A BRIEF HISTORY OF POTTY MOUTH PRESIDENTS: Bet you can’t guess who gets the top spot.

WILL CLINTON FOUNDATION FRAUD COST GATES FOUNDATION, WARREN BUFFETT BILLIONS? At LifeZette, Charles Ortel explains why if you are reading this and you are an attorney or accountant for a private foundation that’s donated to the Clinton Foundation, three phrases should come to mind: “Due Diligence,” “taxable expenditures” and “material changes.” Same goes for folks in places like Great Britain, France, Sweden and Australia (just to name a few of many).

LAURA INGRAHAM TO SHERIFF JOE: “You’ll be 91 after your first term is up!” Former Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced his candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jeff Flake earlier this week. He is 85 years old.

Today on Ingraham’s radio show, he all but vowed eternal loyalty to President Donald Trump and declared his confidence in the Chief Executive’s negotiating skills in dickering with congressional Democrats on DACA, chain migration and immigration lottery. Amazing how a presidential pardon can soften up a hardliner.

ANOTHER REASON FOR THE WALL – THE FEDS MISS TOO MANY BAD GUYS ON THE BORDER: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials missed really bad guys in all 40 screening cases reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General. Many of them were national security risks of the highest order.

HILLARY MISHANDLED HUNDREDS OF CLASSIFIED DOCS AND SKATED. THIS GUY GOT JAIL: Kristian Saucier took some private photos of the nuclear sub on which he formerly served, presumably to show family members and to keep for old time’s sake. Hillary Clinton put hundreds of highly classified official U.S. government docs on her private server. Saucier got jail, she got to run for president. This is equal justice under law? Check out Saucier’s answer.

LIBERAL DEMS TRYING TO PROTECT TAX BREAK FOR THEIR WEALTHY DONORS: Yes, it’s probably all but impossible to believe but liberal Democrats in big blue states like California and New York are feverishly seeking ways around the recently enacted tax reform measure’s cap on the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT). It turns out, according to LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby, that the biggest beneficiaries of SALT are wealthy tax filers with big mortgages and other properties, plus high individual rates. And in a Blue State, those filers tend to be donors to liberal Democrats. Purely coincidental, right?

CONVENTIONAL POLITICAL WISDOM THINKS TRUMP IS IN TROUBLE – WRONG!!: Actually, it’s those who are prisoners of the conventional political wisdom who are in trouble. And it’s Trump who understands the new paradigm underlying American political flow – populist conservatism. You don’t have to agree with that proposition to find the analysis in “What Trump is Doing Right” by LifeZette White House Correspondent Jim Stinson worth pondering.

UPDATE: My apologies, dear readers, for inserting the wrong link earlier this morning. The 14 concealed carry pistols page was something I was looking at earlier this morning, for the obvious reason. Not sure how it happened, but the link is corrected now.

CONSERVATIVES IN UPROAR ON TRUMP’S ‘BRING BACK EARMARKS’ COMMENT: President Donald Trump mused during today’s White House meeting with Republican and Democrat congressional figures that back in the good old days when congressmen could be bought and stayed bought for the right (earmark) price (OK, that’s not exactly how it was said but cut me a little Wolffian slack here), there was a lot more bipartisanship. It took about three nanoseconds for leaders of the fight a decade ago to abolish earmarks to roast Trump.

‘MORNING JOE’ ACTUALLY CLAIMED MEDIA COULDN’T TALK ABOUT TRUMP’S MENTAL STATE: Until, that is, Michael Wolff came out with his increasingly discounted book and claimed everybody around the chief executive thinks he’s losing/lost it between the ears. LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst points to multiple instances when Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski speculated at length on whether Trump is mentally stable. Reminds me of advice I read long, long ago at the dawn of the blog age: “Go ahead and claim it; we’ll fact-check your a–.”

MEA CULPAS ARE A BITCH, JUST ASK STEPHEN K. BANNON: When President Donald Trump said of his former White House strategist that he “lost his mind” when he lost his job at the Chief Executive’s right side, it marked one of the most definitive such repudiations in American political history. Today Bannon seeks a way back into Trump’s good graces with multiple apologies. Curious that he gave his statement exclusively to, of all publications, Axios.

ELITES CAN’T BELIEVE TRUMP ACTUALLY WILL DEFEND AMERICA: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is amused by the reactions up and down the Northeast Corridor to President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate U.S. aid to Pakistan.

“It has so thoroughly shocked the elites that we actually are going to protect America, and defend America, and that we’re actually going to render judgment,” Gingrich told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interviewed aired on 970 AM. “That is such a shocking moment for a lot of our elites that they don’t know how to deal with it.” LifeZette political reporter Kathryn Blackhurst pulls together multiple comments on the same theme by Gingrich, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and British Prime Minister Teresa May.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE HOW MICHAEL WOLFF EXPLAINS HIS WHITE HOUSE ACCESS: Asked by NBC Meet The Press Host Chuck Todd about how he gained entrance to the President and other White House officials, the “Fire and Fury” author offered a rambling account full of generalizations. LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst has the ugly details.

CONSERVATIVES’ MEMO TO CONGRESS – YOU STILL GOTTA KILL OBAMACARE: It shouldn’t have to be said but a large group of influential conservative activist groups know Republicans leading Congress need to be reminded over and over – they promised for seven years to repeal Obamacare, so what are they waiting for now, eight years later?

LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby points out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has his mind on other matters: “McConnell has sent conflicting signals in recent weeks. He told National Public Radio before Christmas that the Senate would ‘probably move on to other issues.’ Later, he told reporters at his end-of-the-year news conference that he would commit to a vote on a plan offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) if they can get enough support. ‘I wish them well,’ he said.”

In other words, get lost. That could be the message voters send McConnell and other Republicans of like mind, come November.

WHAT IS MICHAEL WOLFF SMOKING? Wolff claims in his new book that Trump and his top campaign officials expected to lose, some even wanted to lose. LifeZette’s Jim Stinson did a Pinata Google Search (i.e. blindfolded) and found three huge examples Wolff missed. Or are Wolff and his publisher just playing us all for fools so we’ll buy the book? Nah, they wouldn’t do that. Would they?

HERE’S WHY THERE MAY BE NO MORE FREE PASSES FOR THE CLINTON FOUNDATION: Charles Ortel may know more about the Clinton Foundation than even anybody other than the tightest inner circle of what he calls “the biggest charitable fraud ever.” News of the renewed Justice Department review of the foundation may just be, he writes on LifeZette, the latest indication that the clock is ticking on Bill and Hillary’s favorite charity.

IS ABORTION OR BIRTH CONTROL WHY U.S. PREGNANCY RATE IS DECLINING? A Middlebury College professor says the data shows its mostly the easy availability of abortion. Others think near-universal access to birth control is the culprit. Still others say there is no one cause but rather a bunch of related factors. Whatever the reason, declining birth rates in Western nations is a huge worry. Or should be.

DID HELL FREEZE OVER OR WAS THIS HOUSE DEM PRAISING TRUMP MISQUOTED? I know it’s frigidly cold all over the country – so cold, according to Sen. Charles Grassley that politicians are keeping their hands in their own pockets! – but did this very liberal House Democrat really just praise President Trump on North Korea?

THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL: Internal Chinese government document shows Beijing really is playing the U.S. for a fool, telling North Korea not to worry about getting more nukes and reassuring Pyongyang that China will continue supplying critical resources. In other words, China’s vote in favor of tougher UN sanctions against North Korea meant absolutely zilch.

DOES ‘EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW’ REALLY APPLY TO THE CLINTONS? Judging by what happened in 2017 to former Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida and Kristian Saucier of the U.S. Navy, and James Comey’s Get Out of Jail card in 2016 for the former Secretary of State, the answer would appear to be no. If that is confirmed in 2018, let’s not hear another word from the Left about equality because they’ve enabled the Clintons for nearly three decades.

VIRTUALLY EVERY DAY OF 2016, SOMEBODY IN DOJ DC WAS GIVING MONEY TO HILLARY: More than 2,600 individual donations were to the Clinton campaign by donors who listed the Department of Justice or one of its elements, like the FBI, as their employers. Their contributions totaled more than $416,000. Trump got a little more than $20,000 from a mere 61 such employees.

Only 268 of them lived in the Washington, D.C. but their combined total of more than $242,000 was half of all the DOJ/FBI donors to Clinton. That’s a drop in the bucket of $1.2 billion that Clinton spent in losing to Donald Trump but the huge gulf between DOJ backers of Clinton and Trump sheds additional light on why congressional Republicans are raising a growing stink about partisan bias in DOJ and the FBI.

CAN A CASE BE MADE THAT TRUMP IS OUT-GIPPERING THE GIPPER? Check out these five ways President Donald Trump shook up Washington in 2017, then compare them with President Ronald Reagan’s first-year record. Reagan cut taxes, scared the Iranian Mullahs so much they quickly released 52 American hostages they’d held hostage for more than a year, began reversal of the Carter-era defense readiness decline and launched major spending and regulatory reforms. Speaking as a former Reagan political appointee, I have to say Trump is, at the very least, following very closely in the Gipper’s hallowed footsteps.

MAYBE THIS EXPLAINS THE APPARENT (to be charitable) DOJ/FBI COVERUP ON CLINTON EMAIL WHITEWASH? Turns out that Hillary Clinton got contributions totaling more than $381,000 in 2016 campaign contributions.

Trump? Just 24 DOJ employees sent his campaign a piddling total of $12,535. No wonder they’ve been stalling  the House Select Committee on Intelligence on its August 2017 request for documents related to the Clinton email probe and related matters?

Those data reflect only contributors who specifically listed DOJ as their employer. There may well be many more Trump or Clinton donors who didn’t list DOJ as their employer, since giving your occupation is voluntary.

HERE COME THREE HUGE,  UNEXPECTED SURPRISES FOR THE “EXPERTS” IN 2018: If yours truly has learned anything living in Washington, D.C. since 1976, it’s that when you need to know where the country is headed in the near future, check the conventional wisdom among America’s political, academic and media elites, then expect the opposite to occur. Here are three major examples. And boy are there going to be some dumbfounded swamp creatures in coming months.

WHAT IF THE SWAMP IS TOO HUGE TO BE DRAINED? That’s something lots of readers may ask after reviewing Open The Books’ “Mapping The Swamp” report on the true size and cost of the “administrative state” that is the federal Leviathan. As always, Adam Andrzejewski, Open The Books indefatigable chief, drew the report from data required to be made public by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, co-sponsored by senators Tom Coburn, R-Ok., and Barack Obama, D-Ilin.

MORE PROOF THAT LITTLE THINGS CAN HAVE HUGE CONSEQUENCES: A pay raise of 2.29 percent in 2018 might seem rather insignificant. But if you live in a county with a median household income of $125,900, it means you will have an additional $2,883 in your paycheck, starting New Year’s Day.

That 2.29 percent is the amount of the Locality Pay raise for federal workers living in the Washington, D.C. region.  Feds living in nearby Howard County, Md., Falls Church, Va., Fairfax, Va. and Arlington, Va., will also get that percentage. Washington, D.C., you will recall, is the ultimate company town and the company is “bureaucracy.”

Oh, there’s one more thing: Those four jurisdictions are, respectively, first, second, third, fourth and eighth among the top 10 U.S. richest counties, ranked according median household income. Bet you’ve never even heard of Locality Pay, even though you fund it with your taxes. Paying 2.1 million federal bureaucrats (not counting members of the U.S. military) cost you $276 billion last year.