By Mike Huckabee
October 31, 2021
|
|
THE SUNDAY STANDARD By Mike Huckabee
Good morning! Here are some stories from me that I think you will want to read.
THE LATEST
1. AOC CHALLENGER EMERGES: It may seem like an impossible dream, but AOC has a challenger in New York’s 14th House District who might actually have a chance to boot the media’s favorite socialist fashionista out of Congress.
https://www.westernjournal.com/person-win-aoc-just-entered-race-left-panic/
Like AOC, this person is Hispanic and even a former bartender – but that’s where the similarities end. Desi Cuellar’s parents fled Cuba to escape the socialism that AOC is so enamored with. He knows what it’s like to be poor, work hard and even be homeless, but he refuses to blame America for his early struggles or play victim. He even joined the National Guard because, he says, he “wanted to do more for my country.”
Cuellar said, “I am proof that opportunity exists for anyone in this country, that America is worth fighting for, that our values and our constitutional rights set us apart from the rest of the world. But my opponent AOC is doing everything she can to undo what countless Americans have died to preserve.”
He says, “As a New Yorker, I’m sick and tired of seeing AOC use our city as a launching pad for her socialist agenda.” He’s made a hard-hitting ad that can be seen at the link above. I wish him all the luck in the world.
It might seem like an insurmountable task, since AOC got 71% of the vote in 2020. But note that the 14th District has a population of nearly 700,000, and AOC’s total vote was less than 153,000. There are a lot of people there who didn’t bother to vote. Let’s hope Cuellar can inspire them to go to the polls and remind them that they elect someone to Congress to represent their beliefs and interests, not those of Bernie Sanders, Karl Marx or Fidel Castro.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I READ THEM!
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
MORE NEWS
2. UPDATE ON CRUEL BEAGLE STUDIES UNDER FAUCI: WE GOT IT RIGHT:
In a world full of fake news, we on the HUCKABEE team are dismayed on the very rare occasions when we hear we might possibly have trafficked in it, however inadvertently. But then our dismay fades away when we find out we really were on the right track after all. This is one of those occasions.
A reader named Dobbin C. wrote to say, “Governor, you are really disappointing me. You continue to promulgate the fake news about the testing on beagles. You cannot in good conscience criticize the other side by sensationalizing fake news when you are doing it, too.”
Dobbin likely read the “fact”-check by POLITIFACT that rated the claim that Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was funding certain cruel beagle studies “mostly false.” Guess it’s time to fact-check the “fact”-checkers again.
First, let’s go back to what we actually said: that it had been “reported” that while Dr. Fauci was running the NIAID, it gave $400,000 to fund the cruel experiments involving beagles and sandflies, and that some people were very upset about it. Here’s the quote from the morning newsletter for October 27: “Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing bipartisan fury and the hashtag @ArrestFauci is trending after it was reported that under his leadership, the NIH gave $400,000 in funding for medical experiments in which beagle puppies endured months of horrific, torturous treatment, then were killed.”
This is true. We did not engage in “sensationalizing” this story. We did not accuse Dr. Fauci of personally signing off on these experiments, as many probably did, nor did we even imply it. We didn’t even claim that the NIAID had funded these experiments, only that reports of it were making people mad. What we said was true.
Here is the story we linked to from FOX NEWS. They handled the story correctly as well, referring to “allegations” against the doctor and the Institute.
I do like that they also included this link to another Fauci story, though.
We linked to a list of other cruel animal studies that to our knowledge the “fact”-checkers have not addressed, and also to a related and correct story about PETA calling on Dr. Fauci to resign. This is true; they have. Again, we never accused Dr. Fauci or the NIAID of funding these studies.
Now, let’s look at what POLITIFACT said to refute the story. They reported that NIAID said it “did not fund one of the studies.” (“ONE OF” the studies?) Apparently that study was the one from the photograph that has been widely circulated, the one from Tunisia of the two anesthetized beagles with their heads enclosed so sandflies could eat them. (I’ms so sorry even to have to talk about something this disturbing, but that’s what it was.) However, there were two other studies –- one of which also involved the cutting of the dogs’ vocal cords and euthanizing them at the end –- that they say they DID fund. So we would say that POLITIFACT is really splitting hairs here.
According to POLITIFACT, “the NIAID said all animals used in NIH-funded research are protected by laws, regulations and policies that were followed in these studies.”
POLITIFACT goes on to quote some of the more sensationalized tweets about Dr. Fauci, terrible names he was called, etc. Again, we did not engage in any of that. They mention inaccuracies in “some reports and social media postings.” That wouldn’t be us, either.
While we were looking into this, we found something very interesting about dogs used in American medical research and are including it to provide some interesting historical perspective on the cruel beagle studies currently in the news. American tax dollars have apparently been funding extremely cruel experiments on dogs, particularly beagles, for a very long time. Researchers find that the beagle is a breed particularly suited to experimentation because of "its size and long life."
There's even such a thing as the "Beagle Data Congress," where in 2010, researchers discussed their “Beagle Dog Experiments” researching the effects of atomic radiation. An earlier project called "the Argonne Beagle Dog Experiments" was carried out on 5,000 very unlucky beagles from 1952 to 1991 and supported by grants from the Atomic Energy Commission. There were 15 "unique" (and uniquely horrifying) studies that involved blasting beagles with radiation and documenting the effects.
For example, 295 beagles were subjected to "continuous external co-60 gamma-ray exposure continued until death." Another study was called "Leukemogenesis: duration-of-life gamma irradiation of young adult beagles." And 298 beagles were given "gamma ray exposure during pregnancy," to learn the effects of radiation on the developing puppies. Good grief.
Poor Snoopy.
http://janus.northwestern.edu/nira/index.php/Beagle_Dog_Experiments
Here's more information on the Argonne National Laboratory. If you thought this place was in France, you were wrong. It's in Argonne, Illinois. It’s an American lab with, as far as we can tell, American funding.
http://janus.northwestern.edu/nira/index.php/Argonne_National_Laboratory
So when the NIAID says the dogs in their experiments are “protected by laws, regulations and policies that were followed in these studies,” what does that even mean? That it’s “policy” to cut dogs’ vocal cords when their cries of pain are too loud? Because that’s what they did. It’s time for their “policies” to change.
Anyway, we stand by everything we’ve had to say on this, and we actually appreciate the letter from Dobbin, misguided as it was, as it gave us an opportunity to clarify and update the actual story: Yes, the AIAID has had to admit that it does fund cruel research studies on dogs, just not the one in the picture.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM!
America the Beautiful
This feature returns with images of America's cities, landscapes and people.
3. PAT REEDER: TOO MANY OBITUARIES: I’m sad to have to report the deaths of four popular show business figures over the past week. We extend our condolences to all their families.
Actor James Michael Tyler, best known as Central Perk coffee shop owner Gunther on “Friends,” died Sunday in Los Angeles at 59 of prostate cancer that spread to his bones.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/friends-actor-james-michael-tyler-dies-at-59
He was working as an actual barista when he was hired as an extra on “Friends” because he knew how to work an espresso machine. It took two years and 33 episodes before he got a name and his first line. The show’s creators liked him so much, they gave him his own story line about his unrequited love for Rachel and remembered him as “a genuinely kind, sweet man.”
He appeared on the “Friends” reunion in May, but only by Zoom because he didn’t want to “bring a downer” on the show. He devoted his last days to promoting prostate cancer exams. He said his goals were to reach his 59th birthday, which he did, and to at least save one life.
Comic actor Peter Scolari has died at 66 after a two-year battle with leukemia.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/peter-scolari-bosom-buddies-newhart-actor-dead
Scolari first came to fame on the short-lived ABC sitcom “Bosom Buddies,” where he and Tom Hanks played two guys who had to dress as women to keep their apartment, back when we were still allowed to laugh at that. It was originally conceived as a male “Laverne & Shirley,” but not literally. The creators made the mistake of comparing it to a Billy Wilder comedy during the pitch to ABC. Asked to name one of those, they said “Some Like It Hot.” So ABC bought it only on condition that it be retooled to include men in drag. In the second season, they moved away from that and got back to the original premise.
The sitcom allowed for lots of ad-libbing by Scolari and Hanks, who had great comic chemistry. But while Hanks went on to become a superstar, Scolari remained a working actor, constantly appearing in various TV and stage shows. He was nominated for an Emmy three times for “Newhart” and won for a guest role on “Girls.” He and Hanks remained lifelong friends. They reunited on Broadway in 2013 in the play “Lucky Guy,” and Scolari appeared in the Hanks-directed movie, “That Thing You Do.”
Composer/lyricist/playwright Leslie Bricusse died last week at 90. He wrote or co-wrote a number of hit songs that have become standards, many with his partner, singer/actor Anthony Newley, back in the days when Broadway scores birthed pop hits.
Some of his songs include “Gonna Build a Mountain,” “Once in a Lifetime” and “What Kind of Fool Am I?” (the 1963 Grammy-winning Song of the Year) from the Broadway show, “Stop the World, I Want To Get Off;” “Who Can I Turn To,” “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” and “Feeling Good” (recently made ubiquitous by the “American Idol” crowd) from “Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd;” “My Kind of Girl;” “Can You Read My Mind” from “Superman;” “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man” from “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory;” “When I Look In Your Eyes” and Best Song Oscar winner “Talk to the Animals” from “Dr. Doolittle;” “If I Ruled the World” from the musical “Pickwick;” and “Le Jazz Hot” from “Victor/Victoria.” And in the era when people actually looked forward to the next James Bond movie, he co-wrote with John Barry the themes from “You Only Live Twice” and “Goldfinger.”
If you’d like to learn more, Mark Steyn’s latest “Song of the Week” podcast is about “Goldfinger.”
https://www.steynonline.com/11807/goldfinger
And finally (I hope, for a long time), Jay Black, lead singer of Jay & The Americans, has died at 82 of complications from pneumonia. The group opened for the Beatles on their first US tour and scored 21 chart hits in the '60s, including “Come A Little Bit Closer,” “Only In America,” “Cara Mia” and hit covers of the Drifters’ “This Magic Moment” and the Ronettes’ “Walkin’ In The Rain.” Trivia: Black’s real name was David Blatt, but he changed it to Jay Black when he took over from the band’s original lead singer, Jay Traynor.
4. SPECIAL COUNSEL UPDATE: DURHAM'S INVESTIGATION IS EXPANSIVE:
Following George Stephanopoulos’ laughable attempt last weekend to resuscitate Christopher Steele, multiple investigative reporters came out last week to further discredit Steele’s work and to analyze what Special Counsel John Durham revealed in his “speaking indictment” of Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann.
The Sephanopoulos/Steele interview aired by ABC "News" was actually part of an hour-long “documentary” produced for HULU called “OUT OF THE SHADOWS: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier.” I’ll just tell you right now, we have not been able to bring ourselves to watch. I know my slogan is, “We read the news so you don’t have to,” but neither I nor my staff can stand the idea of sitting through it. Life is too short, and there is too much real, serious investigation to keep up with.
So we should thank California Rep. Devin Nunes, who headed the House Intelligence Committee during their investigation of “Crossfire Hurricane,” for making himself watch the whole blasted thing, which he calls “entirely fiction.” For “ABC News to put out something like that is just bizarre,” he said, quipping that ABC should move their headquarters to Fantasyland at its parent company’s Walt Disney World.
Nunes suspects the media don’t really still believe what Steele said about Trump is true, but that “there’s something more nefarious going on.” He said he has “no idea, you know, what’s behind this –- the timing, the release of this. That anybody would be defending Steele or those dossiers...at this point is an absolute joke.”
He has confidence that Durham is doing “a real investigation,” but he’s concerned that it might not continue, “because we know DOJ is completely politicized.”
So, will Durham be able to continue looking into the FBI’s investigation (“investigation”) of the Clinton Foundation? During AG Merrick Garland’s cringeworthy testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, he avoided saying. As part of his larger investigation of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane,” Durham has been looking into whether donors to the Clinton Foundation got special treatment from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/21/garland-wont-say-whether-special-counsel-durham-st/
Garland was asked specifically if Durham would continue free of political influence, but he skirted that question. He did say that because budgetary provisions are public, we “would know if he weren’t continuing his work.” Hey, thanks, Mr. Attorney General!
John Solomon at JUST THE NEWS followed up in detail after the ABC interview, saying that Steele’s main source and even his friends undercut his claims of “professionalism.” Steele’s work was anything but.
Of course, we already knew that the FBI had had to terminate him as a “confidential human source” because he had leaked to the media. Some professionalism.
What’s especially interesting about this latest news from Solomon is that it sheds light on how much information came to Durham from the lawsuit filed against Steele by Alfa Bank, the financial institution wrongly implicated in that story of computer servers "pinging" between their offices and Trump Tower. (Alfa Bank prevailed in that lawsuit.) Steele’s own legal team gave statements in a London courtroom stressing that the dossier was not verified, that much of its information was not corroborated and that he suffered from “strong anti-Trump biases.”
“It is raw intelligence,” they said last year. “It is the basis for further investigation by the recipients. So to put the bar too high in terms of establishing accuracy at that stage would be quite wrong in principle.”
“We can say,” they also stated, “the critical consideration is that his confidential human intelligence was not factual evidence to be used in a personal or public report or in court or anything like that...It was raw intelligence to be passed on as part of a much bigger intelligence picture.”
Someone should have told that to then-CIA Director John Brennan, back when he was insisting the dossier be included in the intelligence agencies’ assessment of Trump’s so-called “Russia” connections. One wonders why he treated such an easily discredited piece of fiction as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls.
And as for the “much bigger intelligence picture,” we know that, despite what Brennan has tried to claim, the dossier was the cornerstone for “Crossfire Hurricane.” The FBI would not have gotten the warrant to spy on Carter Page without it; in fact, they had been turned down for a similar warrant before.
Solomon’s commentary includes links to the pdf’s of relevant testimony from the Alfa Bank case. He’s got footnotes from our own intelligence community discrediting the dossier (Brennan obviously wasn’t listening). He’s even got pdf’s of the FBI’s notes from their interview with Steele’s primary sub-source, who called it “bar talk and gossip.”
Judicial Watch unearthed still more documents that undercut Steele. JW President Tom Fitton told JUST THE NEWS he was dismayed that ABC News would be lending credibility to the dossier now. “I was disappointed that ABC...gave him, you know, more time to spread this disinformation,” Fitton said. “...He’s been, in my view, thoroughly debunked by official and unofficial investigations, documents you’ve uncovered, we’ve uncovered, the IG has uncovered.”
Bruce Ohr at the Justice Department –- wife of Nellie Ohr who did research for Fusion GPS –- warned that it was unverified raw intelligence and that Steele seemed “desperate” to defeat Trump.
Even former National Security Council expert Fiona Hill –- remember her from Trump’s impeachment? –- who is the person who introduced Steele to his sub-source (thanks, Fiona!), dismissed the dossier as a “rabbit hole,” likely Russian disinformation mixed in with other information that might or night not have been true.
Solomon links to a pdf of a recently declassified FBI re-interview with Steele himself, along with business partner Christopher Burrows, acknowledging his anti-Trump bias in the fall of 2017. The FBI had to know good and well what they were dealing with.
Solomon links to much more –- he characterizes this as an “avalanche” –- that shows Steele and his work for exactly what they were. And yet when Steele sat down with Stephanopoulos, he admitted only that the dossier was not “100 percent” and defended it. It’s shameful that ABC “News” did this horrid piece of “journalism.”
As for Michael Sussmann, he’s not looking too impressive, either. Durham has filed an opposition to his motion for a bill of particulars, arguing that his 27-page “speaking indictment” more than adequately informs him of the charges he faces.
https://technofog.substack.com/p/john-durham-gears-up-against-the
TechnoFog has deciphered Durham’s reply and thinks subpoenas will be going to the DNC, the Hillary Campaign/Hillary for America, Georgia Tech University and the team of cyber experts working on the Alfa Bank hoax, Fusion GPS, and “numerous companies” involved with “Tech Executive – 1,” identified as Rodney Jaffe.
This and much more leads him to think the perpetrators in the Alfa Bank hoax will be charged and that the investigation is much more expansive. He brings up CrowdStrike as well –- referencing, in fact, the article at REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS by Aaron Mate that we brought you a few days ago. A close look at CrowdStrike would “strike” at the heart of what the DNC was up to with the Russia Hoax.
For more on this, here’s a colorful piece from John Solomon.
James Bond or Austin Powers? Inside the cloak and dagger caper to spread Russia collusion tale
6. QUESTION: WHY WEREN'T RINGLEADERS IN CAPITOL HILL BREACH ARRESTED?:
Who thinks Nancy Pelosi’s “9/11-style commission” to investigate what happened on Capitol Hill last January 6 is actually there to fact-find? Me, neither. But I’ll tell you who's doing some first-rate investigation and reporting on the security breach at the Capitol building, and it’s not congressional Democrats or this administration’s Department of “Justice.”
It’s REVOLVER NEWS. But what they seem to be uncovering does not fit with the narrative Democrats want to maintain. In fact, it’s what they want to hide.
An Arizona man named Ray Epps, a Marine sergeant allegedly involved in the group the Oath Keepers, clearly was acting as a provocateur the evening before the rally. According to the REVOLVER report, “...Epps was insistent that everyone stay focused on a common mission: storming the Capitol. On multiple livestreams, Epps moves from group to group throughout the plaza barging in and insisting everyone ‘stay focused’ on ‘what we’re here for’ --- which he would then explain meant going inside the U.S. Capitol building. When asked to give a reason for his crazy plot, Epps would continually fall back on his catch-all rationale: ‘It’s about the Constitution.’” People in a couple of the groups he gave his little pep talk to even suggested that he might be “a Fed.”
You’d think that if the FBI were rounding up suspects to hold them for many months without bail, essentially as political prisoners, one person very close to the top of their list, if not THE top, would be this guy. But no. They had him on their “most wanted” list for a while, but when REVOLVER NEWS came out with their first big story, he was dropped off the list.
Not only did the FBI do that, but the day after REVOLVER ran another story on Stuart Rhodes, also of the Oath Keepers, they scrubbed Epps’ face from their database. Rhodes, like Epps, remains unindicted to this day, while others who might have just walked into the Capitol Building to take a selfie are languishing in solitary, some reportedly unable even to talk with their attorneys.
The videos of Epps, seen pretty widely on Twitter, show him talking with Trump supporters the evening of January 5, repeatedly encouraging them to enter the Capitol Building the day of the rally. He’s saying in a voice that cuts through the background noise, “I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested. I’ll say it. We need to go into the Capitol.”
And now, the irony is that Epps seems to be one of relatively few people identified as having been involved in the security breach who WEREN’T arrested. But also unindicted are people who worked with him the day of the rally to, in the words of the REVOLVER team, “carry out a breach of the police barricades that induced a subsequent flood of unsuspecting MAGA protesters to unwittingly trespass on Capitol restricted grounds and place themselves in legal jeopardy.”
To give a little perspective, Epps was not even arrested, while another Oath Keeper, a Green Beret veteran named Jeremy Brown, is even now behind bars, bail denied until trial, simply for standing 100 feet too close to the Capitol steps. It hardly seems possible that the government isn’t protecting Epps.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about Epps’ activities during Garland’s recent hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, playing some of the video for him of Epps talking up the idea of going inside the Capitol. Unfortunately, it was played on a very small screen that Rep, Massie was holding, but the audio of Epps telling people they need to go inside the Capitol the next day is unmistakable.
Massie informed Garland that the same person who was doing this the night before the rally was actually directing people to the Capitol during the rally. Then he asked Garland if he –- after “one of the most sweeping investigations in history,” as Garland had called it –- had seen this video. Garland avoided the question with the old “we don’t comment on pending investigations” dodge. His deflection did have an extra dash of creativity, though, with Garland also saying it’s one of the “norms” of the Justice Department not to comment on “particular scenes or particular individuals.”
“I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6,” Massie said to Garland. “Can you tell us without talking about particular videos how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 6? Whether they agitated to go into the Capitol? And if any of them did?”
Garland would not address this at all. “I’m not going to violate this norm of the rule of law,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on investigation that’s ongoing.”
If Garland had wanted to allay Republicans’ concerns that the feds might have actively encouraged Trump supporters to breach the Capitol building, this would have been the perfect time to do it, with a denial. On the other hand, if Epps and others actually were working undercover as agents to make sure the “insurrection” happened, the excuse Garland cited would be a very convenient “norm” indeed.
For when you have time, REVOLVER NEWS has put together an amazing piece of investigative journalism. It’s quite long and detailed, but highly recommended. (If it’s too exhaustive, at least skip down to the conclusion.) I’ll just tell you that Ray Epps is not the only one who played an extremely active role in the breach but was mysteriously never arrested. To cite another striking example, another Marine veteran, still unidentified but called “MaroonPB,” was going around using the same “It’s about the Constitution” line as Epps did. He also removed barricades and entered Senate offices during the breach itself, armed with bear mace. No arrest for him. Not even an identification, though he is maskless and beautifully photographed, in such a way that shows off his distinctive knuckle tattoos.
The team at REVOLVER NEWS say they're just getting started. Look at everything they’ve uncovered so far, and it suggests the FBI has a way of actually becoming the thing it purportedly hates. In this case, it might even have caused, or helped cause, the Trump “insurrection” narrative needed so desperately by leftists to prime Trump for impeachment #2 and tar his supporters as "domestic terrorists." (Note: that does NOT excuse the Trump supporters who got swept into it and caused incalculable damage to the conservative cause.) We know the FBI helped fake the Russia Hoax; who knows what else they might have faked?
HYMNAL: "BEAUTIFUL SAVIOR"
Listen: https://youtu.be/kSkLFZn8RGg
1 Beautiful Savior, King of creation,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Truly I'd love Thee, truly I'd serve thee,
Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown.
2 Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands,
Robed in flow'rs of blooming spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;
He makes our sorr'wing spirit sing.
3 Fair is the sunshine, Fair is the moonlight,
Bright the sparkling stars on high;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels in the sky.
4 Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, Praise, adoration,
Now and forevermore be Thine!
By Joseph Augustus Seiss
For past editions of my morning newsletter, please visit my website here.
For more of my news coverage, visit my website here.
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.