| The Empire is good. If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, do watch this video confirming Jonathan Last's 2002 opus. Everything's bigger in Texas. The Texas Tribune reports on a high school football coach who brings in what is nearly the salary of members of Congress: “I got very lucky, very lucky to get the job,” Surratt told The Texas Tribune, several weeks before the Dawgs defeated Waco La Vega last Friday in the semifinals of Texas' 4A football playoffs. “[Our players] represent the seal on their helmet and do it with pride and play unbelievably hard for the community.” As he succeeds on the field, Surratt, who's also the district's athletic director, has been rewarded off of it. Carthage ISD increased his salary this year by $21,400, the district's biggest administrative pay raise this year. With a total salary of $154,900, Surratt is paid just a little less than the high school football coach in Lake Travis, where the district's student body is nearly four times larger and its median income is six figures. Carthage ISD's median income is $49,886, a few thousand below the state average. You know what they say. In Texas, they do things big. The perimeter rule is stupid. John McCain is more of a show horse than a work horse, so far as Senate parlance is concerned. In working for McCain's Senate colleague Jon Kyl, I did get a firsthand glimpse at the level of which John McCain is a stubborn sonofabitch. And I'll tell you, while McCain has a track record of being mean to staff who don't work for him, his stubborn streak is indeed admirable. Here's the Arizona Capital Times: Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl recounted how McCain recoiled at the charge – completely erroneous, Kyl maintained – that the reason he fought for a spot at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for Arizona’s then hometown airline was so he could take advantage of direct flights. “At that time, we had to connect in Dallas or Chicago, and flying every weekend – that got old fast,” Kyl said. “Finally, he had enough of the false accusation and blurted out that he would prove it false by refusing to take the direct flight if we got it.” McCain would continue to change planes in Dallas for years even after getting the slot. “[He] told me that was the second stupidest thing he had done in his life! Second, of course, to running into an anti-aircraft missile over Vietnam Nam, as he joked – self-deprecating humor being another of his traits,” Kyl said. The "perimeter rule" is a stupid protectionist policy meant to benefit bad airports, like Dulles. (It's a 1966 law that limits long distance flights from high density airports.) Kudos to McCain, a true American hero. I chaperoned his mom, Roberta, now 105, at the 2008 GOP convention. There's an old saying that mothers should never outlive their children, but the McCains are a fantastic family and it would be a shame for America to lose John or Roberta McCain. Knowing the endurance of John McCain, I expect we'll see him back in the Senate in 2018. Go Navy. Did Rosie O'Donnell commit a crime? That's what people are wondering, given her tweet promising to give MILLIONS of dollars to Jeff Flake and Susan Collins to vote no on tax reform. (Spoiler alert: They voted yes.) Popehat delivers: Yes, bribing or offering to bribe a Member of Congress is a federal crime. But note the statutory language. It's a crime when you "CORRUPTLY" give or offer to give something to a public official to influence an official act. Courts have found that "corruptly" means you must intend actually to influence or induce the public official to do something. Hence the standard jury instructions for the offense. So, for Rosie to be guilty, you'd have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the was not joking or trolling but actually intending to influence the senators. Weighing heavily against that would be the low credibility of statements on Twitter, Rosie's general goofy behavior on Twitter, and the extreme unlikeliness that anyone would think that a senator would accept and be influenced by a publicly announced direct bribe. A joke/troll/performance art offer doesn't meet the elements of the crime. No rational jury would think this was anything but a joke/troll. No crime. There you have it! A stupid tweet, but probably not a crime. Meanwhile, at JVL's house... I've never been to Jonathan V. Last's house, but a reliable source tells me this video is his Christmas display. I'm so lonely... Charles C.W. Cooke, at National Review, has a response to David Frum. This is because earlier in the week, he had an item critical of Jennifer Rubin. His response to Frum concludes with what a lot of folks on the right think: This is a variation on a jab with which Frum will presumably be familiar: That anybody who dissents from the group is a coward, probably in pursuit of a cocktail-party invitation. Here, as elsewhere, it is pathetic and it is cheap. But it is also extremely funny. There is nothing “hazardous” about Rubin’s approach. On the contrary: It is entirely safe. Everyone knows what “team” Jenifer Rubin is on, just as they know what “team” David Frum is on. We all know, in advance, what Rubin will write, as we know in advance what Frum will write. She — and he — now have in-built networks, and, judging by the number of Frum’s Twitter followers, they are thriving in them. The lonely position to take is the other one: The one that takes its adherents all over the place in skeptical pursuit of the truth. Want to talk about “fear of an audience” as Frum so blithely does? Try upsetting everyone—all the time. Try being the “Trump hater” to the Right, but the “Trump enabler” to the Left. Contrary to Frum’s insinuation, this is not a lucrative approach, nor an easy one. But it’s the right one for anyone who wishes to keep his soul. It's not easy being a Trump skeptic. —Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editor Please feel free to send us comments, thoughts and links to dailystandard@weeklystandard.com. -30- | 