You Built That

Sorry for the "do it yourself" nature of today's non-cartoon, but some personal circumstances just didn't allow me to take the time to do a real one today - in part because the news is so depressingly "more of the same" and I didn't have hours to look for something really compelling or (ha!) hopeful.

The fiscal cliff negotiations are going nowhere, unemployment is up (Wow! Knock me over with a feather!), the Middle East is getting ready to throw a chemical weapons party,  and Obama is "consulting on tax rates" with MSNBC hosts Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow in the Whitehouse.  No wonder my mental radio is constantly tuned to the Tourette's Top 40 lately.

So consider this a "Hope n' Change IOU" for humor to come.  It's a lot like the IOUs the government is funding your Social Security and Medicare accounts with, except that mine will actually get paid in the future.

BONUS: Okay, here's a cartoon for today. Better late than never...and IOU paid!

You Can Have Your Gingerbread and EAT IT Too

Michelle Obama has officially unveiled the 2012 Christmas decorations at the Whitehouse, including 54 different designer-decorated trees and a 300-pound gingerbread replica of the Whitehouse to commemorate this year's holiday theme of "austerity."

No, just kidding! It's the same wretched excess as usual, but the official holiday theme is "Joy To All." They would have included "...And Peace On Earth" in the theme, but didn't want to discourage anyone from celebrating the holidays by firing rockets at Israel.

In the first lady's official comments, she mentions the "many joys of the holiday seasons" and then defines those joys as "giving and service to others," and "sharing our blessings with one another." Which are lovely sentiments when contained in scripture, but are considerably less so when turned into hundreds of pages of new tax codes.

With so many Christmas trees festooning the Whitehouse (every one of which will be abandoned December 17th, when the Obamas leave on their $4 million Hawaiian vacation), we can't help but wonder if there's one in the Situation Room...where Barack Obama may have given the order not to send aid to the four Americans murdered by terrorists in Benghazi.

With a stink that bad, you definitely need to add some pine fresh scent to the air.

 

Cliffhanger

As the days tick down until the end-of-the-world predictions by Mayan economists come true (it turns out that they didn't make a calendar - it's a calculator), it's becoming more evident that Barack Obama seems eager to actually take us all over the fiscal cliff. How else to explain his sadly laughable and entirely unacceptable proposals for a "compromise" in which he gets everything, and the fiscal conservatives get nothing?

How ridiculous is his offer? Consider this logic: by adding $1.6 trillion in new taxes to the evil wealthy job creators, even Barry expects the economy to take a new slump. So how to energize the economy after shooting it in the foot? With a new round of stimulus spending, of course! Because that's worked so well over the past few years!

Meanwhile, no one on the Democrat side is willing to talk about serious spending cuts of any kind, other than the trillion dollars of imaginary "cuts" that Timothy Geithner is claiming for not fighting two wars in the future. Presumably, if we need another quick $500 billion, Geithner can always pick another country that we won't fight a war with.

According to Republican senator Lindsey Graham (who previously starred as the boyish radio station manager in "NewsRadio"), "I think we're going over the cliff. It's pretty clear to me that they have made a political calculation."

And it's not a complicated calculation: allowing the country to go over the fiscal cliff would allow B. Hussein to enjoy massive sequestration cuts in military spending which would be impossible for him to ram through any other way. Plus the CBO estimates that allowing the Bush tax rates to expire will plunge the nation back into recession and send joblessness through the roof...which dovetails perfectly with this president's desire to see the United States downgraded into international insignificance.

Just like the complete ass that he is.