Mike Huckabee

Thanks to Robert S. for this thought-provoking idea...

Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will run for another term of office. I can see her making this announcement so as not to be a lame duck Speaker of the House. But I wonder if there isn't more afoot here. If Pelosi runs for another term, and wins, she can still retire after the first of the year. If she retires, then Governor Newsom, her nephew, would be able to appoint Nancy's replacement. So he would be able to appoint another Pelosi family member to fill the seat. Or maybe himself. Just a wild thought from Texas.

From the Gov.

Thanks for writing, Robert. Gov. Newsom is not technically Nancy Pelosi's nephew, though the two families were once related through marriage. There's no blood tie, but certainly a political one. And it's true that if she retired after being re-elected, he would get to appoint her replacement. That might be another member of the Pelosi family, or someone else entirely.

One benefit of running again is that Pelosi will get to fundraise a giant "war chest," whether she ends up keeping her seat or not. One downside is that as a candidate, she will likely face more scrutiny over the outrageous stock market gains she and her husband have made while she's been in office. It shows in her eyes that she's uncomfortable about being in the hot seat over that, and for good reason. But ego sometimes trumps risk-avoidance. Besides, she'll manage --- because she's doing it "for the children."

....................

Here's a question about Ashli Babbitt from reader Glen G:

I have been supporting Ashli all along. Her getting shot in this manner was dreadfully wrong. But I don't understand the point of this story. Mainly speaks of her trying to stop the process she was in, and then goes through the broken window. How's is that supposed to be understood as good evidence for her?

From the Gov.

Glen, Aaron's point is that his wife was trying to stop the riot, not join in, and that when the situation got to be too intense, she tried to go through the window not to interfere with the election certification process but simply to get to what she thought would be a safer spot. Any evidence of that --- such as the videos, her law enforcement training, and the testimony of those who knew her --- would be considered exculpatory.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Aaron Babbitt, Ashli Babbitt’s husband, has been on a mission of discovery to piece together the evidence on what really happened inside the Capitol on January 6. As you know, his wife was the only direct casualty of that day’s violence, shot dead by Capitol Hill Police Lt. Michael Byrd as she attempted to climb, unarmed, through a broken-out window in the door to the Speaker’s Lobby. Last week, after viewing video shot by self-appointed “documentarian” John Sullivan, Aaron concluded that Ashli was not even part of the riot –- that, in fact, she had been trying to stop the riot.

After forcing himself to watch and analyze that agonizing video over and over, he concluded that she was crawling through the window to get away from the rowdy crush of people outside the door. With the training she’d had as an officer herself, she knew things were getting out of control, and she wanted to get to safety. Aaron also says she was claustrophobic, severely enough for them to have to leave events because of large packed crowds.

Aaron has since had the opportunity to examine additional video of the riot and shooting, and it shows much more detail, which reinforces his conclusion that his wife had been trying to stop what was happening.

He had already seen that the man who broke the window by punching it and repeatedly hitting it with a riot helmet, identified as Zachary J. Alam, was delayed in his own attempt to crawl through the window when his glasses got knocked and he had to reposition them. The new video shows that Ashli was the one who hit him in the face, after grabbing him in an apparent attempt to stop him.

The video shows that for several minutes before she was shot, Ashli shouted at the rioters to stop vandalizing the Capitol, her face registering great distress. Video also reveals that she was shouting at the police guarding the doors to call for backup. She also shouted at Alam as he was breaking the glass: “Stop it!”

Newly-reviewed video shows Ashli grabbed Alam’s backpack and hit him in the nose with a left hook, knocking his glasses out of position on his face. As Alam reset his glasses, Ashli started to climb through the broken-out window. Of course, that’s when she was shot. Accounts differ as to whether Byrd shouted any warning before he fired; if he did, it might have been impossible for her to hear.

Witnesses think it’s likely that Ashli, in delaying Alam’s scramble through that window, unwittingly saved his life before she lost her own.

Babbitt told The Epoch Times, “As we keep seeing these videos and it’s all coming into play and it’s literally laying out everything I’ve said from day one, that she’s a good person, that she loved this country, she was law enforcement, pro-law enforcement, wasn’t breaking anything, didn’t hurt anybody --- we’re seeing it now.”

Additional video shot by journalist Tayler Hansen has shed even more light on what happened. Amazingly, it shows Ashli yelling at the three officers guarding the door to call for help. When they didn’t, she berated them for their inaction. “You’re a fraud!,” she yelled. “You’re a [expletive] fraud! You’re wrong!”

Some in the crowd started chanting, “Break it down! Break it down!” Ashli yelled, “Stop that!”

Another video, shot from another angle and farther away, shows that Ashli was not the woman who shouted, “Take it down,” as has been erroneously reported.

Aaron knows his wife was no insurrectionist. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “We’re going to get it out there.”

It’s now clear the situation had gone from calm to mayhem in just a few minutes. “I think she just realized she was in a bad spot, something wasn’t right,” he said. “She had her wits about her. The frustration came out when she punched him [Alam] in the face, because he deserved it. He deserved it from a man, not the little woman there in that small hallway.”

The strangest thing to us about this whole scenario is the cops’ inaction. Some had left their post by the door, and the three who remained were just standing there. Aaron doesn’t understand that, either. “He [Alam] deserved it from a cop,” he said, “but none of that was happening. For a former law enforcement person to be seeing this happening is like mass confusion, ‘What is going on here right now?’”

This would have gone against all her training and common sense. Ashli, 35, was a military police officer in the Air Force and National Guard for 14 years, after enlisting at age 17. Ironically, she actually served in the National Guard for the District of Columbia, which DEFENDS THE NATION’S CAPITAL. She was not there to tear it down.

From cameraman Hansen: “She was not a terrorist, she was a vehement supporter of law enforcement who took major issue with those who didn’t do their jobs on January 6th. The family should be heavily compensated by the mainstream media and the government for the propaganda they’ve pushed surrounding Ashli.”

The new information related above comes from a premium story from Joseph Hanneman in The Epoch Times.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ashli-babbitt-punched-rioter-seconds-before-she-was-shot-new-video-shows_4233468.html

According to The Epoch Times, Zachary Alam was arrested on January 30 of last year. This past November, the DOJ issued a “superseding” indictment that charges him with 11 counts, including assaulting, resisting or impeding police with a dangerous weapon; civil disorder; and destruction of government property. He’s due in court in February for a status conference.

Stills show him wearing a MAGA hat under his fur one. He had previously been in jail and refused to turn himself in because he didn’t want to go back.

Here’s more, from a local story out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he hid out.

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/who-is-the-man-the-fbi-arrested-in-lancaster-county-after-capitol-attack/article_a93f2476-658e-11eb-bd31-9f867241227f.html

We also found a legal document online, a petition for Alam’s release on bond dated June 4, 2021, saying he’d been detained since February 6. (Don’t know if he was released.) So he doesn’t seem to fit the category of those mysterious individuals who encouraged the breach of the Capitol but weren’t detained. So far, we haven’t been able to find out anything about who else he was with that day.

. . . . . .

But as a postscript, we’ll tell you who WAS just sentenced: our friend Brandon Straka, founder of the #WalkAway Movement. Though he did not enter the Capitol that day, he’s been sentenced to three months of home detention and a $5,000 fine. “Even if he didn’t personally engage in violence or property destruction during the riot, Straka encouraged and celebrated the violence of that day,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Reed wrote in a court filing.

Straka’s attorney said they were violating his First Amendment rights and “attempting to make a public spectacle of a prominent Trump-supporting influencer.” As if anyone in our system of justice would ever do that.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/walk-away-founder-brandon-straka-sentenced-to-probation-home-detention

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I READ THEM!

Mike Huckabee

Question: how does a regime focused on perpetuating and expanding its own power, such as the one currently occupying Washington DC, crush all opposition --- both actual and potential? According to Michael Anton, in his new commentary for American Greatness, it conducts what in national security parlance is a “psy-op,” or psychological operation. This is what seems to be going on right now in our country.

According to Anton, this form of propagandizing is done to demoralize --- THAT sure seems to be happening --- and also “to create other opportunities that otherwise might not present themselves.” For example, to create the opportunity to stop dissent, they first have to criminalize it. And since we supposedly live in a free country, criminalizing dissent poses a problem. This is America, so unless we’re young and brainwashed, we naturally resist attempts to restrict our free speech and persecute us for our politics. So the regime needs a big-time excuse to make that happen.

So, what do Americans hate and fear at least as much as incursions on their freedom? Terrorism. Mob rule. Civil strife. Civil WAR. Ah –- there we are! Americans hate the thought of civil war! In order to rein in political opposition and stifle dissent, an effective plan might be to make Americans extremely concerned about domestic terrorism and, ultimately, civil war.

And since our rulers are leftists, they have to make the perceived threat come from the right.

The main tool a government has for implementing such a propaganda plan is FACT-BASED LIES. It’s a fact that some conservatives truly believe we’re headed down the road to civil war, simply because the country is so divided –- as they say in divorce court, “irreparably broken.” If we’re talking about a violent rebellion, an insurrection, that’s a war that Anton very reasonably explains could not be won. Perhaps an “amicable divorce” as a last resort could be workable if it came to that, rather than give up our freedom, but not civil war, which he likens to “Bambi vs. Godzilla.” Check this out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s3UogfAGg0

It’s also a fact that a relative handful of people from the right really were involved in the January 6 riot in a way that went beyond walking into the Rotunda and taking selfies. But the threat they posed has been so greatly exaggerated by Congress and the media that many Democrats actually believe a small, unarmed group posed a serious threat to “our democracy” and were seriously trying to take over the government.

Of course, that is ludicrous. But I think we’re starting to see that there is nothing so ludicrous that people won’t believe it if it’s drummed into them by their political masters.

Even though there’s no domestic terrorism going on (at least on the right), the federal government has set up a “domestic terrorism unit” to go in search of it (at least on the right). They’re targeting “those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.” Who are those people? So-called “anti-vaxxers”? The unmasked? Parents opposed to CRT? Those who sign petitions for election audits? Conservative bloggers? Subscribers to the Mike Huckabee newsletter?

Importantly, since there are no acts of domestic terrorism being perpetrated by the right, the government is targeting motives, feelings, ideologies --- what people think, not what they do.

We’re even seeing examples in the media of commentaries that defend the use of this “psy-ops” strategy, in the name of “fighting disinformation.”

https://archive.is/3RaHe

Of course, the problem with this kind of content control is that “disinformation” or “misinformation” is anything the government authority says it is. For example, the story that the Bidens really have been in bed financially with Ukrainians, Russians and Chinese, as revealed on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, was quickly censored as “Russian disinformation” to keep voters from knowing about it right before the 2020 election. And it’s TRUE.

I would add that because of the two-tier “justice” system the left has established, people on their team politically who actually DO commit acts of domestic terrorism and other violent crimes against civil society will be released without bail, if they are dealt with by law enforcement at all.

Lately, the “buzz” being generated is that because of angry Americans on the right --- typically white and rural, and shamefully portrayed as “white supremacists” --- our country is being primed for civil war. To maintain this narrative, the left uses the closest thing it has to that: January 6. (We’ve said all along that the Capitol Hill riot played into the left’s hands so well that if it didn’t happen on its own, they would’ve had to make it happen. More about that tomorrow.) As Anton points out, “The regime is trying to brainwash everyone that January 6 was the equivalent of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. But it’s not working --- three quarters of Americans think is was ‘a protest that went too far’ --- so the regime needs a Plan B.”

Plan B is to create that “buzz,” to talk up domestic strife and impending civil war –- even books are coming out about this –- so that Americans increasingly believe the threat and become frightened. If they’re frightened enough, they’ll start to accept more draconian measures that would normally be unthinkable. I would add that the virus is a great example of this; those who cower in fear of COVID will accept any amount of restriction: lockdowns, vaccine passports, employer mandates, an endless string of booster shots, social isolation, tracking/travel restrictions, censorship, detention or even denial of medical care for the unvaccinated. It’s just a matter of generating enough fear and dread. The same can be done to instill fear in political opponents; in fact, there’s even some overlap, as resistance to COVID mandates is being politicized.

So, if you’ve been hearing more about the threat or even inevitability of civil war lately, it’s not your imagination. And Anton warns that the feds behind this plan WANT you to step out of line --- to do something that they can paint as a prelude to starting a war. That gives them all the excuse they need to respond, with “more censorship, surveillance, no-knock raids, computer and records seizures, asset confiscation, frivolous (but deadly serious) criminal charges, endless pretrial detention, and draconian sentences for misdemeanors and non-crimes.”

So don't play into it. I would recommend thinking of this as a chess game. Our next move has to be "checkmate" at the ballot box.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-civil-war-psy-op/

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I READ THEM!

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

I wish to thank Mars --- the corporation, not the planet --- for instantly curing me of my addiction to Peanut M&M’s.

A little background: I try to avoid sugar as much as possible, just because I think it’s healthier to be on a low-carb diet. But one exception I’ve made was Peanut M&M’s. I rationalized that since the candy was just on the outside of each piece, surrounding a peanut, the protein sort of “canceled out” the sugar. And, to some extent, I was correct.

But lately at our house, we’ve been buying not just the little single-serving packages but the big bags, and my nightly ritual was to pour a pretty fair amount into a dish and polish them off after dinner, typically while watching Tucker Carlson. (Tucker can thank me for the plug later.) I even had a little ritual surrounding which colors would be eaten first, leaving one each of green, orange and blue before they were all gone. I am not kidding. And I thought I could stop any time, though I hadn’t yet tested that theory.

But a few days ago, a story came out about the little animated M&M’s mascots getting an “image makeover” for 2022. And my love affair with Peanut M&M’s was suddenly and absolutely over.

https://nypost.com/2022/01/20/mms-g-a-new-look-thats-representative-of-todays-society/

I don’t care if they want to change the look of their characters. But this is yet another example of tedious virtue signaling about “inclusiveness” brought about by the current climate of corporate fear, and I have had enough of it. Mars Inc. had already bowed to pressure and changed the name of its beloved Uncle Ben’s brand rice. The real Uncle Ben was not a slave or a servant –- from the best I can gather, he was a real rice farmer in the Houston area known for his superior product. The model for the picture is Frank Brown, head waiter at a high-end Chicago restaurant when he posed in 1947. But now, in Orwellian fashion, Mr. Brown’s image has been erased, a casualty of wokeness.

But back to M&M’s. From Mars Inc.’s own press release: “M&M’s, a proud part of Mars Incorporated, launches a global platform to increase a sense of belonging for ten million people by 2025, helping to connect and celebrate one another.” Good grief.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iconic-mms-brand-announces-global-commitment-to-creating-a-world-where-everyone-feels-they-belong-301464475.html

Their release announces “a global commitment to creating a world where everyone feels they belong, and society is inclusive.” Skipping down a bit: “Studies show our desire to belong is as strong as our desire to be loved, and that desire is common for all people irrespective of culture, race, ethnicity, geography or location.” Skipping down a bit more, we see that there will even be more emphasis on the ampersand in M AND M’s, “to demonstrate how the brand aims to bring people together.”

Silly me, I thought we came together because of our mutual love of the candy that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. This is too...heavy-handed.

They say they’ve even updated their “tone of voice” to be “more inclusive, welcoming and unifying, while remaining rooted to our signature jester wit and humor.” I apologize for not having picked up on M&M’s “signature jester wit” in the past. But do you know what destroys wit and humor with a sledgehammer? Fear of not being woke enough.

The Global Marketing Vice President refers to these as their new “evolved” characters, introduced as part of their effort “to create a world where society is inclusive.” Other aspects of their “global [there’s that word again] commitment” are “gender balanced leadership teams, running an independent annual diversity audit of its advertising by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media [I am not making this up], and its role as Vice Chair of the Unstereotype Alliance, part of UN Women, amongst others.”

“The world we want tomorrow starts with the way we do business today,” they say, and I agree with that statement. But this way of doing business is just pandering. It’s yet another case of a corporation drinking the Kool-Aid of wokeness, using the required buzzwords and professing the required intentions. It’s already become a cliché. But as fun as it would be to write a parody of this type of press release, why should I when it already reads like a parody of itself?

When you get down to the actual changes being made to these colorful candy characters, they mostly involve superficial characteristics such as footwear. (Come to think of it, that’s just about all they have to work with, style-wise, as M&M’s are otherwise sans clothing. But the brown one does wear glasses, I assume to make nearsighted people like me feel included!) The green M&M used to wear high-heeled boots, which have been exchanged for sneakers. The brown M&M also wore high heels, but they are lower heels now. Well, it’s about time those poor M&M’s got to be more comfortable! Perhaps their focus groups included an oversampling of podiatrists.

The red, yellow and orange M&M’s all sport shoelaces, with the laces left untied on the orange M&M, to make him/it more casual and “street.” I would have loved to be in on the creative session when they decided which color of candy would get which footwear: “Hey, we can’t put the untied shoelaces on the brown one!”)

Sorry to be flip, but you KNOW they talked about it.

Oh, and they’re doing away with prefixes that might identify gender. They want to “focus on their personalities, rather than their gender.” Maybe that’s why high heels were done away with. But what if a male M&M identified as female, and wanted high heels? Somebody has to think about these things!

As reported in the New York Post, “The characters are changing up their looks for ‘a fresh, modern take’ on their style and ‘more nuanced personalities to underscore the importance of self-expression and power of community through storytelling’...adding that today’s ‘more dynamic, progressive world’ would be reflected in the changes.”

They now have “personalities and backstories...representative of today’s society.” Backstories, really? They’re M&M’s.

As the Gov. said when we brought you this story last week, M&M’s were already teaching the lesson that whatever colors we are on the outside, we’re the same on the inside. I’ve always thought that was a great message, but right now, it’s not the precise message that everyone in business must –- repeat, MUST –- convey. So apparently Mars is the latest corporation to be assimilated, like pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” They’ve all been frightened by the “progressive” (radical) left into parroting the same mandatory messages in the mandatory vocabulary. They think they have to do this to bring their product up to date, but to me it already seems old, lame, dated –- so 2021.

And, you know what? I’ve completely lost my taste for M&M’s. So, thank you, Mars Incorporated, for that.

Laura Ainsworth is a staff-writer at MikeHuckabee.com. You can read more of her work here.

Mike Huckabee

Tristan Justice at The Federalist confirms what many of us have suspected from the start: Nancy Pelosi’s (highly) Select Committee on January 6th isn’t seriously interested in getting to the truth about the January 6th Capitol riot, but in abusing power to target and harass political opponents and rifle through people’s private communications as part of a fishing expedition for anything they can smear Trump with.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/20/only-10-percent-of-j6-committee-subpoenas-relate-to-the-capitol-riot/

As Justice points out, the Committee has issued 84 subpoenas, but only 8 (fewer than 10%) are to groups or individuals with any connection to the Capitol riot. One is for an Arizona Republican who was nowhere near Washington at the time, but he runs a PAC that’s working to unseat Committee member Liz Cheney. No suspicious conflict of interest there!

Meanwhile, one person who unquestionably bears responsibility for the riot is Pelosi herself, who rejected activating the National Guard to provide security SIX times. But she’s not being investigated. The former Capitol Police Chief said Pelosi’s rejection of proper security fails to fall under the category of “facts and circumstances around January 6th.” Question: is he one of the authorities who cleared the cop who killed Ashli Babbitt without even interviewing him?

And speaking of this committee’s abuses of power, Glenn Greenwald details how they colluded with JP Morgan and its lawyer (former Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch) to obtain a private citizen’s financial records without the protection of judicial review.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congresss-16-committee-claims-absolute

Greenwald writes that the Committee has been “secretly obtaining private information about American citizens en masse: telephone records, email logs, internet and browsing history, and banking transactions. And it has done so without any limitations or safeguards: no judicial oversight, no need for warrants, no legal limitations of any kind.” They have also been “purposely attempting to prevent citizens who are the targets of their investigative orders to have any opportunity to contest the legality of this behavior in court.”

As added context, Greenwald explains how this is something that the Supreme Court barred Congress from doing in the 1950s, when they found that the House Un-American Activities Committee was conducting a separate, parallel criminal investigation unrelated to its mission, and trying to uncover political crimes committed by private citizens.

This is one of many, many reasons why I’m counting the minutes until November, when I hope that Republicans take over Congress in large numbers and literally “clean House.” That hosing out of the stables should include a thorough investigation of these corrupt “investigators.”

Mike Huckabee

With the March for Life taking place in Washington this weekend, and today being the 49th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, a new poll from Marist and the Knights of Columbus found that support for unfettered abortion is not so strong as liberals would have us believe.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/21/71-percent-of-americans-want-more-restrictions-on-abortion-not-fewer/

The poll found that while only 12% of American adults think abortion should be completely banned, only 17% think it should be allowed at any time during a pregnancy. A large 71% want more restrictions, not fewer: they think abortion should be heavily limited and only allowed under certain circumstances. 63% oppose allowing abortion drugs by mail order, which Biden’s FDA just approved. 54% oppose taxpayer-funded abortions in the US, despite Biden’s attempts to reinstate them; and a whopping 73% oppose using our tax money to fund abortions overseas.

So when you hear pro-abortion activists accuse pro-lifers of being on the “wrong side of history,” remember that 49 years after the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, the majority of Americans still oppose their view and opposition is growing. It's the abortion supporters who are not only on the wrong side of history, they’re on the wrong side of life.

Mike Huckabee

The world was watching a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday, as a rabbi and several members of Congregation Beth Israel were held hostage for almost 12 hours before escaping.

While it took the FBI some time to admit the hostage-taker was motivated by antisemitism, they finally stated the obvious, but Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, known to his congregants in this suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth as “Rabbi Charlie,” learned it firsthand during the harrowing experience.

You know some of the details --- how a Palestinian-born man with apparent mental problems and known to British intelligence was able to fly to JFK International Airport and travel to the Dallas area to try to get a terrorist released from a Fort Worth prison. After being ambushed during the Shabbat service and held at gunpoint inside the synagogue for many hours, the hostages realized the situation was quickly deteriorating, but Rabbi Charlie managed to save them all by finding the right moment to throw a chair at the terrorist and give them a chance to rush outside to safety. An FBI Hostage Rescue Team rushed the building after the hostages had rescued themselves –- I’ll let the irony of that sink in –- and they shot and killed the terrorist.

For the congregation, this week has been a time for healing, and they've been coming together in that spirit. Rabbi Charlie is a beloved local figure, to his own congregation and to those who simply know him as a neighbor and friend. Rabbi Amy Bigman, who was with Rabbi Charlie’s mother during the stand-off, said, “I’ve known Charlie since he was in high school. He is quite simply a mensch.”

That comment was taken from this excellent profile.

https://www.jta.org/2022/01/16/united-states/quite-simply-a-mensch-meet-rabbi-charlie-cytron-walker-freed-after-hostage-crisis-at-his-synagogue

“Our rabbi is a wonderful human being,” said Ellen Smith, who grew up at Congregation Beth Israel, of Rabbi Charlie while the hostage stand-off was still going on. He’s praised by his local Jewish community but also is well known in Colleyville for his interfaith work. According to this report, local Muslim leaders spoke out in support of him on Saturday.

In fact, here’s another irony: “Alia Salem, the founder of an advocacy group exposing abuse among Muslim faith leaders and a self-proclaimed ‘vocal supporter’ of the movement to free the woman support by the hostage-taker, said on Twitter that she had been a friend of Cytron-Walker and his wife for 15 years.”

She wrote of the couple that “they are the kindest, gentlest and [most] loving people who have been absolutely rock-solid friends and allies, not only to me but to the entire Muslim community through thick and thin.”

The only unflattering thing said about Rabbi Charlie came from Ellen Smith, before it was known how the standoff would end: “He’s the worst singer in the world. He cannot hold a tune to save his life. I hope that he’ll get a chance to pray off-tune very badly during another Shabbat service.” And, of course, he will, with congregants happy to cover their ears.

Another commentary in this same publication might help us get inside the minds and hearts of those who anticipate attending services in their own synagogues this weekend. It quotes Rabbi Charlie as saying that it’s important for synagogues to continue to be welcoming, even as it was his decision to let a stranger through Congregation Beth Israel’s locked door that led to his being taken hostage.”

https://www.jta.org/2022/01/20/united-states/american-jews-prepare-for-a-shabbat-in-the-shadow-of-colleyville

So, how welcoming should they be? At this time of uncertainty, Rabbi Paul Kipnes, of a Reform synagogue in suburban Los Angeles, has adopted a new motto for his staff: “WWRCD?” As in, “What would Rabbi Charlie do?”

Apparently, though, Rabbi Charlie is currently looking for a job, having resigned from the Colleyville congregation last fall after being there for over 15 years. He plans to leave in June. He joked lovingly about this at the healing service they held for the congregation and others in the community on Monday night, stressing that the congregation right now is looking for a way to heal. “We’re really trying to figure out what we need to do,” he said Monday. “We’ve got repairs to make to the congregation and we’re making arrangements so that we can have services this weekend.” He hopes congregants will get professional therapy if they feel they need it.

Rabbi Charlie said claims that he forbids congregants to carry firearms inside the building are not true. He does prefer concealed rather than open carry, he said, adding that “I would have hoped that one of the people in that synagogue that morning, one of the members from the synagogue, had had a gun on them to have things ended a little bit earlier.”

He also says that rumors he has called Israel "an apartheid state" are not true. He clarifies that although it’s a complicated situation, he’s “a huge supporter of Israel.”

He’s quoted extensively in this additional piece.

https://www.jta.org/2022/01/19/united-states/the-texas-rabbi-who-escaped-a-hostage-situation-wants-to-correct-the-record

At noon on Thursday, Congregation Beth Israel hosted a webinar featuring FBI Director Christopher Wray and Rabbi Charlie to talk about some of the same issues, as well as how to address antisemitism and the training offered by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). This was a special edition of the ADL’s “Fighting Hate from Home” series. Interestingly, as well-trained as Rabbi Charlie is, he said he saw absolutely nothing to raise eyebrows about this man when he first came to the front door of the synagogue on that cold morning. The man started out very calm and normal, gradually morphing into someone more hateful and belligerent as the time passed.

One senses the same progression of emotion from calm and casual to freak-out during a phone call the terrorist made to his brother to say “goodbye” near the end of the stand-off. He tells his brother he’s been praying two years “for this” and that he is going to die.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article257540768.html

We’re working on obtaining a recorded version of the webinar and will provide the link in an update if we do. Rabbi Charlie said the man clearly had chosen a synagogue for his plan because of a misplaced belief that “Jews hold all the power.” The man spoke of this consistently. He thought that if he took Jewish people hostage, that’s what would get “Lady al-Qaeda” released from the nearby prison, because in America, he said, Jews have so much more power and influence than anyone else.

Mike Huckabee

The NCAA has reacted to the angry backlash by female athletes and their parents against allowing “transgender” athletes to compete in women’s sports. This has long been a serious issue that’s destroying women’s sports, but because the media and certain politicians are so afraid of the trans lobby, anyone who dares state obvious biological facts is smeared as a transphobic hater. But it finally broke through thanks to collegiate swimmer “Lia Thomas,” who was a male swimmer through three years of college, then “transitioned” and is now mowing down all of Penn’s women’s swimming records.

The obvious, ridiculous unfairness of this finally emboldened parents and athletes to speak up, and the NCAA has responded by changing its policy on transgender athletes.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/ncaa-changes-transgender-athlete-participation-policy

After the usual PC boilerplate about being " steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports" (which is blatantly untrue, since there’s nothing fair about a biological male competing against females half “her” size and strength), the NCAA announced that from now on, they will follow a sport-by-sport model similar to the US and international Olympic Committees.

The IOC’s rules state, "Trans female athletes must demonstrate a total testosterone level in serum below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 consecutive months prior to competition and must remain below this threshold throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category in any event."

Again, this is not fairness or equality or even biological science. The fact that testosterone levels have been artificially suppressed does nothing to reverse the size and upper body strength advantages that a male athlete who’s gone through puberty has before “transitioning.” Real fairness would mean either having everyone compete under their biological sex, or if you want to recognize trans athletes, giving them their own competitions.

All this does is sprinkle a thin veneer of “fairness” rhetoric over the problem. But it does nothing to ensure fairness for female athletes whose rights are being shattered just as surely as their hard-won athletic records are.

Related story:

I think the real reason why Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire is always getting banned by social media may be because he’s too good at dropping truth bombs that the language torturers and common-sense molesters of the left cannot refute and look ridiculous trying.

Megan Fox at PJ Media has a great write-up of his recent appearance on “Dr. Phil” with some transgender activists who were blindsided when he asked them to define the word “woman.” Walsh defined it easily and correctly, pointed out the fatal flaw in their “it’s a subjective concept” claim, and then in one lethal sentence, summed up how they’re trying to appropriate “womanhood” from women.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/megan-fox/2022/01/19/watch-matt-walsh-destroys-woke-gender-narrative-with-one-simple-question-n1551089

As Ms. Fox goes on to discuss, the left insists that “appropriating” someone else’s culture, truth or lived experience is one of the worst crimes you can commit. So why is it okay when this group does it to women? Why is appropriating someone’s race bad but appropriating their gender is courageous and praiseworthy? Why is putting on blackface makeup offensive but putting on Maybelline is to be celebrated?

By the way, I also loved Walsh’s point that if you’re allowed to choose your own pronouns and demand that other people use them, why can’t we force people to use our own preferred adjectives, his being “handsome” and “brilliant”?

Mike Huckabee

As we watch the DOJ launch investigations of concerned parents and 2020 election skeptics with the pretext of countering “domestic terrorism,” it’s easy to see how facile they are at creating issues essentially out of thin air. They do it over and over. Another example of this –- evident in President Biden’s Wednesday press conference –- is the fiction that Republicans, in their opposition to the so-called “voter rights” bill, are trying to suppress the minority vote. That is a detestable lie, made up out of whole cloth, but Biden just keeps saying it, anyway. He’ll say it as long as he and his advisers think he’s getting something out of it.

The Democrats have a singular talent for whipping up huge, complex narratives out of nothing, waving their magic wand to get the media obsessed with them, and keeping them going for years. It’s a make-work program for DC lawyers, keeping their political opponents busy fighting in court, and maintains for the public whatever fiction they choose to tell. They illustrate the accuracy of the statement that if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. That’s why many in our country actually believe that millions of Trump supporters are white supremacists and dirty Jim Crow-style segregationists. Just turn on MSNBC to hear that idiotic lie.

But there has never been a bigger and more consequential example of this flair for fiction than the Russia Hoax.

While President Biden has been busy this year failing to live up to even the lowest of expectations –- though he brags that he has exceeded them –- Special Counsel John Durham has been quietly looking into the origin of that Biggest of Big Lies, the lie that actually turned into an attempted coup against a sitting President. Aaron Mate at RealClear Communications has just written an excellent commentary that compares the unsatisfactory investigation completed by “Justice” Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz two years ago with the broader probe headed by Durham. The Special Counsel really is getting to the heart of just how ridiculously flimsy the “evidence” was that the FBI exploited to start spying on Trump’s people.

Horowitz, in his report of December 2019, faulted the FBI for its handling of the Russia probe but still, unbelievably, concluded that it was launched in good faith. If that seems laughable now (and it sure does), keep in mind that Horowitz was only conducting an internal investigation, so he was limited to speaking with “Justice” Department employees. That meant Hillary’s campaign and some of their most notorious helpers were essentially out of his reach.

His report taught us a hard lesson, too, about internal investigations in general. When departments investigate themselves, they tend to cut themselves a ridiculous amount of slack. (See “Capitol Hill Police Lt. Michael Byrd.”) In fact, to reach his conclusion Horowitz had to essentially disregard evidence that was included in his own report.

The media loved that conclusion, though, and danced with delight. As Mate tells it, “Horowitz’ report, wrote Mother Jones reporter (and early Steele media contact) David Corn, ‘concluded that the Trump-Russia contacts had been legitimately launched,’ thereby proving that ‘there was no hoax.’”

But we know differently today –- that they used fake information in the unverified “dossier” to launch the probe and later get their spy warrants. So the question is, who is ultimately responsible for the creation of that work of fiction?

“As he documents the role of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in generating false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion,” Mate writes, “Special Counsel John Durham has also previewed a challenge to the FBI’s claims about how and why its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began. At stake is the official reckoning within the U.S. government over the Russiagate scandal --- and whether there will be an accounting commensurate with the offense: the abuse of the nation’s highest law enforcement and intelligence powers to damage an opposition political candidate turned president, at the behest of his opponent from the governing party he defeated.”

Horowitz criticized the FBI for using the Steele memos --- taken together, the “dossier” --- but took them at their word that they didn’t use them to actually open Crossfire Hurricane. They had other evidence, he said, that met the “low threshold” needed for opening an investigation.

Recall that when his report came out, we were scratching our heads over that conclusion. How could there be a low threshold for opening an investigation on a major-party candidate RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT? That was not something to be undertaken lightly. It seemed that, if anything, there should have been a higher-than-normal threshold for the FBI to get involved in something that political.

But apparently Durham was scratching his head over it, too. When it came out, he announced that his office had “advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication [reason] and how the FBI case was opened.” And because Durham’s was not just an internal investigation, it was “not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department” and has instead obtained “information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside the U.S.”

The story about Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos telling Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that the Russians had political dirt on Hillary was so flimsy that it couldn’t have been the pretext for an investigation, as the FBI claimed it was. Besides, we know they got the names Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mike Flynn, who were all investigated, right out of the “dossier.” And while the FBI investigators claimed they didn’t see it until mid-September of 2016, we know that some at the FBI had seen “dossier” material prior to opening Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016.

In fact, Christopher Steele, working on behalf of the Clinton campaign through Fusion GPS, first contacted someone with the FBI on July 5, three weeks before Crossfire Hurricane was opened. That was Michael Gaeta, a senior FBI agent he had worked with before and who was now working as a legal attache in Rome. Gaeta was excited to receive a copy of Steele’s “report” and quickly passed it along to eager colleagues.

Interestingly, Mate reports that before Gaeta took off for London to meet with Steele, he got the approval for his trip from Victoria Nuland, who then worked in the State Department and is now Biden’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Those at the State Department who saw a few pages of what Steele had given Gaeta said, “This needs to go to the FBI.”

It’s hard to know why Horowitz took the FBI’s word when they said they didn’t use the unverified “dossier” to open their investigation, when he’d documented so many of their other lies. Mate outlines these under the subhead, “On Steele, a Pattern of FBI ‘Factual Misstatements and Omissions.’”

The Bureau has already been caught relying on Clinton-funded disinformation and lying about that. It could get a lot worse. Mate anticipates that Durham is in his “final months” of the investigation and is honing in on his ultimate targets.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/01/20/the_tension_over_truth_and_consequences_gripping_the_fbis_trump-russia_reckoning_812321.html

Mike Huckabee

Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are under intense pressure to vote to destroy the filibuster and support the “Voting Rights Act” (aka, the “Legalize Vote Fraud Act.”)

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nick-saban-others-urge-manchin-to-protect-voting-rights

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/emilys-list-refuses-to-support-sinema-for-reelection

Fortunately for America, these two appear to be the Party’s only actual remaining “adults in the room,” and they seem to be standing firm, which will likely deal both of these naked power grabs a defeat.

For the record: nobody is being suppressed from voting in America in 2022. It’s easier to vote than it’s ever been. It’s easier to vote under what Biden ludicrously called the “Jim Crow” voting laws in Georgia than it is in New York or Biden’s home state of Delaware. And a recent nationwide Rasmussen survey found that more than 80% of voters support voter photo ID requirements, having all ballots received by Election Day, requiring voting machines to be made in the USA, and removing dead people and those who have moved from voter rolls.

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/bidens-jim-crow-20-tour-collides-reality-blacks-strongly-support-voter-id

Manchin also tried reasoning with his angry fellow Democrats. He said of the attack on the filibuster, "I just don't see how you break a rule to make a rule." And he said we already have laws and rules in place to protect voting, and nobody’s going to be obstructed from voting, “that’s not going to happen.” It worked about as well as trying to explain calculus to a rabid badger.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/01/18/manchin-we-already-have-laws-to-ensure-people-have-voting-rights-voter-obstruction-is-not-going-to-happen/

And as for the filibuster that Democrats have now started branding the “Jim Crow filibuster” (is anyone else offended that they keep eroding the gravity of that term by applying it to everything they don’t like?), they didn’t seem to think it was a tool of white supremacy when they were the minority during Trump’s final year. In 2020, Republicans used the filibuster one time and Democrats used it to block legislation 327 times.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/29/report-democrats-used-filibuster-327-times-while-republicans-used-it-once-in-2020/

For all their vilification of Manchin and Sinema, those two are doing the Party a huge service. They’re protecting one of the strongest tools of the minority, which, God willing, Chuck Schumer will soon be leading.

Mike Huckabee

Am I allowed to report on this? Six House members and Sen. Ron Johnson are demanding to question Maj. Joseph Murphy about the leaked report obtained by Project Veritas that, if true, would upend many official narratives about the origin of COVID-19 and the government’s response to it.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2022/01/13/sen-johnson-wants-to-interview-maj-joseph-murphy-about-documents-released-by-project-veritas-n506165

I wrote about this several days ago, and have been waiting to see if it would be picked up by the media. I didn’t present it as verified truth, but as a story that deserved further investigation because, if true, it would be a bombshell story about government lies and cover-ups involving the loss of millions of lives. So you’d think the media would be all over it. But the old days of reporters chasing after the story have given away to reporters looking nervously to their favored authority figures for permission to cover anything that might upset the official narrative.

This story bubbled under on conservative media outlets for several days before it finally gained enough traction for Congress members to demand answers. And so I ask again, in all sincerity: am I allowed to write about it without being censored by social media? You see, I’m old enough to remember that when elected members of both Houses of Congress were demanding answers from another government official about a bombshell accusation, it didn’t matter whether the accusation was proven yet or not. The very fact that Congress is launching an investigation qualified as “news.”

But I searched Google for the words “Ron Johnson DARPA Joseph Murphy,” and it returned only two hits: a statement on Sen. Johnson’s website and a story on the conservative site PJ Media. With all the vast resources of ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and all the other media outlets, Google found nothing else about this story.

And they really wonder why the public trusts them less than a guy selling “Rolexes” out of his car trunk?

Mike Huckabee

Some people have expressed concern about the faltering health of President Biden’s brain. And by “Biden’s Brain,” I mean the nickname that’s been given to his Chief of Staff, Ron Klain.

Last week, the Supreme Court specifically cited Klain’s retweet of a description of the OSHA mandate as being the ultimate “work-around” in finding that the Administration knew it was unconstitutional. You’d think that would teach him to think before pressing “Send,” or inspire his staff to hide his phone, but no…

https://www.westernjournal.com/ron-klain-retweets-ridiculous-analysis-bidens-inflation-crisis/

Klain’s Twitter account is a marvelous fantasyland where the economy is booming because inflation didn’t rise quite as fast this month as last month (actually, it’s even worse than the government admits…)

https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/worst-us-inflation-since-82-is-huge-underestimate/

…and there was a tiny increase in the labor participation rate! Of course, that might have just been from Amazon having to hire more workers to resend all the packages that are being looted off of trains in L.A.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/train-thieves-downtown-los-angeles

But as Ron Klain might tweet, that’s good news: we have full employment for thieves! And they’re reducing smash-and-grab store crime by eliminating the middleman and stealing merchandise right off the trains! Under Biden, even thieves are becoming more efficient! It’s the best of all possible worlds!

Mr. Klain had better hope his gross of pig lipstick doesn’t get looted off the train.

Mike Huckabee

President Biden is now openly calling for more social media censorship, saying, “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets — please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows. It has to stop.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2022/01/14/biden-calls-for-opposition-to-be-censored-n2601852

As a reminder, I recently linked to a commentary at Instapundit that outlined a legal pathway to suing Big Tech companies for violating conservative users’ freedom of speech. These companies claim that they’re not subject to First Amendment protections because they aren’t government entities. However, we’ve already heard reports of White House staffers meeting with these companies to help formulate guidelines for who gets censored.

In addition, as the linked article points out, Biden is also in violation of a 1973 SCOTUS ruling that the government “may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”

As we’ve seen many times, the definition of “misinformation” and “disinformation” is often “things that the powers that be don’t want anyone saying, but that later turn out to be true” (see “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” to cite just one of many examples.) There is a legal case to be made that if these companies are colluding with government authorities to determine who gets censored, then they’re acting as de facto government agents. If so, then they are bound by First Amendment protections. If so, then “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of lawsuits!”

And if the White House wants to claim it hasn’t been telling these companies who to censor, someone should inform the President not to go on TV and tell them who to censor.

Colonel Kenneth Allard, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Col. Ken Allard, US Army (Ret), had a distinguished career that included serving as Dean of the National War College at West Point and as a military analyst for NBC.

In assessing potential battle outcomes or even deciding to go to war, Russian military science always seeks a “correlation of forces.” Put more simply, Bolshevik revolutionaries were taught, “If your bayonet strikes steel, pull back: But if it strikes only mush, then thrust forward.”

Despite the looming indicators, only Vladimir Putin knows for certain if Russia will really invade Ukraine; but so far, he has struck only mush. Haplessly presiding over the third Obama administration, President Biden appears shell-shocked by the sobering evidence amassed by those few Russian experts not yet re-assigned to studying climate change. Consulting dog-eared order-of-battle files airily dismissed by Democratic apologists, these analysts have watched with growing alarm as 120,000 Russian troops converged on Ukraine’s borders. They can’t be serious - or could they?

Like a slow-motion Cuban Missile Crisis, this ring of steel now surrounds Ukraine from three sides. Should Putin give the order, those forces will instantly roll forward to let the blitzkrieg begin. Russian armies are a well-honed network of “operational maneuver groups” - integrated, armor-heavy, fast-moving mechanized formations built to overwhelm border defenses before spreading out to seize key terrain and exploit any breakthrough. Organic Russian artillery and missiles invoke the proverbial “Red God of war,” indirect fires obliterating any targets or obstacles impeding the armored blitzkrieg.

At the strategic level, Russia’s potent air forces are designed for aerial supremacy, first neutralizing enemy air defenses before eliminating critical infrastructure targets - much as the US did in Baghdad thirty years ago. Lending their own distinctive character are the Russian airborne and Spetsnaz forces, wonderfully mobile, elite formations transported by helicopters or cargo aircraft to seize and hold strategic targets, often deep behind enemy lines. Those well-armed squads of “little green men” deployed to Crimea in 2014 controlled restive populations through direct intimidation. Also from their Crimean bases, Russian amphibious and naval forces can support either limited seizures of key territory or the nightmare scenario of Western analysts: An all-out, multi-phased campaign to end Ukraine’s existence as an independent country.

In their comprehensive study, “Russia’s Possible Invasion of Ukraine,” CSIS analysts Philip Wasielewski and Seth Jones recently identified no fewer than six major options available to the Russian military, ranging from more limited incursions to seize breakaway hot-spots (such as Donetsk) or belts of land connecting Crimea with Odessa, effectively severing Ukraine from any Black Sea ports. But their most comprehensive option is that nightmare scenario: “Seize all of Ukraine and, with Belarus, announce the formation of a new tripartite Slavic union…(Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians).” The more military power Putin deploys, the greater his range of options, the only downsides being a re-energized US or NATO response. Even then, the fate of Ukraine would be grim: “Ukrainians in any occupied territory can expect forced Russification that the nation experienced under…Catherine the Great, Alexander II, Stalin and Brezhnev.” https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine? P.3

Should Ukraine manage to mobilize its population and deploy the limited “lethal aid” sent by the US since 2014, Philip Karber of the Potomac Foundation points out that “Ukrainian forces would be hard-pressed to cover a much broader front that stretches from Belarus in the north to the Black Sea in the south…(including) classic tank country where the Ukrainians do not have extensive prepared defenses” (Quoted by Warren P. Strobel, Michael R. Gordon and Nancy A. Youssef, “Moscow Bolsters Weaponry Near Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, 2022.

And as Russian diplomats have become more truculent, their information megaphones blare louder: Russian military units moving west, video footage of combat drills and even cyber-attacks against Ukrainian government websites with the warning, “be afraid and expect the worst.” Worst of all: Displaying sheer gullibility to Soviet-style dezinformatsiya, White House spokes-person Jen Psaki charged that, "Russia is laying the groundwork to (create) …a pretext for invasion, including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine." https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/expect-worst-ukraine-hit-by-cyberattack-russia-moves-more-troops-2022-01-14

With his innate Russian contempt for weakness, Vladimir Putin must take savage glee from having flummoxed the US and its NATO allies - all at comparatively little cost. By shrewdly guessing how far he can play his hand, Putin can either seize territories through pin-prick attacks or even reach for the whole enchilada, de-escalating for “peace” whenever tactically necessary. As always, the greatest danger is war through miscalculation, why former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld always maintained that weakness is provocative. Those provocations naturally befall a country like ours which no longer drafts its young men or even studies war. Instead, we cheerfully elect a clueless military cipher like Joe Biden to serve as commander-in-chief.

Hey man, what could possibly go wrong?

Mike Huckabee

Controversial comedian (and by that, I mean, “says true things powerful people don’t like,” which used to just mean, “comedian”) Ricky Gervais believes that the ratings implosion of TV awards shows isn’t due to pandemic downsizing, since even the ones that still have big stars and production numbers are cratering. Gervais blamed the audience tune-out on all the PC wokeism and leftist politics.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/01/12/ricky-gervais-awards-shows-suffering-people-sick-virtue-signalling

Gervais pulled big ratings when he hosted the Golden Globes, but while his gleeful mockery of Hollywood hypocrites was loved by viewers, it ticked off the celebrities, so he was replaced. Since then, the Globes have gone from one of the most star-studded nights in Hollywood to a Twitter thread announcing the winners that hardly anyone noticed. This was largely because of attacks on the awards organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for not being diverse enough. But that was hardly the reason that TV audiences gave up on it.

Writing in the British newspaper The Sun, Gervais said people “just got sick of virtue signaling…The people with nothing became tired of being lectured by people who had everything…They think, ‘Why are these people lecturing me? They’re going?? to an awards ceremony in a limo and are telling me to recycle?'”

Assessing the damage woke virtue signaling has done to Hollywood’s image, Gervais wrote, “The first time I did it, ten years ago, everyone was like, ‘Ah, how can you talk to these wonderful multi-millionaires, how can you talk to these beautiful people, like that? We love celebrities.' By the last one it was like, ‘God, give it to them, we hate celebrities!'”

Gervais said you can’t predict the future, and maybe awards shows will enjoy a return to popularity. But I doubt it. If Hollywood can’t even figure out that they shouldn’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars making movies that insult America and expect Americans to pay to see them (they don’t, by the way), or hire stars who spew hatred of half of Americans on Twitter and fire those who defend them, what are the odds that anyone will ever want to watch them give themselves awards for doing that?

Mike Huckabee

We are all very grateful here that our prayers were answered, and the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, ended with all four hostages released safely. The hostage taker, Malik Faisal Akram, was shot dead by an FBI SWAT team that stormed the building. (Full disclosure: this was a particularly harrowing weekend for my writer/researchers, Laura and Pat, since Laura’s sister is a member of that synagogue, and they’ve visited there and met the rabbi who was held hostage.)

Akram was a British citizen who came to the US a couple of weeks ago. He was demanding the release of Pakistani terrorist Aafia “Lady Al Qaeda” Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence (Akram falsely claimed to be her brother.) British authorities arrested two teenagers in Manchester and questioned them about possible involvement. Akram’s brother said the family was devastated, apologized to the victims, and claimed his brother had mental problems. He also asked how he was able to get a visa and fly on a plane to the US when he has a criminal record. Good question. This is a breaking story, so keep an eye on the news for continuing updates.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10408425/Blackburn-terrorist-Brother-Faisal-Akram-blames-mental-health-struggles-shooters-actions.html

The FBI finally announced this morning that "this is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force." I would sarcastically add, “What was your first clue?”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-synagogue-hostage-crisis-is-a-terrorism-related-matter-fbi-says

Please don’t think I’m being flip about this. A lot of people are rightly up in arms about how slow the FBI and President Biden were to recognize an obvious act of anti-Semitic/radical Islamic terrorism. The FBI special agent in charge initially stated, “We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, uh, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, uh, but we’re continuing to work to find motive and, and we will continue on that path.”

Some are calling for the FBI to be defunded and eliminated/replaced for its repeated failure to identify real terrorists and its whitewashing of anti-Semitic and anti-Republican attacks, even as it tries to redefine “domestic terrorists” to mean Trump voters, concerned parents or anyone who speaks out against the Democratic agenda.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-slammed-texas-synagogue-hostage-taker-not-related-jewish-community

President Biden is also taking heat over his initial reaction. While he later confirmed it was a terrorist attack, his initial quote was as bland as a mouthful of oatmeal:

“I don't think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue, why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years...Why he was using anti-Semitic & anti-Israeli comments."

https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1482792100441690112

As is typical, Biden initially expressed more interest in where and how the terrorist obtained the gun than at whom he pointed it. How about expressing a little concern for how easily dangerous foreigners with criminal records are getting into the US these days?

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2022/01/17/gun-grabber-biden-joins-long-list-of-democrats-speculating-on-where-hostage-taker-got-his-gun-n507797

Again, let’s all thank God that the hostages are safe, and pray that this will serve as a wake-up call both to our leaders and the misguided people who put them into power that there are real threats in the world, and there is genuine hatred of certain groups in the world. But in order to deal with these threats, you have to start addressing them honestly and looking for them in the right places.

Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media has more on the real “mental illness” that’s currently endangering us all.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2022/01/17/the-morning-briefing-democrats-remain-disturbingly-fond-of-islamic-terrorists-n1550152

Mike Huckabee

Last week, we looked at the charge of “seditious conspiracy” filed against members of the Oath Keepers and what that charge is actually supposed to mean within our legal system. Saturday, National Review published a commentary by legal analyst Andrew McCarthy in which he agreed that the charge of seditious conspiracy is not appropriate. We’ve certainly seen no evidence that Trump supporters --- at least the REAL Trump supporters, even those who entered the Capitol Building --- intended to forcefully interfere with a lawful exercise of government authority. Some have said they were trying to make a statement that they hoped the certification would be “paused” while certain irregularities were examined. They certainly were not trying to overthrow the government or anything close.

McCarthy, being the seasoned legal expert that we are not, was able to explain very precisely why “seditious conspiracy” is the wrong charge. It requires two conditions be met, he said: 1) that there is an agreement to use FORCE (not just “rambunctious” protest), and 2) that there is an attempt to wage war against the United States or oppose the LAWFUL authority of the United States.

And even if the actions that took place might be (wrongly) interpreted that way by some, it’s another thing to prove criminal intent. “Seditious conspiracy is the rare criminal offense in which motive matters,” McCarthy said. January 6, he explained, “involves people who committed serious crimes but believed --- however foolishly --- that they were saving the country, not waging war against it. Far from opposing the lawful authority of the government, they believed --- not irrationally --- that they were acting at the behest of the President of the United States.”

Here’s where I deviate significantly from McCarthy’s view of the protesters’ state of mind and Trump’s role in what happened. It WAS irrational for them to believe that President Trump wanted them to riot, break windows and vandalize the Capitol. Never did he “behoove” them to do such a thing.

Anyway, last summer, after the feds had set up what they called their “Sedition Task Force” (!) to address the events of January 6, 2021, McCarthy wrote that “the rioters will be punished appropriately, but not punished as if they were terrorists who were trying to overthrow the United States government.” Au contraire. That is exactly what the Biden administration is trying to do now. In fact, the last time a charge of sedition was made, it was against actual Islamic terrorists with bombs.

As it happens, McCarthy himself prosecuted that case, in 1995, against the Blind Sheikh’s jihadist cell after their bombing attempt on the World Trade Center and a later plot to bomb other New York City landmarks. Our current administration is trying to put the very same label of “seditious conspirator” on Trump supporters upset at what looked to them like blatant election fraud. They were expressing opposition to something they clearly believed was unlawful.

A bit of history: The law against sedition was first codified during the Civil War, to target Confederate sympathizers in the North who were helping the South –- a very different situation, with people literally at war with each other. “Our sedition law is designed to address conspiracies formed by anti-American enemies to attack our country and its government in an unambiguously hostile and violent manner,” McCarthy explained. The terrorists I prosecuted, in the course of plotting and conducting mass-murder attacks, were willfully at war with the United States and said so unabashedly. That is not true of the January 6 rioters.”

“Let’s be real,” McCarthy wrote in June. “With due respect to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Capitol melee is by no stretch of the imagination the greatest threat to our democracy in living memory. It is not 9/11. It is not the Boston Marathon bombing. Indeed, the June 14, 2017, Washington baseball field shooting spree, in which a radical leftist tried to mass-murder much of the Republican congressional delegation, bore more hallmarks of a terrorist attack --- albeit one that, like the deadly Black Lives Matter riots of last summer, the media-Democrat complex always remembers to forget.”

McCarthy did note “forcible entry, vandalism, and some theft of government property” on the part of some Capitol Hill rioters. He called it “a national disgrace.” At that time, some charges had already been filed and some participants had pleaded guilty, but none of this involved sedition. Oath Keepers founder Jon Ryan Schaffer had pleaded guilty to two charges: 1) obstructing a congressional proceeding, and 2) trespassing on restricted federal grounds while armed with a dangerous weapon (bear spray, which there is no claim that he actually used).

Last summer, McCarthy blamed President Trump for the riot, and he still does, as he sees Trump as responsible for making his supporters believe Biden hadn’t really won the election. I disagree, believing people are responsible for their own foolishness. If we’re going to attribute their anger to some outside force, how about the courts, for refusing to look at the evidence? Whether or not Trump had said the election was stolen, we saw enough jaw-dropping irregularities –- just on election night –-to generate enormous doubts. In fact, those doubts have grown with time, in part because of the stunning lack of transparency regarding the process, with over half of Americans now suspecting there was enough interference to change the outcome. Taking that “pause” would have been a good thing, instead of pushing ahead to formalize a "win" that millions of people saw as a likely fraud.

Finally, if you haven’t yet seen the documentary film CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, about the events and aftermath of January 6, I highly recommend you watch that. Nick Searcy, who was there that day and stars in the film, was a guest on my TBN show this weekend, and we had a great discussion. The film has lots of amazing “you-are-there” video from that day and interviews held later with participants who describe the shocking FBI raids they and their families endured, in which they really were treated like terrorists. There’s an enlightening segment on Ashli Babbitt, including video of her smiling and happy on her way to the Capitol just a short time before she was killed, and an interview with her husband that is not to be missed.

https://capitolpunishmentthemovie.com

Mike Huckabee

I wrote this week, complaining that the Supreme Court’s delay in ruling on the Biden/OSHA vaccine mandate had allowed it to go into effect: by waiting until the Monday deadline passed, they left businesses no choice but to enforce it or risk ruinous fines if the SCOTUS upheld it. That criticism still goes, even though the Court did issue a ruling Thursday striking down the mandate on businesses with more than 100 employees (they allowed the mandate on health care workers at hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments. More on that below.)

It was a better-late-than-never ruling that still should’ve come sooner. But at least it was properly decided. Naturally, the left wing of Twitter went ape, accusing the Court of allowing millions of people to DIE!! As usual, they missed the point, which wasn’t whether vaccines are a good thing but whether OSHA has the power to order Americans to take one whether they want to or not. These are two separate issues (as I always point out, I’m vaccinated myself, but I don’t believe Washington bureaucrats have the power to force it on people who object.)

(A writer/producer for “The Daily Show” even tweeted his complaint that this SCOTUS doesn’t care that “a lot of legal experts on here gave assurances that Biden’s vaccine mandate was clearly allowed by law and precedent.” Commenters reminded him that the Supreme Court are the legal experts, and they didn’t take advice on this case from random people on Twitter. Well, maybe Sonia Sotomayor did.)

Rebecca Downs at Townhall.com has an excellent summary of the legal reasoning of the majority (the three liberal Justices followed their usual judicial philosophy of “If it feels good, do it.”)

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2022/01/13/justice-gorsuch-highlights-a-key-point-about-oshas-authority-in-concurring-opinion-n2601827

Citing the unanimous 1819 McCullough v. Maryland decision, Justice Gorsuch wrote that the federal government doesn’t have unlimited general powers but must cite a constitutionally enumerated authority when it regulates. Mandating a vaccine on 80 million American workers, many of whom object on religious or other grounds, is such a sweeping expansion of federal power that it would have to come from the people’s elected representatives. Gorsuch said far less consequential rules had run afoul of this test, Congress clearly did not delegate such powers to OSHA, and a majority of the Senate even voted to disapprove of OSHA’s ruling.

Quoting the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Gorsuch said these safeguards “serve to prevent 'government by bureaucracy’ supplanting ‘government by the people.'"

It’s unfortunate, however, that Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the liberals to hand Biden a win in allowing his health care worker mandate to stand. They ruled that since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that issued the mandate fall under the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has the power to impose conditions on receiving those funds, the mandate is allowed. I'd say that's an awfully expansive definition of "conditions."

https://www.westernjournal.com/justices-handed-biden-win-vaccine-mandate-health-care-workers/

In his dissent, Justice Thomas reminded his colleagues that the exact same principle applies: this case wasn’t about whether vaccines are good, it’s about whether federal appointees have the power to “force health care workers, by coercing their employers, to undergo a medical procedure they do not want and cannot undo.” He noted that just as with OSHA, if Congress had wanted to grant that power to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it would have done so, and “it did not.”

That decision is being touted by the White House as a big win for Biden. Considering his other news this week includes the SCOTUS killing the vaccine mandate on businesses, record inflation, a new record low approval rating and the collapse of his push for killing the Senate filibuster and legalizing vote fraud, by comparison, it is.

Postscript to the SCOTUS ruling: Justice Gorsuch made reference to the plaintiffs’ argument that the government knew that its mandate was unconstitutional because Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who has been nicknamed “Biden’s Brain” (boy, there a title you don’t want on your resume!) retweeted a tweet boasting about it being the ultimate legislative “work-around.”

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/01/13/glorious-scotus-spanked-ron-klain-today-too-n506254

Apparently, it’s not enough for Twitter to censor conservatives from saying what we believe. If they want to save the Democrats, they’ll have to start censoring them from telling us what they believe, too.

Mike Huckabee

In what I hope is the first ripple of a coming tidal wave, a Florida professor has resigned as president of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Media and Technology, in protest of how the APA’s bowing to leftist ideology and wokeism has trumped medical science in ways that are “actively harmful” to patients.

https://redstate.com/alexparker/2022/01/13/a-former-president-scalds-the-american-psychological-association-over-wokeness-worthy-of-shame-n505734

It is astounding to think that these are the people who are supposed to help others improve their mental health when they sound like Grade A wackjobs themselves. In addition to the APA's demonizing of men, traditional values and America as irredeemably racist, the professor cites their PC language edicts, which are baffling.

For instance, you can no longer say “blind person,” you must say “person with blindness.” That seems to accomplish nothing except to bolster George Carlin’s observation that people think things become less painful if you just add more gaseous syllables to their names (the way “shell shock” gradually morphed into “post-traumatic stress disorder.”)

The professor also complained, “We’re not to talk about birth sex or people being born a boy or girl (‘assigned female/male at birth’ is the language of choice now.)”

I could actually agree with that: you are assigned female/male at birth…by God, via your genitals and chromosomes. But I doubt that would earn me a welcome to the American Psychological Association. Which is fine with me, since it sounds like the inmates are running the asylum there.

Mike Huckabee

I miss the days when Democrats used to ruin things slowly, through corruption, graft, incompetence and a misguided belief in failed ideology. That long lead time at least made the eventual disasters look almost inadvertent. These days, the minute they take office, they leap straight to openly destroying systems that are working, without even bothering to try to appear rational or reasonable.

For instance, if you ran a state like California, which so many residents are fleeing that U-Haul can’t keep vans in stock, would you think it’s a good idea to double the already crippling taxes to pay for a state-run socialized health care program, the type that a couple of states tried then quickly abandoned after demand and costs spiraled “beyond expectations?” Well, of course, that’s exactly what some Democrats in California want to do.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/california-wants-to-double-its-taxes/

And take President Biden (please!) He inherited a domestic energy industry that thanks to Trump’s policies had brought down gas prices and made the US energy independent. Through a flurry of executive orders, he immediately strangled it, creating shortages and skyrocketing prices, which he blamed on oil company price gouging. Of course, he had to do this to force us to switch to unready and unreliable “green energy” alternatives, like sunshine, windmills and unicorn flatulence. When the people began to revolt, his solution was to beg OPEC to pump more oil (ironically, they told him to go pound sand.)

So how does he react to the inevitable disaster caused by his own policies? By doubling down on stupid. His Bureau of Land Management just killed a deal that’s been in the works for years to develop resources in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. This blindsided and infuriated Alaskans and their elected representatives, since Biden didn’t even bother consulting with them before throwing his policy grenade.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-blindsides-red-state-kills-game-changing-energy-plan-may-solved-usas-gas-crisis/

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the plan had been carefully crafted over years to protect sensitive areas of the Reserve. Fellow Sen. Dan Sullivan called Biden’s action “not only arbitrary and contrary to good science” and a sop to placate “radical extreme environmental groups who care nothing about Alaskans,” but also harmful to the very indigenous communities his Administration claims to care about.

Indeed, all these actions that drive up the cost of energy are most harmful to the poor and middle class. But they’re popular with wealthy green activists who want to force everyone to buy an electric car without thinking far enough ahead to figure out what we’re going to plug them all into. They can't all be powered by Greta Thunberg's electrifying smile.

The only rational explanation I can see for this latest action is that Biden must figure if nobody can afford to buy gas, we can’t drive to the polls and vote these maniacs out. I have news for him: at this point, a lot of us would walk a mile over hot coals to do that.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

As the pop culture icons of the ‘50s and ‘60s enter their 70s and 80s, it’s inevitable that we’ve started losing them. I’ve had to write a number of obituaries recently, and here’s another particularly tough one: Rock Hall of Famer and one of the great voices of girl group pop/rock, Ronnie Spector, has died after a battle with cancer at 78.

https://variety.com/2022/music/news/ronnie-spector-dead-dies-the-ronettes-1235152801/

Her family issued a statement reading, “Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humor and a smile on her face. She was filled with love and gratitude. Her joyful sound, playful nature and magical presence will live on in all who knew, heard or saw her.” Tributes are flooding Twitter from countless musicians, from Joan Jett to Brian Wilson (who actually wrote the Beach Boys classic “Don’t Worry Baby” for her) to La La Brooks of the Crystals, who remembered her as “so sweet…a hoot, like a firecracker” who had “the most unique voice” and was at her happiest on stage.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/la-la-brooks-ronnie-spector-tribute-1283853/

Born Veronica Bennett, she was performing with her sister (she said they purposely played up their flirty sex appeal, getting longer eyelashes every time it worked) when they auditioned for megaproducer/homicidal nutjob Phil Spector, who immediately shouted, “That’s the voice I’ve been looking for!” He created the Ronettes to showcase her, and they quickly scored a string of hits that are still heard today on radio, TV and films, including “Be My Baby,” “Walking in the Rain” and “Baby I Love You.”

Ronnie had much in common with Tina Turner: a powerful, sexy voice that could cut through Spector’s Wall of Sound, an overtly sexy image, an ‘80s career revival and a marriage to an abusive, manipulative husband. Ronnie married Spector, and he kept her a virtual prisoner in his house, driving her to alcoholism before her mother forcibly rescued her from his home, a harrowing experience she described in her 1990 memoir, “Be My Baby.”

Sadly, unlike Tina, Ronnie’s ‘80s revival was mostly limited to guest appearances on her admirer’s records like the Eddie Money classic, “Take Me Home Tonight,” since radio wouldn’t play her solo releases. The only silver lining is that that means there are a lot of great records that most people have yet to hear. Many involve big name stars who greatly admired her, like the 1980s LPs “Siren” (with its great cover) and “Unfinished Business;” the 1990 EP co-produced by Joey Ramone, “She Talks to Rainbows;” the 2006 EP of Marshall Crenshaw songs, “Something’s Gonna Happen;” and the 2016 album of British Invasion hits, “English Heart.”

Rolling Stone compiled a good playlist of 15 essential tracks, ranging from the biggest hits to terrific lesser-known titles, like her 1977 single of Billy Joel’s “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” (which was inspired by “Be My Baby”) with the E Street Band.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ronnie-spector-ronettes-best-songs-1283633/

And my favorite must-hear ‘80s song is her duet on “You Mean So Much To Me, Baby” with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. If you love great ‘60s-style, horn-drenched, soulful Jersey rock songs like those that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band cover, only with better vocals and no political lectures, this is a slice of musical Heaven.

https://youtu.be/4JabbiFhBAE

Finally, someone put together a compilation of her interviews and performances on David Letterman’s show from the 1980s through 2010. Great quote: in a joint appearance, Eddie Money said he wanted her for “Take Me Home Tonight,” but figured she was unavailable (Ronnie snorts at that!). But he called her and asked, “What are you doing?” She replied, “The dishes.”

Watch and be reminded of what great pop singing with no need for AutoTune sounds like. RIP, Ronnie.

https://youtu.be/GM5r0Ve8Las

Mike Huckabee

All right. That is just it. President Biden lied so much during his “voting rights” speech in Georgia Tuesday that the gloves have to come off. On my radio show, my slogan was, “I’m conservative...but I’m not mad at anybody about it.” Well, circumstances have changed since I did that show, and today, there’s plenty to be mad about.

“I ask every elected official in America,” Biden said from the podium, “how do you want to be remembered? ...Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King, or George Wallace?”

https://twitter.com/jtLOL/status/1481025019752947723?t=fm7qLs5FKo4H3JDOmmuEyw&s=19

That remark is so offensive, it’s hard to accept that this seems to be the level of discourse today for political speech --- at least the uncensored speech that comes from the left.

First of all, virtually all conservatives agree with the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you know who’s NOT on the side of Dr. King? Any adherent of Critical Race Theory, which teaches that we must look first at the color of someone’s skin, not the content of his or her character. CRT stands for the opposite of what Dr. King stood for. So Biden is lying in his implication about Republicans. He offends me deeply with that, lie, not that he cares.

Here’s the full video of both Vice President Harris and President Biden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMCOV5t-G10

Harris says, “I have heard your outrage, about the ‘anti-voter law’ here, and how many voters will likely be kept from voting. And Georgia is not alone. Across our nation, anti-voter laws could make it more difficult for as many as 55 million Americans to vote.” (NOTE: Did you know that Biden’s home state of Delaware has more stringent election laws than Georgia does?)

Tell me, Kamala, where does that number, 55 million, come from? Are there 55 million qualified voters in America who don’t have or can’t get an ID? Who can’t scrawl a signature that can be verified? Who can’t apply for an absentee ballot, rather than just having an unsolicited ballot arrive in the mail for anyone to fill out? The only safeguards we want for the voting process are those minimal ones that help keep it honest. And those are the very provisions you want to do away with. That tells us something very important about you. In more confrontational words, we’re on to you.

Harris accuses the GOP of interfering with elections to get the outcomes they want. Really? This is something I would think the Democrats know exactly how to do. It’s what Marc Elias spent the entire year of 2020 on, getting election laws changed, and what he’s doing now in anticipation of the election this year. The stated mission of The Elias Firm is TO GET MORE DEMOCRATS ELECTED TO OFFICE.

The “assault on voting rights” Harris accused Republicans of is as vapid and made-up as the “Russia Russia Russia!!” hoax. Repeat: there is no assault by Republicans on the freedom to vote. It is MADE UP. It is FAKE NEWS. Democrats’ frantic “voting rights” campaign is based on nothing.

I won’t spend more time on Kamala’s speech, because few Americans take her seriously, anyway. Let’s go to what President Biden had to say, even though most don’t take him seriously, either. Watch the whole thing if you can stomach it --- you’ll see Biden, early on, refer to the VP as “President Harris” --- or else read our list of his most offensive remarks, below, with our notes...

(Biden referring to the Jan. 6 “insurrection”) “...when a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy.” (NOTE: aside from this being a gross exaggeration, when will the left figure out what “literally” means?)

“…But then, the violent mob of January 6, 2021, empowered and encouraged by a defeated former President, sought to win through violence what he had lost at the ballot box.” (NOTE: That is a LIE. As you know, President Trump offered Speaker Pelosi up to 20,000 National Guard troops to keep the peace that day. She turned his offer down.)

“...for...the first time, to stop the peaceful transfer of power.” (NOTE: That is a LIE. Trump and his supporters wished only for a peaceful pause to examine some huge irregularities in the result before certifying the vote.)

“...We’re here today, to stand against the forces in America that value power over principle, forces that attempted a coup, a coup against the legally expressed will of the American people by sowing doubt, [unintelligible] charges of fraud, and seeking to steal the 2020 election.” (NOTE: That this was a coup is another LIE. And we all had doubt, after what we saw with our own eyes the night of November 3.)

“They want chaos to reign.” (NOTE: He must be talking about HIS party, which thrives on chaos.)

“The battle for the soul of America is not over. We must stand strong and stand together to make sure January 6 marks not the end of democracy but the beginning of a renaissance of our democracy.” (NOTE: Is he out of his mind?)

(After talking about the denial of voting rights to blacks and women) “...And now, the defeated former President and his supporters use the Big Lie about the 2020 election to fuel torment [?] and anti-voting laws [NOTE: we think he misread the teleprompter here], new laws designed to suppress your vote, to subvert our elections.” (NOTE: That is LIE. The votes likely being suppressed are the ones being canceled out by fraud made possible by Marc Elias’s “reforms.”)

“To them [Republicans], too many people voting in a democracy is a problem.” (NOTE: another LIE. We just want them qualified. And preferably alive.)

It just goes on. Biden points out that Trump himself voted by mail in the White House. Good grief --- does he think Trump got an unsolicited ballot in the mail, or that it wouldn’t be possible to verify his signature?

Dropboxes are, Biden says, “safe, convenient, and you get more people to vote.” Sure, but they have to be supervised, with a chain of custody. Is that so hard? And you don’t get them funded by Mark Zuckerberg.

Then Biden again refers to election safeguards as “Jim Crow 2.0.” “It’s no longer about who gets to vote,” he says, “it’s about making it harder to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote, and whether your vote counts at all." (NOTE: who COUNTS the vote?? I would say that was definitely the problem in 2020.)

“The goal of the former President and his allies is to disenfranchise anyone who votes against them,” Biden lies.

Well, you know how fond I am of saying, “We watch the news, so you don’t have to,” but, honestly, we just can’t subject ourselves to any more of this –- not without donning hazmat suits. It’s so toxic, it makes long covid look like the sniffles.

I assume Kurt Schlichter forced himself to watch this pack of lies, because it made him even punchier than usual when he wrote his commentary. He’s figured it out, too: Dems are doing this because they want to cheat.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/01/10/hey-dems-we-got-your-election-reforms-right-here-n2601597

Mike Huckabee

Fox News reports that according to Federal Election Commission records, 94% of donations from top employees of Google (which owns YouTube) go to Democrats, as do 99% of donations from Twitter employees.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/google-twitter-employees-donations-democrats

It’s no surprise that both platforms are routinely accused of silencing and censoring conservative voices. When called on it, they deny it, or claim that it was a “mistake,” as YouTube just did after reinstating a song critical of Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Gee, remember when songs criticizing the government were considered classics of the ‘60s?

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/youtube-takes-down-john-ondrasik-video-criticized-biden-afghanistan-withdrawal

YouTube claimed that the video's images might be “offensive to some audiences.” Mostly Biden campaign aides, I would imagine.

Still, even with the growing likelihood of a Republican takeover of Congress, many GOP voters are discouraged that Republican Congress members publicly complain about Big Tech leftist censorship but will not change any laws to stop it or make them legally accountable. But there might be another way to force Silicon Valley to end its biased business practices.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/496111/

That is a post by Charles Glasser at Instapundit, explaining how people who have been harmed by Big Tech censorship might be able to get around their Section 230 immunity and sue (BTW, they should have lost that immunity long ago for their blatant violation of the requirement not to act as editors of content.) It’s a complicated legal argument, but well worth reading. In a nutshell: If the Administration has been colluding with these companies to silence users they disagree with – which it seems obvious that they are – then there’s precedent to show that they are acting as de facto government agents rather than private businesses, which means they are required to obey the First Amendment.

And if they can be held legally accountable for every time they’ve violated a user’s right to free speech, the floodgates of lawsuits will be thrown wide open. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of defendants.

SIGN UP FOR MY MORNING EDITION ON SUBSTACK:

Mike Huckabee

New York City voters just got a harsh double-whammy lesson in what “bait and swtich” means. Fed up with Bill DeBlasio’s socialist mismanagement that’s resulted in skyrocketing crime and fleeing residents, they voted in some new Democrats who claimed they would be different…and then the minute they were in office started giving the people DeBlasio 2.0.

First, new Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg announced that he was basically decriminalizing every crime short of murder…

https://nypost.com/2022/01/04/alvin-braggs-green-light-for-anarchy/

And now, new Mayor Eric Adams announced that he will not oppose a controversial new plan to allow up to a million non-citizens to vote in local elections after just 30 days’ residency. Ironically, some critics are from the left and claim it will further dilute the voting power of black residents. While some smaller blue cities let non-citizens vote in municipal elections, San Francisco is the only major city that does, and that’s just for school board elections. New York’s move would be a major change in eroding election standards.

https://www.westernjournal.com/slap-face-eric-adams-approves-massive-rule-change-nyc-elections-swelling-dem-rolls/

Supporters say this is legal because it only applies to local elections, but it’s already facing a lawsuit that claims it violates the New York state constitution.

Even Nancy Pelosi once said that in New York, even a glass of water could get elected if it had a (D) by its name on the ballot. Maybe it’s time for New Yorkers to stop voting for Democrat glasses of water and realize that what they’re really doing is drinking the Kool-Aid.

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Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

The Democrats gave it their all on the anniversary of January 6, and then, from somewhere deep within their bowels, found even more to keep their narrative going over the weekend.

This was in service to their push to federalize elections with what we call the “Legalize Voter Fraud Bill.” Even before that day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was setting the stage by saying January 6 was “a symptom of a broader illness, an effort to delegitimize our election process.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schumer-to-use-jan-6-anniversary-to-make-push-for-federal-voting-rights-bill

Schumer was lying. As wrong as it was to resort to violence on that day, it was not an effort to delegitimize our election process. It was the opposite: a reaction to what people saw as an attempt by the LEFT to delegitimize our election process, and the refusal even to look at problems with the vote.

But Schumer was lying in service to his goal: passing unconstitutional election legislation. “...The Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration --- they will be the new norm.” They have to pass this bill “to save our democracy.” Schumer's even set January 17, Martin Luther King Day, as the deadline for Republicans to work with them to keep them from considering “changes to Senate rules” (ending filibusters) to get the bill passed. All to “protect the foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections.”

Attempts by Republicans at the state level to safeguard the vote against cheating have been recast by Schumer as voter suppression. That’s another lie. If any protection against cheating is going to be characterized as voter suppression, that means there can be no protection against cheating. See how that works?

On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to offer another version of the same lie: “What the Republicans are doing across the country is really a legislative continuation of what they did on January 6, which is to undermine our democracy, to undermine the integrity of our elections...”

Never mind that Trump’s rally was FOR election integrity, protesting the staunch refusal to examine what appeared to be highly suspicious activity. THEY were protesting the undermining of democracy. And unless Pelosi’s brain is even foggier that we think, she is well aware of that.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-republicans-legislative-continuation-jan-6-voting-bill

Pelosi then said something much more applicable to her party than to the GOP: “They [the GOP] are not only suppressing the vote, they are nullifying elections, saying, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter who gets more votes; it matters who the three people we appoint to analyze that, what they decide.’” Doesn’t that sound like what DNC superlawyer Marc Elias wants to do to keep duly-elected Republican members of Congress from being seated? He wants to go to judges to disqualify GOP candidates from serving in office if they’ve offered any support or approval to Trump and/or his rally, saying that violates their oath of office. (!)

One of those duly-elected congressmen, of course, is Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, one of Pelosi’s “rejects” for her Jan. 6 committee. Jordan has written a letter to the chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, after the committee asked him to provide information about his communications with Trump. He essentially told them to pound sand.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/rep-jim-jordan-tells-jan-6-panel-pound-sound-rejects-legitimacy-investigation/

The committee wants to talk to Jordan “in detail” about every communication he had with Trump on January 6. He said he talked with the President all the time, so it wouldn’t be unusual for them to talk that day. “This request is far outside the bounds of legitimate inquiry,” Jordan wrote, "violates core constitutional principles, and would further erode legislative norms.”

The committee is supposed to investigate only as it pertains to “legislative purposes.” Jordan made it clear: “As you well know, I have no relevant information that would assist the Select Committee in advancing any legitimate legislative purpose.”

Even the committee itself is illegitimate, with no ranking GOP member. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has actually claimed to be the ranking member, which is untrue. As Mollie Hemingway tweeted on the 6th: “Holy crap! Liz Cheney just falsely claimed she is the ranking member --- the top representative of the GOP caucus --- on the J6 committee. In fact, she was hand-selected by Nancy Pelosi and is NOT the ranking member. Huge, huge legal implications associated with this lie.”

Democrat Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina lied, too, going on FOX News Sunday to say it was appropriate to tie the election bill to the events of January 6 because elected officials swore an oath to protect the Constitution from any “domestic terrorists among us.” NO ONE has been charged with domestic terrorism, let alone convicted. He’s trying to imply that anyone who opposes their bill is pro-domestic terrorism. But if Democrats are so all-fired set on protecting the Constitution, why are they pushing a bill that is so clearly unconstitutional?

Kamala Harris, in her speech Thursday, beat the same tinny drum, saying that “the American spirit is being tested” and that “we must pass the voting rights bills that are now before the Senate” on order to “secure and strengthen our democracy.”

Then the Vice President went on PBS for a softball interview with Judy Woodruff. Political hack Woodruff played her role well, praising Liz Cheney for holding Trump fully responsible for the riot and suggesting that Trump should face criminal prosecution.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2022/01/09/pbs-anchor-coddles-kamala-very-forceful-16-speech-wants-trump

Okay, here's a palate cleanser: The Epoch Times, in a premium story, offers an analysis of the competing January 6 narratives, saying it “...Depends on Who Tells the Story.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/jan-6-narrative-depends-on-who-tells-the-story

So, why were Trump supporters at the Capitol that day? To make their voices heard? Register their concerns about voter fraud and inaccuracy? Or overthrow the government? It depends on who wants to know and the answer they want to hear.

But the excellent point this piece makes is that it’s TRUMP SUPPORTERS, in particular those who were caught up in the Capitol breach and are still suffering the consequences, who are in the best position to answer that. Former Pennsylvania legislator and retired Air Force officer Rick Saccone, who with his wife rode a bus to the rally and never even knew there had been violence until he was headed home, says it was mostly just senior citizens peacefully demonstrating. He thinks the ones who actually got violent were not true Trump supporters.

Jake Lang of Sullivan County, New York, has been a (yes) political prisoner held without bail since January 13, 2021, and he has his own story to tell. He’s charged with assaulting a police officer, but he says he was trying to save a woman named Roseanne Boyland, who later died. His father says he’s grown thin in jail, with a scraggly beard that’s now down to his chest.

Boyland is the woman who it was said had died of a drug overdose. Now that video has emerged, there’s serious question about that.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/videos-shed-light-on-death-of-rosanne-boyland-at-us-capitol-on-jan-6_

Anyway, if we’re going to have competing narratives about January 6, how about looking at the one told by people who were actually involved, rather than by those who twist the truth in pursuit of a political agenda?

Mike Huckabee