Fake News: Conspiracy Theory

BOURNE: Welcome to Beltway Insider. I’m Les Bourne. At the top of the order tonight is a story that, like so many in this day and age, has many Americans ready to rejoice and many ready to revolt. Just yesterday, President Sheppard signed Executive Order 16461, titled “Protecting Our Petrol Prices from Yielding to Crude Oil Cost Climbing,” which the media and American public have dubbed the POPPYCOCC order. It remains unclear whether the White House intended to create this acronym. The executive order details the president’s plan to tweak the nation’s trade policy as it pertains to the crude oil industry, imposing restrictions on countries and entities he accuses of “gouging American gasoline prices through the sale of intentionally bad oil at intentionally high prices.” When the president was asked to define what was meant by “bad oil,” he pointed the public in the direction of extensive research, all publicly available on Facebook and a little-known YouTube channel, done by 68-year-old retiree R. Donald Dillinger who joins us today. Mr. Dillinger, thank you for coming on.

DILLINGER: Thank you for having me, Les.

BOURNE: Mr. Dillinger, the name of your YouTube channel is “Oil Spoiling Exposed,” and your videos are primarily concerned with a theory that contends that the U.S. is more or less being had by its chief oil sources, including our Canadian neighbors. Could you tell me a bit more about that?

DILLINGER: Gladly. Anyone who drives in this country can tell you that gas prices today are preposterously high. Most of us either accept it as a fact of life or blame whoever the president happens to be at the time. I’ll tell you now that the latter bunch are sorely, almost comically mistaken. Those poor, stupid souls. The truth of the matter—and this is what I’ve devoted my life to exposing—is that Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia are all bound by a secret anti-American trade agreement designed to increase our gas prices by marking up the price of oil while simultaneously lacing, or “spoiling,” the oil they sell us with a top-secret proprietary chemical compound with several nefarious functions. First, it shortens the operational lives of multiple key automobile components, such as carburetors and catalytic converters. Second, it generates exhaust fumes that increase the risk of cancer, miscarriage, and homosexuality upon inhalation. Crazy, I know. And third, it f——g smells.

BOURNE: Wow. How did you make this groundbreaking discovery?

DILLINGER: Well, Les, I’ll come clean and admit that I regularly huff gasoline for its euphoric psychoactive properties. About a year ago, I noticed that something smelled off. Soon after, I began dating Charles. That’s him in the corner there. Anyhow, that’s when my curiosity took over and my new career took off.

BOURNE: Oh! Alright then. And how did the president come into contact with your research?

DILLINGER: Honestly, I don’t know. My Facebook group only has nineteen members, but I guess that’s why they call him a man of the people!

Featured image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.