It’s Monday, December 10th, 2018…and though we haven’t watched a single down of professional football since the NFL tacitly endorsed contempt for our flag, we were nonetheless again amazed by the league’s latest confirmation it lacks any discernible moral compass:

Cowboys star Ezekiel Elliott blasts NFL after fine for post-TD donation to Salvation Army

Permitting continued demonstrations of disrespect for America by those the great Stilton Jarlsberg termed The Nuts Who Say Knee…

…in a perverted interpretation of the First Amendment?  Emphatically “YES”.  Allowing the expression of support for the Salvation Army, or for that matter assassinated Dallas law enforcement officers: in a curiously incongruous double-standard, not just “no”, but “HELL NO”!!!

Just as Quint’s experience with the sharks after the sinking of the Indianapolis led him to foreswear…

…lifejackets, so the persistent hypocrisy and moral cowardice of the NFL causes us to continue tuning out their telecasts.  Oh,…Nike and Dick’s…

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off with a question: why, if lying to Congress is truly deserving of four years in stir…

Prosecutors Recommend ‘Substantial’ Prison Term for Michael Cohen Lying to Congress

…are John Brennan, Jim Clapper, John Koskinen, Jim Comey and so many others still running about free?!?  We can only conclude it’s because though, in theory, all animals are equal, the reality remains some animals are more equal than others…with asses…

…occupying positions of particularly greater equality.

Since we’re on the subject of the inequality of Dimocrats and Republicans under the law, in an opinion piece for FOX News, Andy McCarthy explains, numerous precedents notwithstanding…

Why Trump is likely to be indicted by Manhattan US Attorney

“The major takeaway from the 40-page sentencing memorandum filed by federal prosecutors Friday for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, is this: The president is very likely to be indicted on a charge of violating federal campaign finance laws.

It has been obvious for some time that President Trump is the principal subject of the investigation still being conducted by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Cohen earlier pleaded guilty to multiple counts of business and tax fraud, violating campaign finance law, and making false statements to Congress regarding unsuccessful efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Yes, Cohen has stated he did the hands-on work in orchestrating hush-money payments to two women who claim to have had sexual liaisons with Trump many years ago (liaisons Trump denies).

But when Cohen pleaded guilty in August, prosecutors induced him to make an extraordinary statement in open court: the payments to the women were made “in coordination with and at the direction of” the candidate for federal office – Donald Trump.

Prosecutors would not have done this if the president was not on their radar screen…

…This is not to suggest that the president is without cards to play. Campaign finance violations have a high proof threshold for intent. President Trump could argue that because there was no spending limit on his contributions, he did not think about the campaign-finance implications, much less willfully violate them.

There is, furthermore, a significant legal question about whether the hush-money payments here qualify as “in-kind” campaign contributions. There is nothing illegal per se in making a non-disclosure agreement; they are quite common. The criminal law comes into play only if the non-disclosure payment is deemed a donation for purposes of influencing a political campaign.

Arguably, the payment is not a donation if it was made for an expense that was independent of the campaign – that is, money that would have had to be paid even if there were no campaign.

Cohen chose to plead guilty and forfeited the right to contest this point. That concession is not binding on Trump. If the president is charged, I expect he would vigorously argue that the payment was not a campaign contribution.

There are other salient issues to consider. Justice Department guidance holds that a sitting president may not be indicted. If prosecutors in the Southern District of New York believe they have a case against the president, must they hold off until after he is out of office?

If President Trump were to win re-election, he would not be out of office until 2024, when the five-year statute of limitations on a 2016 offense would have lapsed.

More importantly, do campaign finance violations qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which is the constitutional standard for impeachment? It is hard to imagine an infraction that the Justice Department often elects not to prosecute (See “Obama, Barack Hussein”) is sufficiently egregious to rise to that level, but the debate on this point between partisans would be intense.

Those are all questions for another day. The point for this day is that the Cohen case in New York City is not about Cohen. The president is in peril of being charged.“

Why?  To quote William Munny, a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition…

The WSJ offer two insightful articles which go to the heart of this matter: first, Do the Dimocrats really want to impeach Trump for lying about sex?!?  After all…

“…The political dilemma for Democrats is that lying about sex and paying to cover it up are wrong, but they’re a long way from collaborating with the Kremlin to beat Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump lied (allegedly) to the public about his dealings with Mr. Cohen. Bill Clinton lied to the public and under oath in a legal proceeding, yet Democrats defended him. Good luck trying to impeach Mr. Trump for campaign-finance violations.“

Need we add Trump’s indiscretions pre-dated his time in public office, while Slick Willy’s ascent from Attorney General of Arkansas to the Oval Office could be catalogued by his conquests, willing…

…and otherwise:

If Donald Trump’s ever been accused, credibly or not, of sexual assault, let alone settled such a charge in the face of a lawsuit…

…we haven’t heard about it.

Second, in the interest of fairness, though he continues to rage about Comey, Trump STILL won’t release the pertinent FBI records:

“…The way to expose the truth about the FBI’s behavior in the 2016 presidential campaign is to declassify and release all the relevant documents.

Mr. Trump promised this fall to release many of these records only to renege under FBI and insider pressure. After the election the President again threatened to release them if Democrats went ahead with their multiple investigations into the 2016 campaign.

Well, what are you waiting for, Mr. Trump? Every Democrat in range of a microphone is promising to investigate your every Presidential decision, plus your taxes, business and family.

Meanwhile, New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler, who will chair the House Judiciary Committee in January, said Friday he will shut down the investigation into FBI and Justice decision-making. He called it “a waste of time to start with.” If Mr. Trump really wants Americans to know about the FBI’s 2016 political machinations, he’ll have to be the agent of transparency…”

As Judge Elihu Smails so famously observed…

If The Donald’s waiting for a rainy day to release said records, we’d say the chance of precipitation…

…is 100%!

Turning to The Lighter Side:

Finally, just when we thought the names with which idiotic parents cursed their offspring couldn’t get any more bizarre (see “Abcde“), it seems there’s always a bigger idiot (As always, our thoughts are italicized in green): 

Mom-to-be cancels baby shower after family makes fun of son’s name

“A fed-up mom-to-be KO’d her baby shower because she said her “fake a– family” ridiculed the name she’d chosen for her child.

The unidentified woman blasted her family for questioning her decision to name her son Squire Sebastian Senator in a post on the Facebook event page for the now-canceled shindig. “Ya’ll have been talking sh-t about my unborn baby. AN UNBORN CHILD,” she wrote. “How can you judge an unborn child?? What is wrong with you?? I never knew my family could be so judgmental.” (Perhaps your stupidity gave them pause for reconsideration!)

The raving future mom told her family she was planning a smaller “more inclusive” baby shower where she wouldn’t be judged. “F–k you all. Fake a– family,” she wrote. “You won’t get to be a part of my baby’s life and it’s all because you had to judge him.”

“They’ve spread rumors and lies about my child,” she wrote. “No, I am not crazy. No, I am not mentally unstable. No, I was not drunk when I named my child.” But she assured her relatives that no matter how they felt about it — she wasn’t going to budge on her son’s name. “This is the name I was meant to give him,” she wrote. “This is how it will be. He will not be allowed to have a nickname, he is to be called by his full and complete first name. (We can’t wait for the rest!)

“This name conveys power. It conveys wealth. It conveys success,” she added, explaining that she’d chosen the moniker because it hinted at the family’s ties to senators and squires. (As what: cooks, maids and chauffeurs?!?) “My baby’s name WILL be a revolution,” she continued. (Wethinks she confused “revolution” and revolting”.)  “It will push people to question everything.”…”

Only the mother’s sanity.  Here’s the juice: if…

…then starting it with this nincompoop as your mother would put even the best and brightest at a significant disadvantage.

Magoo