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From Monday night's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart went after Mitt Romney and his fellow right-wingers like Lou Dobbs, for their priorities on deficit reduction where PBS, which is a minute portion of the budget would get slashed, but heaven forbid we can't touch those subsidies for the oil companies, because those amounts would be almost meaningless -- or so says Dobbs and his faulty math.

After pointing out the obvious and that it really can't be the deficit they're concerned about, Stewart made a mockery of the talking heads over at Fox for their attacks on Sesame Street as some kind of evil socialist indoctrination program that's harming our children by teaching them things like how to share.

Jon and his Daily Show senior correspondents, Wyatt Cenac and John Oliver had some suggestions for how to make Sesame Street more palatable to conservatives, like putting Ayn Rand on the recommended reading list for the kids.

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The Conan O'Brien show reprises a famous scene from Hitchock's North by Northwest.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday suggested that Big Bird's death at the hands of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney didn't have to be in vain because the Sesame Street character could be suitable for "eating."

During Wednesday night's presidential debate Romney had told moderator Jim Lehrer, "I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not gonna keep on spending money on things to borrow from China to pay for."

CNN host Piers Morgan asked Santorum on Thursday if he would also "kill Big Bird."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I've voted to kill Big Bird," Santorum replied proudly. "That doesn't mean I don't like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them. I mean, maybe to eat them."

"That's probably not -- can we go back on that one," the former Pennsylvania senator added, waiving his hands at the camera.

"That was beautifully, badly phrased," Morgan agreed.

At a campaign event in Denver on Thursday, President Barack Obama had blasted Romney for refusing to close corporate tax loopholes and ruling out raising additional revenue to balance the nation’s budget.

“And when he was asked what he would actually do to cut the deficit and reduce spending, he said he’d eliminate funding for public television,” the president explained to boos from the crowd. “That was his answer. I mean, thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. It’s about time.”

“We didn’t know that Big Bird was driving the federal deficit,” Obama quipped. “Elmo too.”

In fact, the $444 million in subsidies the U.S. government provided to Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year only accounted for .037 percent of the nation’s $1.2 trillion deficit.

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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If Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has his way then toddlers could be getting a dose of fast food advertising with their Bert and Ernie.

During a campaign event in Clinton, Iowa Wednesday, the former Massachusetts governor told supporters that there were a number of things he would do to balance the budget.

"One is to stop certain programs," he explained. "Stop them. Close them. Turn them off. Even some you like."

"You might say, 'I like the National Endowment for the Arts.' I do," he continued. "I like PBS. We subsidize PBS. Look, I'm going to stop that. I'm going to say that PBS is going to have to have advertisement."

"We're not going to kill Big Bird, but Big Bird is going to have advertisements, alright?"

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the PBS children's show Sesame Street, says that the program was designed for children between the ages of 2 and 5, but is increasingly being watched by kids under the age of 2.

As of 2009, nearly 77 million Americans had watched Sesame Street as children.

In the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission determined that advertising to children under the age of 6 was unfair and deceptive. Research has also shown that children under the age of 8 have no defenses against advertising and often take advertising claims at face value.

Some countries like Sweden and Norway ban all advertising directed at children under 12, while other countries such as the United Kingdom, Greece, Denmark and Belgium place restrictions on advertising.

(H/T: Talking Points Memo)