By Mike Huckabee
September 17, 2020
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MORNING EDITION
September 17, 2020
By Mike Huckabee
SUBPOENAS FLY IN WEEKS BEFORE THE ELECTION
It was a ridiculously odd “coincidence” that about 30 phones used by members of Robert Mueller’s special counsel team were completely erased before being turned over to John Durham’s investigation. But the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, headed by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, voted Wednesday to authorize over two dozen subpoenas, and this destruction of government records will definitely be on the agenda.
It’s really kind of funny to read POLITICO’s report on this, as their methods are as transparent as Saran Wrap. Consider that in the opening paragraph, they term this effort “part of a highly partisan, Republican-led investigation targeting former Obama administration officials’ role in the presidential transition period.” Why, it’s “targeting President Trump’s political foes less than 50 days before Election Day.” The story does quote a Republican, though. Mitt Romney.
Democrats called the committee’s probes “inappropriate fishing expeditions,” which I have to say is something they know quite a lot about. Ranking Democrat Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan sent a letter to Sen. Johnson on Monday formally objecting to the subpoenas, accusing Republicans of just trying to help Trump's bid for re-election.
How about calling these efforts what they really are, a possibly last-ditch effort to find out the TRUTH of what has gone on to undermine Donald Trump ever since he announced his candidacy for President? If Democrats (shudder) take the Senate in the coming election, ALL investigations will be shut down faster than you can say "Chuck Schumer." This could be a case of now or never for justice to be done.
At the same time, Sen. Johnson has apparently acknowledged that his committee's effort would help Trump. According to POLITICO, he told a radio host that the probe “would certainly help Donald Trump win re-election and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden.” If this raises your hackles, I would point out that deliberately putting off finding the truth until AFTER the election is, in effect, influencing the election --- just in the other direction, by CONCEALING the truth from voters, who deserve to know. That observation applies to John Durham’s findings as well.
"Our investigation is focused on uncovering and revealing the truth," Sen. Johnson said, “but Democrats seem intent at every turn to frustrate and interfere with our oversight efforts.”
This could get interesting. Those targeted with subpoenas include former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI counsel Lisa Page, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI agent Joe Pientka, former FBI director of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, former UN ambassador Samantha Power, former White House national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith (who has already pleaded guilty to making a false statement after altering a document to lie about Carter Page), former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former top lawyer for the FBI James Baker, top DOJ official Bruce Ohr, Cambridge University professor and FBI “confidential human source” Stefan Halper, and former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. There’s also James Baker, head of the Office of Net Assessment at the Defense Department, which had hired Stefan Halper as a contractor.
Oh, and last but not least, Sidney Blumenthal. Fun times!
Some of the subpoenas do involve Ukraine and Joe and Hunter Biden, as Johnson wants to formally investigate claims made by Andriy Derkach, described by POLITICO as “a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker who was just sanctioned by the Treasury Department for election interference.” In fact, the Treasury Department called him a Russian agent. That must be why Jacob Lew is being subpoenaed.
In another bit of unintentional hilarity, Sen. Chuck Schumer did the (for him) laughably predictable thing and brought up “Russia Russia Russia!” Have you noticed this is always his fall-back? He sought to pass a resolution “calling for a cessation of any Senate investigation or activity that allows Congress to act as a conduit for Russian information." Message to Sen. Schumer: Your act is getting stale.
For a less slanted take on the story than POLITICO’s, I recommend this one.
In related news, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been (finally) busy setting up hearings as well, with chairman Lindsay Graham (finally) announcing that Comey has agreed to testify without a subpoena about “Crossfire Hurricane.”
The scheduled date is September 30. Graham said on Wednesday’s HANNITY show that Comey “will be respectfully treated but asked hard questions.” (I assume they’ve figured out how to get around Comey’s sneaky refusal to renew his own security clearance.) They’re also in negotiation with McCabe and Strzok. (“He’s selling a book,” Graham joked about Strzok. “We will see if he will come without a subpoena.”)
Mueller, however, has already declined to appear voluntarily. He says he “doesn’t have enough time.” He might have a point; judging by his previous testimony, there’s not enough time in the world for him to familiarize himself even with his own report, which it seems someone else wrote and put his name on. But I’d say go with a subpoena for him and anyone else who tries to weasel out. It sure would be nice to get their comments on all those curiously “wiped” phones
GOOD ARTICLE
There’s a good article in the Wall Street Journal, retracing the timeline of the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus to illustrate what a non-story the big Bob Woodward “gotcha” on Trump “downplaying” the dangers actually is. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall, but Instapundit has a lengthy excerpt. If you have a WSJ subscription, you can click through to the entire article, but if not, this will give you the gist.
A NEW PEAK STUPIDITY
Just when you think that the left’s “everything is racist” frenzy has reached peak stupidity (like the recent “Hawaiian shirts are a symbol of white supremacy” story), they manage to shave off a few more IQ points. And so, we now have a couple of Vox writers claiming that you are practicing exclusion, elitism and racism if you think that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a greater musical achievement than, say, Cardi B’s latest rap hit with the unrepeatably filthy title.
I think it’s incredibly appropriate that if you were going to sing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to these writers, you would loudly exclaim, “Dumb-dumb-dumb-duuuuumb! Dumb-dumb-dumb-duuuuuuumb!”
"STUPID" TOO THICK TO CUT WITH A CHAINSAW
Minneapolis City Council members who were pushing to defund and dismantle their own police department are now panicking because they’re getting so many angry calls from voters about the spike in violent crime and no police around to deal with it. Well, to be fair, who could’ve possibly predicted something like this?...
GAFFE CENTRAL
For convenience’s sake, here are Joe Biden’s three big cringeworthy gaffes from Tuesday, all in one article.
One of them (echoing Kamala Harris’ reference to a “Harris-Biden Administration”) is an example of the political definition of “gaffe” (accidentally telling the truth.) As for his confusing Iran and Iraq, I’d say the much bigger point is that he was trying to appeal to veterans by talking about all the soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. If he’s truly concerned about that, shouldn’t he recommend that they vote for Trump, who is bringing peace to the Middle East and returning our troops back home, rather than return to power the very people who kept sending our troops to die with their hands tied by PC “rules of engagement” in endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
THEY WERE WRONG
A hat tip to Stephen Green of PJ Media for reminding us of this typically pompous, condescending and wrongheaded pronouncement by former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry, most recently seen lecturing us at the Democratic Convention about how Trump is totally botching foreign policy. In 2017, Kerry predicted that if Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, it would ignite a violent uprising in the Middle East that nobody would be able to control.
In fact, like everything John Kerry says with utter self-assurance, this was laughably incorrect. There was no violent uprising, Trump has just overseen landmark peace deals between Israel and Bahrain and the UAE, and he says nine more Arab nations may soon join in those deals. Another reminder: Kerry brokered Obama’s brilliant Iran nuclear deal that involved giving the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism billions of dollars in exchange for unenforceable pinky-swear promises that they wouldn’t use it to build nuclear weapons.
And yet none of this record of being wrong-wrong-wrong will penetrate the thick skulls of the media talking heads who continue to tell us that we must restore the Obama-Biden Administration to power because Trump is screwing up our foreign policy by…what, not launching enough pointless wars or enriching our enemies enough? Not getting our troops killed for no reason? Bringing too much peace to the Middle East? Well, electing them again will certainly put a stop to all that!
WRONGTHINK, NEWS UPDATE
While professional football allows players to kneel during the National Anthem and wear the names of felons on their uniforms, Little Miami High School in Morrow, Ohio, suspended two football players (the sons of a firefighter and a police officer) for carrying flags onto the field on 9/11 to honor police and firefighters who died on that date attempting to save others.
The school athletic director claims the boys were punished because they were told they weren’t allowed to do it but did it anyway, and “we did not want to place ourselves in a circumstance where another family might want a different flag to come out of the tunnel, one that may be [one that] many other families may not agree with from a political perspective.”
Judging from all the angry messages the school is getting from the community, there aren’t too many locals who understand why the boys were told they couldn’t do it or why anyone would think that honoring fallen first responders on 9/11 would require some sort of equal time for opposing views.
This again illustrates how too many people running our schools have the “courage” to punish students for daring to express beliefs that leftists oppose, but quake with fear at the idea that leftists might complain about being exposed to beliefs they disagree with. And if one of the beliefs that you find offensive is that we should honor the police and firefighters who heroically gave their lives to save others on the anniversary of September 11th, then I think the correct and proper response to your complaints is “Go pound sand.”
BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY (NIV)
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