Here they go again: the U.S. House of Representatives never lets anyone have any fun!

Curmudgeons, that’s what they are. Here, the Republican National Committee was just trying a little political merriment – a little word play – and make some money on the side.

Sure, the RNC letter to thousands said, “Congressional District Census,” and, “Do Not Destroy, Official Document,” and was a push-poll combined with a plea for money but, come on…really…it was just a harmless little stunt; a prank just to count gullible Americans!

The real and official U.S. Census forms are about to hit the mail, you see, and the Republican National Committee and the campaign arm of the Republicans in the House, the National Republican Campaign Committee, thought it’d be a hoot to send out a fund-raiser and pointed questionnaire and call it, “census” and “official document” and…ha-ha-ha…that’s really funny.

Buffoons all across this great land of ours would think it’s the real census, answer the questions about household demographics and economics and send back money…because, of course, the real Census always asks us for money!

But, okay, in a vote of 417-0 (all House Republicans voting in favor), the House of Representatives decided such pranks are not cool and banned this harmless little fun of the RNC.

“The NRCC remains opposed to misleading mailings,” said an RNCC spokesman, after the vote. “Unless, of course, we can get away with it.”

No, just making up that last part.

Pity the poor GOP. All this comes on the heels of the leaked memo in which the RNC finance committee suggested using fear and ego-massaging as a way to raise money from its wealthiest patrons.

A suggestion for the GOP: find some issues and campaign on those. We all remember Nancy Reagan’s famous, “Just Say No,” anti-drug campaign. But just saying no will only get you so far. Just a thought.

Meanwhile, our socialist president has lived up to his promise and redistributed the wealth from his Nobel Prize, giving all $1.4 to charities.

According to the New York Times, President Obama gave $250,000 to Fisher House, an organization providing housing for families of veterans being treated at government medical centers. He also gave $200,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and plenty of money to organizations like the United Negro College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, the American Indian College Fund, Africare and the Central Asia Institute, which promotes the education of young women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Watch for the Right Wing Nut Jobs to rail against the groups as scurrilous. Kinda wish Obama had sent a few bucks the way of ACORN, just for giggles.

Yea, and…HEY! Glenn Beck!...this is called social justice and, yea, real people of faith are called to it.

Memo to Right-Wing Nut Jobs: you really need to calm down a little.

Seriously, we all appreciate good debate on issues of great concern. But, really, guys & gals of the knuckle-dragging variety, you really need to install mirrors. You’re starting to look and sound…well…let’s face it…like cartoons; like parodies of yourselves.

You’re really starting to look Homer-ish. DOH!

Take, for example, these Homers who now think the good ol’ US of A is so bad they want nothing to do with it. Where once folks of this ilk might proclaim, “ America: love it or leave it,” they’re now willing to simply leave it.

A whole bunch of Homers up in Indiana have declared themselves no longer a part of the U.S. and, instead, claim they are something called, “sovereign citizens” of…of…of…themselves, I guess.

They’ve printed up their own ID cards, declared their homes to be embassies and will refuse to pay taxes.

“It gives me diplomatic immunity,” said Hoosier Homer Donald Moore. “ The way I understand it, the federal government is incorporated, and all the states are incorporated. This takes me out of the corporation.”

Alrighty, then!

Picking up on that sentiment is good ol’ Douche Limpbranch, long a cartoon on the radio, who now says he will leave the country and move to Costa Rica if we adopt reform of our nation’s health care system.

First of all…hey Douche, don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out. Second – and, Douche, you’re gonna really like this - Costa Rica has the very best nationalized health care system in Latin America and is ranked among the top three in the world. Heck, you don’t even need a prescription for Viagra in Costa Rica!

This might tie in nicely with Sarah Palin’s recent admission her family took advantage of the national health care program of Canada when she was growing up in Skagway, Alaska. Maybe she’ll now quit railing against health care reform in the U.S…probably not.

Speaking of media clowns, there’s always the cartoonish Gin Beck’sBeer.

With advertisers running from his show like rats on a burning ship, he’s happy to get revenue from folks like the “small, fiercely independent farmers” who will sell you “survival seeds” as a hedge against the impending…meltdown…something…dunno know, exactly.

While the farmers may be small, short maybe, their visions of Mad Max time are grand and you can help them prepare for it by sending them lots of cash in return for survival seeds.

And finally, there is the U.S. Senate race in Florida where Gov. Charlie Crist accused his teabagger-buddy opponent, Marco! Polo! Rubio!, of spending $130 in state GOP party money on a haircut or a back wax or something.

Rubio (Marco!) denies this, through a spokesman: "Marco paid $20 for a haircut with a razor on the neck, and he bought some items that went into a silent auction, including gift certificates. Charlie Crist's obsession with making up things about other people's grooming habits is bizarre for anyone, especially the sitting governor of Florida. It's also a shame he cares more about what's in Marco's personal bills than what's in the stimulus bill he supported."

Cartoons…and it ain’t even Saturday morning.

Kathryn Bigelow’s next film:

“How I Kicked My Ex-Husband’s Ass and His Huge-Budget 3-D Space Fantasy Movie With A Low-Budget War Movie.”

Or…something like that.

James Cameron spent the rest of the night in the hurt locker while sending his Avatar around to all the Oscar parties.

It’s amazing – and perhaps shameful – it took 10 years into the 21st Century for a woman to win the Oscar for Best Director.

Oh well, so much for the liberal-Hollywood stereotype.

Meanwhile, there is no truth to the rumor President Obama, A Serious Man, will attempt to cash in on the Oscar buzz by renaming his health care reform, “The Hurt Locker.” While passage remains Up In The Air, the President is insisting Congress give him an Up or Up vote on health care reform and will travel to District 9 in Pennsylvania today to give voters there An Education about the Inglorious Bastards who keep hitting him from The Blind Side.

Oh yea…and…Avatar. Whatever.

Back in Washington, the Democrats would love to get back to actual legislating after spending the last couple of weeks working around various ethics problems in the House of Representatives. (See: Charlie Rangel.)

This freshman congressman from New York, somebody sadly named, Massa, will resign today after admitting he admitted to one of his male staffers he’d like to “frack” him…whatever that means. He also says House Minority Whip Heny Stoyer is a liar and his fellow Dems want him out of Congress because he opposes health care reform.

Would someone please explain this: why do Democrats resign from Congress after getting caught with their hands in someone else’s cookie jar while said Congress is still populated with shoe-tamping, diaper-wearing, philandering, parents-pay-off Republican…er…members?

Finally, while her life could possibly be a movie – a bad one – Sarah Palin also seems to have cashed in and out on Oscar week festivities.

The Hollywood press is a buzz with reports that Palin, never far from a trailer park, stopped by an Oscar swag suite with her daughters, brother and an entourage and came away with bags full of free cosmetics, a slinky robe and other groovy stuff.

The reports also say she gave a $1,700 donation to the Red Cross for its work in Haiti.

All this while shopping around ideas for TeeVee shows and quitting as a stand-up comic on the Jay Leno show.

Maybe, someday, Palin will find a career that suits her and leave the rest of us alone.

“I’d love to meet you at Starbucks…but I’m out of ammo.”

Or…

“I’ll take a venti triple mocha latte with two extra shots…one in the cup and one at your head.”

That’s right. If you haven’t heard by now, you need to know the pin-head knuckle draggers who insist on carrying guns in their pants because they fear they have little else to carry in their pants are pulling the trigger on sanity around the country by staging gun-toting gatherings at Starbucks.

Their aim, you see, is to prove to the world what extreme bullies they can be by carrying guns into Starbucks – and other restaurants – in states where it’s legal to openly carry guns - 24 states, to be exact.

Yes, you read that correctly: it is now legal to openly carry guns in 24 states and two more – Virginia and Arizona - are expected soon to follow suit and become a backdrop for cowboy movies. Guns are allowed now in playgrounds and sports fields in Tennessee.

It’s insanity, really.

Seriously, give me a good reason for carrying a gun into a Starbucks or a California Pizza Kitchen or a Buckhorn Grill or any other restaurant…except, of course, to rob it at gun point.

You’re right. There isn’t one. But that matters little to the mouth breathers who continue to insist they need guns to make up for their lack of self esteem.

Hey morons! Try a little therapy…or contemplative prayer…or yoga, for Heaven’s sake.

All this comes as the U.S. Supreme Court may be on the brink of relaxing gun laws even more and…oh, yea, did we mention that last night gun-toter shot up the Pentagon and wounded two police officers?

And from the Tell-Us-Something-We-Don’t-Already-Know Department, comes a leaked memo and PowerPoint show in which Republican operatives suggest using “fear” as a tactic to raise money and win votes in the 2010 elections.

Hmmm, really? Gee, we’ve never seen Republicans do that before. (See: Senator Joseph McCarthy; See: Donald Segretti; See: Karl Rove) But, apparently, this time they mean it.

The strategy, unveiled by the Republican National Committee’s finance group at a gathering of party officials February 18 th in Boca Grande, Florida, suggests the best way to raise money from the very rich is to scare them with cartoons and tell them socialism and President Obama will take away all their money!

Cartoons mocking President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warn of “the evil empire” run by “Curella DeVille and Scooby Doo.”

Issues, anyone? Debate, anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Guns, fear and cartoons! That’s what made ‘Murka great!

Okay, so here’s the deal: Democrats in Congress will let Charlie Rangel remain chair of the House Ways & Means Committee if he will agree to take Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning out behind the Capitol and kick his ass.

Okay, not really. That would be unseemly. Caning is the preferred method of corporal punishment in the Congress.

But before the day is out, Rangel will be but a humble House member – sorta - and Jim Bunning will still be a Senator with a Hall of Fame ego and…oh yea…crazier ‘n bat guano.

Who can forget the 1964 season in which Bunning pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies and led the Phils into what looked like a lock for the World Series – only to then lead the Phillies into one of the most famous September pennant-race collapses in Major League history?

Bunning, as a pitcher, was famous for shaking off signs from catchers and throwing whatever pitch he damn well wanted.

Hmmm…things haven’t changed much.

As we all know by now, Bunning finally accepted a sign from the catcher (GOP Senate leader and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell) and ended his temper tantrum which was holding up unemployment checks and money for federal highway projects and was, in turn, forcing the furlough of thousands of highway construction workers….which means hundreds of thousands of struggling people have to struggle a bit longer. Everybody say, “Thanks, Sen. Bunning!”

The joke going around the Magic Twitter Machine on Tuesday was: “Jim Bunning says, I abject!”

Meanwhile, President Obama will release yet another health care proposal which will include Republican ideas – some tort reform and health savings accounts – and Republicans will still say, just like Bunning…NO!!...and we’ll end up with an even more watered-down health care reform measure.

But never mind all that, Texas Gov. Rick Perry now faces a critical decision: run for president of the teabaggers or run for president of the Republic of Texas.

Perry whipped Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a former TeeVee news reporter and unabashed Bush sycophant for the Texas Republican gubernatorial nomination. If elected in the general in November, Perry will serve a third term and become the longest-serving Texas governor in history.

He also defeated in the primary the teabaggers’ choice for governor, somebody named Debra Medina, and he will need the teabaggers’ support if he’s going to take Texas out of the Union or run for president of it.

Oh yea, and if he’s going to win a third term as Texas governor he will need to defeat the very popular former mayor of Houston, Democrat Bill White.

And finally, in case you missed it, the Associated Press is reporting leaks from a book by Bush Svengali Karl Rove in which Rove admits the war in Iraq damaged the Bush Administration’s credibility.

Um..yea…credibility…and badly damaged nearly beyond redemption two entire nations, not to mention the stability of the entire world!!