Bachmann to Close Non-Existent US Embassy in Iran, GOP Taking Away Billionaires' Food Stamps

NEW YORK—The Euro Zone death watch was put on hold yesterday as central banks turned on the firehose to pump some much-needed liquidity into the region. International markets rallied, the Dow closed up five hundred points, and rich people the world over were all very pleased with these developments.

Michelle Bachmann, meanwhile, is taking all of this Iran business very seriously . After the British embassy in Tehran was stormed on Tuesday and nations like the UK and France started drawing down their diplomatic presences there, Bachmann took to the stump to suggest America do the same. Except? Except ? The United States doesn't have an embassy in Iran! And we haven't had one for years now? For so long, in fact, there hasn't been a US embassy in Iran for the entire lifetime of every single one of Bachmann's twenty-eight children ! But sure, let's shut it down a second time just for good measure.

The GOP is showing early signs here of changing its tune on the payroll tax cut, and frankly we're a little surprised Eric Cantor of all people is the one Republican with a clue here. The Majority Leader rounded up members for a closed door meeting yesterday to warn his caucus that their anti-tax orthodoxy and age old conviction that there's never been a tax cut that needed to be paid for is all at risk of looking just a little bit inconsistent here should they keep opposing a tax cut that won't benefit rich people. Senator Kyl has been hitting the TV circuit in recent days peddling a footnote to the GOP's all-tax-cuts-are-good-tax-cuts philosophy, namely: all tax cuts are good tax cuts unless they only cut taxes on the proles. So good on Cantor! We'll do our best to convince ourselves he's not just being deeply, deeply cynical here.

In other tax news, California looks to be raising taxes for the first time in about a hundred years, with Gov. Jerry Brown proposing a combination of sales tax increases and rich people tax increases.

Now this isn't a thing we have very much to say about, mostly just a thing we'd like to share, because it's easily the funniest thing we've read all day : "In addition, Senate Republican leaders would go after 'millionaires and billionaires,' not by raising their taxes but by making them ineligible for unemployment compensation and food stamps and increasing their Medicare premiums." HA HA, OK, yes, we were kidding when we said we didn't have anything to say about this, because are you kidding?!?Let's just parse this out: Senate Republican leaders... would "go after..." "millionaires and billionaires..." "not by raising their taxes"... "but by making them ineligible for unemployment compensation and food stamps." One more time here: Billionaires. Ineligible. For FOOD STAMPS. [READ MORE AT GIFZETTE ]