One of the core rules of comedy is that there are some things that are no joking matter. The most obvious example is that one should never joke about "bombs" when in an airport.

Even if the joke is funny, the subject is too serious, and the consequences are too great for airport security ever to assume that the speaker is "just joking." Perhaps it's time to add a new comedy principle to the list: one should never joke about accepting money to assassinate the president.

It all started during Qassem Soleimani's funeral, when one of the eulogists proposed that Iranians put together an $80-million bounty on Donald Trump:

The eulogist at the funeral procession of prominent Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iran put an 80-million-dollar prize on US President Donald Trump's head on live state TV. "We are 80 million Iranians, if each one of us puts aside one American dollar, we will have 80 million American dollars, and we will reward anyone who brings us [Trump]'s head with that amount," he said, addressing a large crowd in Iran's north-eastern city of Mashhad.

Various websites quickly picked up the story but framed it as an official offer from the Iranian state rather than a rhetorical suggestion. On the fringe Left, Occupy Democrats, for example, said, "Iranian state TV has announced that it has placed an $80 million bounty on the president's head."

Britain's Mirror, a more mainstream outlet, also reported the story as an official Iranian offer:

An $80 million bounty has been placed on Donald Trump's head in Iran in the wake of General Qasem Soleimani's assassination.

During the televised funeral, official state broadcasters said one US dollar would be tabled for every Iranian in the country, with the cash going to whoever killed the US President.

For many, this was an unpleasant reminder about the Ayatollah Khomeini's totalitarian response to The Satanic Verses, by Muslim British-Indian author Salman Rushdie. Deeming the book blasphemous, Khomeini in 1989 issued a worldwide fatwa against Rushdie, offering a bounty for the novelist's death. Rushdie was forced into hiding and then lived for years under police protection.

For others, though, what seemed like an $80-million promise was an opportunity to vent their continuing fury that President Trump occupies the White House. So it was that, within a short time of hearing that there might be money on the table, actor George Lopez used his Instagram account to accept:

Someone apparently made Lopez aware that there are some subjects that are criminal, rather than funny, for Lopez has since deleted his Instagram post in favor of an "I support the military" post:

The so-called joke was consistent with Lopez's stale shtick since Trump was elected, one that sees him oozing contempt for Trump and his supporters. Breitbart summarizes:

When George Lopez is not threatening to assassinate the president, he is apparently getting into altercations with Trump supporters, instead. Such was the case in November of 2018, when police charged Lopez with misdemeanor battery over an altercation involving "MAGA jokes" and "pro-Trump comments" at a Hooters restaurant, which was caught on tape. In June of last year, the actor demanded that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deport Trump's children, falsely suggesting that as the offspring of legal immigrants they qualified as "anchor babies." In 2017, The Smurfs actor called on President Trump to "deport police." "You wanna make the streets safer deport the police," said Lopez. While gallivanting around Los Angeles with friends a few summers ago, the Balls of Fury actor pretended to "pee" on President Trump's Hollywood Star by placing a water bottle near his crotch and pouring the contents onto the plaque while grimacing.

Meanwhile, when it comes to assassinating the president, Ann Althouse noted that, wittingly or not, the Washington Post has been soliciting its readers for ideas on how to make assassination a reality. After blogging about an incoherent article in which the Washington Post promised that Iran would retaliate only to end by saying the equivalent of "or not," Althouse added this thought:

Does the Washington Post seem to be encouraging Americans to brainstorm about how Iran can hurt us? Whether that was the idea or not, the top-rated comment over there is: "Trump Hotels. Very soft targets, and if they are heavily protected, no one will stay in them. A threat to the hotel chain would work wonders."

It's to be hoped that the Secret Service, which surely has been getting a workout since Trump became president, pays attention to these threats. Trump currently has the best police protection America can offer, but the fact remains that a lot of people now believe there is a price on his head, giving an incentive to every anti-Trump crackpot, religious fanatic, and hate-filled comic to act.