It’s Monday, March 11th, 2013, but before we begin, we’ll answer this question posed by FOX News:

Can Republican Leaders Trust Obama’s Charm Offensive?

No just “no”, but…

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, a commentary from Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn, writing at the WSJ; please note the specific portions we’ve highlighted, along with our comments in green.  Highlights in items usually indicate points with which we wholeheartedly agree; but in this case, while we understand Coburn’s overall intention, certain statements could have been pulled straight from the DNC’s talking points:

The Drama Over, Time For Smart Budget Cuts

Since 2002, total federal spending has increased nearly 89% while median household income has dropped 5%.

Now that budget sequestration is under way, it looks less like the fiscal apocalypse that had been predicted and more like a long-overdue intervention with politicians who are addicted to borrowing and spending.

I agree with President Obama that sequestration’s across-the-board rather than specific cuts are a “dumb” way to reduce spending. (Yet Obama authored them; and up until quite recently threatened to veto any legislation which altered them.) That is why I voted against the plan two years ago. But if sequestration is dumb, it’s even dumber not to cut spending at all.

Cutting spending can be a powerful pro-growth strategy, but the outcome of sequestration depends on how the administration chooses to cut. Not all dollars are spent equally: The Obama administration’s decision to spend federal dollars studying how cocaine affects the reproductive habits of Japanese quail didn’t multiply anything other than quail.

Shifting money to working families from quail research—and thousands of other frivolous expenditures—would mean fewer government workers furloughed. (Not if you take the money and spend it on government employees instead!) The $181,000 quail study alone could prevent 62 furloughs. (What about just reducing federal spending by $181K?!?) If the federal government stopped sending unemployment checks to millionaires, it could save $14.8 million a year (according to IRS data) and prevent 5,103 furloughs. (Or even better, $14.8M?!?) Smart savings would mean that single moms and others on a tight budget don’t have to work as much to finance wasteful government spending—and can keep more of their own money to spend, fueling economic growth in the process. (Though Coburn finally states something that seems Conservative, we’re bothered he still seems to miss the larger point. “Single moms and others on a tight budget” keeping “more of their own money” would indeed fuel economic growth; so why not allow everyone to keep more of their own money, and really jump start the economy?!?)

Sequestration will force cuts to waste that wouldn’t otherwise be cut. (Not if anyone in the federal bureaucracy has anything to do with it.) The administration has claimed that its hands are tied and terrible things will happen, yet its warnings seem calibrated to sound scary but not too scary. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that cuts to air-traffic control will force flight delays but won’t compromise safety or cause air disasters.

He can avoid both with smart cuts. I sent him a letter this week detailing $1.2 billion in savings that would more than cover his $600 million shortfall. He could start by curtailing subsidies for “Airports to Nowhere” that serve fewer than 10 passengers a day. The department also has $34 billion in unobligated funds lying around that could help prevent delays and disasters.

The same is true of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Instead of forcing Americans to spend more time in airport screening lines, she can find savings in the wasteful grant program that gave America an underwater robot for Columbus, Ohio, and a BearCat armored-personnel carrier to guard a pumpkin festival in Keene, N.H. (population 23,000). Trimming this $830 million grant program by just one third could avoid Transportation Security Administration furloughs entirely.

But if cabinet secretaries insist on using furloughs, they could start by furloughing employees who already don’t bother to show up for work. In a 2008 report, I found that the 3.5 million hours that federal employees were AWOL in 2007 could be used to screen 1.7 billion checked bags, or enough to avoid security delays for nearly four years.

Another source of potential savings is duplication of federal services, which accounts for $364 billion spent every year, according to the Government Accountability Office. Washington spends $30 million for 15 financial-literacy programs run by 13 separate agencies. Taxpayers also spend $3.1 billion on 209 separate science, technology, engineering and mathematics education programs across 13 agencies. Why not fund one good program in these areas instead of dozens that don’t work and waste money? (The better question is why is the federal government involved in such programs at all?!?)

The longer this fight drags on, the harder it will be for the administration to pretend it can’t find savings. After all, what is dramatic isn’t the size of the sequestration cuts but recent increases in government spending. Since 2002, total federal spending has increased nearly 89% while median household income has dropped 5% and median wealth has dropped 23%. In other words, while families have been doing more with less, government has been doing less with more. (Finally!)

If President Obama believes he doesn’t have the flexibility to set budget priorities, all he has to do is ask Congress for more leeway. Forcing working families to bear the brunt of Washington’s refusal to use discretion in spending cuts is economically indefensible and morally reprehensible. The president should instead work with Congress to make smart cuts that will strengthen the nation and its families.

And just when he had it, he loses it.  ANY family which pays taxes on income earned in the course of a day is a “working family”, regardless of income.  Coburn seems to buy into the Left’s definition of “work” as comprised of only blue collar jobs involving some form of manual labor.

If you can truly tell a lot about a man by the friends he keeps, Coburn frankly disturbs us.  He was one of 12 Republican senators wined and dined by The Obamao last week, which means he’s on good terms with Lindsey Graham.  And from what we understand, though nominally a Conservative, he was friendly with B. Hussein during his brief service on Capitol Hill.

Here’s the juice: in II Corinthians, Paul attributes to Satan the ability to appear as an angel of light; it’s no coincidence the other Father of Lies can perform the same illusion.  We cannot imagine befriending someone dedicated to the destruction of the Constitution we’ve sworn to support and defend, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

If what we’ve heard of Tom Coburn is true, he needs to widen his circle of friends; perhaps beyond the confines of the Beltway.

Meanwhile, back in the Big Apple…

Bloomberg Bans 2-Liter Sodas with Pizza Delivery

Amid New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on big sodas — taking effect in March — are some details that may have been overlooked. Say goodbye to that 2-liter soda with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid’s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub, The New York Post reports. The mayor’s new rules prohibit restaurants from serving or selling soda in containers larger than 16 ounces.

“It’s not fair. If you’re gonna tell me what to do, it’s no good,” Steve DiMaggio of Caruso’s in Brooklyn borough told The Post. “It’s gonna cost a lot more.”

New Yorkers: they get the government they deserve.

The rules will force consumers to pay more for smaller containers. Under the ban, they would have to buy six 12-ounce cans at an average cost of $7.50 to get an equivalent amount of a $3 2-liter bottle. Family-friendly venues, such as bowling alleys, will have to ditch their soda pitchers for parties, and Manhattan nightclubs no longer will be able to serve large mixers with their bottle service.

“Oh, my God. Seriously?” Lamia Sunti, owner of the swanky West Village club Le Souk Harem, told The Post. “It’s not like one person is going to be drinking the whole carafe. It’s silly.”

Turning from silly to just plain stupid…not to mention incredibly hypocritical…

Mark Kelly Gave Gun Control Testimony Day Before Buying AR-15

Open mouth, insert foot you bald boob.

Mark E. Kelly, gun-control proponent and husband to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, recently purchased an AR-15 (an “assault weapon,” he called it)—which he now says he intended as an illustration of the need for more stringent gun laws. Kelly reportedly bought the AR-15 and a 1911-style semi-automatic pistol at a gun store in Tucson, Arizona.

Breitbart News received a tip on this when Neil McCabe, editor of Guns & Patriots newsletter, contacted us on March 7 and said:

Mark E. Kelly, made purchases which included an AR-15–sometimes described as an “assault rifle”–at 3:30 pm on the afternoon of March 5 at Diamondback Police Supply, 170 S. Kolb Street, Tucson, AZ.

According to McCabe, witnesses to the purchases claimed Kelly purchased “high capacity” magazines as well.

On March 6, McCabe contacted Kelly’s gun control group–“Americans for Responsible Solutions”–and on March 8 they replied that his message had been passed on to colleagues who handle press requests. Breitbart News then began investigating the details surrounding the purchase, including visiting the gun store.

Suddenly, Kelly announced on his Facebook page that he was not going to keep the AR-15, which he has yet to pick up from the store. Days after making the purchases, Kelly wrote on Facebook:

I just had a background check a few days ago when I went to my local gun store to buy a .45. As I was leaving, I noticed a used AR-15. Bought that too. Even to buy an assault weapon, the background check only takes a matter of minutes. (Ya see, Mark, there’s this thing called the internet, and it’s hooked up to these incredibly fast computers…What a douche!) I don’t have possession of it yet but I’ll be turning it over to the Tucson PD when I do. 

Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 30, Kelly had urged senators to restrict sales firearms based on their lethality–a common refrain with other witnesses that day, who argued that semi-automatic weapons, which chamber subsequent rounds as bullets are fired, and other guns with military-style features level the playing field against law enforcement.

…Kelly has not commented on whether he will also return the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol he purchased.

Kelly and Giffords are obvious hypocrites, a quality which, when coupled with their concerted effort to deny Americans a basic right guaranteed under the Constitution, puts them in the “naughty” column…right under their Missiah.  Are we commanded to love and pray for them?  You bet; and often do.  Do we wish them well in their misguided mission?  Not a chance.

Next up, courtesy of the New York Post via The New Media Journal, another singular success story from the folks that brought you a false sense of security with a multi-billion dollar price tag:

TSA screeners allow fed agent with fake bomb to pass through security at Newark Airport

Brutha can’t catch a break!

An undercover TSA inspector with an improvised explosive device stuffed in his pants got past two security screenings at Newark Airport — including a pat-down — and was cleared to get on board a commercial flight, sources told The Post yesterday. The breach took place Feb. 25, when the Transportation Security Administration’s special operations team — the agency’s version of internal affairs — staged a mock intrusion at the airport.

“This episode once again demonstrates how Newark Airport is the Ground Zero of TSA failures,” a source said.

The “bomber” was part of the four-person “Red Team” that posed as ticketed passengers and filed through the B1 checkpoint of Terminal B — home of American Airlines, JetBlue and Delta, sources said. With the inert “bomb” stashed somewhere in his pants, he got through the magnetometer undetected at around 11 a.m. He was then pulled aside for a physical screening, and a TSA agent failed to discover the IED and allowed the “bomber” to go to his gate. “He did have a simulated IED in his pants,” the source said. “They did not find it.”

So would you be Irish, boyo?

The exact makeup of the mock IED was not available, but even devices small enough to be stashed in a passenger’s pants could blow a hole through a plane’s fuselage. TSA inspectors have previously used mock bombs modeled after devices used by 2009 “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and 2001 “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

Only one member of the TSA’s terror team was stopped at the checkpoint — a female agent “carrying a simulated IED inside her carry-on that was inside a child’s doll,” the source said. It had “wires sticking out” and was obviously suspicious and she was pulled aside, sources say.

Then she was allowed to proceed to her gate.  Seriously folks, if you haven’t already realized the entire TSA is a joke, wake up and smell the shoe bomb.  It’s not that we don’t need airport security, it’s just that the private sector could provide it much more efficiently…at a fraction of the cost!  Thank you, George W.; we’re still reaping the dubious fruits of what you so erroneously sowed.

Since we’re on the subject of government-run success stories, as James Taranto quips…

If You Can Read This, Don’t Thank a Teacher  

Dick and Jane can’t read; but they know all about sex, Islam and anthropogenic climate change.

“It’s an education bombshell,” reports New York’s WCBS-TV: “Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.”

What’s really odd about this story is that the headline seems to have changed. It’s now “Officials: Most NYC High School Grads Need Remedial Help Before Entering CUNY Community Colleges,” but the original URL sent to us by readers (which now redirects), contains the earlier headline: “Officials: 80 Percent of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read.”

Note, too, that puzzling assertion that graduates “need to relearn” skills. Can it really be that they learned them in the first place and then forgot? Or is “relearn” just a euphemism designed to conceal that their high school education was a total waste?

Not a total waste; aftur awl, az wee knoated abuv, thay ded lurn: (1) how to put on a condom; (2) Islam is the Religion of Peace and Tolerance, and; (3) any productive human activity is killing the planet.

Ignorance generally signifies a lack of education; but as this next item in “MSM Bias….WHAT Bias?!?” segment suggests, stupid often a form of willful ignorance:

“Oh,…interesting; I didn’t realize that.”  What, was “interesting” the Word of the Day on CNN, or did Soledad just learn it?  Of course Ms. O’Brien didn’t realize Obama had called himself lazy; she obviously wasn’t interested.

And in today’s Money Quote, we turn to aline from Seth Mandel’s latest column in Commentary Magazine:

“Sen. Mark Begich, a Democratic from Alaska [sic], said he shared several of the concerns Paul expressed on the Senate floor, but felt that joining the filibuster would have been a distraction from Congress’s work on the federal budget.“

You know…that thing the Dimocratic-controlled Senate hasn’t produced for the last four year.  Not to mention Begich isn’t even on the budget committee.

On the Lighter Side…

Then there’s these two beauties concerning the NoKo’s from George Lawlor…

…and our old buddy Bruce Knapp:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with the Science Section, and this headline hot off the presses:

House Dust Mite Study Shows Reverse Evolution Possible

We’ve heard Nancy Pelosi referred to by any number of uncomplimentary sobriquets, but “dust mite” is a new one…but not without its own particular charm and cachet!

Magoo