It’s Tuesday, March 12th, 2013…and here’s The Gouge!

First up, a quick question brought to mind by the following report from NBCWashington.com on yet another sterling success for gun control:

At Least 12 Injured in Drive-By Shooting in Northwest D.C.

At least a dozen people were injured in a drive-by shooting in northwest D.C. early Monday. Authorities said that around 2 a.m., someone in an older blue BMW opened fire on a crowd of people outside an apartment building in the 1200 block of N. Capitol Street.

A “crowd of people”…”outside an apartment building”…at 0200 on a Monday morning; granted, we’ve never lived in a big city (and hope we never do), but is this normal urban behavior?  Or can we assume none of the crowd had anywhere to be later in the morning; say…at a job?!?

In a related item, we stand corrected; The Obamao does indeed have something in common with a deceased former Republican President:

AP Enterprise: Nixon wished for total handgun ban

They’re not only crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but they lie like rugs!

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2013/03/11/ap-enterprise-nixon-wished-for-total-handgun-ban-n1530579

Since we’re on the subject of The Great Prevaricator, he’s fodder for the latest from Michael Barone:

Obama flails as Republicans stand firm on sequester

They’re flailing. That’s the impression I get from watching Barack Obama and his White House over the past week. Things haven’t gone as they expected. The House Republicans were supposed to cave in on the sequester, as they did on the fiscal cliff at the beginning of the year. They would be so desperate to avoid the sequester’s mandatory defense cuts, the theory went, that they would agree to higher taxes (through closing loopholes) on high earners.

But the Republicans didn’t deal. They decided to take the sequester cuts and make them the basis for a continuing resolution funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

Obama responded by threatening all sorts of dire consequences — Head Start kids left out in the snow, airline security lines as far as the eye can see. Republicans would take the blame, the Obama folks believed. Polls showed they were far less popular than the president. Then on Tuesday it was announced that White House tours were cancelled. The sequester meant there wasn’t enough money to host those kids from Waverly, Iowa.

Suddenly it became apparent that it was Obama’s poll numbers that were falling. Not to the level of congressional Republicans’ admittedly dreadful numbers. But enough that the Quinnipiac poll — whose 2012 numbers tilted a bit toward Democrats — showed him with only 45 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval.

Then the president who doesn’t like spending much time with even Democratic members of Congress suddenly invited 12 Republican senators to dinner at the Jefferson Hotel. He even paid out of his own pocket! And on Thursday, he invited House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and ranking Democrat Chris Van Hollen to lunch at the White House. This is the same Paul Ryan whom Obama insulted after inviting him to a presidential speech at George Washington University. Presumably the lunch was insult-free.

Meanwhile a top White House aide was dispatched to make Obama’s case to a heavily Republican audience. The message coming from the White House seems to be that Obama has made concessions, including spending cuts, and is really sincerely interested in a grand bargain with Republicans on entitlements. He has already, the argument goes, agreed to using the chained CPI — an inflation measure that produces lower cost-of-living adjustments to entitlement and other programs.

For this he’s taken some heat from Democrats. So Republicans should understand that he is dealing in good faith and should be willing to agree to increased revenues by removing tax preferences for high earners.

The Obama folks are correct in saying that House Speaker John Boehner was willing to do that during the summer 2011 grand bargain negotiations. But that proposed deal did not include tax rate increases. Now that Obama extracted higher tax rates on earners above $400,000 in the fiscal cliff deal, Boehner and other Republicans insist that’s all the revenue increases they’ll agree to.

This comes amid stories that Obama’s chief political goal is helping his fellow Democrats win a House majority in 2014 and as his Organizing for Action (formerly Obama for America) is still cranking out press releases about the dire effects of the sequester. It’s not unheard of for a politician to make public threats and private blandishments at the opposing party at the same time. But it is sometimes awkward. Especially if the threats and blandishments are not entirely credible.

“Betting on America”; yeah, like George Soros shorts a stock!

Democrats have some chance of winning the 17 seats they need for a House majority. But it’s an uphill climb. Even though Obama won 51 percent of the vote in 2012, he did not carry a majority of House districts. And there is some chance Republicans will capture the six seats they need for a Senate majority. Seven Democratic incumbents are running in states Mitt Romney carried. And the retirements of incumbent Democrats in West Virginia, Iowa and, as announced Friday, Michigan may put those seats in play.

As for blandishments, Boehner is not the only Republican who has concluded that Obama is not capable of good-faith negotiating. Republicans argue that revenues are approaching the norm of 19 percent of gross domestic product and that spending needs to come down more from its historic high of 25 percent of GDP.

They’re making a little bit of headway on that by accepting the sequester. Obama’s flailing seems unlikely to persuade them to change course.

Barone makes some good points.  Then again, given John Boehner’s amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…

…you’ll forgive us if we don’t count B. Hussein out just yet.  Case in point: what in The Obamao’s conduct to date could possibly give Boehner…

…cause for optimism?!?  Why not describe in gory detail, just in case the MSM lets it slip out, why you’re completely pessimistic about anything coming from the The Obamao’s overtures due to his consistent history of bad-faith in any and all negotiations?

Meanwhile, back in the Big Apple, a single ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy sky:

Judge Invalidates ‘Arbitrary and Capricious’ NYC Sugary Drink Ban

“Portion control…it’s a typical way….government’s use to explain to people what’s in their interest and what isn’t”?!?  Only in your mind, Mike.  So, at least for now, only one of what follows is true:

As we’ve said before, ignoring his purported political party, Bloomberg is the penultimate I-Know-What’s-Best-For-You Liberal.  What concerns us isn’t Boobberg proposing such Progressive policies, but a significant majority of New Yorkers not taking to the streets in protest; which is evidence of either (1) uninformed voter ignorance displayed by working-class New Yorkers, or (2) an attitude of “It’s not my ox being gored” on the part of the Manhattan elites.  Or perhaps both.

Either way, it’s evidence Americans have forgotten the wisdom bequeathed by the Founding Fathers:

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. 

Speaking of separation, as this next item from World Net Daily via Drudge Report relates, it’s what’s on the agenda in any number of areas around Georgia’s capitol:

Suburbs secede from Atlanta

‘Detroit of the South’ bludgeoned by troubles

As Detroit – beset by violence, debt and social woes – prepares to undergo a historic takeover by the Michigan state government, the city of Atlanta could be sliding toward a similar fate. Some are quietly wondering whether Atlanta is in danger of becoming “the Detroit of the South.” The city has experienced an ongoing succession of government scandals, ranging from a massive cheating racket to corruption, bribery, school-board incompetence and now the potential loss of accreditation for the local DeKalb County school system.

For several years, problems of this sort have fueled political reforms, including the creation of new cities in northern Atlanta suburbs. Due to the intensification of corruption scandals in DeKalb, some state-level reform proposals could become national news very soon. As a result of the unsavory politics in urban Atlanta, northern suburban communities acted to distance themselves. Beginning in 2005, many communities began the process of incorporating into cities. Thus far, Milton, Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Dunwoody, Chattahoochee Hills and Johns Creek have done so.

These cities, after breaking away politically from urban Atlanta, have become so successful that a libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation, has featured Sandy Springs as a model of effective government. The Economist has also applauded the northern Atlanta cities for solving the problem of unfunded government pension liability and avoiding the bankruptcy that looms over some urban areas. The new cities may soon be able to create their own school districts, which would free them even further from the issues besetting Atlanta.

While incorporation has been popular with residents of the new cities, not all of Atlanta is as satisfied. The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit in 2011 to dissolve the new cities, claiming they were a “super-white majority” and diluting the voting power of minorities. A key leader in the black community and a driving force in support of the lawsuit, who wishes to remain anonymous, bemoaned the “disturbing tendency of black electorates to not elect the smartest and brightest, or even the cleverest.”

Nonetheless, he believes that there is a social contract between the northern and southern parts of the county. “So when you allow powerful groups of citizens to opt out of a social contract, and form their own, it may benefit the group opting out, but it hurts the larger collective,” he said.

A “larger collective”…

…predominantly black, who, this “key leader in the the black community” admits, have a “disturbing tendency to not elect the smartest and brightest, or even the cleverest”; i.e., just the “blackest“!

Let’s call a spade a spade and tell, in the best traditions of the late Paul Harvey, the rest of the story:

Coupled with it’s failing school system, we cannot begin to imagine why statistics such as these would lead anyone remotely concerned with their children’s future to disassociate themselves with the city of Atlanta.  Besides, doesn’t it go without saying anyone so inclined must be…

Next up, the latest from Hope n’ Change, and this brief bit of homage to The Obamao’s fallen Comrade:

There Hugo Again 

Although death is always a sensitive subject to discuss, Hugo Chavez reminds us that even if you take really good care of yourself, it’s possible to be cruelly struck down in the prime of your dictatorship – leaving nothing behind but tears, memories, and – oh yeah! – your waxy corpse laid out on display like a buffet at the Golden Corral.

So popular has the display of Chavez’s body been in Venezuela over the past few days that the decision has been made to make him a permanent museum exhibit, much like the preserved bodies of Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and – if rumor is to be believed – John Dillinger’s humongoid ladypleaser.

All of which got Hope n’ Change thinking about the importance of preplanning for the inevitable, and hoping that somewhere on a shelf in Washington, plans exist for the public display of our own president in case the absolutely unthinkable happens, much as it did last election day. And seriously, what could represent a legacy of “transparency” more than a glass coffin? The very thought brings a tear to our eye.

Of course, we hope that this doesn’t happen for many, many, many years – or possibly ever. After all, there’s ample evidence that Barack Obama may be immortal.

It would certainly explain why he thinks he’ll have tens of thousands of years to pay back the money he’s borrowing today.

Which brings us to the Lighter Side…

Finally, in the Medical Section, we learn an…

Unusual condition causes woman to hallucinate scary faces

Submitted for your perusal, two alternate theories of this unfortunate woman’s condition: first, it could be an acute case of Rod Serling Syndrome…

…or, she’s suffering flashbacks from attendance at a recent meeting of the Woman’s National Dimocratic Club:

Either way, it’s Liberals who have likely scarred her for life.

Magoo