. Obviously we all want that. But so far Podesta seems to be the only individual actively seeking this information who hasn't accused the Queen of eating flies for breakfast and didn't declare themselves to be the Son of God .

[contextly_sidebar id="NsMxLiC5kpO75JzQngssuNjbStrwBiUR"]Podesta, though enthusiastic about the subject, seems to be an actual, skeptical UFO enthusiast who has decided to go to the source of the information rather than building a blog empire out of speculation and stolen L. Ron Hubbard plots. True diligent skeptics like Podesta actually give license to legitimate UFOlogy research by doing the real work of combing through verifiable documents instead of seeing a Cloverfield trailer on YouTube and assuming it's real. What do we expect to be in any documents that Podesta eventually has declassified? Almost certainly nothing but fallen meteors, crashed government spy planes, or weather balloons that scared some local hillbillies because those goldang Ruskies is comin' from the skies, maw! But efforts to jam up declassification efforts give fuel to the legitimate whackjob alien humpers like that spikey-haired "Ancient Aliens" moron, leading to an internet culture in which people legitimately believe that Ancient Greeks had alien laptops . For his efforts to seek out a whackjob field of study while remaining for the most part pretty damn sane about it, that we salute you, John Podesta. You keep on reaching for those stars, strange UFO man.

Lawmakers Legalize Raw Milk, Mysteriously Get Sick After Drinking Said Raw Milk

Today in shoulda-seen-it-coming-doofus news, lawmakers in West Virginia passed a bill protecting the rights of farmers who wish to produce raw milk only to come down with an illness that may have come from raw milk.

About a week ago, members of the West Virginia legislature decided that their constituents needed less of that nasty "government regulation" and a lot more of that free-market-approved salmonella. As noted by the Charleston Gazette-Mail , the delegates passed a bill to make it legal for West Virginians to engage in the bestially gross-sounding practice of "cow-sharing" -- people can now purchase a "share" of a specific cow, and are allowed a portion of whatever raw milk the animal makes to consume at their leisure. In other words, it's a delightful little trick to get around the FDA-mandated ban on selling raw milk. Now people just buy a little bit of the cow that makes the milk, kind of like buying pieces of your drug dealer instead of buying his drugs. Since no sale for drugs actually took place, it's a-okay, but if you just so happen to consume all his drugs that he happens to have then bully for you. This bill allows the same thing for cows, now legally allowed to be shared by people just for their sweet government-free E. coli juice.

That's, uh, great? Was there really that big of a demand for this bill? Were there hordes of lonely farmers clamoring the walls of the city hall demanding the government recognize their polybovine nuptials?

To celebrate the bill's passage, state delegates drank raw milk brought in from the farm of one of their colleagues, Delegate Scott Cadle (R-Of Course He Is). Within the week, PURELY BY COINCIDENCE WE'RE SURE, many of those same state reps all reported in sick with an unidentified stomach illness. Jinkies! Sounds like we've got a mystery on our clammy, vomit-covered hands. According to reports, the delegates' symptoms include vomiting, fever, and diarrhea, all of which just so happen to be symptoms of salmonella and E. coli , diseases that pasteurization is specifically designed to prevent.

Huh. That's weird.

Excuse us while we sip the biggest cup of pasteurized tea we can find.

Naturally, rather than admit that maybe they done goofed, the delegates interviewed are denying any connection, or at least they did in between bouts of horking up their lunch. While they claim a stomach bug has been circulating throughout the capitol, we'll just note that according to the CDC , though raw milk only accounts for about 1% of milk consumed within the US, it accounts for 79% of all milk-born infections reported between 1998 and 2011. Dang, Cletus, it's almost like there was a reason why Louis Pasteur developed pasteurization, not just because he was a member of the proto-communist vanguard who wanted to burden small businessmen with pesky "regulations" and "safety precautions." Good thing Represenative One Tooth knows more than those damn Frenchies.

To be completely fair to the elected dinguses, the state Department of Health and Human Resources has still not determined the source of the outbreak, though an investigation has begun. We just hope that the next time any elected officials decide to accept a strange white drink from one of their colleagues, they'll remember to spit instead of swallow.

[ Conway Daily Sun / Las Vegas Now / Huffington Post / Washington Post / Charleston Gazette-Mail / Centers for Disease Control ]