Sorry we’re late today, dear readers. We hate when our full-time job starts to interfere with blogging, which we enjoy much more. Don’t tell anyone.

So on with the Quick Hits!

• The thing about the Tax and Spending Control is, you have to suspend your disbelief, like you were watching a horror movie or Fox News.

So when financial experts say that if TASC were in place a few years ago, we’d be totally, horribly, irreparably, and inconceivably fucked, as they do (in not so many words) in this Review-Journal story, the TASC masters just have to pretend everything’s OK.

“We don’t want to look back. TASC would not cut a single thing from the budget,” says poor TASC campaign manager Bob Adney. “TASC does not cut anything. It allows government to grow, but with a ceiling.”

Actually, he’s managed to tell the truth while fibbing, all at the same time: The whole truth is, TASC doesn’t call for specific budget cuts. But if it’s implemented, it would restrain spending in such a way that lawmakers will be forced to cut the budget. So, in effect, TASC would require budget cuts.

And readers, those cuts may not be pretty, the story demonstrates. Read it, and glimpse a grim future.

• You know, if they didn’t get state-issued tax free bonds, skip out on paying their taxes and use mega-juice to jam a project over on the common people, we’d actually feel sorry for the Las Vegas Monorail.

On the very same day we learn that ridership is lagging below even the most critical estimates, state Sen. Dina Titus goes and points out all the connections between the train and her gubernatorial rival, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. (Gibson served on the board and as president of the monorail, at a very lucrative salary.)

It never rains, but it pours.

• Republicans bravely continued their struggle to implement their “American values agenda” in Washington, D.C., by trying to put the Pledge of Allegiance beyond the review of federal courts. Like Christmas, the pledge has been under assault since a California atheist, obviously acting under orders from Satan, sued to eliminate the words “under God” from the pledge.

The House vote was 260-167, and included culture warriors U.S. Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter on the “aye” side. (Both are running for office, Gibbons for governor and Porter for re-election.) U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, who says she believes in something about the separation of powers, declined to join in.

“We should not and cannot rewrite history to ignore our spiritual heritage. It surrounds us. It cries out for our country to honor God,” said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., partially plagiarizing Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Yes, we must preserve the heritage of the pledge! You know, the heritage that was written by socialist editor Francis Bellamy in the 1920s and adopted by Congress in 1945. The heritage created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954, when in the midst of fighting godless communists, Congress inserted the words “under God” into the pledge. (That’s right, the words go back all of 52 years.)

If the Republicans expect these little shows they’re putting on in Washington (an amendment to ban flag burning, another to ban gay marriage, and this measure to protect the pledge) are going to distract Americans’ attention from the fact that their party has utterly failed in almost every measurable respect, well … they’re probably right.

But still, we couldn’t let it pass without pointing out their cynical charade.

• And finally today, a great irony from a place where irony usually goes to die: The Las Vegas City Council chambers.

On the very same day that the city gave telecommunications giant Cox Communications 7.69 acres of land in West Las Vegas valued at more than $4 million for just $1, it banned the simple act of mercy that is handing a hungry person some food.

That’s right: Cox, which says its annual revenues “exceed $10 billion,” paid just $1 for land near their new headquarters in the old VA clinic off Martin Luther King Drive. (That’s 0.0000000001 percent of the company’s annual revenues!)

But if you feed a person who looks homeless, you’re committing a crime.

That’s our City Hall: Windfalls for those who don’t need any help, and rough treatment for those who do. If there is any more powerful argument to replace each and every person who voted for this measure, we cannot think of what it is. (And they all voted for it, save for Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian, who was absent.)

The only silver lining came from Councilman Steve Wolfson, who torpedoed the city’s legal arguments when he said, “The marshals will get specialized training on enforcement. If you bought a couple of burgers and wanted to give them out, you technically would be in violation, but you wouldn’t be cited,” he said.

Ah, so the city not only intended to deny to certain persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, they are training their agents, servants and employees in precisely how to selectively enforce said law? You don’t have to be an ACLU lawyer to see how that’s going to break down before a federal judge.

In the meantime, the Cox suckers down at City Hall need to go.