Happy Thursday America. Such great news to report. But first – seven jokes.

Both American and Southwest Airlines say they’ll comply with President Biden’s order to force their employees be vaccinated. Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines will begin requiring their employees to brush their teeth.

The president of the toy association said this week that kids might not get what they want this Christmas due to the national shortages. “Great, more money to spend on strippers,” said Dana Perino

Jon Gruden will be removed from the Buccaneers ring of honor over emails that contained racist insults — which some say is hypocritical because O.J. Simpson remains in the NFL Hall of Fame. But that’s an apples to oranges comparison since there’s no proof Simpson sent mean emails.

The global supply chain crunch has made it hard to find Halloween costumes in stores. So this year, Chris Cuomo is going to pretend to be a journalist. 

This week William Shatner became the oldest man to travel to space. Scientists suspect the 90-year-old took control of the rocket at some point because it never turned off its turn signal.

Footwear brand “Minnetonka” has apologized for making moccasins for 75 years, because it’s not a native American-owned business. To remedy this problem, the CEO says the company will be changing its name to Elizabeth Warren.

And finally — with Biden’s war on energy independence, the price of coal has skyrocketed. So this Christmas all the naughty kids will be getting their stockings filled with solar panels. 

And that’s your seven jokes.

So did you know that New York Mayor, Bill de Blasio, otherwise known as a walking tree of turds, is removing the statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall? 

In case you went to public schools, Jefferson was a Founding Father, our third president, but also a slave-owner. The statue had been there for nearly two hundred years – a year for every screw-up de Blasio makes in a week.

But after all the problems going on in the city, it was clear this putrid piece of marble had to go. I mean, think about it.

A woman was just beaten brutally on the city streets, stomped repeatedly, and left for dead. People are dodging bullets in Times Square like Neo in The Matrix. But damn that Thomas Jefferson! You know he’s behind all that.

Of course, there was the Filipino nurse murdered Saturday afternoon in Times Square by a deranged criminal. That alleged killer had been released after groping another female, but clearly – if there was no Jefferson statue – that wouldn’t have happened.

There’s the huge spike in homicides in major cities. It’s getting so bad in places like Chicago – they are installing bleeding control kits in hundreds of city buildings. Each kit contains supplies like tourniquets, gauze, shears, gloves and an instruction manual. I knew the labor shortage was severe, but now you have to fix your own gunshot wound?

But what do you expect when you allow such statues to exist? Now the removal of the statue was suggested by de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray. She said I already share a bed with a blockhead, I don’t need another one staring at me while I’m at work.

She also heads up the 800-million-dollar taxpayer-funded program called Thrive. Which was designed to treat the mentally ill – like the guy who murdered the nurse. But where’s the proof that the program actually did anything? The money disappeared faster than Brian Stelter at a donut factory.

If you take a casual drive around the city – and you don’t get carjacked first – you’ll see countless destitute zombies. But it’s hard to investigate the person in charge of helping them, when it’s the mayor’s wife. 

So what do you do when you’re supposed to treat the sick and deranged, and you haven’t done squat? And the people you’re supposed to be helping are doing squat everywhere.  On the sidewalks, in front of businesses, in the parks with dogs. You go after the statues. 

And why? How does removing the statues make the poor or the elderly currently being picked off in New York, any safer? It doesn’t. 

If anything, when you’re getting shot at it, statues give you a place to hide behind. In fact, we could use a lot more statues – of really fat people. Grover Cleveland! Henry VIII! Michael Moore! I’ll take anything. Because increasingly the public has fewer places to hide.

But the real reason for removing statues is deflection. The activist class is a shallow stupid breed with absurd priorities, and their leaders know that. All you need to do is dangle some performative act of symbolic justice in front of them, and like a hooker in front of Hunter – they’ll climb all over it. And then you don’t need to do any real work at all.

Defund the police, bailout thugs and rapists, and watch as your city time-travels back to the 1970s and then blame the statues. And a mayor and his wife can coast along by shifting the conversation to erasing the past, and call it “progress.”

It’s not just New York. Whether it’s San Francisco where they’re closing down drug stores due to crime, or downtown Portland enduring another night of mob violence – all you need to do are a few things.

Demand changing the “problematic” name of a grade school. Cancel a holiday for a “problematic” explorer. Remove a statue of a “problematic” founder. All in the name of equity and anti-racism.

As the elderly and working classes continue to get victimized by thugs and maniacs. It’s a good grift. As long as you go woke, you’re immune from criticism for the horrible messes you leave behind. 

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So remove a statue. Change a holiday’s name. Congrats: you’ve tackled the big problems.

And when a parent loses a child, or a child loses a parent to a maniac on a city street, you can tell them, “hey sorry for your loss. But remember that bust of Jefferson? It’s gone too.  So we’ll call it even.”

This article is adapted from Greg Gutfeld’s opening monologue on the October 14, 2021 edition of “Gutfeld!”