Jon’s opening bit about “Class Warefare” was absolutely genius! I was laughing out loud and stunned at the audacity of the people he was satirizing at the same time.
So - whom was he satirising?
The episode starts with the predictable reaction of Fox News to Warren Buffett’s statement that the rich aren’t being taxed enough, and it just gets better (or worse, depending on whether you find hypocrisy funny) from there.
FOX news anchors calling Warren Buffett a socialist is pretty classic.
Overall the piece was kinda painful to watch because it shows the real disconnect those morons have from math and the reality of peoples lives. Those poor people living it up with fancy things like refrigerators and phones…
What can I say? Jon Stewart IS brilliant. When he was voted The News Commentator That People Trust Most he asked, “Do they know I’m a comedian?”
Then he worried about the implications.
Ironically it’s the fact that he’s a comedian that makes him trustworthy. He doesn’t have a political agenda; he’s just getting laughs by pointing out how idiotic politicians and the media are. Between the two he’s tapping an endless motherlode of stupidity and hypocrisy, and we can trust him to tell us the truth because if he were lying the jokes wouldn’t be nearly as funny.
Yeah, unfortunately, I found the segment more depressing than funny. Has it really come down to this? Complaining that the poor have microwaves?
Meanwhile, GE and Exxon and Bank of America pay no income taxes at all.
Not only that, the new meme seems to be that the poor don’t pay enough taxes. Damn freeloaders.
George Clooney- what a queer! 
I love the logic, rather than unfairly raise taxes on one singled-out group, we should start by making everybody pay taxes, by raising taxes on one singled-out group.
I think it was alright, but it’s not very difficult to make fun of the “conservatives” over in your silly country.
I thought a funnier bit was yesterday, and the “Who loves Amer’ca” bit.
That study that revealed the shocking fact that most poor people have fridges - as if they were not standard in many houses and apartments - came out a few months ago, but the Daily Show did a good job revisiting it in the issue in light of the response to Buffett’s comments. Say what you want about Buffett’s OP-ed, but I would have thought class warfare was just about the one thing you couldn’t call it. He’s one of the richest people in the world, he gives away a lot of his own money, and he’s saying he himself should be taxed at a higher rate.
The part that’s galling to me is the way this argument moves down the line economically: people who are extremely rich are steering federal elected officials (most of them millionaires) to use political pundits (who are paid very well) to tell their viewers (who are for the most part not wealthy) that people who make even less money are leeching off the system while the rich people funding the argument should pay less. Talk about paying people to fight your battles for you.
I wouldn’t say brilliant. They do these Fox News outtakes a couple of times a week, so they are getting a little boring. The part where they added up the total assets for poor people in the United States and it added up to the same amount as the proposed tax increase on the wealthy was pretty clever.
They must have some poor schmuck on the Daily Show staff that watches Fox News all day.
My favorite is still the bit where they had a clip from President Obama about the energy crisis and then they found clips from every president going back to Nixon saying similar things.
Exactly. How the hell is this not class warfare?
Yeah. Usually I can laugh at the stupidity, but this one actually made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know, that they want to do what’s right - but the hatred of the poor was so blatant, the attempt to dehumanize them so obvious, that I was stunned. Really, truly stunned.
I keep this link to effective tax rates for all federal taxes handy whenever this topic comes up…
Wander into GD some day. Every one of the points he was responding to get made there all the time. That raising taxes on the rich won’t solve the entire problem. That the poor don’t pay enough. That the poor have refrigerators.
I think I will use a link to this segment as my standard response to this crap.
Would you people please stop watching it? You’re using up all the bandwidth and I can’t watch Anne Hathaway talk about Scrabble, which has to be hot.
I laughed so hard I scared the dogs!