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Late Night Political Humor

“Most Americans know Jon Huntsman as ‘the candidate most Americans don’t know.’ Gov. Huntsman’s announcement puts him somewhere between Ron Paul and Count Chocula as the favorite to win the GOP nomination.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Jon Huntsman is so little known, when he announced for the Presidency he had his name written on his hand.” – Jay Leno

“Former governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman, is running for president. He’s one of those guys that can do everything — he speaks Chinese. In a couple of years we’ll all be speaking Chinese, so who cares?” – David Letterman

“Newt Gingrich has a new campaign slogan: ‘Now hiring!’ Sixteen of Gingrich’s top staff quit last week, and today, two of his top fundraisers quit. He’s not even president and he’s already raising the unemployment rate.” – Jay Leno

“The Governor of Texas says if he runs for President he’ll fight accusations he’s gay. He’ll give any guy who accuses him a good hard pinch in the butt.” – Conan O’Brien

“I’ll tell you who’s in a lot of trouble: Mitt Romney. He’s supposedly the Republican presidential contender front-runner. Here’s what happened: He created a successful healthcare plan in Massachusetts. Are you kidding me? Come on! What a dope.” – David Letterman

“To no one’s surprise, on the ‘Today Show’ this morning, John McCain said he will not be running in 2012, or walking for that matter. He’s just going to get one of those Rascal scooters and drive around.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“John McCain says he is puzzled by the backlash to his comment that illegal immigrants are the cause of Arizona’s wildfires. He said, ‘Of course, I’m also puzzled by the defrost option on my microwave.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Yesterday President Obama urged more foreign countries to start investing in the U.S. economy. The president of Mexico was like, ‘The people of Mexico are with you. Literally, they’re already there with you.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Tomorrow President Obama will lay out his plan for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. Ten years ago Afghanistan had a backwards, corrupt government. And now they have a democratically elected, backwards, corrupt government. So that’s progress.” – Jay Leno

“Arnold Schwarzenegger is laying low in Europe. He was in his homeland of Austria, and he said he misses schnitzel. By the way, schnitzel is the name of his Austrian lovechild.” – Conan O’Brien

“The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a Chinese billionaire investor named Wang Gongquan announced to the world that he is leaving his wife to elope with his mistress, and he did it on a Chinese blogging site like Twitter. Men are the same all over the world, aren’t they? We have Weiner, they have Wang. It’s the same thing. No matter where you go.” – Jay Leno

“Idaho state senator and former Republican legislator of the year, John McGee, is charged with drunk driving and suspicion of felony grand theft after reportedly stealing an SUV with a 20-foot trailer attached to it. In his defense, there’s not a lot to do in Idaho.” – Jay Leno

“The Egyptian military is asking people who they want to be the next president by using a Facebook poll. So congratulations to Egypt’s new leader, President Betty White.” – Conan O’Brien

“You all know Bristol Palin has a book. She reveals that she lost her virginity on a camping trip. Bristol said she named her son ‘Tripp’ because ‘camping’ seemed like a dumb name.” – Conan O’Brien

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Doublespeak


© Jen Sorensen

Not mentioned was Mr. Feinprint’s most recent work — “unlimited data plans” for mobile phones with data caps.

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Truth in Consensus

[The Washington Fancy, a new online publication devoted to political satire, debuted this morning. This is a reprint of an article from their inaugural edition.]

Polls Are Accurate Representations of Fact and Public Opinion, Poll Says

WASHINGTON — After decades of controversy, it has finally been established that polls effectively convey public opinion, a recent poll shows.

In recent years multiple media outlets have called into question the usefulness of polling data as a way to make decisions. It is claimed that polls sample too small a population to show public opinion. Even if polls did quiz a larger percentage of the population, public opinion doesn’t necessarily show fact. However, it appears that these thoughts have been proven wrong.

A public opinion poll conducted on June 20th by Truth In Polling Group has provided some new data. The poll shows that 92% of people believe polls to be accurate sources of public opinion and fact. Only 5% believed this to be untrue, with 3% refusing to answer.

“This is groundbreaking,” said Peter Coburn, a journalist at The Washington Fancy. “There is no longer a question that polling data is effective – the poll data says so.”

Not all are satisfied with the results of the poll. Sociologist Nathan Landon of The Political Fact Institute had a different view of the data. He said, “It doesn’t matter what the polling data shows, if the concept of polling data is flawed.”

Landon’s remarks went unheeded, as he lacked the appropriate polling data to back up his statement.

By Gerould R. Lobouski

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Actual Headlines v. Fox News Headlines

Buzzfeed has an absolutely hilarious article showing actual news articles compared to the Fox News, um, creative reinterpretation of those headlines. Here is just a small sampling of them:

Actual News Headline Fox News Headline
USDA gay-sensitifity training seeks larger audience Obama Bureaucrats Imposing Radical Homosexual Sensitivity Training?
Michele Bachmann’s First Dude The Left Launches Attack on Bachmann’s Husband
Obama Will Speed Pullout From War in Afghanistan Obama Doesn’t Thank Petraeus
NY Officials Want Schools to Teach About Unwanted Baby Laws NYC Public Schools Teaching How to Abandon Your Baby?

In each case, Fox News cited the articles with the “actual news headline” as their source. That’s fair and balanced!

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Here Come the Big Lies

It is becoming standard in politics now — the “not intended to be a factual statement” statement. If you don’t like something, just lie about it, because the media will not call you on it.

Here’s just the latest example. Today, Michele Bachmann appeared on Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace asked her about the accusations that she and her husband received government handouts for the family farm and for her husband’s counseling clinic. Bachmann responded that the farm was owned by her father-in-law “And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm.”

Well, except that Bachmann’s own financial disclosure forms show that she has received tens of thousands of dollars — and probably hundreds of thousands — from the farm (disclosure forms do not show exact amounts). I guess she isn’t technically lying because that isn’t “a penny”, it’s more like ten million pennies.

She also claimed that the $30,000 to her husband’s clinic was for employee training, and that she or her husband had not benefited from the money. So, the clinic’s employees receiving free training from the government doesn’t benefit them? Seriously?

At the end of the softball interview, Wallace asked whether she was a “flake” because of a “history of questionable statements” and “gaffes”. A clearly irritated Bachmann responded “I think that would be insulting, to say something like that, because I’m a serious person.” I guess if you can’t respond with a good lie, the next best thing is to act insulted.

Or if you can’t do that, then deflect. On Face the Nation, Bachmann was asked about the farm subsidies, and she responded that the public should be more outraged about the increase in limousine usage under Obama.

It is going to be an interesting election.

UPDATE: The Washington Post declares that Bachmann is the Republican candidate to watch … for inaccuracies. My favorite one is her claiming that John Wayne was from her hometown, saying “that’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” Unfortunately, she got the name wrong — it was serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. who lived in her hometown. No word yet on that kind of spirit.

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The New World Order

Salon has an interesting and fairly convincing article that claims the reason our social contract is unraveling is because the American people have “outlived their usefulness to the rich”.

Even the robber barons of the 19th century depended on the poor and the middle class to work in their factories, buy the resulting goods, and do other work. But now, with the new global economy, not only do the rich freely outsource American jobs to other countries, their biggest markets are also other countries. The only workforce they need here are laborers to be servants and to take care of golf courses. But as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out, that’s what illegal immigrants are for.

Their conclusion? The rich have absolutely no incentive to pay taxes any more. Which is why the GOP is so strongly against taxes of any kind.

The article has an interesting solution:

a new social contract, in which the American people, through representatives whom they actually control, would ordain that American corporations are chartered to create jobs in the U.S. for American workers, and if that does not interest their shareholders and managers then they can do without legal privileges granted by the sovereign people, like limited liability.

In other words, make corporate charters dependent on creating American jobs.

If that doesn’t happen, then he suggests that the poor and middle class of this country should prepare to leave or be kicked out — like the great exodus from British controlled countries like Scotland and Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries, caused in great part by exploding housing and food costs (which is already happening here).

After depopulation “the U.S. could become a kind of giant Aspen for the small population of the super-rich and their non-voting immigrant retainers.” See, the GOP does have a plan.

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Romney Tries to go Viral

Mitt Romney’s campaign released a web video on Friday about how Obama has failed to create new jobs. The spot features Ryan King, a recent college graduate who is struggling to find a job in Michigan. You can watch the video here.

But wait a minute, if you listen closely to the video, King says “right now I have about $3 to my name before I cash my paycheck tomorrow”. Um, he’s getting a paycheck tomorrow?

Not only that, but according to the Wall Street Journal, a month before King made the video, he bragged on his Facebook page about getting a job.

It should probably surprise nobody that Ryan King is also the vice chairman of Young Republicans in his county. His Facebook page also has photos of him partying away at the 2011 state GOP convention.

Maybe we should be feeling more sorry for Mitt Romney than for Ryan King. Is he really this disconnected from reality?

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Moderate Gravitas

You may think of it as one of the pitfalls of being a moderate, but they call them “pitfalls” for a reason.


© Tom Toles

Toles has a funny observation to go along with this comic:

Funny! Washington: broken! Government: broken! Politics: broken! Diagnosis? Partisanship! Extreme position-taking! Nobody willing to compromise! Intemperate language! How, or when do we move away from this paralyzing stalemate, and start to work on moderate, consensus-building solutions?

So, what do you know. Why, right there in the White House is a president who seems do do nothing other than try to find or craft a middle course and patiently pursue it, with minimal bombast, on issue after issue after issue. And we hate him for it.

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AdSense Irony

I run Google AdSense on my site, which purports to run “relevant ads” based on the content of the site. Of course, AdSense has no clue about irony, sarcasm, or even humor. So they often run an ad for a politician next to an article where I’m condemning or making fun of that same politician. Most of the time this is ironic, so I leave it alone. Besides, if you click on their ad it costs them money! But at one point it got so bad that I had to ban some annoying ads for “she who must not be named” Palin that were being run constantly on my site (either that or I had to stop posting stories that mentioned her — the solution of course was to do both).

Presidential campaigning has begun, at least on the Republican side (on the Democratic side the Obama campaign is already asking me for money, even though they likely won’t start campaigning for a while). In the short term, I’m sure my site is going to be awash in ads for Republicans.

I’ve been noticing an ad for Mitt Romney the last few days. With any luck, if I mention the name Mitt Romney enough, it will appear next to this post. I can already see the major theme of Mitt Romney’s campaign. The ad just says “Obama isn’t working” followed by “Believe in America” and the URL of Mitt Romney’s campaign site. There are also images of people in unemployment lines that look like they are from the great depression. Wow, this ad is ironic all by itself, since just a few days ago Mitt Romney made a weak joke about he himself being unemployed (Mitt Romney didn’t mention whether Mitt Romney was taking that opportunity to receive unemployment insurance). However, Mitt Romney doesn’t say what he would do about unemployment, but what did I expect from the Party of No? I guess if I “Believe in America”, click my heels together, and cut taxes, everything will get better.

I’m also making this post because sometime soon I’ll probably start receiving emails from people complaining about the constant ads for Republican candidates on my site. Yes, I could just remove all ads from my site (yesterday, I received the huge sum of $2.69 from AdSense, so it would not be much of a sacrifice). But most of the time I just enjoy the ads and their often unintentional irony. Besides, it is their money — who am I to turn it down?

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Late Night Political Humor

“President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner played golf this weekend. Obama’s handicap is Joe Biden.” – Jay Leno

“President Obama and Speaker Boehner played golf last weekend. Obama avoided an out-of-bounds penalty tee when an errant tee shot bounced off of Oprah, who was hiding in the woods.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The team of Obama and Boehner beat the team of Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. When they tallied up the score, they were 14 trillion over par.” – Jay Leno

“President Obama and John Boehner played golf against Joe Biden on Saturday and they won $2. Just 7 trillion more rounds like this and we’ll pay off that deficit in no time.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Did you see the picture of House Speaker Boehner and President Obama after their golf game? Boehner was crying over his score and Obama was giving a list of reasons why his score was better than it looks.” – Jay Leno

“NBC has apologized for editing out the words ‘under God’ from its coverage of the U.S. Open. They’re also apologizing for Brian Williams signing off with ‘Hail Satan.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Arnold Shwarzenegger’s favorite game on Father’s Day? Old Maid.” – Jay Leno

“After John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and father-to-be Anthony Weiner, who would have thought Charlie Sheen would be dad of the year?” – Jay Leno

“Bristol Palin’s new book says she lost her virginity on a night when she had too many wine coolers. It’s in the chapter “Things I Have in Common with Conan O’Brien.'” – Conan O’Brien

“A spokesman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry says there’s a 50/50 chance he’ll run for president. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin says there’s an 80/50 chance she’ll run for president.” – Conan O’Brien

“A new study has found that the majority of wealthy people in China want to move to other countries and the government is trying to find ways to keep them. If only they could build a big wall.” – Jay Leno

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Obama must be doing something right

I always figure that in our screwed up politics, if you manage to piss off both extremes of the political spectrum, you must be doing something right. For anyone who doubts Obama is a moderate — watch this:

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Republicans Want the Economy to Suck

Last week, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits went up, causing widespread speculation that even though corporate profits are up, the economy is not recovering from the great recession and may even be heading for a dreaded “double dip recession”. One of the main things being blamed for this problem is high energy prices, as the price of gasoline — fueled by conflicts in the middle east — has refused to come down in any significant way. With the normal increase in oil consumption in the summer as people drive more and use more air conditioning, the economy could get even worse.

Companies have pulled back on hiring because of high gas and food prices, driven by excessive speculation in those commodities. So Obama did something smart — he released 5% of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserves. And he got other nations to release an equivalent amount of oil.

His timing was perfect. Oil prices had been falling slightly, making speculators nervous. By releasing oil now, he is effectively shorting the price of oil, which will force speculators to sell, further lowering the price of oil.

Now here is where it gets ironic. You’d think Republicans would be happy, since this will help lower the deficit they claim to be so worried about. But they hate Obama so much that they instinctively disagree with everything he does. So they (pretty much unanimously) attacked the move as purely political. House Speaker John Boehner said “By tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the president is using a national security instrument to address his domestic political problems.”

Fixing unemployment, the economy, and high gas prices is purely political? Does anyone else hear what the Republicans are admitting? If getting the economy going again will help Obama politically, then they want the economy to continue to suck. Even worse, they want the speculators to continue to drive up prices and create bubbles.

You can figure out the rest.

UPDATE: Remember this when the Republicans force the government to default. They aren’t actually interested in reducing the deficit, they are interested in making the economy worse. Does anyone wonder if it was a coincidence that the economy stopped recovering when Republicans retook the House in November?

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Arms Race with No Arms


© Joel Pett

Somebody is going to end up with egg on their face.

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Late Night Political Humor

“You know the big news today, Congressman Weiner resigned. You heard about that, right? He resigned. It’s sort of a good news/bad news thing. The good news is Congressman Weiner resigned. The bad news, he made the announcement shirtless over Skype.” – Conan O’Brien

“Congressman Weiner resigned from Congress at a senior citizens’ center in Queens. It was smart, because they had no idea what Twitter is.” – Jay Leno

“Our long national nightmare is over. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Anthony Weiner has resigned. That’s right, he decided to take his balls and go home. And it is now safe to go back on Facebook.” – Bill Maher

“And I still don’t think Weiner gets it. Did you hear what he said at the end of his press conference? ‘Anybody want one last look?'” – Jay Leno

“Congress has just lost its Weiner. One minute he’s in, one minute he’s out … typical Weiner.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Yesterday Congressman Weiner contacted Nancy Pelosi to let her know he was resigning. Weiner let her know by texting her a picture of his penis cleaning out its desk.” – Conan O’Brien

“Thank you, Anthony Weiner, for your premature evacuation.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The good news is that they already found a replacement for Anthony Weiner. The bad news is that it’s Brett Favre.” – Jay Leno

“Anthony Weiner’s still involved with the internet. Today he started his own site called MyTube.” – Jay Leno

“I have to warn you. Newt Gingrich today put up a large Web ad. So you still may be seeing pictures of a huge dick.” – Bill Maher

“Did you see the Republican debate last night? Oh my God! Those guys up there and Michele Bachmann, and it was exciting, and you know who did well? Michele Bachmann. Bachmann did well. Newt Gingrich was so impressed with Michele Bachmann, he gave her a $200,000 gift certificate from Tiffany’s.” – David Letterman

“New Rule: Stop comparing Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann just because they’re both Republican women. And crazy. And know-nothings. And Jesus freaks, who claim to receive messages from God. Who both get their historical facts wrong all the time. Who both give off a sound that only animals can hear and makes microwaves explode. Seriously, stop comparing them.” – Bill Maher

“President Obama met with the president of Mongolia. Of course, Sarah Palin had to chime in, saying her favorite movie was ‘Steel Mongolians.'” – Jay Leno

“Many people have noticed that Palin likes to use ‘flippin” instead of the ‘f’ word. For instance, one email says, ‘I wish my daughter and Levi Johnston would stop flippin’.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Rush Limbaugh has come out with his own brand of iced tea, with a picture of him on horseback dressed as Paul Revere. How confusing is this going to be for Sarah Palin?” – Jay Leno

“According to a poll, over 50 percent of viewers thought Mitt Romney won this week’s presidential debate. They thought Mitt Romney won, yeah. Romney credits the win to his grasp of the issues and the good people at Mattel, who built him.” – Conan O’Brien

“Mitt Romney was sitting down with some unemployed workers the other day. Mitt is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, and he said, ‘hey, I’m unemployed too.’ That is the famous Mormon sense of humor. A little tip Mitt, your people are only funny when the ‘South Park’ guys write your jokes. ” – Bill Maher

“Father’s Day this year is a bonus year for Arnold Shwarzenegger. Last year my son wouldn’t give me my gift until I gave him a DNA swab.” – David Letterman

“A recent study found that today’s fathers spend twice as much time with their kids as fathers in 1960. Meanwhile, the study found that Arnold Schwarzenegger spends time with twice as many kids as he did three weeks ago.” – Jimmy Fallon

“According to a new study, American fathers are spending more than twice the amount of time with their children than they used to in years past. Experts say it’s due to a sweeping new trend called ‘unemployment.'” – Conan O’Brien

“The shame would be if Democrats get thrown out of office without ever having tried Democratic policies. ” – Bill Maher

“Well, several congressmen have filed a lawsuit against President Obama for getting us involved in Libya. They claim Obama got the U.S. in a Middle East war without authorization from Congress. To which Dick Cheney and Bush said, ‘You can get sued for that?'” – Jay Leno

“Officials still can’t say what happened to $6.6 billion that was sent to Iraq for reconstruction. That’s money we could have wasted and mismanaged right here at home.” – Jay Leno

“Al Qaeda announced that they’ve found a replacement for Osama bin Laden, thanks to all of you who called in and texted your votes.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Today bin Laden’s deputy was made head of Al Qaeda. I know because today he updated his status on LinkedIn.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that Al Qaeda’s new leader will be hunted down and killed just like bin Laden. They think he may be in Pakistan. They know that because Pakistan says they have no idea where he is.” – Jay Leno

“Al Qaeda is not what it used to be. You can see they don’t have the money anymore. Instead of 70 virgins, martyrs now get a gift certificate to Olive Garden.” – Jay Leno

“Today is the anniversary of the Great Wall of China. And since it was built, not one Mexican has sneaked in.” – David Letterman

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The Real News


© Matt Bors

Hopefully, we’ll be out of Afghanistan before we start sending soldiers who weren’t born when the war there started. Obama’s announcement of a partial withdrawal (announced after this comic was published) is a good first step.

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