It’s Monday, March 12th, 2018…but before we begin, Fauxcahontas just gave away her game:

Elizabeth Warren rules out presidential run, says she won’t get DNA test to prove Native American heritage

And a forked-tongued a*shole at that!

We’ll let the biting wit of the brilliant Stilton Jarlsberg sum up our thoughts on the poster child for Liberal hypocrisy:

By the way, these three headlines demonstrate why we wish Tiger Woods either fell down a well or was kicked by a mule:

Tiger Woods finishes one shot behind Paul Casey at Valspar Championship

2018 Valspar leaderboard, grades: Tiger Woods thrills but falls just short of win

The Tiger Woods comeback is as strong as ever after Valspar Championship

Sorry, but when Jack Nicklaus narrowly lost to Arnie, Lee, Gary or Tom, he never got points, let alone top billing, for a tie for 2nd place.  Thus we will continue to wish for Tiger’s eventual demise, not because of his past transgressions, but rather due to the MSM’s obsession with helping to ensure his ultimate success.  And that, like someone else we know, would be due only to…

…the color of his skin.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of Townhall.com, David Harsanyi leads off the week with more on lying Liberals as he suggests…

If You’re Trying to Ban Guns, the Least You Could Do Is Learn the Basics

“The Washington Post recently published an op-ed by writer Adam Weinstein in which he argues that Second Amendment advocates “use jargon to bully gun-control supporters.” “While debating the merits of various gun control proposals,” he contends, “Second Amendment enthusiasts often diminish, or outright dismiss their views if they use imprecise firearms terminology.”

How dare Second Amendment advocates expect that those passionately arguing to limit their constitutional rights have some rudimentary knowledge of the devices they want to ban? To point out the constant glaring technical and policy “faux pas” of gun controllers is to engage in “gunsplaining,” a bad-faith argument akin to intimidation.

“If you don’t know what the ‘AR’ in AR-15 stands for, you don’t get to talk,” explains the sarcastic subhead on the piece. If you don’t know what the “AR” in AR-15 stands for, you still get to talk. But if you want to ban or confiscate AR-15s and you haven’t taken the time to learn what the “AR” stands for, then gun owners have every right to call you out.

Weinstein — and he’s far from alone — bemoans the unfairness of gun controllers “being forced to sweat the finest taxonomic distinctions between our nation’s unlimited variety of lethal weapons.” This statement is illustrative of the emotionalism and hyperbole of the debate (the notion that there’s an “unlimited variety” of firearms is absurd). But at the same time, it’s an exaggeration of Second Amendment advocates’ expectations.

As with any contemporary disputes over public policy, there will always be those who attempt to dismiss opponents who possess less expertise. It’s certainly not unique to this debate. And, no, a person should not be excluded from a conversation simply for referring to a “bullet” rather than a “cartridge,” or a “clip” rather than a “magazine.” (But neither should we be prohibited from calling attention to their ignorance.)

Then again, much of gun control policy is driven by the mechanics of a firearm. So, while not knowing what a “barrel shroud” is should not prevent anyone from pondering gun policy, failing to understand the distinction between a semi-automatic and automatic weapon tells us you’re dishonest, unserious or unprepared for the debate.

Take, for instance, Michael Bloomberg. (And Barack Hussein Obama!)

In a debate imbued with emotion, gun control advocates rely on this ignorance. When then-President Barack Obama told a crowd that a mass shooter used a “fully automatic weapon,” he wasn’t concerned with the finest taxonomic distinctions of a gun; he was depending on the yawning obliviousness of a cheering crowd. When CNN featured an alleged gun expert explaining that the AR-15 he was about to fire was “full semi-automatic,” he was making the functionality of the firearm sound scarier to those who are ignorant about guns.

“Jargon” is words and expressions that are difficult for a layman to understand or use. Rather than using jargon, Second Amendment advocates are usually mocking those who use jargon-sounding words in an effort to fearmonger viewers and constituents. When you claim that the streets are rife with “high-capacity, rapid-fire magazines” or “jumbo clips,” you’re trying to fool your audience with a veneer of expertise. When you claim that we need to ban “gas-assisted receiver firearms,” you’re trying to make a semi-automatic weapon sound like a machine gun for a reason…”

And that reason is, make no mistake about it, a complete ban on the private ownership of firearms in America.  Their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, this is precisely what Progressives are promoting.

Though, as David French is confident enough to record at NRO, there’s a reason…

Last week I wrote a long essay in The Atlantic that represented my best effort to explain “gun culture” to those who may be more hostile to gun rights than, say, the typical reader of National Review. I began by describing threats to my family and how a person’s decision to carry a weapon is often directly tied to personal experience of real danger. Today, my friend Bethany Mandel published a similar essay in the New York Times, describing how her mother once chased off an intruder with a gun and how she herself decided to buy a gun when her family was threatened during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The goals of both essays are simple: to destroy stereotypes and to explain that the individual decision to purchase and carry a gun isn’t rooted in some sort of strange gun fetish or Wild West swagger but rather in the fundamental desire (and right) to protect your loved ones from harm. If arguments for gun control don’t grapple with this reality, then they’re destined to fail.

Yet the responses to both essays have helped demonstrate why the Left keeps losing on guns. It simply can’t persuade a rational, reasonable adult who’s experienced a threat that they’re safer without effective means of self-defense. Indeed, the effort to make this case is so often rooted in condescension or ignorance that it’s deeply alienating.

First, there’s an odd argument that it’s somehow illegitimate to make a decision based on “fear.” Or — as one correspondent put it — “fear and paranoia.” This makes no sense. Americans make safety-based decisions all the time. Is it wrong to buckle a seatbelt because that’s a “fear-based” decision? Should you ride a motorcycle without a helmet just to show the world you’re not scared? Reasonable people take precautions in the face of real threats.

Next, you immediately hear that you’re foolish. That “you’re more likely to hurt yourself than defend yourself.” In other words, the gun is more dangerous to you and your family than it is to any given criminal. But if you’re speaking to a responsible, non-suicidal adult, then this argument is flat-out wrong. In fact, even when you include suicides in the analysis — and compare them to the best estimates of annual defensive gun use — you’ll find that law-abiding Americans use guns to defend themselves far more than they do to hurt themselves.

Moreover, another person’s irresponsibility is irrelevant to the existence of my fundamental liberties. I don’t surrender my free-speech rights because another person uses theirs to troll Twitter. I don’t surrender my right to free exercise of religion because another person joins a cult. I don’t surrender my inherent and unalienable right to self-defense because a man across town decides to kill himself.

Finally, if there’s a concession that in your circumstance it’s reasonable (in their opinion!) to own a gun, then critics will immediately tell you exactly what kind of gun you “need” for self-defense.

“Well, you don’t need a large-capacity magazine.” “You don’t need an assault rifle.” “Shotguns are best. You don’t need anything other than a pump-action 12 gauge.”

But these arguments fall apart the instant one considers the real world. If the most reasonably foreseeable threat is from a person with a semi-automatic handgun and a large-capacity magazine, then how is it possible that you “need” less? When the gun-control lobby tells gun-owners what they “need,” what they’re saying is that law-abiding citizens should be outgunned in their own homes.

John Locke described the right of self-defense as a “fundamental law of nature.” It is an unalienable right every bit as essential to human liberty as the right to speak. Indeed, when a person experiences an actual threat, the need to exercise that right of self-defense becomes more immediately primal and deeply felt than any other constitutional right. You can’t speak when you’re dead. It’s hard to practice your religion when you’re in the ICU.

Faced with a generation of defeat in the gun debate, the Left is increasingly turning to one of its favorite weapons in the culture war, stigma. It’s mobilizing its tribe — including progressive corporations, Hollywood, and the mainstream media — to not just make policy arguments but also to shame and insult Americans who disagree. The goal is to make gun ownership culturally toxic.

But shame is weaker than love. Gun owners who’ve experienced a threat possess or carry a weapon because they love their families. Teachers who wish to carry a weapon at school do so because they love the kids under their care. These folks know that their responsible gun ownership makes their communities and families safer.

Why does the Left keep losing the gun debate? Because it’s hard to persuade any man or woman to surrender an unalienable right — especially when exercising that right helps preserve the most vital right of all, the right to live.

That, as well as the fact they have nothing to support their side other than pure propaganda, counterfeit statistics and deliberately misleading talking points.  Oh,…and the 2nd Amendment!

Besides…

In a related item, as FOX News reports, an Oakland, CA…

Coffee shop is under fire for refusing to serve uniformed police officers

“A California coffee shop is under fire for refusing to serve uniformed law enforcement officers, claiming it’s to protect the “physical and emotional safety of our customers and ourselves.” Hasta Muerte Coffee, an employee-owned business that opened just a few months ago in Oakland, recently announced it will not serve officers in uniform.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when an Oakland police sergeant wanted to introduce himself to the owners and get a cup of coffee. However, he was denied service, KTVU reported. In a letter to the Oakland police union after the incident, the coffee shop said “it does not serve the police.”

Hasta Muerta Coffee, which is Spanish for “until death,” explained the situation in a social media post last month – which sparked widespread criticism online. “We have a policy of asking police to leave for the physical and emotional safety of our customers and ourselves,” the post read…”

Two thoughts come to mind: first, we’ll forgive the Oakland police if they’re slow to respond to a 911 call from Hasta Muerta.

Second, only in a Progressive utopia can an Hispanic coffee shop refuse service to a uniformed law enforcement officer after a Christian baker is put out of business for refusing bake a cake for a gay wedding!

Don’t try to figure it out; you’ll only hurt yourself.

Which brings us to The Lighter Side:

Then there’s this series of memes forwarded by G. Trevor:

Sure, that last one’s a repeat from Friday; but like one of the thugs from Blazing Saddles…

…we like it!

Finally, we’ll call it a day with the Your Tax Dollars at Work segment, courtesy today of George Lawlor, the New York Post and Big Apple bureacrats:

City has spent $147K for scaffolding outside courthouse

“The scaffolding outside the state Supreme Court in Queens appears to be serving a life sentence. The sidewalk sheds at the courthouse’s front entrance on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica and along its sides have been in place for nine years at a cost to the city of $1,080 a month and counting.

The total bill so far is $147,105.11, including the original installation fees in February 2009 and a subsequent replacement and modification in April 2017, according to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which owns the building.

The massive neoclassical courthouse, the location of the Supreme Court’s civil term, surrogate’s court and the county clerk’s office, dates to the 1930s. A 2009 inspection report found that a previous construction project caused major damage resulting in “cracked stone panels and partially demolishing parts of the balconies and parapets.

“Scaffolding has been erected at these locations to protect the public from safety hazards and work has been permitted to correct these conditions,” the report says. Yet the work never went forward because of a dispute among city agencies…”

Magoo