On Mother’s Day 2014, the USDA Agricultural Research Service paid out $135,615 to researchers “safeguarding the future of chocolate” at Reading University’s International Cocoa Quarantine Centre outside of London, England for the “development a [sic] cocoa quarantine system.”

The taxpayer-backed award was part of an ongoing, now-$535,835 grant that has receiving funding since 2011.

“The only thing you’re buying with a federally funded chocolate quarantine on Mother’s Day is [sic] night on the couch,” said Flake.

Haha, #jokes. About chocolate! Because obviously there is no reason for Big Government to quarantine cocoa. It's just chocolate. That whopping $135k a year -- which is less than the $174,000 we oppressed taxpayers are forced to spend on Sen. Flake's salary, for wasting our time and money on Point Making like this -- is one of those dumb pork projects that serves no legitimate purpose and is the reason we're drowning in debt and will soon be a wholly owned subsidiary of China. Good thing Sen. Flake is on the case to let us know our crippling overspending can be blamed on this useless project, when chocolate is perfectly FINE, according to the senator. Except that of course the senator has no idea what he's talking about. Remember when we told you in March that the world's chocolate supply could be in danger again? Let's review:

Cocoa is unusually susceptible to disease. Every year, a third of the crop is destroyed by fungi and pests with names like “Witches’ Broom,” “Frosty Pod Rot,” and “Vascular-streak dieback.”

A few years ago, one of these cocoa diseases hit Brazil. At the time, “Brazil was one of the world’s largest cocoa-producing countries,” says Laurent Pipitone of the International Cocoa Organization in London. “When this new disease came, it reduced their production by about half.”

For a while, it looked like there might not be enough cocoa to feed the world’s hunger for chocolate.

So what do we do with cocoa plants to protect them from disease and infestation so we can buy chocolate for our moms on Mother's Day? Or for ourselves on "I just want chocolate right now" Day?

Every cocoa tree that travels the world starts with a vacation here in the British countryside. The facility is part of the University of Reading, about 40 miles west of London. And a big chunk of the funding comes from America, via the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That $135,615 that Flake thinks is such a waste of money actually goes toward ensuring that our chocolate supply doesn't run low, which is kind of a big deal, ACTUALLY, given that chocolate is an $18 BILLION industry in America. But Sen. Flake -- or the sucker intern who spotted this line item and thought, "Haha, this will make a good punchline this week" -- didn't realize whining about this measly expense would make the senator look like A Idiot. At least we're not wasting tax dollars on that. Oh wait.

It's not the voice you'd expect to hear on the other end of the phone.

"Hi. This is Barack Obama. Your President."

In celebration of Mother's Day weekend, Obama surprised three mothers with individual phone calls this to wish them a Happy Mother's Day, according to a White House official.

The mothers, from Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, had all written the President letters over the course of the year.

"I know how tough it is to raise kids and do right by them, and if it hadn't been for my mother, I certainly wouldn't be here," Obama said on a phone call with one of the mothers, referring to his own mother, Ann Dunham, who passed away in 1995. "You are doing the most important work there is."

A Michigan mother unable to attend her senior prom due to her own mother’s death got a second chance at the teenage rite Friday when she escorted her son to his prom. [...]

Smith’s son, Danotiss, 18, grew up hearing the story of how his mom was devastated when she had to miss her prom, so he decided to ask her to be his date for the night.

"I just felt like it was right to ask her cause she couldn't go to her prom," Danotiss Smith told ABC. "She couldn't afford it back then so I thought it would be pretty sweet to ask her."