It’s Monday, December 3rd, 2018…but before we begin, two brief random thoughts on the passing scene.

First, if you haven’t seen it, the Georgia Bulldogs ran the worst fake punt we’ve ever seen by a major college team in a critical situation.  They obviously learned nothing from the fake field goal which cost them their opener against LSU.

Taking nothing from Alabama, given the propensity of their SEC opponents to choke every time they’re down, the Tide’s domination of SEC is less impressive than it seems, particularly given the conference’s bowl performance as of late.

Which brings us to our point.  UCF, which lost its stand-out quarterback McKenzie Milton two weeks ago to a “traumatic” leg injury, finished the season a perfect 13-0, coming back from 17 points down to soundly thrash a decent Memphis team for the American Athletic Conference title, making the Knights one of four unbeaten teams in Division I.  Yet UCF never had a chance of joining ‘Bama, Clemson and Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff, that honor instead going to the 12-1 Sooners.

Heck, the last regular season Playoff Selection Committee poll had UCF behind a 10-2 Michigan squad which was soundly beaten by an Ohio State team that came within one muffed two-point conversion of losing in OT to MARYLAND!

So let’s be honest and just admit every Division I football program not in either the SEC, ACC (which means, at least for the foreseeable future, Clemson), Big Ten, Big Twelve or Pac Ten has a Republican’s chance in California of ever vying for the national championship?!?

Hells bells, though the Playoff propaganda promotes their inclusion…

…in reality, the teams of the AAC, C-USA, MAC, MW and Sun Belt conferences might as well be one-legged men in an ass-kicking contest.  

UMBC may not have had a realistic shot at the NCAA basketball title last year, but at least the tournament format provided them a chance, however remote.

Just sayin’.

Second, while we mourn the passing of George Herbert Walker Bush as we would that of any decent man, we refuse to celebrate his performance as President, which was frankly as dismal as his son’s, in that:

1.  While he rightly prosecuted the First Gulf War, his premature cessation of hostilities when Saddam Hussein was literally on the ropes ensured the subsequent slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Sunni Muslims and Kurds, not to mention permitting Iraq’s continued efforts to destabilize the Middle East.

2.  He nominated David Souter for the Supreme Court.

3.  Most importantly, he broke his most solemn campaign pledge…

 …which led directly to Ross Perot’s entry into the 1992 presidential campaign and ensured the election of Bill Clinton, who, absent Perot draining 19% of the vote largely from Bush, would have lost in a landslide.

Signing the ADA and renewals of the Clean Air and Civil Rights Acts were just icing on the cake.

Who knows?  Had Bush been a true heir to Reagan, the Clintons may have rightly been consigned to the dustbin of history, America might never have heard of Barack Hussein Obama, and The Donald would likely have remained in real estate.

And all STILL wouldn’t be right with the world!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

We lead off the first edition of December with Jonah Goldberg’s thoughts on…

The Wars to Come

It feels like things are coming to a head in the Trump-Mueller showdown.

“…I have no idea what Mueller will reveal, and I have no idea what Trump will do in response. But I am sure that we’re going to hear a lot of “Whose Side Are You On?” once Mueller walks to the cameras in his Grim Reaper’s cloak and swings his scythe.

For me, the answer is simple: I’m on nobody’s side. I don’t have a dog in this fight. To mix metaphors like a special blender for metaphors, I’m going to play the ball, not the man — or men. What I mean by that is that if the truth or facts or evidence is on Trump’s side, I’ll defend that. If it’s not on his side, I won’t be either.

That’s not going to be true for a lot of people who, for one reason or another, have invested way too much in Donald Trump and in the idea that he deserves their loyalty. That ain’t me.

…There’s a reason why the Kavanaugh spectacle was the only time the broader American Right has unified during Trump’s presidency; it was because Donald Trump wasn’t the issue, even if he at times tried to make it about him. It was the one-time moment when all of the hats could converge or overlap each other.

There are those on the right who very much want the coming donnybrook to be like that again. It’s possible it will. It’s possible the Democrats will overreach or that Mueller will live down to the slanders grifters on the right have concocted about him. But I doubt it will happen. This will be about Trump. And while impeachment may not be warranted, he will not look good in this fight, because his true nature — and the nature of the creatures he surrounds himself with — will once again be exposed.

I’m not going to the mattresses in any of this, because I see no reason to give the president — or many of his most rabid opponents — the benefit of the doubt, never mind loyalty. The only major player here who deserves the benefit of the doubt right now is Robert Mueller. Because while we may learn that he made mistakes or overstepped, as of now, the one thing I know he cares about is the facts. About his slander-spewing right-wing critics — and to some extent his left-wing sanctifiers — I know no such thing.“

More on Goldberg’s thoughts to follow; in the meantime, as Andy McCarthy details at NRO, “facts” may have no bearing whatsoever on…

Robert Mueller’s Plan

Special Counsel Mueller is building a report, not a case.

“…No prosecutor builds a case the way Mueller is going about it. What prosecutor says, “Here’s our witness line-up: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Alex van der Zwaan, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen. And what is it that they have in common, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Bingo! They’re all convicted liars.”?

For a prosecutor, like any trial lawyer, what the jury thinks is at least as important as what the law says. If the most memorable thing the jury takes into the deliberation room is that no one should believe a word your witnesses say, you are not going to convict the lowliest grifter, much less the president of the United States of America.

…In short, you build a case by first establishing the foundational criminal offense. Juries do not convict people because they like or trust the prosecution’s witnesses. They convict because they are persuaded that justice demands redress for a real crime.

Note that word: crime. There are many wrongs that are not crimes, activities that are immoral, mendacious, unseemly. If we are talking about cosmic justice, all these wrongs should be made right. But prosecutors do not operate in a cosmic-justice system. They are in the criminal–justice system. The only wrongs they are authorized to address — the only wrongs it is appropriate for them to address — are crimes.

This is why, from the beginning of the Trump-Russia investigation, and certainly since Mueller’s appointment on May 17, 2017, we have stressed that the probe is a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal investigation. The idea was not to dizzy you with Justice Department esoterica. The point is that we don’t want prosecutors involved until it has been established that a crime was probably committed, warranting use of their awesome, intimidating investigative powers. Our main interest is in the crime we authorize prosecutors to investigate; we are not looking to have prosecutors manufacture crimes through the process of investigating — even if we agree that people should not be permitted to lie to investigators with impunity.

With respect to the president and “collusion,” Mueller does not have a crime he is investigating. He is investigating in hopes of finding a crime, which is a day-and-night different thing.

The lack of a crime means the “accomplices” are not really accomplices…

That brings us to the “where there’s smoke, there must be fire” talking-point Mueller fans have been trying out: If all these people are lying to cover something up, that something must involve some egregious criminality. That’s ridiculous. We know from our own daily lives that crimes account for only a very small percentage of the things people lie about. Indeed, throughout the 1990s, Democrats insisted that prosecutors should leave Bill Clinton alone because everybody lies about sex. People lie about things that they are embarrassed or ashamed about. (Not that Bill Clinton was either embarrassed or ashamed of his Oral Office antics; he was just worried about losing power, prestige and the ability to continue to prey on women.)

Politics is a seamy business. Pols want to think of themselves as public servants, but they spend lots of time with their hands out, either pleading for money or collecting information that might compromise an opponent. Successful politics requires horse-trading and compromise, so pols are forever explaining how they could actually be against something they voted for. A lot of this is embarrassing stuff. Consequently, when people in and around politics get caught practicing politics, they often lie about what they’ve done.

Politics is not a crime, of course. Consequently, if you criminalize politics — if you turn a prosecutor loose to investigate political campaign activities — you are apt to find unsavory conduct that is not criminal but that some people will lie about.

Mueller is turning such lies into guilty pleas, for three reasons.

First, he is not going to indict the president, which would precipitate a trial at some point. The convicted liars are not going to be jury-trial witnesses, so Mueller is not concerned about their lack of credibility. The report will detail disturbing — and thus politically damaging — connections between Trump associates and Kremlin cronies. But there will be no collusion crime, and thus no charges and no need for witnesses.

Second, with the media as his biggest cheerleader (other than Jeff Flake), the false-statements pleas create the illusion of a collusion crime, and thus appear to vindicate Mueller’s sprawling investigation. As I’ve previously explained, the game works this way: The media reports that Mueller is investigating Trump–Russia collusion and that dozens of people have been charged or convicted; but the media omits that no one has been charged, much less convicted, of any crime involving collusion between Trump and Russia. The great mass of people who do not follow the news closely come away thinking a Trump–Russia collusion crime is an established fact; by now, Mueller must be tightening the noose around Trump because he’s already rolled up a bunch of the apparent accomplices.

Third, defendants convicted of making false statements are very useful because Mueller is writing a report, not preparing for a jury trial. Convicted liars never get cross-examined in a report. Nor do they give the bumpy, inconsistent testimony you hear in a courtroom. Instead, their version of events is outlined by a skilled prosecutor, who writes well and knows how to make their stories sing in perfect harmony. They will sound far better in the report than they would on the witness stand. We’ve already gotten a taste of this in the offense narratives Mueller has incorporated in each guilty plea. Read the criminal information in Cohen’s case and ask yourself whether Mr. Fixer could have recited matters with such clarity.

Here, moreover, there is a bonus for the special prosecutor. He knows that the legitimacy of his investigation is under attack, allegedly driven by politics rather than evidence of crime. But the convictions he has amassed, even if they are only for false statements or are otherwise unrelated to the Trump-Russia rationale for the investigation, prove that many people Trump brought into his campaign were corruptible and of low character. Mueller, the career Justice Department and FBI man, will deftly use this fact to argue that suspicions about these people, and hence the investigation, were fully justified even if — thankfully — there was no prosecutable Trump–Russia conspiracy.

Trump’s Republican and conservative critics will cheer, figuring the president and his rogues’ gallery had it coming. Democrats will cheer, knowing this would never happen to Democrats.“

Going back to Jonah Goldberg’s column…

We must begin by once more reminding you, while we respect Goldberg’s thoughts on any number of subjects, his belief in Robert Mueller’s honesty and concern “for the facts” ain’t among them.

Consider what one has to accept to take anything Mueller concludes at face value:

1.  Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on the tarmac at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International to show her pictures of his grandchild:

2.  The FBI’s conduct/involvement with Hillary’s email investigation and the Steele Dossier was completely above-board:

3.  Mueller’s personal relationship to Jim Comey could not possibly constitute a conflict of interest:

4.  Nothing any of these people ever did, wrote or said constituted collusion to subvert the results of a lawful election:

As well as credit John Brennan…

…Jim Clapper…

…Lois Lerner…

…and John Koskinen…

…as virtual icons of virtue!

Along with expressing undying faith in the truth of the following statements: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it”; “I did not have sex with that woman”; and, “Read my lips: no new taxes”.

In other words, one must be willing to suspend belief in what one sees, hears and/or reads…

…and rather adopt a visceral dislike of The Donald…while excusing the shortcomings and character flaws of every politician preceding him.

Next up, writing at Townhall.com, Humberto Fontova eloquently emphasizes why, if it weren’t for double-standards, Progressives would have no standards at all:

Refugee Women, Children, and Infants Water-cannoned to Death Near US Southern Border—But Democrat/Media Complex Glorifies Perpetrator

“Maria Meza is the Honduran migrant who was catapulted to media stardom this week for being in the right place at the right time for an intrepid Reuters photographer who caught the U.S. Border Patrol red-handed in the act of performing its duty by defending the U.S. border.

Best we can tell—despite her claims of “I thought we were all going to die!”–she was not hurt, even slightly, and neither were any of her five children. Nonetheless the Media/Democrat/Celebrity complex is all over Trump like a cheap suit for his “brutality.”

On the other hand, Maria Garcia is a Cuban refugee (a genuine one, that is) whose son, husband, brother, sister, two uncles and three cousins were wantonly massacred in cold blood while they were all seeking (legal) asylum in the U.S.  In all, 43 (genuine) Cuban refugees were wantonly massacred, 11 of them children. Carlos Anaya was 3 when he drowned, Yisel Alvarez 4. Helen Martinez was 6 months old.

But you’ve never heard of Maria Garcia, have you amigos? Or of the horrific massacre from which she barely escaped with her life, have you amigos?

Didn’t think so. Here, I’ll help with a few details…

All of which should cause inquiring minds to wonder how these hypocrites sleep at night.  Then again, it’s our understanding neither Stalin nor Mao suffered from any form of insomnia.

Which brings us, somewhat inappropriately, to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with these three memes brought to us by Balls Cotton:

And remember, only 21 more shopping days until Christmas!

Magoo