We all have skeletons in the closet, but some skeletons are scarier than others. Here are 8 weird stories about the 2016 presidential candidates. It’s as they say, the truth is stranger than fiction.

1. WHEN BERNIE SANDERS WROTE BAD SEX FICTION

In his 1972 article “Man — and woman,” Bernie Sanders wrote about men masturbating to thoughts of abused and bound women, and women fantasizing about being gang raped while having sex with their husbands.

A spokesperson for Sanders said it was “a dumb attempt at dark satire…attacking gender stereotypes in the 1970s.”

Sanders himself said, “It was very poorly written and if you read it, what it was dealing with was gender stereotypes, why some men like to oppress women, why other women like to be submissive, you know, something like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’”

Gives “Feel the Bern” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

2. WHEN JOHN KASICH WENT TO WAR WITH BLOCKBUSTER OVER A SINGLE MOVIE

Something went very wrong when John Kasich and his wife made an oopsie at Blockbuster in the late 1990s.

“[We] thought, What the heck are we watching here? It was billed as a comedy, but it wasn’t funny. It was graphic, and brutal, and completely unnecessary, and it rubbed us in so many wrong ways we had to shut the thing off right there in the middle.”

The movie? Fargo.

Finding the infamous “woodchipper” scene disturbing, Kasich had found his crusade. “I got on the phone to Blockbuster and demanded that they take the movie off their shelves.” He apparently worked out a “deal” with the manager, who agreed to label the movie “graphic content.” Kasich “took his business elsewhere.”

But when he caught wind the manager wasn’t keeping his end of the deal, Kasich pulled out the big guns: another phone call. “Karen had to tell me to back off because I was driving everyone crazy,” he said. He later regretted his “rantings of a wild man.”

3. WHEN DONALD TRUMP APPOINTED HIMSELF JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER

Donald Trump has referred to African Americans as “the blacks,” said “laziness is a trait in blacks,” worried over “black guys counting my money” (according to the former president of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino), and he was sued by the Justice Department for not renting to blacks, a case that ended in a settlement.

But nothing “trumps” the time in 1989 when he rushed to judgement about the rape of a white female jogger in Central Park. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the execution of the suspects, who were African American teenagers. Blacks and whites alike were outraged. The suspects were later exonerated.

Apparently, Trump dislikes the idea of “innocent until proven guilty.”

Also, black people.

4. WHEN HILLARY CLINTON TALKED TO IMAGINARY FRIENDS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

While she was the first lady, Hillary Clinton used to pretend to talk to Eleanor Roosevelt. Apparently, when Clinton told her about times getting tough, Eleanor would “usually respond by telling me to buck up or at least to grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”

Clinton was encouraged to do this “reflective meditation” by a New Age spiritual counselor named Jean Houston in 1996.

According to Bob Woodward (The Choice), she also talked to Gandhi.

Bill Clinton said in 2012, during the dedication of Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park:

A special thanks to the members of the Roosevelt family who are here. And the one who is not, Eleanor, who made sure that the four freedoms were included in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. I know that because, as all of you famously learned when I served as president, my wife, now the secretary of state, was known to commune with Eleanor on a regular basis. And so she called me last night on her way home from Peru to remind me to say that. That Eleanor had talked to her and reminded her that I should say that.

5. WHEN TED CRUZ WANTED TO GET BIG GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR TOILETS

Say what you will about Ted Cruz, he is the only politician brave enough to take a stand for toilet freedom.

In 2012, he said on Glenn Beck’s radio show:

The federal government’s already shown that they believe they can control every aspect of our life. I mean, right now Congress is trying to tell us what kind of light bulbs to buy and what kind of toilets. Right now you are prevented from buying a toilet that actually flushes because the bureaucrats in Washington know better than you do.

In 2013, he condemned the “federal government that thinks they have the authority to regulate our toilet seats.”

The regulations have to do with sanitation and common courtesy for disabled people in public facilities: toilets must have a hinged lid and an adequate supply of toilet paper, there must be one toilet seat and one urinal per 40 workers, and most restrooms must have one toilet that is accessible for disabled persons.

Thank God Ted Cruz is around to stand up for justice.

6. WHEN BEN CARSON INSISTED THAT JOSEPH, NOT THE EGYPTIAN PHARAOHS, BUILT THE PYRAMIDS

In his quest to convince the American people one doesn’t actually have to be that smart to be a brain surgeon, Ben Carson confirmed in November 2015 that he still believes the ancient pyramids were built to store grain, not as tombs for Egyptian rulers.

In a 1998 speech that included, of all things, ignorance, history, and science, Carson said:

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.

And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, “Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how — ” you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.

In other words, no need to trust decades of archaeological discoveries. If the Bible said Joseph had to store grain, well, why not assume, without a shred of evidence, it was in the pyramids? Just don’t go too far with your superstition. That alien stuff is cray.

7. WHEN MIKE HUCKABEE’S SON BUTCHERED A DOG AND HUCKABEE COVERED FOR HIM

In 1998, 17 year old David Huckabee participated in the torture and hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in Arkansas, a misdemeanor but not a felony. Animal rights groups were enraged. A local prosecuting attorney requested the Arkansas state police help in the investigation.

But Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas, worked to keep that from happening.

John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas’s state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor’s request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee’s Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer’s intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee’s office and fired. “I’ve lost confidence in your ability to do your job,” Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem,” according to Bailey. “Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son,” says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock…

The state police did not grant the request. No charges were ever filed against David Huckabee.

8. WHEN LINDSEY GRAHAM DIDN’T SEND AN EMAIL…EVER

Lindsey Graham spent 8 years as a representative and 12 years as a senator, yet somehow he’s found a way to grandma his way out of the 21st century.

In 2015 he said to Chuck Todd on NBC, “I don’t email. No, you can have every email I’ve ever sent. I’ve never sent one.”

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