Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

As we continue to pray for the people of Ukraine, here’s today’s link to continually-updated news on the Russian invasion:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/zelenskyy-video-cheered-at-pro-ukraine-rallies-across-europe-live-updates

Among the major stories: A U.N. agency estimates that 1.45 million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion began. Russia denied an accusation that it violated a temporary ceasefire to protect safe humanitarian corridors for evacuees. NATO rejected imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, calling it a “painful decision” but saying that NATO has a responsibility not to escalate the conflict into a wider European war by engaging with Russia in the air or on the ground. Putin said that any no-fly zone imposed by a third party would be viewed as “participation in the armed conflict.”

A reminder that with any fast-breaking news from a war zone, some stories will turn out to be incorrect through honest mistakes and others may be spin or outright propaganda. If journalism is the “first draft of history,” then this is a first draft written under an impossible deadline while bombs are going off, so take everything with a grain of salt until it’s confirmed.

It’s hard to believe that Washington, DC, would have to worry about a fertilizer shortage, but that’s the latest serious threat. Russia produces about 13% of the world’s supply of potash, phosphate and nitrogen for fertilizer. Prices are already rising astronomically, and Russia is reportedly considering withholding exports, which could create worldwide food shortages, if other nations continue their crippling sanctions. All that reliance on imports still looking like a good idea?

https://www.westernjournal.com/russia-strikes-back-western-sanctions-threatens-world-food-supply-heinous-move/

In a dramatic show of defiance, the entire staff of Russia’s Dozhd or TV Rain news channel ended their broadcast by walking off the set in protest of the government crackdown on journalists reporting on the invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-news-walks-crackdown-media

Friday, Putin signed a new law that could fine or jail journalists for up to 15 years for reporting "fake" news about the military and invasion that conflicts with statements from Russian officials. This includes using the words “war” or “invasion” to describe the war and invasion. TV Rain has been accused of "inciting extremism, abusing Russian citizens, causing mass disruption of public calm and safety, and encouraging protests" by reporting on the attack on Ukraine.

I’m grateful we live in a nation with free speech and the Bill of Rights to protect us from out-of-control tyrants who would bully the media into helping silence people under the guise of them spreading “misinformation” that might “cause confusion or sow mistrust” in the government. Thank God that could never happen here.

https://news.yahoo.com/surgeon-general-demands-data-covid-162442216.html

In a related story, CNN announced that it will stop broadcasting in Russia due to the new law making it illegal to air “fake news.” Decide for yourselves whether this is a protest or an admission of guilt.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/04/cnn-to-stop-broadcasting-in-russia-and-the-reason-is-hilarious-n1563873

Mike Huckabee

Special counsels can be appointed at the state level, too, and it appears that one in Wisconsin has found evidence to confirm widespread election fraud.

The Wisconsin Assembly appointed Special Counsel Michael Gableman, a retired State Supreme Court justice, to investigate concerns about the 2020 election, and on Tuesday, his office issued its second interim report, which runs 150 pages. In Chapter 7, it confirms the conclusion of the Racine County Sheriff’s Office last fall that fraud occurred at Wisconsin nursing homes.

https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf

It was the sheriff’s investigation that led to this broader one. Sheriff Christopher Schmaling held a press conference last October 28 at which lead investigator Michael Luell presented their findings. (Note that this hour-long press conference got mostly crickets from national media.) Luell explained that under Wisconsin election law, local municipalities must dispatch two special voting deputies, or SVDs, to residential care facilities to supervise the voting. These officials are tasked with personally delivering ballots to residents and witnessing the voting process. Under law, only a relative or an SVD may assist a resident with the voting process. Once the resident has voted, the SVD seals the ballot envelope and delivers it to the elections clerk.

This sounds like a great plan to preserve the chain of custody and discourage undue influence. Unfortunately, the sheriff’s investigation found that the Ridgewood Care Center in Racine violated every one of those requirements. Amazingly, the blame for this can be traced back to the Wisconsin Election Commission, whose members had allegedly taken it upon themselves to tell municipalities not to use the SVD system and to instead just mail ballots to residents. Such a directive would be illegal.

So it was up to staffers to help residents complete their ballots, and according to the sheriff, they “helped” them, all right --- improperly completing sections of the ballots, mishandling ballots and failing to secure them, and going beyond just reading the ballots to actively discussing the elections and candidates. In legal parlance, that is a no-no.

As Sheriff Schmaling said during his press conference, his investigation had covered only the Ridgewood Care Center, when Racine County was home to 11 such facilities, and Racine County is just one of 72 counties. “There are literally hundreds and hundreds of these facilities throughout the state of Wisconsin,” he said. “We would be foolish to think for a moment that this integrity issue, this violation of the statute, occurred to just this small group of people at one care facility in one county in the entire state.”

Several days after their press conference, the Sheriff’s Office announced that they had forwarded their conclusions to District Attorney Patricia Hanson, recommending that five members of the Wisconsin Election Commission be charged with election fraud, including two felony counts. (Only one member was not cited.) Margot Cleveland has details on the specific charges in her report for The Federalist.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/03/wisconsin-special-counsel-finds-widespread-election-fraud-in-2020-nursing-homes/

You can probably guess what happened next, which is to say nothing –- no charges were filed. After several months, DA Hanson concluded that she “lacked jurisdiction” and had no authority to prosecute the commissioners because they don’t live in Racine County and didn’t issue the “allegedly illegal directive doing away with SVD.” So, we're confused, as the sheriff's investigation had concluded they did do that.

And after deciding not to charge the commissioners, Hanson couldn’t very well charge the staff at the nursing homes, could she? She reasoned it this way: “[I]t would be unfair for me to expect these health care professionals would better understand the election law in Wisconsin than the Wisconsin Election Commission.” Never mind that she should have had higher expectations for the WEC; after lowering the bar for them, she was able to lower it even farther for the nursing home staff. Case dismissed!

Here’s some of the fallout as reported by a local news outlet, just a few days before the special counsel dropped his report.

https://journaltimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/four-wis-prosecutors-considering-whether-to-file-charges-against-elections-commissioners/article_b928849a-965f-512a-920c-62f9527b0844.html

Fortunately it didn’t end with that DA, and we now have an eye-opening special counsel report. This would not have happened without the sheriff’s investigation, which had stemmed from a complaint by some individual about potential violations at just one nursing home. Moral: one person speaking up CAN make a difference.

And now, the special counsel apparently has the goods. “Rampant fraud and abuse occurred statewide at Wisconsin’s nursing homes and other residential care facilities,” his report says.

This conclusion came after his investigation of more than 90 nursing homes in five different counties. We’re talking about blatant violations of the election code by nursing home staff and administrators, such as illegal handling of absentee ballots, illegal assistance in marking ballots, illegally “witnessing” the voting, and possible forgery. According to the report, the fraud and abuse resulted ultimately from the unlawful acts of the WEC’s members and staff, because on June 24, 2020, they did issue that directive to mail the ballots to the nursing homes and just follow the rules for regular absentee voting by mail.

The special counsel found “improbably high voting rates” at nursing homes. He was even able to determine that some of the filled-out ballots did not reflect the intent of the nursing home residents. He found suspected forgeries of signatures and votes by people who had been judged incompetent and could not legally vote. He found votes "cast" by people who were unaware of their surroundings and didn’t even know what year it was.

The WEC had tried to use COVID to justify what it had done, saying they didn’t want seniors ”disenfranchised.” Special Counsel Gableman was stern in his assessment of that: “In no way was WEC’s mandating illegal activity a ‘solution’ to ‘disenfranchisement’ and to suggest that WEC’s actions were a good faith effort at doing so ignores the facts and the law.” He went on to point out that the problems he had found, resulting from their directive, WERE examples of disenfranchisement.

Gableman said that to get the full picture of the significance of the fraud, “a state-wide, complete audit of all absentee votes from all facilities” required to use the SVD system is necessary.

In the 2020 election, Wisconsin went for Biden by a margin of just 20,682 votes. Since about 92,000 people reside in Wisconsin nursing homes, the findings of this investigation cast “doubt on the election result” according to the special counsel report. The Wisconsin State Assembly might authorize Gableman to expand his audit, but that’s not official at this writing. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul called the sheriff’s original investigation a “publicity stunt” and is highly unlikely to do anything with this one. That seems like a great reason for voters to show up in droves this fall and boot him out of office.

Incidentally, the report has chapters dealing with other issues in Wisconsin that we’ve discussed before, such as the infusion of money from Mark Zuckerberg and the Center for Tech and Civic Life, and potential violations of law concerning ballot security at dropboxes. Look for social media to flag discussions of this report as heretical and news outlets to trash it (Politico and BuzzFeed already have), even though it’s the product of a special counsel investigation and contains, presumably, facts.

Mike Huckabee

Please continue to pray for the people of Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin’s unconscionable attack has entered its seventh day of escalating force and violence. Sen. Marco Rubio says Russia has launched its largest air assault so far. The mayor of the port city of Mariupol reports mass casualties. So far, over 7,000 Russians have been arrested for protesting the invasion. Fox News has a continually updated page of the latest news, which you can find here:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-day-7

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy called it “beyond humanity” that a Russian air strike destroyed the Holocaust memorial in Kyiv. He had more to say that everyone should read about the horrors and waste that Putin is visiting not only on Ukrainians but on his own troops, 6,000 of whom have already died while attacking their neighbor when they don’t even know why they’re doing it.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/zelenskyy-russian-missile-attack-holocaust-memorial

One bit of good news: that “elite Chechen hit squad” Putin reportedly sent into Ukraine to assassinate President Zelenskyy has been “eliminated.” The Ukrainians got a tip from sources inside Russia’s Federal Security Forces, so apparently, some people in Russia’s government also think their leader has gone off the rails. Thanks to the tip, Ukrainian forces reportedly identified, engaged and destroyed the two Chechen death squad teams.

Mike Huckabee

For those who missed it or want more, here’s a full transcript…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/full-text-biden-state-of-the-union-2022-transcript/ar-AAUunzu

Here’s video of the SOTU Address from whatever dimension it came from…

https://youtu.be/kTPN1sOkWs4

And here are some other reactions by people whose TVs were also apparently picking up the signal from The Twilight Zone. Here’s the Republican response by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds…

https://youtu.be/Ox47VV0olo0

(Incidentally, I don’t think it’s fair that these responses always get slammed for seeming stilted or underwhelming, no matter which party gives them. The speakers have to follow a SOTU with all the pomp, ceremony and mandatory applause and standing ovations, then speak into a camera in an empty room. It’s like being a stand-up comic who has to do his act with no audience.)

I didn’t watch this yet (my brain can only take so much abuse in one night), but here’s Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s SOTU response from the far, far hinterlands of the far left (Hmm, comments have been turned off for this video. Wonder why?)

https://youtu.be/w7z2MTqDon4

Even liberal media outlets had a hard time sounding enthusiastic, although they tried, bless their hearts…

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/03/02/the-liberal-media-reaction-over-bidens-state-of-the-union-was-forced-predictabl-n2603917?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

Spencer Brown at Townhall.com shares eight (only eight?) of the most absurd moments from the SOTU, from Chuck Schumer aborting a standing ovation to Biden warning us that a wall can’t keep out a vaccine to his praise for a “pound of Ukrainian people” who are “ready to fight with every inch of energy they have.” Apparently, they speak a slightly different language in the alternate universe.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/03/02/eight-absurd-moments-from-bidens-first-state-of-the-union-address-n2604012

Kira Davis had the official Redstate.com response:

https://redstate.com/kiradavis/2022/03/02/redstates-official-sotu-response-delivered-by-kira-davis-editor-at-large-n530282

Here are some comments from pundits, plus a CNN instant poll that showed that 41% of viewers had a “very positive” reaction. That sounds good until you learn it’s 10 points lower than last year’s and the lowest “very positive” rating in the past 15 years.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/02/even-cnn-had-to-acknowledge-the-problem-with-the-sotu-numbers-for-biden-n530351

And for those who enjoy conservative snark, scroll to the bottom and read toward the top as you relive the SOTU through the various live-blogs of it at Redstate, Townhall and PJ Media…

https://redstate.com/liveblog/2022/03/01/redstate-live-blogs-joe-bidens-first-state-of-the-union-address-n221

https://townhall.com/liveblog/2022/03/01/townhall-live-blogs-joe-bidens-first-state-of-the-union-n222

https://pjmedia.com/liveblog/2022/03/01/drunkblogging-the-2022-state-of-the-union-address-n219

Mike Huckabee

The polls have Democrats looking forward to the November elections with as much optimism as bugs look forward to a visit from the Orkin man. So between now and then, their friendly media will be trying to gaslight us in all sorts of ways to convince us that they’re not responsible for the messes they’ve created. You’ll be expected to believe that they never went overboard with COVID restrictions, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is responsible for Putin invading Ukraine, and that most Democrats in Washington are patriotic moderates who don’t back the far-left radical ideas pushed by “The Squad.”

When you hear that, remember this:

In a move that some pundits are calling “a gift to Republicans,” Senate “Majority” Leader Chuck Schumer forced a show vote on a bill that would have made it legal to perform abortions at any time. It would have wiped away every state-level protection, making it legal to kill a child in the womb at nine months if a doctor says there’s a risk to the mother’s health -- despite the fact that obstetricians say there’s almost no circumstance under which an abortion at that stage is less dangerous to the mother’s health than birthing the baby.

As of that weren’t radical enough, check out this, from the Fox News write-up:

“The bill also claims that abortion rights qualifies as ‘reproductive justice’ seeking to address ‘systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism.’ While the bill claims that abortion restrictions ‘are a tool of gender oppression,’ it also clarifies that despite using ‘the terms ‘woman’ and ‘women,’’ legislators intend to ‘protect all people with the capacity for pregnancy—cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, those who identify with a different gender, and others—who are unjustly harmed by restrictions on abortion services.’”

That’s right: it’s “racist” to oppose abortion, even though blacks make up 14% of the population but black women get 36% of all abortions. Since Roe v. Wade, about 20 million black babies have been killed by abortion, more than the entire black population of America in 1960.

https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2020/02/25/abortion-the-overlooked-tragedy-for-black-americans/

And here’s now all those “moderate” Democrats voted: The House already passed it 218-211, with every Democrat except Rep. Henry Cuellar supporting it. And in the Senate, it was blocked by filibuster from coming to a vote by 48-46. Six Senators didn’t vote. Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting against it. And Manchin and Bob Casey (who did vote to bring it to debate) were the only Democrats who didn’t co-sponsor it.

How do these allegedly moderate Democrats who sponsored and voted for it compare to average Americans? A recent Marist poll found that only 17% of Americans think abortion should be available at any stage of pregnancy, as do only 31% of Democrats. The Democrats in Congress are so far left, they’re even out of touch with other Democrats.

So when you’re voting in November, unless you’re voting for Joe Manchin or Henry Cuellar, remember that all that talk about moderate Democrats in Congress is, as our President would put it, “malarkey.”

Mike Huckabee

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its sixth day Tuesday, with Putin showing no signs of backing off despite worldwide condemnation, accusations of war crimes, and banking and oil sanctions devastating the Russian economy and sending the ruble plummeting in value. Even Switzerland dropped its famous neutrality and cut off Russian access to Swiss banks.

This is the link for the latest bulletins from Fox News:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-day-6

With his belief that this would be a quick and easy invasion blowing up in his face, Putin seems to be getting more dangerously angry and irrational. He’s even put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. This article by Dennis Santiago at Redstate.com contains valuable information about the relative strengths of the Russian and Ukrainian forces, Putin’s thinking and his tragic miscalculations, and what should be done next to get him to climb down.

https://redstate.com/dennis_santiago/2022/02/28/analysis-as-russias-ukraine-campaign-struggles-the-west-must-neuter-putins-nuclear-threat-n529736

Here are some of the latest developments: The European Union accepted Ukraine’s emergency application for admission, which would allow it access to Europe’s power grid and ally it further with the rest of Europe against Russia.

Satellite images show Russia has sent a 40-mile convoy of “killing machines” to threaten the capital city of Kyiv, and Russia state media are warning of imminent attacks on the city.

Elon Musk sent a shipment of his Starlink Internet terminals to Ukraine at President Zelinsky’s request, to restore Internet access cut off by Russia.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/28/elon-musks-starlink-satellite-internet-terminals-arrive-in-ukraine/

There is a claim that a militia of mercenaries known as the Wagner Group has been flown in from Africa with orders to kill President Zelinsky and other prominent Ukrainians. Key line: “The Kremlin once again denied it has any influence over Wagner and suggested that (its reputed boss Yevgeny) Prigozhin only provides catering services to the Russian government.” I assume that “catering to Putin” means assassinating people.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10559811/Putins-militia-orders-kill-Zelensky-Blood-thirsty-mercenaries-Wagner-Group-revealed.html

The CEO of Shell Oil announced that Shell is cutting its business dealings with Russia and pulling out of the Nord Steam 2 pipeline project.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/shell-is-pulling-out-of-russia-dumping-gazprom-deal

Here’s a photo that went viral that gives you an idea of Putin’s unstable frame of mind.

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2022/02/28/recent-photo-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-suggests-that-theres-something-to-all-those-rumors-that-hes-losing-whats-left-of-his-mind/

And as I always remind you, breaking news from a war zone often is unreliable. It can turn out to be an honest mistake or well-disguised propaganda. For instance, we already mentioned that the Ukrainian troops on Snake Island who defied the Russian warship were captured, not killed as originally reported. We’ve also learned that the former Miss Ukraine hadn’t actually joined the fighting but just posed with a prop rifle in a show of support. But all things considered, I'd still rather have her fighting beside me than Justin Trudeau. There are other stories, too, that we didn’t cover but that have since been debunked or amended. The National Pulse rounds up a few, some of them actually from movies or video games.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/02/28/pro-ukraine-propaganda-floods-social-media/

Kenneth Allard

As he often does, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates succinctly summarized the Ukrainian crisis, telling CNN’s Fareed Zakaria “Our long holiday from history is over.” He should know, having long shaped the structure that suddenly collapsed when Putin savagely invaded an inoffensive, neighboring republic. In a flash, seven decades, innumerable precedents, conventions, untold trillions in defense expenditures, and a pervasive sense of peace vanished in the roar of missiles reaching their targets.

The burning question: How long could the courageous but over-matched Ukrainians hold out before Admiral Nelson’s famous dictum caught up? “Numbers annihilate.”

But from the conflict’s first hours, Ukrainian fighters seemed determined to walk a hero’s path running from Bastogne and the Alamo back to Thermopylae. Thirteen Ukrainian border guards achieved immortality when their wonderfully obscene response to a Russian warship quickly galvanized global websites. There were startling reports of Russian transports being shot down, of armored columns ambushed and destroyed. Yet even as the bristling combined arms force bore down on him, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskiy provided a classic demonstration of courage under fire, coolly dismissing an American attempt to evacuate him. “I need ammunition, not a ride!”

Defying early assumptions of Russian cyber-war, the global info-sphere instead carried resounding messages praising Zelensky and his embattled cohorts, while universally condemning Soviet-style aggression. That’s the thing about genuine heroism: Its blinding light immediately reveals and shames anything less. That is why, as the war grinds into its second week, Vladimir Putin is in real trouble. Not only has the outside world turned against him - the ruble plunging to all-time lows - but internal dissent is growing, thousands of peace demonstrators arrested on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. A star Russian athlete even used his television time to write “No war, please” on the camera lens. Were these people no longer afraid of the gulag and the dreaded secret police?

Far more serious was Putin’s chilling announcement that Russian nuclear forces had been placed on high alert. Was this anything more than an obvious intent to intimidate, invoking the nuclear genie to distract from Russia’s lack of progress on the ground? If so, it didn’t deter Germany - Europe’s center of gravity - from announcing that it would now support the Ukrainian resistance with anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons. Berlin’s stunning reversal - from what had been a deeply ambiguous neutrality - may have been a mortal blow to Putin’s reputation for winning by intimidation. With growing diplomatic and economic reversals now added to military ineffectiveness, there were immediate questions about the strongman’s own survival. Senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice were even wondering about Putin’s mental stability.

So is he crazy or just incapable of making sound decisions? Either way, one looked for answers from Russian history, where popular “elections” mostly ratify previous decisions of the ruling elites. So it was that Nikita Khrushchev, in October, 1962, boldly gambled and placed Soviet missiles in Cuba: but he was forced to withdraw them when confronted by President Kennedy, backed by American military might. Not many months later, Khrushchev was gone, quietly replaced because of his “adventurism” in Cuba. So why should Putin’s fate be any different?

That answer may well depend on the battles now immediately before us. Russia can reinforce its advantages in armor, artillery, hyper-baric rockets and long-range fires to trash major population centers like Kharkov and Kiev - all of it viewed in exquisite detail by an aroused global audience. NATO countries on Ukraine’s borders can reinforce the resistance by covert infiltration routes - also subject to Russian counter-attacks and increasing risks of escalation. The courageous persistence of Ukrainian fighters has already been established: but how long before Nelson’s Law takes effect? Can they win a longer insurgency?

It is a dangerous time, perhaps our most perilous since the Missiles of October, but there is no conceivable way of turning back. Watching these events unfold over this momentous weekend, I kept comparing Putin to the mad Inspector Javert from “Les Miz.” A single tune kept replaying in my mind and perhaps you heard it too:

Do you hear the people sing?

Singing a song of angry men?

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again!

NOTE: Colonel Allard is the author of Command, Control and the Common Defense, winner of the 1991 National Security Book Award. After leaving active duty, he became an on-air military analyst for the networks of NBC News

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Hats off to Irish news interviewer David McCullagh for giving our media a lesson in how to deal with a subject who’s clearly lying to their faces. This article about his interview with Russia’s ambassador to Ireland contains some good background on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, but is also a primer on Russia's phony rationalizations for the invasion and how to destroy them live on air.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/ireland-news-host-rte-mccullagh-russia-ambassador-filatov-ukraine-war-invasion

Here’s an excerpt that’s a textbook example of a lying government official caught dead to rights: The Russian ambassador claims the invasion was “not our choice.” McCullagh fires back, “Your forces have invaded a sovereign nation. It absolutely was your choice.”

“Well, it was not our preferable choice…”

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

I’m sad to have to report that Sally Kellerman, the beautiful, lanky actress with the smoky voice, died Thursday at 84 after a five-year battle with dementia.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/sally-kellerman-dead-hot-lips-houlihan-mash-1235099282/

She made her movie debut in 1957 in the crime drama “Reform School Girl,” and over her long career, appeared in many TV shows, movies and plays, from “That Girl” and “Star Trek” in the ‘60s through “Columbo,” “Evening Shade” and “Murder She Wrote,” all the way up to “The Young and the Restless,” for which she scored a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2015. Her movies included “The Player,” “Brewster McCloud,” “A Little Romance,” “The Boston Strangler” and “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.”

But of course, she will always be remembered for her two most famous roles: Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the original movie version of “M*A*S*H” and the teacher Rodney Dangerfield fell for in the classic comedy, “Back To School.” She said when fans saw her in public, they either yelled, “Hey, Hot Lips!” or Rodney’s famous pickup line, “Call me when you have no class!”

Since you count on me for the information other obituaries leave out, here are two cool stories about Sally Kellerman: She recalled being nervous about doing the famous nude scene in “M*A*S*H” where Hawkeye and Trapper dropped her shower tent as a prank. To help capture a genuine look of shock and surprise on her face, when the tent fell, Gary “Radar O’Reilly” Burghoff (the only actor to repeat his character on the TV series) was standing beside the camera, also naked.

Also, of special interest to me, since I co-wrote “Hollywood Hi-Fi,” the history of celebrity singer records (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com), is that Sally Kellerman was a terrific singer. That was her original ambition, and her smoky voice was so good, Norman Granz of the legendary jazz label Verve offered her a contract when she was only 18. But she was too young and lacking in self-confidence to sign. After establishing herself as an actress, she returned to singing in jazz clubs and cabarets and put out two albums, "Roll With the Feelin''' in 1972 and "Sally" in 2009. One of her biggest regrets was rejecting a role in a Robert Altman movie that later turned out to be "Nashville" and would've given her both a prestige role and a chance to sing on screen.

To show how good she was, here's 15 minutes of her cabaret act from 1977. RIP to a beautiful and talented lady.

https://youtu.be/LbVYY7X1XR4h

Mike Huckabee

Because of the fast-moving nature of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I can’t give up-to-the-minute updates in our newsletter. But Fox News has a page that features the latest bulletins. Bookmark it and check in regularly to stay up to date:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russian-forces-attack-kyiv-explosion-wracks-ukrainian-capital-live-updates

In the meantime, please keep praying for the people of Ukraine. To cover what’s happened since yesterday:

Russia launched an air, sea and ground attack, targeting the capital of Kyiv and the second-largest city Kharkov, and launching troops north from Crimea. President Zelensky reported 137 Ukrainians killed and over 300 wounded on the first day. Among the dead were 13 far-outnumbered soldiers on Snake Island, who when ordered to surrender by a Russian military ship, responded with a message that I can’t repeat here, but that I am sure will be remembered in the annals of military bravery for eternity.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/02/25/russians-ordered-thirteen-ukrainian-soldiers-on-snake-island-to-surrender-heres-n2603775

The Kremlin says that Putin is prepared to send a delegation to negotiate with Ukrainian officials about the “neutral” status of Ukraine, which basically means surrendering and installing a puppet government if they want to stop his army from killing innocent people.

Russia claims it’s now surrounded and cut off Kyiv from the outside world and captured an important cargo airport. It’s reported that saboteurs have entered some neighborhoods where shots and explosions have been heard. The mayor said, “The enemy wants to put the capital on its knees and destroy us." The city has entered a defensive posture, and it’s reported that Ukrainians are fighting back with personal arms.

The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister said he’s working with the General Prosecutor's Office on a war crimes case against Russia, citing attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage as examples. He said, "We are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable." That would be more comforting if I believed that a thug like Putin who would attack a kindergarten and an orphanage cares what the Hague says about him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world, which used to be led by America, is still scrambling to formulate a response to the brutal Russian invasion.

https://www.westernjournal.com/nato-members-scramble-invoke-article-4-alliance-hasnt-taken-action-yet/

Some nations seem to be having difficulty even deciding which side they’re on. You’d think that Germany would have figured out by now that invading other people’s countries is bad.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/24/germany-spits-in-the-face-of-the-united-states-again-dares-biden-to-challenge-them-n527336

I am trying VERY hard not to criticize our President during a military crisis, but Ukraine’s President isn’t subject to that rule. He ripped the leaders of other powerful nations for “watching from afar” and imposing toothless sanctions while Ukrainians are fighting for their lives against a massive invading army.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukraine-president-throws-shade-biden-us-afar

Let’s just say that Biden’s response was not favorably reviewed as inspiring. It was noted that he contradicted his previous statements by claiming that he always knew sanctions wouldn’t deter Putin from invading.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/02/24/after-sanctions-on-russia-fail-biden-lies-about-why-he-imposed-them-n1561649

But then he went ahead and declared that there would be more sanctions. But they won’t include sanctions on Russia’s oil industry which provides the greatest source of revenue for funding Putin’s military. That’s because too many other nations are dependent on Russian oil.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/us-will-not-target-russia-energy-sector-with-sanctions

They’re so dependent on Russia for oil partly because they can’t get it from us, since Biden declared war on our domestic fuel industry in the name of “climate change,” a war he’s refusing to call off, even under a court injunction to do so.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/climate-change-biden-administration-freezes-new-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-after-court-rules-against-key-tool/ar-AAU7HqZ?ocid=winp-st

...And even though it would give us a freer hand to deal with Russia if we weren’t also now dependent on buying over 600,000 barrels a day of Russian oil. As the Independent Sentinel reports, the Keystone Pipeline would have delivered 850,000 barrels a day, but Biden shut that project down and refuses to restart it.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/22-million-spent-daily-on-russian-oil-keystone-would-have-ended-it/

In short, it’s looking as if there will be a more effective response to Putin’s aggression from the general public than from our voluntarily-neutered leaders. For instance, despite Russia’s harsh oppression of dissenters (Putin is even less tolerant of dissent than Justin Trudeau), some Russians are willingly risking jail to take to the streets and protest the invasion.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/putin-made-have-overplayed-his-hand-by-invading-ukraine-experts

And while Putin has threatened the world with his notorious Russian cyberterrorists, the shadowy hacker group Anonymous seemingly has declared cyber war on Putin. They released a statement directed toward the Russian people saying that they know it’s hard for them to speak out against their government and that their planned smashing of Russia’s Internet servers is aimed entirely at Putin and his government, not them. Never thought I'd be on the side of Anonymous, but in this case, the enemy of our enemy is our friend.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/hacking-collective-anonymous-declare-war-putin-russia-invades-ukraine

Kenneth Allard

If you have never studied war, then the Russian aerial bombardments might have been shocking. So too the long lines of would-be refugees jamming every highway; even more, the horrid specter of blood-stained Ukrainian citizens desperately seeking to save their lives.

But having studied war for most of my adult life, particularly Soviet and Russian military science, the opening hours of the attack contained few surprises. Just as western analysts expected, the Russians opened with heavy missile bombardments against command-and-control targets. Shortly thereafter, armored forces moved smartly across border outposts, rapidly converging into strategic axes from three different directions. Their probable objective: a decapitation strike aimed at the capital of Kiev, where a Russian puppet would presumably be installed.

However, my dominant initial impressions were that the initial phases of the attack seemed short of the massive firepower - particularly artillery, the vaunted Red God of War - that has always commenced attacks since the Soviet era. As the progenitors of information warfare - explored as “radio-electronic combat” - one also would have expected Internet websites, GPS and all social media across Ukraine to have “gone dark” from the war’s first moments. Why did it not?

Remembering my days at NBC News, I watched as my latter-day successors sketched out the advances of Russian combat formations, some of which seemed more tentative than an all-out blitzkrieg. Occasionally, someone would note that Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe. Actually, it’s even larger than Texas, which is where I live. Has anyone remembered to check the scale of those maps, remembering how quickly terrain can challenge even the most mobile ground forces? Remember above all: countries may be easy to invade but much tougher to conquer, particularly against insurgents who are well-armed and intent on selling their lives dearly. Bottom Line: We haven’t yet seen Russian “shock and awe” so stay tuned!

That said: My dominant Day One impression was that Joe Biden is horribly miscast as a wartime president. In his televised remarks from the East Room on Thursday, he mostly conveyed the impression that he was channeling Neville Chamberlain, holding out the forlorn hope that economic sanctions might achieve “peace in our time.” For the record, folks, there are only two kinds of sanctions: the ones that don’t work at all; and the ones that do but cause wars. So which ones are you announcing, Mr. President, and why on earth do you think Vladimir Putin regards you and the people around you with anything less than contempt? My friend Fred Fleitz, formerly Chief of Staff for the National Security Council, said yesterday that Biden needs to sack most of his national security team “because they are second stringers.” Former Speaker Newt Gingrich was one of several Fox analysts to recommend that Biden reverse his support of climate change and use American energy capabilities to drive Russian oil companies out of business.

I smiled when the Speaker said that. While teaching at West Point, I invited a visiting Texas oilman to tell my cadets something I hope they still remember. Raring back in his cowboy boots, the oilman pulled out his wad of greenbacks, brandishing a hundred-dollar bill. “You boys need to remember that the ultimate form of American power is NOT you and your M-16. It’s this thing right here!” Amen!

NOTE: Colonel Allard is the author of Command, Control and the Common Defense, winner of the 1991 National Security Book Award. After leaving active duty, he became an on-air military analyst for the networks of NBC News

Mike Huckabee

As you surely know by now, last night, Vladimir Putin made good on his threat to invade Ukraine. There’s no hair-splitting about it, it’s a full-on military invasion, including tanks and troops crossing the border and the shelling of the capital city of Kyiv, the largest military attack in Europe since World War II.

Before I get into the details, the most important thing I can do is ask you to join me in praying for the safety of the Ukrainian people, for the return of peace, and although this may sound like too much of a miracle to ask, for Vladimir Putin to realize the evil of his actions and change his heart and mind.

I’m not going to attempt to update you on what's happening, because events are moving too fast. For the latest, here’s a link to a Fox News feed of continually-updated bulletins:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-us-allies-sanctions

As of this writing (early Thursday morning), there are reports of dozens of people dead. The leader of a Ukrainian emergency response organization said that it appeared Russia was targeting military locations and not civilians, although there is a crush of panicking civilians trying to evacuate. He said so far, Putin was doing exactly what he said he would do. His best case scenario was that he would just attack the military, install a Russian puppet government and pull back without targeting civilians.

Putin threatened that any countries that interfered in his invasion of Ukraine would face “the greatest consequences in history,” not making clear whether he meant cyber warfare, nuclear attack or something else. He also claimed he was reversing the “Nazification” of Ukraine, a bizarre claim considering Ukraine has a Jewish President and a large Jewish population. I wonder where he could have gotten the idea that an autocratic communist could justify crushing his political opponents simply by branding them as “Nazis” first.

Some who watched his TV appearance said he didn’t seem like the same Putin who’s smoothly played the media and attended summit meetings in recent years. No, he seemed like what he has always been: a former KGB thug and Stalin admirer who wants to reassemble the Soviet Union police state. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but too few people these days know real history. Is it only a coincidence that Putin waited to strike until February 23rd, the anniversary of the first mass protests of 1917 that kicked off Russia’s communist revolution?

Just as Russian media misleads the Russian people into thinking that NATO is a threat to Russian sovereignty (it’s actually a purely defensive force against Russian aggression; believe me, nobody wants to take over Russia, certainly not in February), many young people in America have been misled by their teachers into thinking that communism is just “people sharing” and the real evil in the world is the United States.

Well, kids, those Russian tanks and missiles are your rude awakening to reality. You finally get to see the real face of communism that the rest of us grew up with. It’s a tough way to learn what “violence” and “imperialism” really are, and it's not someone building a Chick-Fil-A on your campus.

Putin will do whatever he wants without regard for any threats from the US or NATO. He’s seen weakness, he’s waited for the perfect moment to strike, and after seeing us leave Afghanistan, he’s decided that this is it. And he’s not the only one. Yesterday, China defended Ukraine as an independent nation only so they could warn the world not to confuse Taiwan with one of those because it’s part of China. They went on to make a not-so-veiled threat that implies Beijing has also been emboldened by our weak dealings with Afghanistan and is watching closely to see what Biden does about Ukraine.

At this moment, we’re still waiting to hear what Biden plans to do, although last night, he did reimpose the sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline that he inexplicably lifted less than a year ago.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-sanctions-nord-stream-2-pipeline-russia-germany

Maybe that will help bring down the estimated extra $1 billion a day that’s been flowing into Putin’s war chest thanks to high oil and gas prices brought about by targeting America’s fossil fuel industry.

The White House warned that due to the Ukraine crisis and coming sanctions, Americans might be seeing even higher prices at the gas pumps. Gosh, if only there were some way that America could produce its own oil and gas so we wouldn’t be reliant on imports from places like Russia.

There’s a lot more that I could say, but there’s an old tradition in America that’s been ripped up in recent years, but I think it deserves preservation: when America is facing a serious crisis abroad, Americans shouldn’t attack their own President. I think we all know why we, and the world, are in this situation now, so I don’t have to belabor it.

Let’s just say for now that I, and I hope all Americans, stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and behind all those who stand up against this barbaric action by Vladimir Putin. And please, pray for Ukraine.

Mike Huckabee

Say what you will about Sen. Mitt Romney, but he was right when he warned during the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia would be America’s biggest security threat. The media laughed, and Obama mockingly said that “the ‘80s called, and they want their foreign policy back.” Well, Romney just responded to the Ukraine invasion by saying, “The ‘80s called, and we didn’t answer.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/romney-obama-trump-biden-russias-invade-ukraine-80s-called-didnt-answer

He also rightly pointed out how predictable this was because Putin pulled similar assaults against Georgia and Crimea while Obama was in office, not that the media spent much time telling you about that.

Oh, but wait: Mitt just couldn’t get through his statement without taking a slam at Trump and trying to blame Putin’s aggression on Trump’s policy of putting “America First.” So close, Mitt…

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/23/mitt-romney-blames-shortsightedness-america-first-putin-invasion-ukraine/

Mike Huckabee

Those who insist on forcing children to wear masks indefinitely while flouting their own rules are not all big name politicians and celebrities. Sure, there are plenty of those, and their excuses are as feeble as they are hypocritical.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2022/02/19/is-la-mayor-eric-garcetti-for-real-with-this-response-on-mask-hypocrisy-n2603535

Even their pet “fact-checkers” come off as clowns when they try to “ackshully…” their staggeringly obvious hypocrisy and privilege away.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/02/19/amazing-politifact-twists-into-a-pretzel-to-debunk-comparisons-of-unmasked-super-bowl-fans-to-kids-in-school/

But mask hypocrisy is hardly confined to A-listers. At a Montgomery County, Virginia, school board meeting, a mom accused a mask zealot board member of hypocrisy, proving it with a photo lifted from Facebook of the member maskless in a crowd.

The board member, like all petty tyrants from Justin Trudeau on down who claim they cherish “democracy” but hate it when the people actually speak up to them, accused the mom of libeling and disparaging (apparently, those are now synonyms for “describing”) a member of the school board, claimed she wasn’t focusing on “issues pertinent to children,” and ordered her to sit down. When she refused, he told a police officer to escort her from the building.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/social-media-erupts-after-school-board-member-storms-out-of-meeting-confronted-by-maskless-photo

But then, another school board member intervened, saying, "She should be allowed to say her piece. I've had to listen to people come and criticize me." At that, the first member stormed out of the room in a huff. Funny, I’m old enough to remember when liberals loved “speaking truth to power.” But then, that was before they came into power.

From the tsunami of support that mom is receiving locally and online, I bet she could easily replace that arrogant school board member in the next election, if she wants the job.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Lesley Stahl of 60 MINUTES owes President Trump a big-time apology.

For anyone who still hasn’t seen why she needs to apologize, here’s the video…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/busted-will-vicious-leftist-lesley-stahl-apologize-america-trump-caught-lying-part-cover-largest-political-scandal-us-history/

Here’s the transcript…

https://www.detroitnews.us/2022/02/14/lesley-stahls-infamous-60-minutes-trump-interview-resurfaces-after-durham-filing-supports-spying-claim/

She needs to apologize for “correcting” Trump for saying he’d been spied on. We say this for a number of reasons, but mainly because special counsel John Durham says in court documents that he has evidence showing that Trump's campaign and transition actually WERE SPIED ON.

Think Lesley will realize her grievous error and come groveling? She won’t. She and her colleagues are too invested in thinking they’re right on this, even when they’re wrong, and The New York Times is helping them delude themselves. More on that in a moment.

Meanwhile, Mark Levin was blunt about the spying on his Sunday FOX News show, just as we have been for over five years: There’s been spying going on, he said, illegal and unconstitutional spying, against a President of the United States. “[Trump’s] campaign was spied on, his transition was spied on, his presidency was spied on. SPIED ON.” The media were part of it and are now trying to cover it up. It’s the greatest scandal in American history, Levin said, and Levin is a historian par excellence.

He speculated that President Obama “had to know a lot,” simply because he, Levin, knew a lot, and they both “read the same newspapers.” Plus, as President, Obama got briefings twice a day from the very agencies that were purportedly spying on a candidate who was in league with Putin. How could there not have been conversations about this? The idea that it wouldn’t have come up is preposterous.

Recall that Obama, in the last days of his presidency, gave the National Security Agency more latitude to share “globally intercepted personal communications” with the other 16 intel agencies, BEFORE applying privacy protections. Never mind the question of constitutionality –- why would he do this on his way out the door?

Levin spoke Sunday with former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe. The whole episode would be good to see if you missed it, but here’s the link just to that excellent interview.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6298183244001#sp=show-clips

Ratcliffe notes that “the mainstream media is trying to re-use [the report] as a way to...tamp down the idea that the Trump campaign wasn’t spied on because they can’t find the specific reference to that in something that John Durham puts in a federal pleading.”

Here’s something we hadn’t heard: Ratcliffe told Levin that on February 5, 2020 he questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, asking him “point-blank” if, since an FBI agent had lied and there wasn’t really a proper justification to spy on the Trump campaign, the Trump campaign had been illegally spied on. Wray said yes, it had happened, and it was illegal and “totally unacceptable.”

When Ratcliffe became DNI, he asked to see all the evidence there was on Trump-Russia collusion, and there was none. “But we had all kinds of intelligence about FAKE Russia collusion” that was part of what Hillary’s team created to smear Trump. In fact, Ratcliffe declassified then-CIA Director John Brennan’s handwritten notes, in which Brennan mentions that he’s briefing Obama, Biden and Obama’s national security team on it.

He explained that even though some would like to dismiss this as political dirty tricks, when you start taking false allegations to government agencies such as the FBI and the CIA, trying to make it look authentic by opening an investigation, “that’s all sorts of criminal activity.” Lying, conspiracy, possibly racketeering. He knows Durham is looking at all that because they had conversations about it when he was DNI. But he emphasized that it can take a long time to put that kind of case together.

Durham is revealing more of the details now, Ratcliffe said, but the issue of whether or not this happened “has long been settled.”

Devin Nunes, in an appearance on FOX News’ “Sunday Morning Future” with Maria Bartiromo, pointed out that the committee he chaired, the then-Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, had carried out an investigation that led to 14 criminal referrals being made to the DOJ, even though they had to work largely with circumstantial evidence. This was because they “were misled or outright lied to by government officials.” Ratcliffe as DNI was able to declassify documents that now serve as direct evidence that Nunes’ committee should have seen.

Nunes also recalled the disinformation campaign that was run against members of his committee and all who disagreed with the Trump-Russia story. When anyone said the Trump-collaborating-with-Russia story was a hoax, the media would say, “Well, you must be a Russian agent!”

The difference now, he said, is that Durham is working with direct evidence. An example of new direct evidence Durham has would be the missing cell phones that have now turned up from IG Horowitz. (“Durham couldn’t even get to them...for a year and a half,” Nunes said.)

As Nunes explained it, “What they’ve creatively done here...is they set up legal avenues, using lawyers, to essentially launder all of this spying that was done and communicate to top FBI and DOJ officials. And Durham is starting to piece all of that together.” He hopes Durham can bring conspiracy charges, as he sees “a dozen or more laws” broken, “and people need to pay a price for it.”

“For sure by early 2016, all of the high-level people within the Obama-Biden administration knew about this,” he said. “...A lot of these Obama-Biden people have ‘failed upward,’ and they’re now in high-level positions...in the new Biden administration.” These include Biden’s national security adviser, the large-scale Russia Hoax perpetrator Jake Sullivan.

Nunes called this a “classic frame job” that went to all levels of government, “from the FBI to the Department of Justice, all the way through most of the intelligence agencies,” along with “the culpability and the involvement of the media.” This is what turned the already left-leaning media into “a propaganda machine for the left-wing party in America.”

Nunes said we don’t know what other direct evidence Durham has, but because he’s not putting out what he has in leaks but in very strongly-worded court documents, he finds it “hard to believe that he doesn’t have the goods on a lot of people.

“The question will be, how high can he go and who can he get? I think we all want to know that, but we need to let him do his job.”

So, at this point, why won’t Lesley Stahl finally apologize to President Trump for her mistake? Well, it most likely has to do with a collective self-delusion going on with the left. They cannot admit they were wrong about this. So The New York Times ran a laughable piece by Charlie Savage featuring Democrat talking points that he insists show Durham’s narrative to be “off track.” The usual suspects lapped it up: Vanity Fair, CNN, Jimmy Kimmel…

But Margot Cleveland saw it, too, and came back with a great commentary refuting it point by point. It’s a must-read...especially for Lesley Stahl, who still needs to apologize.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/18/5-media-lies-about-the-latest-special-counsel-revelations/

Mike Huckabee

Michael Sussmann’s attorneys at Latham & Watkins –- the firm that has also represented the Hillary campaign, Hillary for America, The Clinton Foundation, Marc Elias, the law firm Perkins Coie, and seemingly just about everybody else being looked at by Durham –- have filed two motions this week, one on Monday requesting that Durham’s “Factual Background” on the case be stricken from his motion filed last Friday, and the other yesterday for a dismissal of the charge against Sussmann. In essence, they’re saying, “Our client did NOT LIE! And even if he did, his lie wasn’t material to the overall case, so it’s not actually criminal.” Pretty amusing, really.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/02/17/breaking-sussmann-attorneys-make-big-move-in-durham-case-n523620

RedState.com says “a closer look at the request shows it to be much more of a desperate heave into the end zone than a play expected to succeed.”

Sussmann’s attorneys call the case “extraordinary prosecutorial overreach” and even say the indictment “fails to state an offense.” They write, “It has long been a crime to make a false statement to the government. But the law criminalizes only false statements that are material --- false statements that matter because they can actually affect a specific decision of the government.” False statements about “ancillary matters” are “immaterial and cannot give rise to criminal liability.”

Amazingly, they’re telling Durham that Sussmann was visiting the FBI and the CIA just to give “tips” (actually the fake Alfa Bank story) and that the fact he was working for --- and billing --- the Clinton campaign was immaterial. “Allowing this case to go forward would criminalize ordinary conduct,” the motion says, “raise First Amendment concerns, dissuade honest citizens from coming forward with tips, and chill the advocacy of lawyers who interact with the government.” Oh, goodness, surely the special counsel wouldn’t want to criminalize ordinary conduct, like peddling a fake story to federal investigators and lying to them about why!

It sure looks like a last-ditch effort to us. This is what you use when you don’t have anything else.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/17/michael-sussmanns-motion-to-dismiss-is-a-flaming-pile-of-garbage-n523722

As for trying to get the case dismissed, RedState points out that it’s the defense’s job to try to do that. They predictably came up with a way, but one that’s not compelling. “The existence of this motion does not in any way serve as evidence that Durham’s case against Sussmann is specious,” ‘Bonchie’ says. “In fact, a closer look at the filing shows it to be incredibly weak.”

How could Sussmann’s tip about Alfa Bank be “ancillary” to the FBI’s decision to investigate Trump, Russia and Alfa Bank? By presenting himself as a tipster, not a Clinton campaign lawyer –- which involved lying in answer to a direct question –- he made himself and his allegations seem more credible. And that would be, or at least should be, extremely material to the FBI’s decision on whether to open an investigation.

As RedState reminds us, Michael Flynn’s so-called “lie” to the FBI “did not appear to be material about much of anything,” and George Papadopoulos’s simple mix-up of dates didn’t, either, yet both of them were prosecuted. Those examples set the bar very low for a statement being “material.”

Sussmann’s attorneys also argued that Durham had used false and irrelevant allegations “plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.” Apparently, Durham was expecting these arguments to be made.

RedState cautioned that left-leaning “legal analysts” should wait until Durham has had a chance to respond before rushing to praise the defense’s motion to dismiss.

At the time of this writing, we’re still waiting on that response, but news broke Thursday evening about his no-nonsense response to the motion Sussmann’s attorneys filed earlier, the one to strike Durham’s “Factual Background” on the case.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-no-basis-strike-factual-background-filing-denies-intent-politicize-sussmann-case

“This court should deny the defendant’s motion,” Durham said. “If third parties or the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information...Moreover, any potential prejudice or jury taint arising from such media attention can effectively and appropriately be addressed through the voir dire process during jury selection.”

We would add that this is the job of attorneys for both sides during jury selection. There will be plenty of media attention knocking the Durham investigation --- arguably much more than we’ll see that's positive --- so doesn’t that “taint” the jury pool as well?

Sussmann’s motion on Monday said that Durham’s allegations in the “Background Information” section of his filing last Friday, such as Rodney Joffe’s use of a “special arrangement” to obtain data from otherwise highly secure email servers for the President’s office, should be stricken. But Durham, in his response on Thursday, confidently defended his use of those details:

“The government included two paragraphs of limited additional factual detail in its motion for valid and straightforward reasons,” he wrote. “First, those paragraphs reflect conduct that is intertwined with, and part of, events that are central to proving the defendant’s alleged criminal conduct. Second, government included these paragraphs to apprise the court of the factual basis for one of the potential conflicts described in the government’s motion, namely that a member of the defense team was working for the Executive Office of the President of the United States during relevant events that involved the EOP [Executive Office of the President].”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/durham-insists-snooping-evidence-valid-for-case-and-media-misinterpretations-dont-undermine-facts

Even with the explanation from Durham, Margot Cleveland wondered aloud on Thursday why he was being so forthcoming about certain facts in the case. “Why is Durham telling us this?” she asked. She said that if he had a nefarious reason, he would have done as the Mueller team did and leak selectively to friendly outlets. But Durham hasn’t been leaking at all.

She postulated that by putting some details of what he has in these motions, he “might prompt cooperation in a way that plea negotiations can’t.” Or perhaps he’s trying to make somebody nervous and incriminate himself. Or he hopes that by showing some of his cards, he’s making it “politically impossible” for the Biden administration to shut him down.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/16/explosive-allegations-protect-durham-probe-being-s/

Or he’s trying to rattle the government by showing he’s a step ahead, as with IG Horowitz’ office after it failed to turn over cell phone evidence. Or he’s trying to keep “we the people” informed. Or it’s all of the above.

The DC Circuit Court generally looks with disfavor on motions to strike, she said, so it doesn’t look good for Sussmann’s defense on that. On the other hand, “How the court will rule is anyone’s guess at this point, but we will likely see a counter from Special Counsel Durham’s office first –- and maybe a few more hints on what is to come as well.”

Whenever we find ourselves generally on the same track with Margot Cleveland, we know we as non-lawyers are doing a pretty good job of sorting all this out. Read her analysis, and your legal IQ will go up about 50 points.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/17/special-counsel-john-durham-is-opening-up-about-his-spygate-investigation-but-why/

And something fall-down-funny she noticed: Sussmann’s lawyers actually cite Peter Strzok!

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/17/one-part-of-michael-sussmanns-motion-to-dismiss-will-have-you-laughing-out-loud-n523955

Mike Huckabee

Those of us old enough to recall the Reagan era (pardon me while I take a moment to remember it…Oh, well, back to 2022) will recall the famous “misery index.” Invented by economist Arthur Okun, Reagan used it to convince Americans to choose him over Jimmy Carter. It was a combination of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate, the two together serving as a gauge of how miserable people felt with prices rising even while work was hard to find.

Well, last month under Biden, the misery index reached 11.5%, the highest in a decade, even higher than in the early days of the pandemic.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/biden-misery-index-rise-americans-pessimistic-about-countrys-future

But I bet I know what you’re thinking: 11.5% seems awfully low, considering the widespread misery this Administration has created. Well, there are a few reasons for that. One is that it doesn’t include the many other ways the Democrats are spreading misery, like with open borders, skyrocketing crime rates and their never-ending assaults on personal freedom and individual rights. Another is that the unemployment rate is only 4%. But it seems much higher (and honestly is) because that stat only includes people who are actively looking for work, and not those who are living off government largesse. Also, unemployment claims “unexpectedly” jumped last week:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/jobless-claims-coronavirus-pandemic-feb-12-2022

The third factor is that the bigger portion of the misery index, inflation, might be a high 7.5% (with no ceiling in sight), but that’s still a really lowball estimate. Boston columnist and radio host Howie Carr did a deep dive into how inflation is really affecting everyday Americans.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/02/16/howie-carr-biden-inflation-a-pain-at-the-pump-grocery-store/

It’s not just a “high-class problem,” as Biden’s smug chief of staff dismissively described it. Carr quotes many listeners who shared their horror stories about both inflation and the supply chain shortages, from having to drive from store to store searching for cat food as if on a treasure hunt, to a man who put $25 worth of gas in his truck and it didn’t even cut off the “low fuel” light.

Carr also points out that the government inflation figure is kept artificially low by not including two of our biggest necessities: food and fuel. He consulted a website called shadowstats.com that computes inflation using the more honest pre-1980 formula. Under that, current inflation is actually 15.63%, the highest since 1947. That was so long ago that Joe Biden was only five years old.

Even accepting the artificially-low 4% unemployment rate, that would put the current misery index at nearly 20%. Yes, that feels a lot more accurate to me. Incidentally, the misery index hit a high under Jimmy Carter of 21.9%, but if anyone can break that record, I have faith that Biden can.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we promised to delve deeper into the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, which represents Michael Sussmann and was the reason for Special Counsel John Durham’s filing last week. The matter of Sussmann’s representation hasn’t received much attention yet, but needs to.

Durham was notifying the judge of potential conflicts of interest generated by Latham, as the firm represents an amazing array of others who might be called as witnesses or possibly indicted. This firm happens to have previously represented both Perkins Coie and Marc Elias in the Durham investigation. As Durham alleges, Latham “likely possesses confidential knowledge about Perkins Coie’s role in, and views concerning, Sussmann’s past activities.”

Latham also represents both the Clinton campaign and Hillary for America. What are the odds?

Interestingly, one of the partners at Latham is...(drum roll, please)...Liz Cheney’s husband, Philip Perry.

https://newarkdailytimes.com/2022/02/13/liz-cheneys-husband-is-partner-at-latham-watkins-which-works-on-behalf-of-companies/

Jake Sullivan, who appears to be the odd man out –- not represented by Latham but by attorney Brian Stekloff of Wilkinson Stekloff in DC –- is not currently under indictment but might have lied under oath to the House Intel Committee, at the very least.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/latest-durham-revelations-put-bidens-national-security

Let’s look back at what Latham was doing for the Democrat Party in December of 2020. As Jerry Dunleavy reported for the Washington Examiner, “The Democratic National Committee’s legal team, bolstered by Obama’s White House lawyers, moved to dismiss a lawsuit from onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, arguing the ‘gist’ of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s controversial dossier was true.”

The attorneys argued that the “allegedly defamatory statements” against Page were “substantially true” and “are capable of an innocent construction.” I have a question: do attorneys really get to lie with such impunity and still not get disbarred? Answer: Yes! At least these lawyers do.

But here’s where it gets more interesting. Quoting from Dunleavy’s piece: “The DNC legal team, comprised of five lawyers from Latham & Watkins, including lead counsel Terra Reynolds, former Obama deputy White House counsel Nicholas McQuaid, and former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, claimed, “The statements at issue in this case are not merely susceptible of an innocent construction –- they relate to business and political contacts that Page himself indisputably cultivated in Russia.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/obama-white-house-lawyers-fight-carter-pages-dnc-lawsuit-by-defending-gist-of-steele-dossier

Aside from the fact that Page’s lawsuit states that he had never met with those contacts and that IG Horowitz had already noted the lack of evidence that he did, do you notice anything in particular about the above paragraph? The legal team from Latham & Watkins defending the DNC includes two big-time members of Obama’s own team.

In fact, Kathryn Ruemmler was Obama’s longest-serving White House counsel and has been known for years in DC circles as his “fixer.” She’s the one Obama praised for her ability to “see around corners.”

So, now we’ve got Hillary Clinton and her machine being investigated by the special counsel, and most are being represented by the law firm that employed Obama’s “fixer” as a top attorney. Ruemmler had even been mentioned as a possible successor to Eric Holder when he stepped down as Obama’s attorney general, but she withdrew her name from consideration, saying her close friendship with Obama might make the confirmation process “difficult.”

Here’s a look back at Ruemmler from 2014, as profiled by Latham & Watkins. She has a long history with the Clintons, too, serving as associate White House counsel to Bill Clinton, where she was busy “defending the White House against independent counsel and congressional investigations.”

https://www.lw.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-to-rejoin-latham-05202014

Sidney Powell has had her eye on Ruemmler for a long time. This piece from 2018 places Obama’s “fixer” among the female “triumverate” surrounding him: Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco and Susan Rice.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/03/01/reunited-and-it-feels-so-swampy-obamas-three-muses-reappear-in-muellers-trump-investigation/

Ruemmler and Monaco go back to the Enron case, working under Andrew Weissmann, all three of whom were implicated in prosecutorial misconduct, as Powell detailed in her book LICENSE TO LIE. Ruemmler hid exculpatory evidence in that case, and almost all the convictions were overturned.

By the way, guess where Lisa Monaco is now? No, she’s not at Latham. But she’s got the DOJ covered, as she is second in command there. Since April 21, 2021, she’s been Merrick Garland’s deputy attorney general. And we wonder why only Republicans are ever held accountable.

Also, guess who Nicholas McQuaid is? This colleague of Hunter Biden's defense attorney Christopher Clark moved from Latham to the DOJ the day Biden took office, named as acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. Sen. Chuck Grassley noticed...

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/on-day-one-biden-installed-law-partner-of-sons-defense-lawyer-at-doj-criminal-division

As for Ruemmler, she’s been back and forth over the years between the White House and Latham. After just weeks of being back at Latham, she was defending...(another drum roll, please)...the Clinton Foundation.

She’s not currently at Latham or the White House. She’s Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Goldman Sachs, after joining in 2020 as a partner. It's not known if she’s taking any role in the defense of Durham’s targets.

On Monday, Sussmann’s defense filed a six-page response to Durham’s filing of last Friday, formally waiving Sussmann’s potential conflicts of interest. (No doubt the others being represented by Latham will do this same.) It complains loudly about Durham’s tactic of using “speaking indictments” to include allegations they don’t consider relevant to the charged offense (that is, lying to the FBI), saying the media coverage he’s generating might “taint the jury pool.”

Considering most media are hardly even covering the story, at least so far, that concern might be a tad overblown. But Margot Cleveland does see that changing as the media gradually start covering it. Her analysis of this new filing by Sussmann’s attorneys is a must-read.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/15/what-we-learned-from-michael-sussmanns-response-to-the-spygate-special-counsel/

Attorneys' characterization of Durham’s filing as “inflammatory” and “political” gives Democrats all the excuse they need not to even look at his allegations.

Cleveland’s previous analysis, made after Durham’s filing but before Sussmann’s attorneys responded, asks some good questions. In light of our general topic today, legal representation, note in particular #5-8. Especially #8: “Why the swamp is so swampy.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/14/8-more-intrigues-inside-the-latest-special-counsel-filings/

You can bet the various defendants represented by Latham will, like Sussmann, waive any concerns about conflict of interest. If one does, they all will. Then the court has the option of accepting those waivers or not.

When a real reporter for the U.K. Daily Mail actually did a journalist’s job and dared to ask Hillary about Durham’s filing, she walked by saying nothing. I assume her attorneys have advised her not to comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1KhulzSdgs

……………………………….

Finally...

LAUGH OF THE DAY

Here’s an especially hilarious excerpt from the piece by The New York Times’ national security and legal policy correspondent Charlie Savage on why not to bother covering the Durham story:

“[Durham’s narratives] tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time --- raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims.”

Duh, we’re just too stooo-pid, and it’s haaaaaard! We’d love to ask Margot Cleveland what she thinks about this! Here’s what Spencer Brown at Townhall had to say…

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/02/15/oh-so-this-is-why-the-new-york-times-didnt-cover-this-weeks-durham-bombshell-n2603300

Mike Huckabee

“We’ve never seen anything like this in American history,” said Mark Levin in the intro to his Sunday night show, referring to the 'collusion’ among the Obama/Biden administrations, the Hillary campaign/DNC, and Mark Elias/Michael Sussmann/Perkins Coie and the creators of the fake Steele “dossier,” all to push the Trump-Russia narrative and repeated coup attempts against President Trump. “THAT’S the insurrection.” he said. “That’s what took place --- the effort to overthrow an elected President of the United States.”

Durham’s latest filing in the Michael Sussmann case, released Friday night, goes to a place that even we hadn’t even anticipated --- a place where Hillary’s people didn’t just spy on Trump the candidate. Most shocking of all, Durham says he has evidence to show they continued to spy on him after he became President, by way of “Tech Executive -1,” Rodney Jaffe, and his hacking of the President’s internet servers. (!!!) If we didn’t predict Durham would find this, it was only because we didn’t realize it was possible. If the President’s internet server, at that ultimate level of classification, is hackable, then who knows where our most sensitive national security information ended up?

Quoting from Durham: “The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive – 1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (“DNS”) Internet traffic pertaining to (i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) DONALD TRUMP’S CENTRAL PARK WEST APARTMENT BUILDING, and (iv) THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (‘EOP’) [emphasis ours].”

According to the report, Jaffe “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP.” They “exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.”

In a sane world, this story would be THE headline from every news outlet. It’s hardly possible even to describe how earth-shaking it is. As the story in RedState says, “This blows Watergate out of the water and makes it look like child’s play. Only in the current hyper-partisan environment, where Democrats can literally get away with anything, is this not a major political scandal. Here you have associates of Hillary Clinton, and allies of the law firm she was contracting to get dirt on Trump, using government channels to spy on him. And not just during the campaign, but after he became President.”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/12/john-durham-drops-a-shock-and-awe-filing-about-spying-on-donald-trump-n521239

Recall the way Trump was ridiculed for claiming Trump Tower was spied on. Well, it WAS, by Hillary’s people, and now Durham says he can show it was even worse –- they spied on his personal residence, and even after he became President, they spied on the White House. FOX News took viewers down memory lane on Sunday, also reminding us that one of the conspiratorial liars, Jake Sullivan, is currently working in the Biden White House.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1oESBHPv8Y

Byron York says this newest revelation proves Trump was right. In fact, one has to wonder if Trump might not have had an insider all along who advised him of what was happening. SOMEBODY told him.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday morning that this new Durham filing shows the spying on Trump was “worse than we thought, as it showed the government was working with Hillary’s campaign. “We’ve never seen anything like that in history.”

https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/13/jim-jordan-durham-filing-shows-spying-trump-was-wo/

Kash Patel, former chief investigator of the Trump-Russia probe for the House Intel Committee, said the filing “definitively shows that the Hillary Clinton campaign directly funded and ordered its lawyers at Perkins Coie to orchestrate a criminal enterprise to fabricate a connection between President Trump and Russia.” Legal Insurrection has a comprehensive overview of the Durham filing, highly recommended reading.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/durham-court-filing-hillarys-campaign-spied-on-trump-tower-trump-apartment-bldg-white-house-internet-traffic/

“Dilbert” creator and author Scott Adams, in his podcast “Coffee with Scott Adams,” addressed this on Sunday. “It looks like the campaign was definitely involved,” he said, “in something that looks like an insurrection.” I like his choice of words here: insurrection. “Now, keep in mind,” he said, “this wasn’t an FBI investigation, right? This was some lawyers who had some access to some technology guys who had some access to some data. This is about the most illegal thing you’ve ever heard of.”

And it happened to him after he was not just a candidate –- which was bad enough –- but the sitting President. Of all the things we’ve ever heard about that were said to be “worse than Watergate,” he said, this is the first one that really has been worse than Watergate!

Adams pointed out something we’ve noted before: that Jake Sullivan, who worked for Hillary and now is President Bien’s national security adviser, was deeply involved in this scheme. So was Marc Elias, who was, and is, busy trying to cook elections with new rules and redistricting, state-by-state, with the stated purpose of electing more Democrats.

“Basically, everything that was your worst imagination of what was happening seems to be coming true,” he said. He agreed with what we’ve been saying for years, that everything Democrats accuse Republicans of doing is what they, the Democrats, are doing. If you want to know what they’re up to, your first clue is the fake stories they tell about the GOP.

Adams had checked CNN’s home page and, sure enough, the story wasn’t there, not even a little bit. Same with MSNBC. They’d tossed that file down the memory hole. And Democrats get away with this, because their audience watches only them. As if Democrats would ever tune in to Fox News to find out what’s going on!

So, what DID CNN talk about Sunday morning? Main story on their home page: More on Joe Rogan and the n-word, with an opinion piece linking the fact that Rogan’s still on the air with the January 6 insurrection, saying both of these things tear at the fabric of our country. Not kidding.

(NOTE: For an update, we looked at the CNN home page late Sunday night. The Durham story still was not there, but we did learn that Team Fluff had won the Puppy Bowl.)

“They’re ‘disappearing’ a gigantic story, successfully...It’s mind-boggling,” Adams said, describing the scandal as “a Hillary Clinton insurrection against the government.”

As a palate-cleanser after that sad observation about the state of “journalism,” I’d like to leave you with an incredible piece of in-depth investigative reporting that explains just what “The Swamp” is, how it came to be, and how our government is now structured to incorporate what is essentially the fourth branch of government --- the “Intelligence Branch” --- which appears to be running the show. They’re not even accountable to the President, as they choose what intelligence to share with the White House. Please, when you can, make some time to take all of this in. It might be the biggest wake-up call for our country that I have ever read.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/02/12/the-surveillance-and-political-spying-operations-highlighted-by-john-durham-are-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

Finally, don't miss the best video commentary from the weekend on what Hillary's campaign did, from Steve Hilton on "The Next Revolution."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9IsEw5y4U

Mike Huckabee

From Substack reader C. M. Cobb:

Looks like the White House servers were not hacked but rather Joffe was given access. By whom? I think that person plus the receiver of the info should be worried.

This just happens to be what we were planning on addressing next --- the “sensitive arrangement” that enabled Rodney Joffe, former Senior Vice President of Neustar, to infiltrate the White House computer servers.

(Note: speaking of Neustar, it was acquired in December, 2021, by TransUnion for $3.1 billion. No small potatoes.)

Take a look at the wording of Durham’s report: Joffe “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP [Executive Office of the President] as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS [domain name system] resolution services to the EOP.” They “exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about President Trump.”

This is what spies do. To do it, they either have to have inside help or else successfully compromise someone, likely through some combination of blackmail and/or threats. In other words, the “sensitive arrangement” might have been a matter of friendly cooperation within an anti-Trump cabal, or possibly was “an offer you can’t refuse.” How Joffe managed to achieve this very underhanded “sensitive arrangement” is no doubt under investigation.

The CIA was also involved. As Jerry Dunleavy reported this weekend for the Washington Examiner, “Durham said Friday that Sussmann, at a meeting in February, 2017, [EDITORIAL NOTE: AFTER TRUMP WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE] ‘provided an updated set of allegations –- including the Russian Bank – 1 data and additional allegations relating to Trump’ to another U.S. government agency dubbed ‘Agency – 2,’ which is reportedly the CIA.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/durham-says-democrat-allied-tech-executive-spied-on-trumps-white-house-office

During his CIA meeting, Sussmann allegedly “provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious DNS lookups by these entities of internet protocol addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider,” claiming that this showed “Trump and/or his associates” were using “rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” Durham said this claim was “highly misleading or outright false” and explained why.

According to Durham, the so-called “sensitive arrangement” with Joffe started in July of 2016. (Crossfire Hurricane was opened at the end of July.) Kash Patel, lead investigator for Devin Nunes’ House Intelligence Committee, did use the word “hack” to describe what was done: “Per the pleading, the government will also show that Joffe, af the direction of Sussmann/Elias and the Clinton campaign, exploited proprietary data, to hack Trump Tower and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB), which Sussmann later relayed to U.S. agencies in the hopes of having them launch investigations of President Trump.”

As Tucker Carlson reported Monday, Joffe, a pro-Hillary activist from South Africa who assembled a team of cyber researchers from Georgia Tech, said in emails that he wanted Hillary to win because she “had promised him a job as a top cybersecurity officer in the U.S. government.” Durham said Joffe “tasked those researchers to mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia.”

Here’s a link to Tucker's monologue, worthwhile especially for the clip between Trump and Hillary during their 2016 debate. In a way that seems ridiculous in light of current revelations, she plays it to the hilt: “It’s pretty clear...that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants you to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race.”

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6297536905001#sp=show-clips

Brother. Let’s see, who was it who “encouraged espionage”? Hint: not Trump. And it’s hard to imagine this REAL espionage wasn’t done without the knowledge and direction of Hillary Clinton. Here she was talking about the so-called espionage against the DNC, the “hacking” of their servers, but we know even that was made up. There’s still no evidence Russia did that.

As politicized as the intel community is, two recent appointees as Director of National Intelligence were definitely not part of the swamp: Ric Grenell and John Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe says there's “enough evidence” to bring charges against “quite a few” people associated with the origin of the bogus Trump-Russia investigation. Ratcliffe himself even informed Durham that Clinton’s lawyers might have hacked Trump’s servers to fabricate a story that distracted from her own email scandal. And Obama and Biden both knew, Ratcliffe told FOX NEWS’ Bill Hemmer on Monday, because then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed them on it.

https://republicbrief.com/ex-director-of-national-intelligence-says-theres-enough-evidence-to-indict-multiple-people-in-trump-russia-probe/

An update from FOX NEWS is consistent, saying more people are cooperating and going before Durham’s grand jury than has previously been reported.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-probe-accelerated-more-people-cooperating-coming-before-grand-jury

Lee Smith, author of THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT, also appeared on Tucker’s show, saying, “...The idea that the Oval Office and other important offices in the White House were under surveillance by political operatives is extraordinary. It’s shocking --- and I’m talking to people who were investigating this on the Hill for several years, and they’re shocked.” We’re finally starting to understand the scope and depravity of this operation, he said, and “it’s terrible for the country.”

So, what was the impetus for Durham’s filing last Friday? He was asking the presiding judge to inquire into potential conflicts of interest arising from Sussmann’s representation by the law firm Latham & Watkins, as these could be relevant at trial. Latham has previously represented both Sussmann and Perkins Coie over issues Durham said might become relevant, and also “maintained professional and/or personal relationships with individuals who could be witnesses in these proceedings.” (Sussmann has reportedly waived any concern.) More on this law firm to come.

Finally, Margot Cleveland at The Federalist has perhaps the definitive breakdown –- for now –- of what Durham might have in store for those guilty of a spying and frame-up operation against Trump. Again, John Ratcliffe and Ric Grenell, both former Directors of National Intelligence, knew what the Democrats were up to and apparently helped point Durham in the right direction. Grenell tweeted that “some Democrats knew” about the plan for Joffe to monitor Trump’s White House internet and “let it go.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/14/special-counsel-democrats-framed-and-spied-on-trump-while-he-was-president/

Ratcliffe announced in October, after Sussmann was indicted, that he’d provided Durham with almost 1,000 pages of materials. He said then that Sussmann’s indictment was “the tip of the iceberg.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-ratcliffe-intelligence-documents-john-durham-charges

Other than the New York Post and some conservative sites (like this one!), hardly anyone is covering what Rep. Elise Stefanik calls “the biggest criminal political corruption story of our lifetime.” (We’d love to be flies on the wall during their editorial meetings!) Asked about this, K. T. McFarland said that “it’s because all the other media was in on the con...They don’t want to have to be called before a grand jury and have to say where they got the fake story and why they continue to peddle it.”

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2022/02/14/nets-silent-clinton-spying-trump-cover-skating-scandal-instead

We did find a report from NBC, downplaying the story's significance and ending with a hilarious statement from Joffe’s spokesperson, calling him “apolitical.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/tech-exec-used-access-white-house-computers-look-dirt-trump-says-speci-rcna16123

Better: The Daily Caller tells it without the unintentional humor.:

https://dailycaller.com/2022/02/14/trump-clinton-fbi-russia-collusion-durham/

Mike Huckabee

“Crackpipe-gate” (as it’s facetiously been dubbed) has taken another twist or three. You’ll remember that the Washington Free Beacon reported that $30 million allocated by the Biden Administration was going to include “smoking kits” to make smoking crack and other illicit substances more sanitary for addicts, and that the kits include crack pipes. The White House denied that it was supplying free crack pipes. 

Now, the Washington Post reports that the Free Beacon reporter who wrote the story said the HHS spokesperson did not specifically say that the kits would include crack pipes, but he did confirm that the kits were for smoking crack, and based on what’s included in such kits around the country, they reported that the government would be funding crack pipes.

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2022/02/12/crackpipegate-just-got-a-lot-more-interesting-and-confusing-n521410

That's a point for the White House's side. But even WaPo admitted that it’s unclear what HHS’ intentions were, since the story ran before the kits were created.

Now, here’s another twist: Jeff Charles at Redstate.com reports that Biden is under fire now for denying that he plans to give out free crack pipes (and no, not from his son Hunter.) A nonprofit group called the Drug Policy Alliance that seeks “alternatives to strict laws” in aiding addicts, is angry because it was under the impression that the Administration did intend to include crack pipes in the kits. A spokesman fumed, “It would seem pointless to distribute these kits without” pipes, which “are the main part of the smoking kit to prevent the transmission of disease.”

(Although I feel I should mention that they are the main part of transmitting crack, which is arguably worse than disease.)

And another twist: The Free Beacon fired back that the HHS spokesman told them that they do “not specify what is in the kits, leaving that detail to program participants at the local level.” And we know some local programs have given out free crack pipes.

As to the question of whether Biden’s HHS planned to give away taxpayer-funded crack pipes to addicts, it’s not clear whether they did or didn’t. There don’t seem to be any strong denials, though, that they wanted to give away syringes. So either way, they’re using our tax money to help addicts keep using crack and heroin in the name of “compassion and public health.” I don’t think they understand what either of those terms means.

Mike Huckabee

Note: Troy Nehls is pictured here in the blue shirt on Jan. 6.

In an update to the U.S. Capitol Police story, Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas accused USCP Chief Tom Manger on Tuesday of telling “a bold-faced lie” when he said Nehls was never being investigated. As you know, Nehls is accusing them of illegally entering his office on two separate days last November, photographing the notes on his whiteboard (yes, SPYING) and later questioning a staff member about that content.

As Nehls alleged, “The Capitol Police Intelligence Division investigated my office illegally and one of my staffers caught them in the act” He said they proceeded to take photos of “confidential legislative products protected by the Speech and Debate clause enshrined in the Constitution, Article 1 Section 6.” He says he personally told the chief what was wrong about this and is quite unsatisfied with the responses he got to his concerns. In fact, he got the distinct impression that it was he who was considered the ‘threat.’

https://thepostmillennial.com/rep-troy-nehls-pushes-back-at-capitol-police-chief-denies-investigation

The USCP Inspector General has announced an internal investigation of the Capitol Police and their surveillance practices. The USCP maintains that Nehls’ door was wide open and that they were doing their duty when they checked things out. Chief Manger said, “The United States Capitol Police is sworn to protect Members of Congress. If a Member’s office is left open and unsecured, without anyone inside the office, USCP officers are directed to document that and secure the office to ensure no one can wander in and steal or do anything else nefarious.”

Well, that all sounds fine as far as it goes –- assuming the door WAS left open (we have their word, but so far nothing else) --- but it does not explain why they photographed the whiteboard or why, two days later, investigators disguised as construction workers stopped by and started questioning a lone staffer about what was written on it. It fails to address that at all.

A spokesperson for Rep. Nehls offered some food for thought: “Imagine leaving your front door open and police enter your private home, take pictures of the inside, and then open a criminal investigation based on those pictures.”

“How can Chief Manger issue a statement, and fail to mention the photograph that was illegally taken,” she asked. Here is Rep. Nehls’ full press release.

https://nehls.house.gov/posts/rep-nehls-reveals-he-was-targeted-in-malicious-capitol-police-criminal-investigation?oRef=ncl_amplify

House Republicans are now calling on Speaker Pelosi and Chairwoman on House Administration Zoe Lofgren, also a Democrat from California, to investigate the USCP surveillance activities, noting the constitutional issues they raise. (Question for House GOP: Do any of you trust Nancy Pelosi to set up a real investigation, especially when that would involve being investigated herself?)

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/02/09/capitol-police-issue-an-unbelievable-statement-after-accusations-of-spying-on-congress-n519831

Also, Nehls says that he and 26 of his House Republican colleagues have written to Chief Manger demanding that the USCP preserve all of their records related to any investigative activity involving any legislators or their staff members. This isn’t the first time Nehls has written to Chief Manger…

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2021/10/texas-representative-asks-dc-police-chief-doj-to-make-ashli-babbitt-shooting-documents-public/

That’s right, it was Nehls who wrote to Chief Manger in October of last year, asking for a more thorough investigation into Ashli Babbitt’s death and requesting public disclosure of related documents. He said at that time he had personally reviewed all materials available relating to January 6. “Based on my extensive law enforcement experience,” he wrote, “I see nothing that could have possibly justified the use of lethal force against Ms. Babbitt…It is simply implausible that a single unarmed individual crawling through a broken window could have presented a serious life and death threat to LT Byrd or Members of Congress.”

He even said in the letter that it had been suggested by other USCP officers that the investigation into Byrd was dropped “because of his position and other political considerations.” Whew, one can see that IF the Capitol Police WERE going to spy on a member of Congress, it likely would be Nehls.

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2021/10/texas-representative-asks-dc-police-chief-doj-to-make-ashli-babbitt-shooting-documents-public/

Rep. Nehls appeared with Laura Ingraham on her FOX News show Wednesday night, after Ingraham played a video clip of Speaker Nancy Pelosi denying she had any authority over the Capitol Police. “I have no power over the Capitol Police --- does anybody not know that?” she asked rhetorically with a broad smile. “Capitol Police have responded to that gentleman’s [Nehls’] allegation, and that stands as what it is. But I have no power over the police.”

Nehls was not surprised that Pelosi said nothing nice about him, as he’s been a vocal critic. Prior to his election to Congress, he worked in law enforcement for 30 years –- 8 years as a sheriff –- and he accuses the USPC intelligence division of having “all of the material” ahead of the Capitol Hill rally that would have told them to be on guard against potentially disruptive extremist groups who were coming to the Capitol on January 6.

“January 6 should’ve never happened,” he has said repeatedly. “The Capitol Police had the intelligence; they didn’t share it.” He told Ingraham that as someone who himself has conducted investigations, he continues to be quite vocal, specifically about Ashli Babbitt’s death and the “way too quick” dismissal of charges against her shooter, Lt. Michael Byrd. Apparently his letter last fall got no results.

With his lengthy and impressive law enforcement background, Nehls seems like someone who would’ve been an asset on Pelosi’s “Special Committee” to look into January 6. Yet she refused to seat hm.

“...She doesn’t want me talking about January 6,” he said, “because I think, in the end, she had a role to play.”

Mike Huckabee

Failed-but-trying-again Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey “I wuz robbed!” Abrams is a big proponent of the usual hardcore Democrat COVID restrictions, like forcing kids to wear masks in school. So she caught a lot of flak over a photo of her visiting a classroom where she posed Gavin Newsom-style: surrounded by kids who were all masked while she wasn’t.

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2022/02/06/stacey-abrams-snaps-back-over-criticism-of-her-mask-free-photo-op-n518295

The criticism must’ve really stung because her campaign angrily fired back with an everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink response that accused her opponents of racism, disrespecting Black History Month, profiting from pharmaceutical stocks, not funding Medicaid enough, and of course, “TRUUUUUUUUMP!!!!”

None of which actually explained why it was okay for her to be in the classroom without a mask but not for all the kids to be without one.

She should try stealing an excuse from the mayor of Los Angeles and claim that since it was only for the photo, she held her breath for 1/125th of a second.

Related: If Stacey Abrams can go around in public without the masks they force on kids, why can’t an entire New York school board?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/02/06/n-y-school-board-photographed-unmasked-inside-for-legislative-event-parents-livid-n1556667

Mike Huckabee

There are a lot of Americans who can’t seem to pull themselves out of 24/7/365 panic mode over COVID-19. They’re ready to call out the Marines on people who are fed up with masks and lockdowns and just want to get back to living their lives. Some are so paralyzed with fear of the disease that they practically refuse to leave home unless they’re wearing one of those old-fashioned deep sea diver outfits. Some critics say they’ve taken their fear of COVID beyond a reasonable health concern into the area of a religion or even a psychosis. To make it even weirder, I’m sure 100% of these people are fully vaxxed and boosted who knows how many times?

By this stage, it might be impossible to reach them with rational arguments, but if you’d like to try, here’s a good source. John Tierney at City Journal writes about a new NIH study of over 1 million vaccinated adults over the past year, including the Delta variant wave. It calculated the actual statistical odds of dying from COVID if you are vaccinated (we will assume that people with natural immunity from prior infection, especially those also vaccinated, are at even less risk.)

https://www.city-journal.org/understanding-the-covid-odds

Nearly 700,000 healthy vaccinated people under 65 got COVID during this period. None required ICU treatment and none died. Among the vaccinated over 65 without underlying medical conditions, only one died. In all there were 36 deaths, “mostly among a small minority of older people with a multitude of comorbidities: the 3 percent of the sample that had at least four risk factors. Among everyone else, a group that included elderly people with one or two chronic conditions (and healthy, younger people, I'd add), there were just eight deaths among more than 1.2 million people, so their risk of dying was about 1 in 150,000.”

Tierney notes that those are about the same odds that you’ll die in a fire or by falling downstairs in any given year. You’re three times more likely to die while riding in a car or being hit while you’re a pedestrian. It’s also about the same odds over your lifetime that you’ll die in an earthquake or by being struck by lightning.

I hope this helps reassure some people that it’s safe to come out of their houses and stop hiding from life. But my fear is that now they’ll be terrified to come out because they might fall downstairs, get run over by a car or be struck by lightning.