There’s a lot of talk about “fake news” these days like the concept is a new thing.
It’s not.
Remember the Bat Boy who visited Bill Clinton in the White House back in the day?
How about the space aliens that backed George Bush for president? Ring a bell?
If you don’t remember reading those stories, it’s because you didn’t read the Weekly World News, a grocery store tabloid that used to be prominently displayed next to the National Enquirer.
There were two main differences between WWN and the Enquirer. One, the WWN was always a black and white publication, no color photos. And two, the Weekly World News made the National Enquirer’s reporting look like that of the Wall Street Journal by contrast.
The crazy tabloid disappeared from shelves in 2007, but it maintains a web edition, which is perfect, since the internet has given rise to more spurious news sites than you can shake a two-headed calf fetus at.
I was curious what the king of fake news was reporting about Donald Trump, and whether or not Donald had gotten the important Bat Boy and space alien support that presidents Clinton and Bush had enjoyed. Surely Bat Boy isn’t working for the Hillary campaign these days!
The most recent Trump story posted Friday on the Weekly World News website (weeklyworldnews.com) was headlined “Donald Trump Buys Scranton” and is dated Dec. 1, 2016.
The story begins:
“As POTUS, Donald Trump has solved Scranton’s financial woes… He bought the entire town! Firefighters, police and other public workers in a Pennsylvania city saw their wages slashed to minimum wage rates on Friday, in a move by the cash-strapped city to balance its budget. The town was reeling, so… Donald Trump stepped in and bought Scranton outright.”
Trump plans on turning Scranton into one big casino with lots of strip clubs, according to the Weekly World News article. The Donald even took time out to speak with the WWN reporters.
“I always wanted a town in Pennsylvania to play with,” Trump reportedly said. “It’s a dumpy town, but I’m going to make it into gold, like I do everything.”
Trump adds that he feels that Scranton has lots of potential. “Scranton will become the Hollywood of Pennsylvania. Bank on it,” WWN quoted the then president-elect as saying.
Scranton is the sixth largest city in Pennsylvania, and is located in the state’s northeastern Wyoming Valley. The city has a population of 77,118 according to Wikipedia.
How did Scranton turn out in November for Trump? Not as well as most of the rest of Pennsylvania. Lackawanna County, where Scranton is the county seat, went to Clinton, 51,593 votes to 48,102 or 50 percent to 47 percent.
Maybe Trump should have bought the town in October — regardless, Trump carried Pennsylvania and even the mainstream media had to admit that the president found strong support in the commonwealth.
ABC’s KNEP TV reported that a Republican won Pennsylvania for the first time in nearly 30 years when Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton there on Nov. 8.
Clinton won Monroe and Lackawanna Counties, but while Barack Obama had a blowout in Lackawanna in 2012, Clinton only won 50 to 47 percent.
Curious about how things were going in Scranton now that the town is owned by the president, I called the mayor’s office on Friday and asked how things were going under the new management.
“What? What did you read online?” asked Kay Garvey, confidential secretary to the mayor of Scranton. She seemed surprised to hear that the ownership of the town had changed.
“No, he does not own Scranton, I am pretty sure I would have heard about that,” Garvey said. But of course she’d say that. The real question is did Michael Flynn meet with space aliens in Scranton to interfere with the Pennsylvania election?
Garvey was silent on whether or not Bat Boy had made an appearance in Scranton’s city hall yet, but I already knew the answer to that question, so in White House Press Corps fashion I just made up an answer.
Bat Boy is the new mayor of Scranton, he just hasn’t moved into the mayor’s mansion yet. Bat Boy did send Bill Clinton to decorate the Scranton mayor’s office for him, however. Right now, Bat Boy is busy helping Vladimir Putin open the first Trump Casino on the moon, right next to the secret Masonic Lodge and the Egyptian pyramid.
When, oh when will CNN and Fox pick up the mantle of the WWN and give us the real news we deserve?
Randal Curtman is the managing editor of the El Dorado News-Times and may be reached at 870-862-6611 or by email at [email protected].