“LET’S BE HONEST. IS THERE REALLY ANY POINT OF SERVING UP EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS TO THE 99′ers … WHEN AFTER 13 MONTHS, THEY’LL JUST BE SERVED UP TO ALIENS WITH ‘SIZE 99′  HEADS.”

“THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO GET RID OF HIM, THE DEMOCRATS DON’T WANT HIM BACK, AND PROGRESSIVES ARE STARTING TO WONDER IF WE SHOULD ‘HAIL A CHIEF’ WHO’S STARTING TO LOOK MORE ‘RED‘ THAN ‘BLUE‘.”

The original O’Henry story, and Obama as Charlie Brown, at All Hat No Cattle.

BuzzFlash’s Mark Karlin: Bill Maher Understands How to Politically Negotiate Better Than the President.

The Daily Show’s The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas, at One Good Move.

“EVEN WE’LL ADMIT THAT THESE TAX BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHIEST ARE PURE ‘DOGS’ … AS A TRADE-OFF FOR  THE GUARANTEE THEY’LL LAST 14 YEARS!

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Lisa Casey on the Scarborough-Palin connection.

Some highly recommended links, at BartCopE!

“UNDER THIS LATEST DEMONSTRATION OF BI-PARTISANSHIP, THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED GET AN EXTENSION OF SIX WEEKS OF BENEFITS, WHILE FOLKS MAKING MORE THAN SIX MILLION DOLLARS GET AN ADDITIONAL SIX YEARS OF TAX CUTS.”

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Larry Beinhart at BuzzFlash on the reality that GOP won’t accept: Tax Cuts Usually Lead to Higher Unemployment.

“THE PRESIDENT HAS INDICATED HIS WILLINGNESS TO COMPROMISE WITH THE NEW GOP HOUSE LEADERSHIP ON HEALTH CARE: ALL CHILDREN CAN REMAIN ON THEIR PARENTS’ INSURANCE PLAN UP UNTIL NINTH MONTHS IN THE WOMB … THEN THEY’RE ON THEIR OWN.”

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The Daily Show’s British News Crowndup, at One Good Move.

On Veteran’s Day, the New GI Bill, at All Hat No Cattle.

In a stunning display of bipartisanship, President Obama and the Republican Leadership have reached an historic compromise, agreeing to extend indefinitely the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but allowing the President’s term to expire prematurely, sometime in mid-2011.

Mr. Obama hailed this agreement as an example of “how the two parties can meet in the middle and respond to the needs of the electorate — and without even having to spend taxpayer funds on a slurpee for Mitch McConnell, or a Merlot for Speaker-to-be Boehner.”

The President further emphasized that he had still “stood on principle, by not handing the ‘keys’ back to the Republicans,” but that he would instead “serve as their ‘designated driver,’ by personally driving the car back into the ditch.  Since the GOP  is now the party of Bachmann and Palin,” Mr. Obama added, “just think of it as Driving Miss Crazy.”

As part of the agreement, the President will also submit a resignation confessing that he’s a Muslim socialist who tried to replace the Constitution with the Koranic Manifesto, but will avoid the harshest demands made by FOX News and Rush Limbaugh: that he be deported to Kenya.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell indicated that he initially harbored some reservations about the agreement, since he “originally wanted to not only impeach the President, but to actually annul his first two years in office.” But McConnell made clear that he and GOP House leaders had moderated their demands with the taxpayers’ best interests at heart, “by saving money on the forest of paper we would’ve used for subpoenas.”

“Besides,” McConnell concluded, “this is much better than our original goal to limit Obama to one full term. After all, we Republicans think it’s an historic compromise to have the nation’s first black President serve only 3/5ths of a term.”

“ONCE WE’RE FORCED OUT WE WON’T HAVE TO SORRY ABOUT REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTERS, AND WE UNDERSTAND THERE’S A NEED FOR VETERAN LEADERSHIP IN MANY HIGH SCHOOL MODEL CONGRESSES.”

“When I submitted ‘Four Deformations of the Apocalypse,’ to the NY Times Op-ed page, I expected they would also use an appropriate graphic.”

Article here.

GOP Senator Jon Kyl, who along with his fellow party cretins has blamed unemployment benefits for unemployment, was caught in an embarrassing betrayal of conservative dogma today, when he acknowledged that continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts will  only incentivize the wealthy to slack off.

Kyl, who thought television cameras and microphones were off during a taping of the new FOX News Sunday morning program, This Week in 1931, cackled heartily as he was overheard saying “if our rich friends who bankroll our campaigns get to keep their windfall tax cuts, they won’t even bother to get off their fat asses to to clip their bond coupons.”

Kyl further “gave away” his real beliefs by adding, “if we really wanted to spur growth and job creation, we’d double taxes on the super-rich; after all, just to maintain their lifestyle of luxury houses and boats, they’d have to work twice as hard.”

To make matters even worse, Kyl expressed amazement that “Democrats buy the bullshit about even more favorable tax rates for capital gains on passive investments.” “After all,” Kyl added, “if  low tax rates are supposed to encourage and reward hard work, how are lower tax rates supposed to incentivize doing nothing?”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hastily called a press conference to claim that Kyl had been out in the Arizona sun too long, apparently unaware that the sanity of his entire party had been adversely affected by the very global warming that they vehemently deny.

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BuzzFlash Editor Mark Karlin on the threat to Progressive Programs on MSNBC.

Jim Hightower on the skewed fiscal priorities, via BartCopE!

Lisa Casey on the return of America’s Favorite Soap Opera.