Mike Gravel: Aliens wrote my platform!

Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel photographed at YearlyKos during a BBQ sponsored by the Teamsters.

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel stunned Yearly Kos participants by announcing that space aliens wrote his political platform.

"The greatest minds on Earth have failed the human race!"  Gravel told about 20 participants in a breakout session at the blogger convention held in Chicago.   "So I turned to a higher power!  And unlike the Washington politicians who ask for God's help, I got an answer!"

Gravel explained that back in the 1970s, while he was filibustering to end the draft, he began to hear voices.  At first he thought he was suffering from fatigue.  After the filibuster, the voices started to become clearer.

"They were sending me mathematical proofs to problems our scientists have been unable to solve.  When I forwarded the proofs to Area 51, and never heard back from them, I knew that these really were voices from another world.  Heck, I'm terrible at math.  I've had to declare bankruptcy twice because I'm so bad at it."

For about thirty years, Gravel and the aliens worked on creating a common language.  The aliens, he says, are from the Albic Confederation.  The Confederation is considering adding Earth to their interstellar empire.  In order to be accepted, an Earth nation must accept the two founding principles of the Confederation without knowing about the Confederation.

The first principle is the direct voting on laws by the citizens.

"The best Congress is no Congress!"  Proclaimed Gravel.  "Congresses are filled with politicians.  The Albic people realized that they are smart enough to vote on their own laws.  They didn't need politicians.  I think the American people are smart enough to vote on their own laws too.  We can save billions of dollars by eliminating Congress!"

The second principle is that no citizens pay an income tax.  Instead, Gravel wants to enact a national sales tax between 20 and 25 percent.

"The more you spend, the more tax you pay!  Not only will the poor get a monthly rebate check, everyone will control the amount of tax they pay!  Only a superior intelligence could create such a fair tax system!"

During the question and answer session, a couple members raised concerns about his platform.  The first involved the integrity of the monthly votes, especially with the voting problems surrounding Florida and Ohio in the last two Presidential elections.

"There is a problem, and it will be worked on."  Replied Gravel

The second concern was that the majority of Americans could pass laws that oppressed a minority group.

"That's up to the American people to decide."  Replied Gravel.

Other economists have criticized Gravel's tax proposal saying it would hurt the poor because they pay a far greater percentage of their income on necessities than the rich. 

"That's what the monthly rebate check is for."

When asked how the monthly rebate would be determined each month, and how a poor family would survive while waiting for the check, Gravel, stopped taking this reporter's questions.

"My plan was created by an interstellar civilization!  I think they would know a lot more about economics than I do.  So I'm going to trust their judgment!"

After the breakout session, a few of the participants seemed stunned by the source of Gravel's plan.

"I guess he thought he was addressing a Science Fiction convention, not a blogger convention."

Another blogger was more supportive of Gravel.  "I always thought his platform was out of this world, and now I know why.

In other YearlyKos news:

• The Christian and Satanic blogger caucuses released a joint statement condemning the raise of atheism around the world.
• Five vampires were chased away from McCormick Place Saturday evening after trying to feed on the bloggers. No one was harmed. "This was nothing." Said a McCormick security guard. "You should see the attacks we have to fend off during the auto show."

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Please note: All stories and characters on this web site are works of fiction.