(New York—NY) I think it was either Sigmund Freud or any post-rhinoplasty Bat Mitzvah girl from Long Beach (That’s Long Island…not California.) who wrote “I am a Jew, and it always seemed to me not only shameful but downright senseless to deny it.” And that’s my sentiment at Christmas. But, like Freud, I’m not particularly religious. You could call me ultra-Reformed. Or as my friend Jon Braunhut would say, “I’m your typical, post-Holocaust atheistic Jew.” Simply put, I do like when the Christmas carols start. What is it like the end of August nowadays?

And there’s my dilemma. As I write that joke, I think that even the most accepting gentile must be thinking: “Yeah, thanks to your people extending the Season for profit.” Paranoia or just pogrom insurance? You tell me? No, it’s not a rhetorical question. Tell me. Is that joke a Nuremberg Laws violation?

I do get a warm feeling when I hear those Christmas carols of August. I do like eggnog and red sweater vests. I do like the Christmas Tree. Hey, it was pagan before it was Christian. To me, it just reminds me of family, and family is universal, right? Again, not rhetorical, I’m asking. It’s Jewish guilt. Should I be writing this “Top Ten List”? Again, I’m asking. Then there is Christmas. Christians open gifts. Jews go to movies. I’m okay with that. I see it as our tradition of still wandering, Israel and Ben’s Kosher Deli aside.

In any case, we do have a sense of humor. I hear the WASP in the back saying to his eleven-year old son in Taft school blazer and khaki pants, “Yes, it comes from the Jewish people’s oral tradition.” Ever notice how WASPs never say “Jews”? It’s okay. We know we’re Jews. So, with a nod to Sigmund Freud, without further guilt (Oh, who am I kidding?) here are my:

Top Ten Reasons Santa Is Downsizing This Year
10. Lost the rights to “Santa Claus” name after a messy divorce with Mrs. Claus.
  9. Sleigh insurance went up seventy-five percent after third DUI spiked eggnog incident.
  8. After “checking it twice” procedure discontinued due to cost, had to launch massively expensive  
  PR campaign because of unfortunate gift delivery incident to “little Charlie Manson in California”.
  7. Gifts will take three times longer to deliver after Rudolph decides he’s not “feeling it this year.”
  6. Elf pension fund wiped out after misguided investment with Bernard Madoff.
  5. Attempt to sell “good boy and good girl list positions” revealed in FBI Rod Blagojevich investigation.
  4. No longer able to outsource to Chinese elves after reindeer discovered as a major part of their diet.
  3. North Pole melting due to global warming causes flooding. Still waiting for FEMA trailers.
  2. Messy scandal: T’was the night before Christmas, Santa caught on video by TMZ with only one 
  “Ho.”
  1.Wal-Mart

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(Chicago—Illinois) In the shadow of current Illinois Governor (and soon to be sharing living space with a 300 pound White Aryan Nation member named Pile Driver) Blagojevich’s FBI investigation, the Obama Economic Team is alleged to have proposed a plan to President Elect Obama that would put legislative seats up for auction on eBay.

The media storm began from a leaked internal memo allegedly written by Larry Summers, nominee for Director of the National Economic Council. “We’re in uncharted waters here. Think Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. We need to find our Wilson, to boldly go where no man has gone before, to set our phasers on kill. My suggestion would be to take a page from those entrepreneurs who were auctioning inaugural tickets on eBay. Why not auction seats in the legislature?”

The potential first scandal of the Obama administration may have ended were it not for an unsolicited comment to an Associated Press reporter by Christina Romer, Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. “We can’t sugar coat this. The economy is lower than Paris Hilton’s IQ, and it doesn’t help when you have geniuses suggesting that we auction off legislative seats on line.”

Summers is no stranger to controversy.  During his five-year tenure as President of Harvard, Summers’ politically incorrect statements incurred the wrath of women and environmental groups. That wrath was not quelled when the same Associated Press reporter repeated Romer’s statement to him. Summers’ response, “I’m not saying that I’m advocating it. But I’m not denying it. However, to that reaction, I have two things to say, ‘Bitches, man’.”

Vice President Elect Joe Biden attempted to manage the possible crisis when he addressed it on CNN’s “Situation Room”. “Wolf,” said Biden, “No one is talking about doing this. But I will tell you that I have been buying and selling on eBay for years. I’ve got a feedback rating of 99.8 percent. This speaks to the quality of candidates, uh, buyers that are out there.” To the “bitches” statement, Biden simply said, “Is that bad to say?”

President Elect Obama, once again, showed his talent for management and a clear path solution when he directly addressed the matter in his weekly YouTube broadcast. “My fellow Americans, we are facing challenging times. We have to be creative, yet responsible; a free market, yet regulated. Rest assured, no one is rushing to eBay. But we will study it. And if we choose to auction off legislative seats, they will first be limited to the state legislature, then only the House of Representatives. And because this is America, where an equal playing filed in guaranteed, eBay Power Sellers will be exempt.

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(Washington, D.C.) In the CEO Gulfstream jet wake of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler returning to Congress in search of a 34 billion-dollar bailout, a sleigh with a vanity license plate that read simply “S. Claus” touched down in front of the Capitol yesterday. But out of it stepped far from a right jolly old elf. It was a clearly troubled Santa Claus who testified before Congress that Christmas might have to be canceled if North Pole Enterprises, LLC, the Santa Claus holding company, did not immediately receive one trillion dollars from Congress by December 12th.

Its Chairman, Democrat Christopher Dodd, best expressed the sentiment of the Senate Banking Committee. “My first emotion is shock. I thought you were a myth. But my emotion now quickly changes to disgust. I was five. I wrote you for a pony. I even left out some cocoa. And you know what I got? A freakin’ erector set.” Indeed bi-partisan childhood letdowns may stall any bailout package. “I don’t know that I can trust a trillion dollars to a person who couldn’t even deliver on a simple request, a Lionel HO gauge train set, I made when I was eight,” said Republican Senator Mike Crapo.

Claus did not blanch from any criticism. “I know I’ve let many children down. When you’ve been doing this for 525 years, it’s going to happen. And I will admit that I had a substance abuse problem for many of those years. I was drinking 400-500 cups of cocoa a day and then lapsing into a sugar coma. I’ve got that under control now. What I can’t control is the economy.”

Senator Bob Corker pointedly asked, “Mr. Claus, I’ve read over your proposed plan many times. And frankly I have to ask are you back on the cocoa?” Claus was equally as pointed. “I could just say, “Do you want a lump of coal this year”, but that’s too valuable an energy source to give away. What I will say is that I didn’t come here on a Glufstream jet. I came here in a sleigh pulled by six reindeer. If you want to know what happened to the other two, the elves told me they were very tasty.”

Claus then went on to say that if he did not receive a trillion dollars from Congress by December 12th, he would have to cancel Christmas. And even if the funding were okayed by Congress, Christmas would still have to be “curtailed by partnering with Chanukah.” Claus also said that 30,000 elves would still have to be laid off  “as more computer based gifts are outsourced to elves in Sri Lanka.”

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

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(Washington, D.C.) Things seemed to go from Green Zone to Highway One for current Attorney General Michael Mukasey at a Federalist Society dinner held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Thursday. Mukasey was giving a spirited defense of the Bush administration’s legal policies when, as one eyewitness put it, “his thoughts began to wonder more than a George W. Bush answer explaining his view’s on torture.”

Mukasey seemed to be doing a “great job defending an administration that has an approval rating any golfer would envy as a score,” continued the same eyewitness. However, following his praise of the Bush administration for "nothing less than a fundamental reorganization of our government" after the September 11th terrorist attacks, beads of sweat began to appear on the Attorney General’s head. Then his voice shook as he continued blasting the "relentless critics of the very policies that have kept us safe."

Jon “Boogie Board” Wagner, a banquet waiter assigned to the dais from which Mukasey was speaking, noticed the change. “Dude, he kept motioning for water like he had just sparked a fatty before he got up. But I looked at him, and I thought no way this wizened old dude parsed a number.” In fact, it was Wagner who first alerted all to the situation. “I told my banquet manager, ‘This old dude ain’t gonna make it.’” Wagner went on to say because “there were so many old dudes up there, my manager didn’t know who I meant.” Then Mukasey slumped over. “That old dude,” said Wagner.

However, it was in the EMS truck going to George Washington University Hospital that the controversy occurred. According to Senior EMS tech Randall Pinkney, Mukasey was “drifting in and out of consciousness, saying things like 'I’ll resign if I see anything unconstitutional, HA!’, and ‘Sure, I’ll make decisions based on the rule of law and not administration motives, HA, HA.’ Then he started singing “Brush Up on Your Shakespeare” from the musical “Kiss me, Kate.”

But perhaps the most telling statement was made to Pinkney as he was taking Mukasey into the emergency room. “He asked me, ‘How is the Bush administration like a sh*t sandwich? The more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat. I like marble rye.’” When asked by an AP reporter how Pinkney would interpret this, he replied, “I would say he likes marble rye but not George Bush.”

The Bush administration was quick to counter this in a statement released by White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto to CNN. “To take Attorney General Mukasey’s words as literal given his state of consciousness is absurd. I know for a fact this man prefers pumpernickel to marble rye any day.”

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(Washington, D.C.) Soon to be ex-President Bush held a press conference today denying that he initially supported a fake “New York Times” story declaring the Iraq War to be over because he was pulling out U.S. forces.  “Let me just say that unlike others I have run against I was always against this fake pullout before I supported it. Wait, no. What I meant to say was that I’m for our men and women in the armed forces to be brought home but not on a fake time table before fake victory…or something like that but real not fake.”

The press conference was a reaction to a fake “New York Times” paper published by the liberal group Yes Men. Over one million copies were distributed nationally through a volunteer network. The “paper” took eight months to plan and had stories allegedly contributed by three dozen writers, some from major metropolitan dailies.

It seems that while he was in New York City, where many of the fake newspapers were distributed, for the re-dedication of the aircraft carrier Intrepid, soon to be ex-President Bush came across the “paper”. John Searle, a Waldorf-Astoria doorman, was approached by soon to be ex-President Bush with the paper tucked under his arm. Searle recounted the story for a Reuters’ interview. “He said to me, ‘Jim’, though I told him my name was John, ‘Joseph, take a look at this headline. Let’s see them give me a seventy-six percent disapproval rating now. Like Nathan Chamberlain, I have brought you peace in my time.’” The moment would have gone unnoticed except for the next turn. “The President then said to me ‘Jacob, this is a Kodak moment.” Soon to be ex-President Bush asked Searle to take a picture. However, Searle went a step further, making a video on his cell phone and posting it on YouTube.

When asked by the press if he believed the story to be false, why did he make a video holding up the “paper” shouting “Up yours, Obama,” soon to be ex-President Bush was direct. “Have you ever heard of that technique where you say one thing but mean another. It’s called satire. I was being satritierical.” A follow-up question was then asked. Was the soon to be ex-President being “satritierical” when he again mentioned it during a CNN interview? “You folks are being way too liberal, and no I don’t mean literal. Do you think I wouldn’t remember giving an order to pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq? I may be stupid, but I’m not crazy. No, wait. I don’t mean stupid. I mean…how about that Sarah Palin? Now there’s something I wouldn’t pull out of.”

Sarah Palin was reserving comment until someone explained to her what the metaphor meant.

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(Chicago—Illinois) President-elect Barack Obama wasted no time during his first press conference addressing both the Nation’s rising unemployment and staffing his cabinet is one turn. His cabinet will be headed by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and “415,000 of the most intelligent, incisive and hard working folks that I know, currently unemployed Americans.”

David Axlerod, President-elect Obama’s campaign manager and now adviser to the administration, described the genesis. “President-elect Obama saw this month’s job report, how for the month of September alone jobs declined, 284,00, double what the government estimates were in last month’s report. That’s when it hit him. We’ve got a cabinet to staff.” However, President-elect Obama was quick to qualify. “I want to stress here that I maintain my commitment to halt unnecessary government spending. The job losses for September and October total 524,000. But we’re only going to have a staff of 415,000. I mean no disrespect to the 109,000. But we needed to qualify these people.”

President-elect Obama said there was precedent for this. “During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt started the WPA, CCC, government agencies to employ skilled workers. I see no difference.” The President-elect did realize there would be problems. “Chairs for one, because we can’t expect these folks to stand. These meetings are fairly lengthy. But even here, I see opportunity. Someone has to make those chairs. That means more employment. To how many past cabinets can you say, simply by virtue of them sitting down they are allowing other American to get back up on their feet by getting jobs.”

The bold move quickly drew fire from Republicans. One of the first shots was from House Republican leader John Boehner. “Here is a President-elect who ran under a campaign of controlled spending. And you know how he’s going to do it? Those 415,000 chairs are coming from IKEA by way of a Chinese factory.”

Acting true to his no nonsense “bad cop” reputation, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel answered Congressman Boehner’s allegation. “The possibility of these chairs coming from a Chinese factory are about as likely as Sarah Palin being able to name the Presidential order of succession passed President.” Acting true to his “good cop” role, President-elect “No drama Obama” choose a more circumspect answer. “These chairs will not be from IKEA, Office Depot nor even my personal favorite Staples. They will be from the American people. As to the former Republican Vice Presidential nominee being able to cite the Presidential rules of succession, I can only say the Nation’s loss is Wasilla’s….well, let’s just leave it at that.”

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