More Mockery of Politicians

My most popular blog posts, as measured by number of views, tend to be the ones involving political humor.

This used to irk me because I’m a policy wonk and I bizarrely hope to turn the rest of the world into libertarian wonks as well.

But people much wiser and more well-rounded than me, including Glenn Reynolds and John Hinderaker, have convinced me that mockery is a very important weapon in our battle against the political elite.

So with that in mind, let’s enjoy the latest jokes.

Jay Leno

• President Obama was heckled by a protester who called him “the Antichrist.” The protester was detained, but released without being charged, and then later he was offered his own show on Fox News.
• Obama says his new jobs bill will be more successful than his last jobs bill. Let’s not set that bar too high.
• President Obama’s hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, has called on Obama not to run for re-election. He has to run. He knows there are no other jobs out there.
• The Solyndra executives are scheduled to testify before Congress, and they’re expected to take the 5th. Why not take the 5th? They’ve already taken $535 million.
• The military’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is officially over. Don’t confuse this with President Obama’s economic policy, which is “don’t ask, I don’t want to talk about it.”
• Obama says his new plan to raise taxes on millionaires is not class warfare, it’s math. We Americans hate class warfare, but we also hate math.

David Letterman

• Gov. Chris Christie keeps saying he’s not running for president. On the other hand, he would consider running for Santa.
• If he does run and he is elected, say good bye to the White House garden and say hello to the White House Olive Garden.
• Perfect fit: Oval Office, oval president.
• Republicans are having trouble luring Gov. Chris Christie into the presidential race. They should try pie.
• Rick Perry did so badly at the last debate, that President Obama turned to Michelle and said, “Honey, you can stop packing.”

Craig Ferguson

• Police in Los Angeles are looking for vandals who broke into the Obama campaign office. They said it was probably done by someone who was angry at the president. Well, that narrows it down.

Conan

• The tea party is forming its own debt super committee that will meet this week at a Florida Denny’s. You do not want to be the waiter that adds the tax to their check.

Jimmy Fallon

• Mitt Romney says he wants Sarah Palin to run for president to make the race “more exciting.” Although with Mitt Romney running, even Al Gore on Ambien would make the race more exciting.
• Yesterday President Obama arrived 25 minutes late for a luncheon at the U.N. In fact he was so late, he had to sit next to Biden at the kids table.

See, wasn’t that therapeutic? Making fun of politicians is good for the body and soul.

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The Sun Rises in the East, the Pope is Catholic, Democrats Push for Tax Hikes…and Republicans Often Are the Stupid Party

Some things don’t need to be said because they are so obvious, and the title of the blog post gives a couple of examples.

But sometimes it’s worth elaborating on these eternal truths, at least when we need to warn gullible Republicans that they shouldn’t get seduced into doing something stupid.

As part of the debt limit deal, the crowd in Washington agreed to set up a “super committee” and they charged it with producing $1.5 trillion (really $1.2 trillion, but close enough for government work) of deficit reduction.

I warned at the time that this was a tax increase trap.

And I screamed from the rafters that it was a tax increase trap after Reid and Pelosi appointed hard-core left wingers to the super committee.

So I’m not surprised that the Democrats on the super committee are insisting that higher taxes should be the first item on the agenda. Here’s some of the report from Reuters.

Democrats want tax hikes to be the first item negotiated in “super committee” deficit-reduction talks, trying to force Republicans to confront an issue at the heart of this year’s budget fights, sources told Reuters. The tough stance by Democratic members of the powerful 12-member congressional panel reflects the party’s wariness that Republicans might try to sideline the issue of revenue increases in the negotiations. “They’ve raised the idea of doing taxes first,” a Republican aide involved in the discussions said on Friday on condition of anonymity. …Another congressional aide, who also did not want to be identified, confirmed that among Democrats, “there is an effort to try to discuss revenues” now. During the super committee’s initial closed-door meetings, “Republicans wanted to just talk about spending cuts and Democrats said, ‘No,'” the aide said. …A third congressional aide with knowledge of the super committee’s discussions told Reuters the six Democratic panel members were “not completely unified on their approach.” …If Democrats insist on tackling tax increases first, that is “problematic” given the November 23 deadline, the aide said.

This story isn’t really newsworthy, of course, unless you’re a fan of dog-bites-man reporting. Heck, the reporter could have written it the day the super committee was announced and waited for a slow day before publishing it.

The real story is whether Republicans will be foolish enough to walk into an obvious trap by agreeing to a tax hike.

Yes, I know that the GOP has earned its reputation as being the Stupid Party. And, yes, I realize the Democrats only need one Republican to capitulate and that the six GOPers on the super committee include several potential weak links – such as Cong. Fred Upton, the clown who gave us the light bulb ban.

But the Democrats have admitted that their number one political goal is luring Republicans into a tax increase trap. As such, Republicans should be forewarned.

So what will GOPers do? Well, when your opponents admit that they intend to defeat you by getting you to travel down a certain path, it would take monumental stupidity – idiocy of stupendous proportions – to actually walk down that path.

In other words, it’s a 50-50 proposition. The cartoon at the bottom of this post is really all you need to know if you want to understand how Republicans deal with potential tax hikes.

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