Mike Huckabee

When a lie gets repeated so often that everyone thinks it’s true, it’s called “conventional wisdom” – maybe because it happens so often at political conventions. These days, the conventional wisdom is that far-left ideas are the accepted, objective truth and anyone who questions them is an extremist or a believer in “disinformation.” Don’t buy it.

Throughout the Bush-Obama era, the media kept repeating “failed conservative policies” until even a lot of so-called conservatives believed it. So the voters put Democrats fully in power. It resulted in a sluggish economy, depressed job growth, rising income inequality, reduced wealth and opportunities for minorities, rising class and racial divisions, and abroad, a decline in US prestige and leadership and the advancement and emboldening of our enemies, including a terrorist “JV team” metastasizing into a worldwide threat. Not to mention big government schemes imposed against the will of the people. In Obama’s very first midterm election, voters gave the House back to the Republicans.

Polls began to show that most Americans wanted the government to do less and spend less. In France, where an actual Socialist was elected President, his huge tax hikes crashed the economy and made socialism as popular with the French as cheese in a can. The media were shocked when voters turned right in the next election. They should’ve known that nothing turns people off of socialism like actually experiencing it. Ask a Cuban or Venezuelan.

The elites responded by doubling down on the arrogance, condescension and name-calling of those who dared to challenge their divine right to rule. The people were forced to make their point even more clearly by shutting down large sections of the country with Tea Party protests, and demanding their culture and secure national borders back, and finally by shocking the elites with the election of Donald Trump. The media, who assumed that everyone would vote for Hillary because everything they talked to did, were shocked.

Trump reversed virtually every Obama policy. Result: ISIS was crushed, peace started breaking out in the Middle East, illegal immigration plummeted, the economy boomed, and unemployment for all groups fell to record lows while real wages rose for the first time in decades. It took the artificial shutdown of that economy due to COVID-19 to crush it. In 2020, a relentless, four-year media assault against Trump and…other factors…brought the Democrats back into full power. And just as the economy was starting to rebound, Biden brought back all the Obama policies and crushed it again.

If you ever wanted a laboratory demonstration of whose policies work and whose don’t, you could just look at the past three Administrations. It’s like watching someone turn off the lights, turn them back on, then turn them off again.

It is a shame that voters have to keep relearning the hard way that top-down, big government solutions and leftist utopian fantasies don’t work in reality. Young people can almost be excused for believing in socialism for the same reason they believe in the Tooth Fairy: they are empty vessels who get filled with whatever adults pour into them. The leftists certainly know that. Many parents have recently woken up to how dangerously remiss we’ve been in allowing leftists to take over our schools and fill those precious vessels with mental pollution.

But Republicans who promised small government and fiscal responsibility have let us down, too. Too many let deficits skyrocket, stuffed budgets with pork, and became cheerleaders for big government and disdainful toward the very Americans who put them in office. These so-called “conservatives” slammed me in 2007 for not being a “real conservative” because I pointed out problems in the economy that were hurting working people and criticized the lack of oversight of Wall Street’s excesses. Two years later, they wanted to spend $700 billion of our grandkids’ money to save Wall Street from its excesses. They abandoned government’s rightful role as a tough-but-impartial referee and wanted to use its power to pick winners and losers in the market. Is that “real conservatism?”

The truth is that voters didn’t turn their backs on conservatism, Republican politicians did. And despite the media’s claim that “We’re all socialists now,” Democrats didn’t sweep to power in 2008 by claiming to be government-bloating tax-and-spenders, but by swearing they’d changed and were now fiscally responsible. Of course, once they gave Obama, Pelosi and Reid unlimited power, voters quickly realized their terrible mistake and gave the House back to the GOP in the next election. But too many Republicans had already squandered their credibility, so when Democrats ballooned the deficit, they could deflect criticism by simply pointing at their opponents’ own record.

In 2020, the endless media assaults on Trump and the false messaging that Biden was a moderate centrist hoodwinked the voters yet again into putting the Democrats back into power. From his first day in power, Biden surrounded himself with leftists who couldn’t wait to bloat government, reverse all of Trump’s successful policies, raise taxes, spend money like water, regulate everything that moves, and turn the whole country into a coast-to-coast version of one of the failing cities Democrats have run for decades. It didn’t take long for buyers’ remorse to hit Americans harder than COVID-19.

For a localized example of this pendulum effect, look at New York City. It became a nightmare until voters finally replaced Democrat David Dinkins with Republican Rudy Giuliani. Under Rudy, the Big Apple staged a huge comeback that was kept going by faux Republican Mike Bloomberg. But by then, it had been a long time since the bad old day. New Yorkers forgot how bad it could get. So they turned over the keys to Dinkins protégé Bill DeBlasio, and they soon found out how bad things could quickly turn. They still haven’t learned their lesson: they elected another Democrat who promised to fix things, but hasn’t. We’ll see how bad things have to get before they finally yell for the Republicans to come save them again.

As George Santayana observed, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. No wonder Democrats hate teaching kids real American history.

From Jefferson’s belief that government closest to the people governs best to Reagan’s faith in free markets, from low taxes to letting markets instead of government make business decisions, conservative ideas work whenever they’re tried. Unfortunately, party leaders and the media are wildly out of touch with most Americans, and they are the ones with Hollywood, the media and social media acting as a 24-hour PR megaphone for bad leftist policies. This amplifies the liberal side and suppresses the conservative side so much that not only is the tail wagging the dog, but it’s like a Chihuahua’s tail wagging a St. Bernard. Too often, they succeed in hoodwinking the voters into giving them power again, despite decades of failure. But once in power, they quickly remind people why they should never be entrusted with it.

As that great Republican Abraham Lincoln observed, you can fool some of the people all of the time (they’re called “progressives”) and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Let’s pray that this November will be another of those “won’t get fooled again” elections.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

BY MIKE HUCKABEE

My staffers will be off this week for a well-deserved break, but keep checking in daily. We’ve prepared lots of great material in advance, and we’ll have a daily round-up of the latest news. And as always, if anything major happens, everyone will drop their hot dogs and sparklers and rush back to their PCs to keep you informed. Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter. 

There is no Evening Edition for those subscribers.

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DAILY BIBLE VERSE

I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Philippians 3:14 NLT

If you have a favorite Bible Verse you want to see in one of our newsletters, please email [email protected].

The Leaders We Need

We all knew a kid in school who just had to run everything. Remember the classmate who insisted on picking the games you’d all play at recess, where you’d go after school, even who was “in” or “out” of your group? In high school, that kid had a compulsive need to be the leader of every student organization. You just wanted to say, “Hey! You’re not the boss of me!” Whatever happened to those kids? I wouldn’t be surprised if most ended up in government. We certainly have no shortage of people there who think they know how to live your life and spend your paycheck better than you do.

I’m convinced the world is divided into people who just want to live their own lives and those who, for some reason, have an uncontrollable urge to tell everyone else how to live. Unfortunately, to that latter group, government seems like the ideal place to work, and at the moment, they are getting 99.9% of all the attention from the media. As more of them gravitated toward government, Congress abdicated much of its legislating authority to unelected bureaucrats. Their bureaus grew like kudzu, and so did their regulations with the force of law (but no input from the people.) Then one day, we looked up and discovered we had a crushing national debt and were paying huge salaries to an army of people who enforce how big your soda should be and who couldn’t be fired and who is allowed to come into your daughter’s locker room. That’s when sane people realized that government is the LAST place these out-of-control control freaks needed to be.

The temptation for government to overreach is hardly new. In fact, it stretches back to the beginning of recorded history, and I bet even earlier than that. There’s a story in the ninth chapter of the book of Judges in the Old Testament about Gideon’s son Abimelech, who craved leadership and stature - not to serve the people but to control them and make them serve him. He said, “Give me dominion over your lives, and I will simplify your existence.” Wow, does that sound familiar? It’s basically the entire Democratic platform. Our government has taken us pretty far down that same road, but does your life seem any simpler -- or just a lot less free?

Anyway, back to Abimelech. He had a very smart younger brother, Jotham, who came up with a clever tale about three trees: an olive tree, a fig tree, and a vine tree. All three were fine trees that produced lots of fruit. All were offered the exalted position of “King Of All Trees,” but all three turned it down. The plant that wanted to be “King Of All Trees” was the bramble bush, a weak plant that produces no fruit at all. Jotham’s point was that only the weak and nonproductive have the desire to rule everyone else. Does that lesson not resonate like a gong right now?

When anyone aspires to a position of power, take a long, hard look. If that person seemingly crawled out of the cradle with an ambition to be President, then beware! Anytime someone talks about “running the country,” alarm bells should sound. No one – not the President, not Congress, no one person – “runs the country” or should aspire to.

That’s why the Founders took such pains to divide and limit federal power, and why we need to reinstate those limits that have been trampled in recent years, whether by Presidents ruling via executive order or out-of-control judges legislating from the bench or unelected bureaucrats abusing their power to try to influence the results of elections. If we allow any one person or entity to ignore those limits and assume the power to run everything, we won’t be able to stop them when they run America into the ground.

We should pick leaders who resemble the trees in the Bible story that don’t need or crave power but that have shown they bear good fruit. As it is said, by their fruits ye shall know them. Government has more than enough nuts already.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I READ THEM!

More Farmers, Fewer Lawyers

I hope you’re having a great 4th of July week, but between the celebratory fireworks on one hand and the anti-American political fireworks on the other, let’s take just a moment to reflect on what Independence Day really means and how it led to the freedoms and blessings that far too many Americans fail to appreciate these days.

Most historians (not New York Times writers, but real historians) mark the beginning of America as the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. But in truth, there was still a long road to travel before America as we know it came to be. First, of course, there was the matter of fighting a bloody revolution against Great Britain, one where victory was an overwhelming longshot, and win or lose, the leaders risked their lives, honor and fortunes. Victory was followed by more heated battles over what kind of government we would have.

Our Forefathers finally agreed to a blueprint, the Constitution, that wasn’t even introduced until 1789 – over 13 years later. Today, many Americans take those hard-won freedoms very lightly and seem eager to trade them away for false promises of security. Many can’t even name the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Maybe they’d cherish them more if they knew how close they came to not having them at all.

Did you know that the Constitution very nearly got passed without the Bill of Rights? Even some of the wisest of our forefathers thought a Bill of Rights was a dangerous idea. Alexander Hamilton argued that it was risky to list the rights the government couldn’t take away because then, politicians might try to grab any and every power that wasn’t specifically prohibited to them (apparently, the ability to rap wasn’t the only way Hamilton predicted the 21st century). He and many others also felt that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary: since nobody was surrendering their God-given rights by agreeing to the Constitution, there was no need to list them, right? Hamilton wrote, “Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”

It’s ironic that Hamilton made that argument. Later on, as the first Treasury Secretary, he cited powers that the Constitution merely implied that the government had in order to take on debt, create a federal bank and impose unpopular taxes. Over a century later, when the federal income tax was passed, some lawmakers wanted to include a 10% limit, but they were voted down. Opponents scoffed that it was absurd to think the government would ever steal as much as 10% of an American’s hard-earned wages. Flash forward just 30 years, and they were happily taxing away 94%. So just imagine how few freedoms we’d have today if they’d listened to Hamilton and decided it wasn’t necessary to put specific limits on government power.

Luckily for us all, Thomas Jefferson won the argument, and the Bill of Rights was added. They even included the 9th amendment, which I’ll bet most people can’t even describe. Here’s what it says:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

It means that just because some God-given rights aren’t specifically listed, that doesn’t mean the people cede them to the government. Maybe because so many of the framers were also farmers, they understood that like weeds, government tends to grow and grow, choking out the productive crops -- and like a bull, it will trample you if you don’t corral it. (Also, it produces the same thing a bull does.)

So if we want to preserve our freedoms, and keep government limited, maybe we should send more farmers to Washington -- and fewer lawyers.

Mike Huckabee

By Pat Reeder, “Huckabee” writer/pop culture guru (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)

I know many of you will be playing patriotic songs this weekend, everything from “God Bless the USA” to “California Girls” to “Living In America.” But I thought you might like to expand your patriotic party playlist to include some songs that you don’t hear too often, or ever. Some were hits that don’t get played much anymore, others are obscure singles and album cuts, but all will make you proud to be an American. You can make a Spotify playlist or use the YouTube links below.

From our “Huckabee” musical guests:

Some of our “Huckabee” guests have blessed us with terrific new patriotic songs, and here are two examples. Country legend Clint Black performed a new song he wrote with Steve Wariner called “America (Still in Love With You),” and you can hear him perform it with Tre Corley and the Music City Connection right here:

https://youtu.be/ULdyopjYM6o

We had the astonishing George W. Bush impressionist John C. Morgan on recently. He’s also a singer/musician, and he has a new song out to counter all the efforts to divide Americans on racial lines. It’s called “America…My Brother and Me,” and you can catch the video here:

https://youtu.be/afjFsPxr-iI

Now on to some oldies but goodies…

“Johnny Freedom” – Johnny Horton

Johnny Horton’s career was cut short at age 35 in a tragic car crash. But he left behind a legacy of great songs, many inspired by historical events, such as “Sink the Bismarck” and the immortal “Battle of New Orleans” (which inspired the hilarious Homer & Jethro parody, “The Battle of Kookamonga.”) You can learn more about American history from Johnny Horton’s Greatest Hits than you can from a public high school these days. Here’s a patriotic Horton tune for the 4^th that you might not know, “Johnny Freedom.”

https://youtu.be/612iJ_YFp0E

“The Americans” – Gordon Sinclair

Gordon Sinclair was one of the most unlikely recording stars of all time. A Canadian writer/reporter, he was so annoyed in 1973 at hearing that the Red Cross was out of funds, he wrote an editorial about all that America does for the world. He didn’t think it was anything special, but public reaction was overwhelming. WWDC-AM in Washington, DC, started playing a reading of it with “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in the background, which inspired the release of Sinclair’s own recording, a 45 on Avco under the title, “The Americans (A Canadian's Opinion.)” All proceeds went to the Red Cross. It rose to #24 on the charts, making Sinclair, at 73, the second-oldest artist ever to make the Billboard Top 40, behind 75-year-old Moms Mabley’s “Abraham, Martin and John.” It was revived for a bit after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but it needs to be heard again now.

https://youtu.be/z4i3LmR0K74

By the way, you might be more familiar with this version by Byron MacGregor of CKLW radio, which got higher on the charts. It was an unauthorized version that Sinclair wasn’t happy about. Still, the sentiments can’t be repeated too many times.

https://youtu.be/Lw2ysu1RWLA

“Back In The USA” – Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers

Everyone loves Chuck Berry’s classic original that lists all the cool things we've got here in the USA, but this low-fi version is one of my favorite records of all time. Linda Ronstadt had the hit, but I always thought hers was kinda stiff. This version captures the freedom of playing in a garage band with your friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon as hamburgers sizzle on the grill nearby. It’s so spontaneous, you can hear Jonathan turning off-mic and directing the band as he goes along. This is just over two minutes of the pure joys, large and small, of being an American. If you can listen to this without smiling, I don’t want to know you.

https://youtu.be/c32QoKNW2Pw

And for the purists, here’s Chuck Berry’s original. This actually had 10 thumbs-down on YouTube. I assume they’re all communists:

https://youtu.be/XVukAcLqHFI

“Paul Revere” – Johnny Cash

How can we salute America in song without including the man who is known as the voice of America, Johnny Cash? So much to pick from (the obvious choice might be “Ragged Old Flag”), but here’s a cool obscurity from his 1970 LP, “America: A 200-Year Salute in Story and Song.”

The album covers everything from the Revolution to the Space Age, including songs about the Alamo (whose defenders were HEROES!!!), the Gettysburg Address and possibly the only song you’ll ever hear about the assassination of President James Garfield. It’s all great, but for this week, what could be more appropriate than Johnny Cash singing the story of Paul Revere?

https://youtu.be/yiVw8OSUFBI

“Rockin’ In The USA” – KISS

Typically for KISS, the lyrics aren’t very profound, but they make the indisputable though grammatically-puzzling point that there’s nowhere else you’d rather stay than rockin’ in the US. If you’re surprised that these shock rockers would do something so unabashedly patriotic, then you probably didn’t know that Gene Simmons is an Israeli immigrant, the son of a concentration camp survivor, and very grateful to America for his success as a music entrepreneur.

https://youtu.be/j7vdL6MLOis

“America, Why I Love Her” by John Wayne and “Pledge of Allegiance” by Red Skelton

Since these are both patriotic recitations by beloved 20^th century showbiz giants, I thought I’d make them a two-fer.

The iconic 1973 album “America, Why I Love Her” by John Wayne has its own chapter in my book about celebrity records, “Hollywood Hi-Fi.” There are other celebrity connections as well: the words were written by John Mitchum, the actor/writer brother of Robert Mitchum, and the idea of Wayne recording it came from Forrest Tucker ("F Troop.")

Mitchum had a role in Wayne’s 1970 movie “Chisum,” and during a break, he read his co-stars his tribute to the US military, “Why Are You Marching, Son?” Wayne was moved to manly tears, and Tucker said if he liked it that much, why didn’t he do something about it? So on a handshake deal (more binding than a contract when it’s the Duke’s mighty handshake), they agreed to make an album.

It took Wayne three years to finish the recording (he’d lost a lung due to his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit), but the results were worth it. The LP of patriotic recitations sold 100,000 copies in its first two weeks, scored a Grammy nomination, inspired a companion book, and became a hit all over again when it was reissued after Wayne’s death in 1979. It finally fell out of print, but a revival of interest after 9/11 helped Mitchum’s daughter finally get it rereleased on CD. The entire album is now available 24/7 on YouTube, Amazon and other digital platforms.

I particularly wanted to share this on the 4^th of July because of the recent whining from the snowflake brigade about some non-PC things Wayne said in the early 1970s. The Duke is the only deceased star to rank in the Harris Poll of America's Top 10 most popular movie stars every year, even 40 years after his death. The crybullies think they can cancel John Wayne. That’ll be the day!  

https://youtu.be/j5ZGz7h0epU

On January 14, 1969, Red Skelton performed a recitation that he wrote himself on his CBS variety show, “The Red Skelton Hour,” which you can now stream on Amazon Prime when the current TV offerings seem as funny as a root canal. It relates how a beloved teacher once explained the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance to his class. Trivia: The backing music is titled “Red’s White and Blue March” and is one of Red’s many compositions.

After it aired, CBS was flooded with 200,000 requests for copies, and a month later, it was released on a Columbia 45. Red performed it for the rest of his life, including at the White House for the newly-inaugurated President Nixon. It has become an American classic and was used as a teaching tool for many years by schools that aren’t afraid of being sued for exposing students to the words “Under God” or, now, even saying the Pledge of Allegiance.   

https://youtu.be/2HGHdFmu5GU

“What Is America To Me” – Frank Sinatra

In case you’ve never seen it, this is a link to "The House I Live In," the entire 10-minute short film that this song came from (it begins at the 6:45 mark, for those with Internet-shortened attention spans.) This film was produced at the end of World War II to help fight anti-Semitism, and perhaps should still be required viewing for certain Democratic Congress members. 

https://youtu.be/vhPwtnGviyg

“Bumper of My SUV” – Chely Wright

This song written and performed by country singer Chely Wright is about a snotty person's rude reaction to the Marines sticker she put on her SUV in honor of her brother who was serving in the Middle East. It was extremely personal to her, but it was universally embraced by the troops when she performed it during a series of shows in Iraq. This brings home how some people are intensely ungrateful for the safe, comfortable lives that they owe to the US military, as well as their freedom to be obnoxious, ungrateful jerks. I’m linking to a live clip where she tells the story of how the song came about before singing it. Any US Marine vets will especially appreciate this.

https://youtu.be/4mtVU_IcL8M

“Only in America” – Jay and The Americans

A moderate hit in 1963, this ode to the American Dream was originally intended for the Drifters but seems a better fit for a band called “Jay and The Americans.” This was from a time before the left made people think it was shameful to want to succeed and get rich. The singer informs us that only in America can a boy become a millionaire, get a classy girl and maybe grow up to be President – or if you’re Donald Trump, all three.

https://youtu.be/BWrCRPldVZk

“American Faces” – John Conlee

Nashville has sadly forgotten what real country music sounds like, or else one of the most distinctive country voices of all time, John Conlee, would still be topping the charts. Known as the singing mortician for his pre-music career, Conlee landed 32 singles on the charts between 1978 and 2004. Fourteen made the top 10, including “Common Man,” “Backside of 30,” “Lady Lay Down,” “Miss Emily’s Picture,” “Busted,” and one of the greatest country songs of all time, “Rose Colored Glasses.”

Fans should know that he recently appeared on “Huckabee” and he’s still out there touring. You can find his tour dates, music and merchandise at http://www.johnconlee.com. You should also check out his latest CD, “Classics 3,” which includes a very powerful pro-life song called “Unborn Voice.”

For the 4^th of July, here’s the moving title track from Conlee’s 1987 album, “American Faces,” a salute to some of the unsung people in “Flyover Country” who make America what it is.

https://youtu.be/AUoYOdLfkfM

“Red, White & Blue” – Lynyrd Skynyrd

There are a lot of seemingly patriotic rock songs that get played on the Fourth of July, like Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” whose creators actually meant them as critical or sarcastic and who get bent out of shape when they are “misconstrued” as flag-wavers. To them, I say, “Get bent.” Here is a rock song that is unambiguously pro-American, by the ultimate working class band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. This is by the post-crash version of the band, from the 2003 album, “Vicious Cycle.”

https://youtu.be/1mxQCGjKxC0

"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" - Toby Keith

One I left off last year because I figured it was too obvious, but the Fourth of July is no time for subtlety, nor are these times we live in. I also wanted something that really salutes the military. If the snowflakes ever get their way and convince Americans to change our National Anthem, then I propose we change it to this, Toby's boot-in-the-a** to the perpetrators of 9-11.  

https://youtu.be/ruNrdmjcNTc

“Ask Not Waltz” – President John F. Kennedy

Finally, my writing partner and fellow musicologist George Gimarc and I were very pleased to be able to haul this record out of obscurity for both our celebrity records book “Hollywood Hi-Fi” and its companion CD on Brunswick. This record was historic on a number of levels.

Not only does it set one of the most inspiring and iconic speeches in American history to a tune you can really skate to, but it was also one of the earliest examples of what later became mainstays of pop music: sampling and rapping. The idea was hatched by “Bullwinkle” writer George Atkins and Nashville producer Hank Levine as they were sitting by the pool, trying to come up with an idea for a JFK comedy record. Levine told us that in those pre-digital days, setting JFK’s actual words to music required a massive, painstaking tape editing job.

The album (“Sing Along With JFK”) was released in summer, 1963, but radio resisted because it was disrespectful to the President (can you imagine such a thing?!) But college stations started playing it and it was climbing the charts until November when JFK jokes suddenly became verboten. Don’t feel guilty about enjoying it, though, because Kennedy family insider Peter Lawford said it was the only JFK comedy record that JFK actually liked.  

https://youtu.be/fAt0S09RHjs

Mike Huckabee

Let’s see...where were we?

Megyn Kelly, in a video I hope you watched, had explained what’s wrong with the January 6 show trial: “This is not justice, it is not fair, and it is not to be trusted,” she said.

We’d also discussed Trump Derangement Syndrome as a voracious brain-eating disease and examined what happens to the prefrontal cortex during “long TDS.” By coincidence, John Daniel Davidson has an article at THE FEDERALIST titled “The Jan. 6 Committee is Causing Never-Trumpers to Lose Their Minds.” By “never-Trumpers,” he’s talking not about mainstream media but the more right-of-center outlets.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/30/the-jan-6-committee-is-causing-never-trumpers-to-lose-their-minds/

We expect CNN, NEWSWEEK, THE NEW YORK TIMES, the WASHINGTON POST and many others on the left to run attacks on President Trump at every opportunity, but, sadly, Davidson is talking about NATIONAL REVIEW and WASHINGTON EXAMINER running what he rightly calls “delusional op-eds” about the hearings this week. The EXAMINER said Trump had been “proven unfit for power again,” because of the testimony given by (yes) Cassidy Hutchinson. They apparently took her unverified testimony at face value --- never mind that it has been contradicted by multiple firsthand witnesses and was never subject to any challenge whatsoever

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/trump-proven-unfit-for-power-again

These editorial writers were completely suckered. “Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career,” they intoned. “Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.”

You and I know that Hutchinson was put on the stand precisely to “ring the death knell” for Trump, and even though her testimony has been discredited, it apparently worked on these useful media idiots. To quote Davidson: “You have to wonder what’s wrong with these editors that they would publish such garbage. Do they not realize that one of the propaganda goals of the Jan. 6 committee is to elicit [this] kind of editorial? Mission accomplished, Liz Cheney!”

Read the whole EXAMINER editorial, look at the reasons they give for believing Hutchinson, and you’ll likely agree these board members are the ones who are unfit, to be anywhere near journalism. They went right along with the rest of corporate media. If they can’t be more discerning than this, with even a little ability to sniff out fake news, maybe they should move to MSNBC or CNN.

It seems Trump Derangement Syndrome has infected even them. Their brains have certainly been stripped of any analytical skills they might have had earlier in their careers. They appear to have gone right out of their heads.

They believe Hutchinson in part because she used to be a “conservative true believer” in Trump. At 25, she'd “already worked at the highest level of conservative Republican politics,” they say. And they speak of how precise she was with her choice of words, though I took that as a sign she’d been carefully coached. (Of course, viewers didn’t get to hear about that, because there was no cross-examination.)

These board members even took Hutchinson at her word about Trump attacking the Secret Service agents and grabbing the steering wheel to try to get to the Capitol, despite the fact that it has been strongly refuted by the people named in her stories.

It must not have occurred to them that there might be more backstory to Hutchinson’s apparent change of heart about Trump. We wanted to wait before speculating personally about someone we don’t know, but former Florida attorney general and very credible source Pam Bondi, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, offered some insight.

https://cnsnews.com/article/washington/susan-jones/pam-bondi-cassidy-hutchinson-very-upset-she-didnt-get-job-trump-team

Bondi said she’d had two conversations with Hutchinson, who (in the first conversation) “loved President Trump” but (in the later conversation) was “very upset” she’d been turned down for a job with him in Florida.

She’d apparently been turned down because some of her colleagues had told Trump she couldn’t be trusted. “She was a leaker when she was in the White House,” they said to him, according to Bondi.

“The woman I saw yesterday on the stand was not the same woman,” Bondi said. “Now I understand. She was well-rehearsed. And in a court of law she would have been cross-examined –- were you promised something for your testimony? Money? Did you receive immunity for getting on the witness stand?”

Bondi’s revelation that Trump had been told Hutchinson was a leaker is consistent with the statement he released after her testimony. His full statement is at the link above. He also did an exclusive interview for NEWSMAX that aired Thursday morning. “The woman is living in fantasy land,” he said. “She’s a total disaster, she’s a train wreck, but think of it. Nobody to cross-examine.”

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-jan-6-house-select-committee-cassidy-hutchinson/2022/06/30/id/1076753/

Indeed, Hutchinson’s backstory with Trump and the Florida job would surely have been elicited during cross-examination in a REAL hearing. But outside the hearing, Hutchinson has been discredited as a witness and her testimony is essentially worthless. The Secret Service agents who were actually there will correct her lies for the record. But in the meantime, the January 6 committee can chalk up plenty of scathing anti-Trump editorials based on their deception.

Also, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert is asking the committee to release the full transcript of Hutchinson’s testimony. He flatly denies he asked Trump for a presidential pardon for himself, saying that he only made pardon requests for several U.S. service members whom he said had been wrongly convicted of crimes while deployed in war zones. He says either Hutchinson was mistaken, or else the committee had deceptively edited the video they played of her testimony.

“Not only have I never asked for a pardon for myself,” he said, I have not done anything for which I need a pardon.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/27/louie-gohmert-calls-jan-6-committee-release-full-d/

Finally, yet another piece of Hutchinson’s testimony has fallen apart. She claimed that on the morning of January 6, White House counsel Pat Cipollone had told her to tell her boss, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, that Trump should not go to the Capitol. She testified he’d told her, “We’re going to be charged with every crime imaginable” if he did that.

Cipollone has not agreed to testify before this committee, but according to HUMAN EVENTS Senior Editor Jack Posobiec, he was not even at the White House the morning of the 6th. Posobiec has heard this from “multiple sources,” he said. The January 6 committee is “aware of this discrepancy,” he tweeted, and “are ignoring media inquiries about it.”

Now that, I can believe.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/29/report-cassidy-hutchinson-fabricated-testimony-about-conversation-with-former-white-house-counsel-pat-cipollone/

Mike Huckabee

Enough about COVID-19. Ever since Nancy Pelosi’s phony January 6 committee premiered its made-for-TV hearings, we’ve known that a much more serious health risk is posed by Trump Derangement Syndrome. We now have scientific proof that TDS is a brain-eating disease.

How do we know? Well, it turns out that when enough brain cells have been consumed by the fiery hatred of Donald Trump, it’s impossible to tell actual evidence from essentially worthless, uncorroborated hearsay and even outright lying. To the patient with this advanced level of brain damage, the only thing that gives such “evidence” value is its ability to put Trump in a bad light and damage his political viability as we careen towards 2024.

The testimony of a former aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about events she said took place on January 6 is perhaps the ultimate example of this. We’ve learned that this “emergency” meeting to quickly make public some fast-breaking testimony was nothing of the sort. It was a lie to create a sense of urgency around the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. Why, it was so important, this kangaroo court had to change its plan for a two-week hiatus and hop to it! But by then, they’d already completed four video interviews with her.

So they’d had plenty of time to corroborate her hearsay testimony with the Secret Service but had never reached out. They still could’ve done it during their so-called hiatus. But perhaps they sensed it might spoil a good thing. Wouldn’t want to get in the way of a great anti-Trump story! (Like that fake “pee tape” yarn --- how long were they able to keep THAT going?)

The fact that the committee failed to reach out to the Secret Service has been reported by POLITICO, not exactly a bastion of support for Trump.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/29/jan-6-hutchinson-secret-service-00043164

The leadership behind the J6 committee consists mostly of people with fancy law degrees and lots of experience with hearings and rules of evidence. The hypothesis that they’ve lost billions of brain cells due to TDS explains why they didn’t realize how quickly Hutchinson’s testimony would be demolished by people with firsthand knowledge, and how much that would discredit their entire operation.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/liz-cheney-republicans-loyal-trump-constitution

As POLITICO reported, attorneys for Hutchinson said Wednesday she stands by “all of the testimony.” But the Secret Service said it would have been a simple matter for committee members to access any documents or witnesses they’d thought might be relevant. They just didn’t do it.

One especially puzzling part of Hutchinson’s testimony is that she claimed to have written a particular note herself, when White House attorney Eric Herschmann says he wrote it. POLITICO and other news outlets are downplaying the significance of this apparent lie, saying it doesn’t matter who wrote the note, as the important thing is that it shows Trump was being advised to immediately instruct supporters to leave the Capitol. They’re failing to ask why the committee chose to call Hutchinson as a witness and not Herschmann. None of the committee’s choices are accidental; there must be some reason why they wanted the note in evidence but not Herschmann as a witness. They preferred Hutchinson on-camera, even if she had to misrepresent the note as hers. We’d like to know why.

Also, Mark Meadows, Hutchinson’s boss at the time, denies that he requested a pardon from Trump over the events of January 6, as Hutchinson testified he did. Here’s an excellent take:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/06/29/mark-meadows-my-aide-is-lying-about-me-requesting-a-pardon-over-january-6-n2609552

Megyn Kelly, no fan of Trump, thinks Trump “embarrassed himself” with his reaction to the outcome of the election, but even so, she says a “first-year law student” could drive a truck through the holes in Hutchinson’s testimony. Actually, we think any reasoned person should be able to do it, no law school necessary.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/06/29/megyn-kelly-explains-why-a-first-year-law-student-could-have-driven-a-truck-through-holes-in-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony/

That touch of TDS Kelly experienced –- presumably when he made a less-than-gentlemanly remark about her during his presidential campaign –- was perhaps just enough to inoculate her against the more serious and incapacitating form. So even though she still has doubts about Trump’s “temperament,” she’s able to think coherently and objectively about the workings of this committee.

Her video is a must-watch, and reiterates quite bluntly what we’ve been saying. “This committee has one goal and only one goal,” she says. “Stop Donald Trump from running again in 2024. They’re worried he could win. They absolutely loathe him. And they will do what it takes to stop his political resurrection.”

She debunks these hearings in short order, particularly the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. She notes all the paraphrases of stories Hutchinson heard secondhand and even features a montage of her using the frequent qualifier “something to the effect of.”

This deficiency obviously didn’t matter to the committee. It “cloaks itself in sanctimony,” Kelly said, “purporting to be a fair-minded, down-the-middle finder of fact, just looking to get to the truth of January 6. IT’S A LIE. And they prove every time they get together that it’s a lie.”

Note: Kelly personally has a view different from mine on Trump’s feelings about the violence at the Capitol; her take-away is that he approved of it. Perhaps some residual mild TDS infection is still lurking in some of her cells, as after chickenpox. She’s to be commended for functioning so well in spite of this.

Kelly also does not mention the denial from Tony Ornato that he had the conversation with Hutchinson described by her in testimony, about Trump attacking Secret Service agents and grabbing the steering wheel. That might have been reported after she made this video, but she doesn’t need it to debunk the hearing.

What she demonstrates in this video is how the testimony might have gone if there'd been any cross-examination. And let me tell you, Megyn would have been a great one to do it. She has got skills.

“I actually think I’m in a unique spot on this front,” she concludes. “I feel no need to defend Trump or his character, as this audience knows. But I know a sham trial when I see one. And this is not justice, it is not fair, and it is not to be trusted.”

Further reading:

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/28/j6-committee-just-kneecapped-themselves-over-evidence-in-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony-n585882

https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/29/january-6-committee-razors-edge-andrew-mccarthy/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-wasnt-contacted-by-jan-6-committee-before-hutchinson-testimony

Andrew C. McCarthy sees this as less of a problem with the witness’s hearsay testimony than it is with the committee’s failure to question and cross-examine.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-closer-look-at-the-hearsay-claims-surrounding-hutchinsons-trump-testimony/

Mike Huckabee

Democrats are irresponsibly demagoging to fire up their far-left base that’s already violently unhinged, in hopes that abortion will save them from oblivion in the midterm elections. I think they’re making the same mistake that many liberals in the media make: thinking that Twitter is America.

A new CBS poll taken after the SCOTUS decision ending Roe found that Americans opposed overturning Roe by 52-31%. Also that 50% of Democrats said this will make them more likely to vote, up from 40% last month. That's obviously giving Democrats motivation to fan the flames.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/06/26/no-surprises-in-cbs-post-roe-poll-n1608283

But will that bump be enough to make a big difference? And will it hold once all the hysteria dies down and people start to figure out that they’ve been misled about what the ruling really means (the SCOTUS didn’t ban abortion, it just sent the issue back to the states)? Besides, most of the voters most likely to be motivated by this are in blue states, where abortion laws will remain unchanged and possibly get even more liberal.

More to the point, for all the 24/7 focus on abortion, it’s just not that big an issue for most people. CBS also reports that the highest priority issue with voters is inflation, followed by the economy and crime. None of that is good news for Democrats. Abortion came in 6th, with 42% calling it high priority, but of those, many are doubtless pro-life. By comparison, 82% named inflation as high priority. And as the RNC’s Tyler Bowyer points out at this link, the issues that got the least votes for “high priority” were January 6th, climate change, COVID and abortion, or as he puts it, “the entire Democratic platform for 2022.”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/06/26/joe-biden-and-democrats-stare-into-the-abyss-after-latest-poll-drops-n584687

Mike Huckabee

Big decision from the Supreme Court this week—they finally overturned Roe v. Wade on 6-3 vote because they actually read the Constitution. So we’re clear—this doesn’t end abortion, it simply returns the decision to the people elected representatives in the states. Despite the elation among those of us who are pro-life and the despair among the pro-abortionists, the fact is some states like New York and California will probably have MORE abortions, while pro-life states like my state of Arkansas will have no abortions. But it’s a reminder that elections really do have consequences, and if you wondered why it mattered that Donald Trump was elected instead of Hillary Clinton in 2016, just remember that if Hillary had been elected, this decision would have likely been 7-2 in FAVOR of abortion right up until the moment of birth. So if you are truly pro-life, then even if you didn’t like Donald Trump’s mean tweets, I hope you realize that Trump’s election is why we finally have a responsible court.

This week on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox, I told Sean something I’ve observed for a long time in government. There are some people in public office who don’t do anything but look like they ARE doing something. Then there are those who are doing some great things, but don’t look like they are doing ANYTHING. And then there’s Joe Biden who isn’t doing anything and by golly it LOOKS like he’s not doing anything.

He was on vacation…again…in Delaware last weekend and fell off his bicycle. He wasn’t injured and I’m genuinely grateful for that, but that seemed to be the perfect metaphor for his entire Presidency. Wanting to appear younger than he is—he’ll be 80 in November—the bike could be a good look for him since he acts every bit of 80 at the podium or when he shuffles in and out of the room. But if he keeps wrecking his bike or tripping on the stairs to Air Force One, he might want to trade in the bike for a walker, or at least get some training wheels for the bicycle.

And Joe’s messes seem to be rubbing off on others. If you are planning on flying anywhere this summer, you might want to reconsider it. The airlines are in meltdown. As someone who is on planes by necessity 2-4 days a week, it’s become a real frustrating mess as many flights are canceled, delayed, or changed at the last minute. And the prices for the privilege of being stuck in an airport and never making it to your destination is about twice what it was a year ago.

But thinking about driving? You might need to sell a kidney just to fill up your tank. And since you only have 2 kidneys, I hope you take somebody with you to sell a kidney to get back home.

Remember when we were told that we needed to get rid of Donald Trump and get Biden in the White House because he’d bring the adults back in charge? After all, Joe Biden has been in Washington since he was in his 20’s.

So according to the press and the DC swamp-rats, Joe Biden was bring the country together and heal us. Are we healed? Is the country together? Are our cities safer? Are your groceries cheaper? How about the gas in your car? Do you feel that unity we were promised? Or do you now remember when Joe Biden screamed at a citizen at a campaign rally? (Biden screams “I don’t work for you!” Or when he called another voter a “Lying, Dog-faced pony solider?”.

So spare me the nonsense about the adults taking over. I can’t think of one thing the so-called “adults” have made better. Nothing. Nada. If this is what adults do to us, I’m ready for the kids to come back. And if they tweet some stupid stuff, I’ll shake my head and frown as I fill up my tank with gas that costs half of what it does with these adults in control!

Mike Huckabee

The U.K. DAILY MAIL reports that a voicemail from future President Joe Biden to son Hunter Biden proves without a doubt that Joe was lying when he said he never discussed Hunter’s foreign business dealings with him.

The voicemail was from a password-protected backup of Hunter’s iPhone XS, retrieved from a copy of the hard drive from his abandoned laptop.

On December 12, 2018, the elder Biden called Hunter after reading a NEW YORK TIMES article about Hunter’s multi-million-dollar dealings with CCP oil giant CEFC. The NYT story had reported that CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming had been arrested in China and his top officer Patrick Ho had been convicted in the United States over bribing African officials to help Iran evade oil sanctions. The NYT had also reported that when Ho had been arrested, he’d called Joe’s brother Jim, who told the NYT he thought the call had been meant for Hunter.

After seeing the story online in the TIMES, Joe called Hunter and left this message: “Hey, pal. It’s Dad. It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance, just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the TIMES, was good. I think you’re clear. And, anyway, if you get a chance, give me a call. I love you.”

“I THINK YOU’RE CLEAR”??

The DAILY MAIL has all the details. As they report, this voicemail is is “the latest in an overwhelming body of evidence suggesting that he lied about not talking foreign business with his son.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10938637/Voicemail-Joe-Biden-Hunter-proves-president-DID-speak-Chinese-business-dealings.html

As Josh Boswell, senior reporter at the DAILY MAIL, told FOX News’ Jesse Watters Monday evening, “It’s almost more important what wasn’t said, right? It wasn’t a phone call from Joe Biden to his son saying, ‘What the hell are you doing? I’m reading about deals with corrupted criminal Chinese businessmen! What’s going on?’ It’s ‘You’re in the clear.’ He clearly knew what was going on.”

When he asked the White House to comment on this, they declined.

Jerry Dunleavy and Andrew Kerr, reporting on this for the WASHINGTON EXAMINER, offer a timeline, saying that this exchange took place about five months before Joe Biden started his presidential campaign. Biden later famously said, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

Also, Joe made this call to Hunter five days after wiring $75,000 to Hunter’s account to help him pay for his monthly $37,000 alimony (editorial note: !!!) and his daughters’ rent, tuition, healthcare and other expenses. Between November 2018 and March 2019, Hunter also spent over $30,000 on escorts, many of whom were linked to “.ru” Russian email addresses. This was a period in which his dad committed to wiring him a total of $100,000 to help him with his bills. Thus, Hunter’s dad, as the EXAMINER reports, “unwittingly helped finance Hunter’s trysts with Russia-linked escorts.”

Actually, if Biden knew about his son’s proclivities, it’s hard to know for sure if this was done “unwittingly” or not. On the other hand, there’s no evidence on the laptop that he knew he was paying for that. And maybe he was as clueless then about that as he is now about...oh, I don't know, why we have inflation?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/hunter-biden-russian-escorts-joe-payments

Hunter’s response to this story was to shoot the messenger, saying to the EXAMINER, “What’s wrong with you?”

Perhaps Hunter should take a few moments to ponder how the press would have exploded if this same story had involved, say, Donald Trump, Jr., instead of himself.

Legal expert Andrew C. McCarthy was sympathetic to Joe Biden as a father who loved his son, but at the same time recognized that he was “shoveling prodigious sums of money” to Hunter “when the neon lights were flashing that Hunter was compromised and using the money to become even more compromised --- and with Russia, of all places. Joe Biden is a textbook example of why applicants with family members who maintain shady ties with foreign actors, particularly those connected to authoritarian anti-American regimes with highly capable intelligence services, get rejected when applying for a security clearance.”

McCarthy also put this in context, noting the irony that Democrats put our country through two years of anxiety on the fabricated claim that Trump was an agent of the Kremlin. Then, when real information came out about the Bidens in the form of Hunter’s laptop, they dismissed that as “Russian disinformation” and suppressed it in the weeks before the 2020 election.

If you’d like to keep up with the Hunter Biden developments, the WASHINGTON EXAMINER has a page specifically for updates.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/hunter-biden

Miranda Devine, author of LAPTOP FROM HELL and reporter on all things “Hunter” at the NEW YORK POST, appeared Monday night on Tucker Carlson’s show to discuss the latest. She agreed that this “puts the lie” to Joe Biden’s repeated claim that he didn’t know anything about Hunter’s foreign business affairs.

Mike Huckabee

Now that I’ve covered all the screaming people who don’t understand what this ruling means in depth, here are some stories about what it actually does mean. First of all, it doesn’t mean that the Court is about to overturn same-sex marriage or legal contraceptives. The decision authored by Justice Alito makes it clear that this applies only to abortion and Roe and Casey. Here’s what it means and why even liberals like Ruth Bader Ginsburg always knew it was a badly-flawed ruling.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/06/24/what-alito-wrote-the-most-powerful-lines-in-the-scotus-decision-overturning-roe-n583810

And if Democrats really think Republicans want to take away contraceptives, why have Democrats repeatedly blocked Republican efforts to make oral contraceptives available over-the-counter, so they’ll be easier to obtain and cheaper?

https://instapundit.com/527780/

President Biden’s claim that the ruling makes the US an “outlier” among nations when it comes to allowing abortion is, like most things he says, nonsense. In fact, most nations have abortion laws more restrictive even than some red states. This actually moves us away from extremes like China and North Korea and more toward the abortion laws in Europe.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/06/25/biden-claims-roe-decision-makes-us-an-outlier-among-developed-nations-but-thats-false-n583969

As I’ve been telling people for years, this doesn’t mean abortion is now illegal nationwide. It means it’s up to the states to decide. Some states already had laws restricting abortion ready to go that would be triggered if Roe was overturned, and the first to take effect was in Missouri.

https://www.westernjournal.com/less-1-hour-roe-struck-missouri-1st-state-outlaw-abortion/

But 12 other states had similar trigger laws, and up to 26 are considered “certain or likely” to ban abortion to at least some extent. Other states will no doubt legalize abortion up to the moment of birth. California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to make his state an “abortion destination,” surely the sickest appeal to tourism this side of package tours of Vlad the Impaler’s castle. I pray that once the hysteria calms down that people in those states will change their hearts and minds and realize what a horrific stand they’re chosen to take.

Mike Huckabee

Most of the news outlets are leading with outraged mobs of leftists throwing fits and screaming about the end of Roe v. Wade. As usual, their reporting reflects an incorrect view that aside from a handful of fringe crazies, everyone agrees with the left’s viewpoint. In fact, there are tens of millions of Americans, the majority of them women, who have worked for years to overturn Roe and who see the loss of over 60 million babies to abortion as an unspeakable national tragedy. For them, Friday wasn’t a “dark day for women,” it was a long-hoped and prayed-for miracle. Let’s take a look at their victory celebrations first before getting into the really ugly stuff.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/24/photos-pro-life-americans-celebrate-the-overturning-of-roe-v-wade-after-nearly-50-years/

Last night, pro-abortion activists (I’m not going to call them “pro-choice” because they have no interest in women having any choice other than abortion) held their threatened “Night of Rage.” This might have been more effective if the left didn’t react to every election, court decision or stand-up comedian’s joke that doesn’t go exactly the way they want by flying into a quivering rage. Fox News has a continually-updated roundup of stories about the giant national tantrum following the SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-in-landmark-opinion

Breitbart also has a running account of the left’s meltdown…

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/24/livewire-pro-abortion-protests-escalate-in-americas-major-cities/

Protesters at the Arizona State Capitol gave January 6th Committee viewers a helpful demonstration of what a violent insurrection attempt looks like.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/arizona-senate-abortion-protest-hostage

Great quote at that link from Arizona state legislator Warren Peterson: “Feeling safe at the Capitol as I sit by 3 of my fellow senators who are armed."

Of course, the Night of Rage was preceded by a Morning of Mindlessness, a Midday of Hypocrisy and an Afternoon of Incitement. To listen to the insane ranting, from unhinged Twitter warriors urging violence (and of course, not being suspended by Twitter)…

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2022/06/25/crazy-thread-of-crazier-lefties-proves-the-real-danger-in-america-is-frothy-mouthed-nut-jobs-losing-their-minds-over-roe/

…to allegedly responsible Democratic Party office holders, you could safely assume that they didn’t even read the decision, or for that matter, know anything at all about the original Roe ruling. I wonder if they know that Roe originally legalized abortion fully only in the first trimester? If it still held, abortion laws in many blue states would be much stricter than they are now. 

The cluelessness wasn’t limited to American liberals. French President Macron took to Twitter to denounce the SCOTUS and declare abortion a “fundamental right of women.” The Mississippi law the Court upheld bars abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In France, it’s barred after only 12 weeks.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/macron-denounces-supreme-court-for-upholding-abortion-law-less-strict-than-france-s/ar-AAYQfPx

I’ve also never seen so many hard leftists morph instantaneously into hardcore Libertarians. They’re now railing against unelected judges making decisions about something that should be determined by the people. They apparently don’t comprehend that that’s what Roe was, as the pro-life side has been pointing out for half a century. By overturning Roe, the Court voided the judicial overreach and sent decisions about abortion back to the people’s elected representatives in the states.

It’s mind-boggling to see so many leftists denouncing judicial activism when this is actually the opposite of that. Particularly since judicial activism has been the left’s favorite way of sidestepping legislatures and imposing their will on the people for decades. It’s how they forced abortion on America with Roe because they couldn't convince the voters. But what the Courts do, the Courts can undo. It’s tempting to tell them the same thing parents often say to children who are throwing tantrums: “You brought this on yourself.”

Sadly, the Democrats once again proved themselves unworthy of holding any position of responsibility, from the President on down. Biden could have reacted to the decision in a statesmanlike fashion and attempted to calm the fury and urge Americans to come together and respect our Constitutional system. He could have at least denounced the illegal protests at Justices’ homes and the threats against them and churches and pro-life pregnancy centers. Instead, he chose to demagogue, throw more gas on the fire (I’m amazed he could afford it), and exploit the rage to shill for votes for Democrats.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/06/24/joe-biden-just-told-us-who-he-really-is-n583769

I don’t believe this will be the turning point issue they think it will be. Most Americans are at least somewhat pro-life. The number of abortions has been falling in recent years. And acting like violent lunatics, threatening people who disagree with you and calling for burning down the Supreme Court when you don't get your way is not a good way to convince voters to give you more power. Besides, a new McLaughlin poll found that only 5% of voters call abortion a “top concern” to them.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/just-5-call-abortion-top-issue

FYI: Joe Biden used to be pro-life himself. In fact, in 1982, he proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to the states. Sound familiar?

https://instapundit.com/527749/

It was only as recently as 2019, when he had to pander to the far left to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, that he dropped his support for the Hyde Amendment barring federal funding of abortions.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/06/24/biden-has-flip-flopped-like-a-fish-on-abortion-over-his-long-career-n583922

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has yet to do his duty and arrest people protesting at SCOTUS Justices’ homes, again proved that he either doesn’t grasp or doesn’t care that his job requires him to enforce laws objectively and not display political prejudice. He issued a statement condemning the Court ruling and declaring that the “Justice” Department will “work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom.” Not only was this wildly inappropriate (it’s described at the link as the “most overtly political moment in DOJ history"), it also contained elements that could easily be taken as racist. As if the incoming GOP Congress didn’t have enough reasons to impeach and remove Garland, this alone is more than enough.  

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/06/24/merrick-garland-should-be-impeached-for-his-response-to-roe-being-overturned-n583724

Over in Congress, Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi took a break from accusing Republicans of violent insurrection against a branch of the government to rush into the streets and demand violent insurrection against a branch of the government.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pelosi-melts-scotus-decision-accuses-republicans-coordinated-nationwide-plot/

Naturally, AOC joined in the irresponsible, insurrection-y rhetoric, with a side order of her specialty: clueless ignorance about the Constitution and how our government works. And just one day before, this woman was complaining about how underpaid she is at only $174,000 a year.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrats-explode-after-supreme-court-makes-it-harder-to-kill-unborn-babies 

You didn’t think Maxine Waters was going to act like a responsible adult, did you?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/06/24/insane-maxine-waters-pretty-much-calls-for-insurrection-after-supreme-court-abortion-ruling-n2609309

Far-left Rep. Cori Bush joined in the loon squad by telling a crowd that called abortion an “act of love” and was chanting, "Free abortion on demand, the people hate abortion bans!" that these “unelected” Justices (at least she knows that much) made a decision that will affect people “whose children and children’s children they will never know.” I doubt that’s going to be an issue to the people she was talking to.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cori-bush-pro-choice-rally-protesters-abortion-act-love-no-restrictions

Law professor Jonathan Turley tried to correct some of the Democrats’ spit-flecked hysteria, but it will probably be as effective as trying to reason with a bobcat.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/24/jonathan-turley-dropkicks-the-attacks-from-pelosi-biden-and-aoc-over-scotus-decision-n583713

In the meantime, leave it to the Babylon Bee to sum up the day’s news perfectly:

https://babylonbee.com/news/roe-v-wade-aborted-in-198th-trimester

https://babylonbee.com/news/dems-pause-january-6-hearings-to-call-for-insurrection

https://babylonbee.com/news/weird-democrats-everywhere-using-word-woman-today-almost-as-if-they-know-what-it-means

https://babylonbee.com/news/authorities-warn-tonights-protests-may-escalate-from-mostly-peaceful-to-somewhat-peaceful

Mike Huckabee

With investigative reporter John Solomon and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan both appearing this weekend on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES, Maria Bartiromo had the opportunity to ask about the January 6 committee’s focus on presidential pardons.

As I said last week, the Democrats’ overzealousness in raiding the home of another Trump official, former assistant AG Jeffrey Clark, undercuts their premise that no one would seek a pardon without being guilty of a crime. We’ve seen how the Democrats use the legal system to ruin the lives of people who’ve done nothing wrong, and why sometimes, as with Michael Flynn, a pardon is the only escape from their partisan clutches. And now, with their one-sided kangaroo court, they'll make virtually anyone look guilty.

“When you get to the January 6 commission,” Solomon said, “you see...time and again, the same tactic we saw in “Russia”: only put out certain pieces of information; leave the rest out. And so they create illusion that there’s reality there, and then when we dig in and we get the full body of evidence, you find out that what they claim was never true. They’ve used a lack of transparency to create false reality time and time again, going all the way back to Russia collusion.”

Why was the Capitol vulnerable in the first place? As for the warning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had received about potential violence on January 6, Jordan agreed that it was ample, reminding viewers that President Trump had offered up to 20,000 National Guard troops, which she still turned down. (Fortunately, Trump has solid documentation of this.) That's "something that needs to be answered,” Jordan said, “but I don’t think it’s gonna happen, certainly not with this committee.”

‘Streiff’ at REDSTATE has assessed what we’ve all seen so far, and it’s not pretty. The committee is so transparent, in fact, that we easily glimpsed the ugly, soulless center, as they, in “best Stalinist style,” intended to link “individual Republicans to the insurrection” and “keep Donald Trump on the ballot in November 2022 to run against him.” But the heavy-handed operations they’ve been pulling lately (see Jeffrey Clark and Peter Navarro) are “third world stuff.”

“These actions are obviously choreographed with the January 6 committee because the FBI would have done all this a year ago if it were real...While there is no evidence of any sort of a ‘conspiracy’ to ‘overthrow’ the government, the [DOJ] and the FBI, working at the behest of their political masters in the House Democrat Caucus, will try to create an illusion that the GOP politicians at every echelon of government were involved in this nonsense scheme.”

When Republicans return to power, what must happen is that everyone who participated to the slightest degree in in these “Stasi-like operations” must be “driven from government.” Hear, hear.

https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/06/26/curious-how-the-department-of-justice-and-fbi-are-trying-to-bolster-the-failing-january-6-commission-isnt-it-n584322

Another great weekend commentary came from former U.S. attorney from Utah Brett Tolman, a guest on FOX NEWS’ “Life, Liberty & Levin.” Levin remarked, as we have, that the committee’s process is “about the most anti-constitutional process I’ve ever seen, certainly in public. No opposition, no exculpatory evidence, no contrary witnesses, no Republicans on the committee who are actually Republicans, no ability for people to answer their accusers because they have potential criminal charges hanging over their heads.” This is happening while Democrats hilariously talk about defending the system.

Tolman said that looking at this “as a trial lawyer,” if this were a real court of law, “the judge would be holding them [Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger] in contempt for manipulating evidence, for refusing to hand over exculpatory evidence, for refusal to present a fair assessment of the evidence that they have, for the grandstand; we’d have sanctions, we’d have contempt of court, and the case would be thrown out.

“But not in the court of political ideology.”

The Democrats can’t give an argument that’s “based in fact, based in the law...so they resort to media, they resort to distortion and manipulation, and we all have to sit back and watch as though there’s credibility to it.”

He says he finds no credibility “to any argument they currently are pursuing.” It doesn’t help that these so-called “pro-democracy” arguments are coming from people who ignored or even cheered on the violence in 2020 and are doing the same again with the vicious pro-choice protests.

As for the raid on Jeffrey Clark’s house last week –- not to mention even worse treatment of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro –- Tolman said Attorney General Merrick Garland is “either a puppet, or he’s a very dangerous...man at the helm of the Department of Justice.” For the first time in his long legal career, he said, he sees that “it is not the same Justice Department, it is not the same FBI that I worked with.” The driving force is their political agenda, and they’re blatant about that. “And I think they’re doing it that way,” he said, “because they’re having difficulty winning on any of the merits.

“And so they use DOJ as an arm of the executive agenda. So when you see the January 6 committee...gathering evidence and then manipulating that evidence --- and it’s very clear that they are --- not giving any credibility to evidence that would contradict the narrative that they want to push --- I fear for a Department of Justice who I think 15 years ago would have laughed at the [criminal] referral [becoming] a Department of Justice who will now take it seriously.”

And, as Levin said, “they seem to be investigating everything except January 6.” One witness they need testimony from is Pelosi herself, on what if anything she did to secure the Capitol.

But the committee’s goal is more encompassing, with a massive agenda that includes investigating and smearing the entire Republican Party and, ultimately, getting rid of the Electoral College. To get there, the’ve stretched the meaning of ‘obstruction of Congress,’ Tolman said, in ways we’ve never heard of before. And they’re “trying to lay a criminal predicate to indict the former President of the United States.”

Tolman compared this committee most unfavorably to the (really) bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which was willing to hand out criticism objectively to whichever administration warranted that. They assessed what had been done well or badly by the FBI. And the American people had “some confidence that we were at least going to get some answers.”

Not this time. In vivid contrast, the January 6 committee hasn’t looked into who Ray Epps is, or who put the pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC headquarters, or what orders Pelosi gave and “why it appears that she refused to build up security on the recommendations of the Capitol police.” We need to know what happened on January 6 and “why it was such a monumental failing.”

And they’ll never look at any of the things Democrats did ahead of the 2020 election that gave Trump ample reason to think the process was rigged in Biden’s favor. Trump didn’t just pull all that out of his hat, you know. They just want you to think he did.

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Mike Huckabee

The radical pro-abortion group “Jane’s Revenge” warned that it would be “open season” on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers if Roe were overturned, and called for a “night of rage” with physical violence. Now, it’s past time to start treating that as the terroristic threat that it is.

The same TV networks that gave wall-to-wall prime time coverage to the Democrats’ insurrection kabuki theater have been noticeably quiet about this open attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court with acts of arson and vandalism and threats of terroristic violence.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/06/24/msm-spends-just-77-seconds-on-janes-revenge-open-season-threat-n2609242

The DHS issued a warning to Catholic churches and pro-life groups to prepare for attacks. I hope they will take this seriously and be ready. I have a feeling that if any of these people ever finally face serious consequences for their rotten behavior, and find themselves unmasked, handcuffed and thrown in jail for a few years, it might scare them into behaving like civilized adults for the first time in their lives.

Lila Rose of the pro-life group Live Action responded, "This is the most coordinated & aggressive domestic terrorism in our nation today. All because extremists are angry that they may not get to kill children in the womb, on demand, without limit." But she said they will not deter pro-life people from carrying on their mission.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2022/06/24/dhs-warns-catholic-churches-pregnancy-centers-night-of-rage-n2609245

Now that the DHS has been forced to issue that dire warning, I wonder if they will finally acknowledge that the real domestic terrorist threat is coming from the left – you know, all those black-clad, masked thugs threatening other people’s lives and firebombing their offices and churches – and not from Trump voters and disgruntled parents at school board meetings.

Mike Huckabee

Ron DeSantis has been such a success as governor of Florida, it’s easy to forget that Democrat Andrew Gillum came within 38,000 votes statewide of winning that office. We should all thank our lucky stars, whether we live in Florida or not, that DeSantis made it and got the opportunity to show the nation how conservative principles translate into practical solutions. That's especially true now, when Gillum is once more in the news, this time for his indictment on numerous corruption charges.

We don’t want bury the lede, so let us just say: Gillum’s attorney is Hillary-connected former Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias. More on that later.

Recall that after losing in that election, Gillum –- once a rising star in the Democrat Party –- was caught in a drug-fueled sex orgy with a male escort who almost died from a drug overdose. Yes, Florida, this was almost your governor. Missed it by THAT MUCH.

Project Veritas captured video of one of Gillum’s employees saying he was very far-left, had to lie to win, and was “crazy, crazy, crazy.” Gillum himself remarked that Ron DeSantis supported slavery. He called DeSantis and Trump “pigs.” Lovely person. From 2018:

https://www.independentsentinel.com/lying-gillum-responds-to-staffer-saying-fl-is-a-fcked-up-cracker-state/

This guy was actually the mayor of Tallahassee, which might seem hard to believe until you hear that Tallahassee has the highest crime rate in the state. As reported by INDEPENDENT SENTINEL, anyone who brought this up was called (of course) a racist.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/criminal-indictment-of-andrew-gillum-who-almost-became-gov-of-florida/

And, yes, Democrat “superlawyer” Marc Elias is defending Gillum against his 21-count indictment for conspiracy, fraud and making false statements. (What, Michael Avenatti wasn’t available?) He'll have his work cut out for him, as the indictment is reportedly accompanied by copious bank records and informant testimony.

As the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON reports, Elias is “a strange choice” for Gillum’s legal team. “Unless being friends with the Clintons counts, Elias has little apparent experience with federal criminal defense,” they say. As you know, in recent years his efforts have been concentrated mostly on election law at the state level, getting judges to eliminate safeguards that would have helped ensure the integrity of mail-in ballots. In the summer of 2020, he and his team of attorneys criss-crossed the country to use the legal system to pressure targeted “battleground” states to change the rules –- even if it meant going around state legislatures. These changes were ruthlessly exploited that November.

I would think it would be highly unusual to be friends with the Clintons without having at least a nodding acquaintance with criminal defense.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/dem-superlawyer-marc-elias-adds-corrupt-florida-pol-to-loser-client-list/

Gillum is accused of siphoning political contributions into his personal accounts after DeSantis won, accepting unreported gifts, and working with donors to conceal high-dollar contributions. One unintentionally humorous note in this story: Gillum might actually have defrauded GEORGE SOROS of up to $137,000. The way Soros throws his money around to leftists, I’m surprised he didn’t just GIVE Gillum the money for...well, whatever.

“That accusation is especially awkward for Elias,” the WFB continues, “because Soros is a longtime ally.” They were both major players on the Hillary team. After Trump beat Hillary, Elias even joined the board of a Soros-funded super-PAC. It might be no accident that Elias has these connections to both sides of the Gillum case; perhaps he has some way to leverage his unique position.

Elias released a statement that was the standard attorney blah-blah: “The government got it wrong today. The evidence in this case is clear and will show that Mr. Gillum is innocent of all charges. We look forward to putting this case to rest and giving Andrew and his family peace once and for all.”

See details of the indictment here.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/22/andrew-gillum-former-desantis-opponent-charged-in-21-count-indictment-n582374

According to the indictment, the FBI, looking into corruption in the city of Tallahassee in 2016, were “steered to” then-mayor Gillum and his mentor, Sharon Lettman-Hicks, who currently heads the National Black Justice Coalition and calls the investigation “racially motivated.” (And with DeSantis in the governor’s office, she sees “democracy in peril.”) So, the FBI must have been investigating Gillum while he was a candidate for governor. NBC News says Gillum “had been under federal investigation for years.”

Gillum was the kind of candidate Democrats sadly flock to: he checked a diversity box –- the first black candidate for governor in Florida –- and was a dynamic speaker, as if that alone could actually solve problems. His stated goal was to “turn Florida blue.” After he lost the governor’s race, he became (surprise!) a CNN commentator, Harvard University guest lecturer, and frequent guest on Bill Maher’s HBO show.

With elections this fall and Gillum’s upcoming trial, Marc Elias must be racking up the billable hours. NBC News has much more detail on the Gillum case..

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/andrew-gillum-desantis-2018-opponent-faces-indictment-rcna34676

Mike Huckabee

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has struck down New York’s requirement that citizens prove to the government that they have a specific need to carry a weapon for self-defense outside their homes.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/06/23/scotus-gun-case-n2609212

Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas said the Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense is not a second class right subject to an entirely different body of rules than other rights. For instance, you don’t have to prove to the government that you have a need to voice unpopular speech or freely exercise your religious beliefs.

Justice Alito concurred, writing, "Today, unfortunately, many Americans have good reason to fear that they will be victimized if they are unable to protect themselves. And today, no less than in 1791, the Second Amendment guarantees their right to do so.”

This is a major victory for gun rights, but if you follow the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine it going any other way. The law was obviously unconstitutional from the start, and with each passing day, as New York’s liberal policies hampered police responses and allowed crime to flourish, the need for self-protection wherever you went became increasingly urgent. Personally, I don’t know how the Justices could keep a straight face listening to lawyers from New York argue that nobody needs to carry a weapon to feel safe…in NEW YORK.  

Mike Huckabee

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-capitol-breach-stephen-colbert-foreshadowed-coup

Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to demand an investigation immediately! Sean Hannity would no doubt agree.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6308239701112

But, all right, it’s time to get serious, because, let me assure you, the Democrats are deadly serious about this, as they always are about going after Trump and his supporters. As Michael Anton, research fellow at Hillsdale College, wrote yesterday in COMPACT magazine (by subscription only), “The Committee has brought to light no important new evidence, no smoking gun that points to, much less proves, “insurrection” or “overthrow.” All they can do is scream in America’s faces. That is, until Merrick Garland brings criminal charges against the former President and God knows how many of his associates. That’s the real plan.”

Anton appeared with Laura Ingraham on THE INGRAHAM ANGLE Monday night, saying he thinks that’s what they’re after. “That’s what they would like to do,” he said. “Whether they have the nerve to do it will depend on whether they think they’ve built enough of a case and have built up enough support in the general public, in the bureaucracy of the media...That’ll just be a calculation or a judgment. Many of them have already said –- and I’ve seen new articles every day, saying –- “slam-dunk case, open and shut, Trump is guilty of X or Y or Z; it’s time to try him. There’s a lot of mainstream, grassroots, Democratic pressure on Merrick Garland and the DOJ.”

He called Adam Schiff’s relentless teasing of what evidence he might have (EDITORIAL NOTE: as he did fraudulently with the Russia Hoax) “a desperate attempt to do something about their looming...disastrous, likely, defeat this fall in the House and, perhaps, in the Senate, too. And 2024 --- it’s a long way away but it’s not looking that great for them, either.” They’re trying to change the conversation, he said, when the most pressing problems in the country are issues such as inflation and the border.

“They’ve made it very plain that they’re don’t intend to do anything about any of those problems that would actually work.” Any practical solutions would “go against their ideology and would anger their base” he said. “They’ve got to come up with something, and this is what they’ve got.”

“Nobody LIKED the spectacle of January 6,” he said, “...but most people think it was a protest that went too far. It was regrettable; it shouldn’t have happened. But now that it happened, it wasn’t THAT big a deal; it’s not the second Civil War. It’s not another 9/11.” And it doesn’t outweigh the problems people have in their everyday lives. There’s a “cynical leadership that says, ‘We can use this to whip up our base and we don’t have anything else to do right now; we don’t have anything else to go on.”

He pointed out something we recently reported here: that the percentage of American voters who think Trump was largely responsible for January 6 has actually gone DOWN. A minority now believe he was mostly or largely responsible. We would add that this is one reason they're holding these hearings through the summer --- to try to get that statistic back up. But they are so obviously stacking the deck that it’s more off-putting than ever, particularly in swing states.

https://stream.org/jan-6-theater-is-pushing-swing-state-voters-away-from-dems-report/

Here’s another, albeit minor, example of the two-tiered ‘justice’ system as relating to security at the Capitol. In March, Capitol Police asked federal prosecutors for an arrest warrant for Timothy Hysom, a longtime staffer for Adam Schiff before becoming top aide to Democrat Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who coincidentally is one of the congressmen responsible for letting Colbert’s “comedy” team into the Capitol. Hysom was captured on security cameras defacing posters outside Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office. He declined to be interviewed by Capitol Police, their report says, and “retained counsel."

Defacing posters. In the congressional swamp, this is the level where Democrat staffers swim.

Anyway, federal prosecutors declined prosecution. Auchincloss’s spokesperson called the idea of prosecuting Hysom for that “ridiculous” but couldn’t resist adding that the real victims were people forced to read Greene’s posters that stated there are only two genders --- male and female --- calling Greene’s message “bullying.” I wonder if prosecutors would have gone after GOP staffers if they had defaced posters about, say, gun confiscation or abortion on demand. I have a feeling the cops would be at their doors with handcuffs and leg irons.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/democrat-congressmans-staffer-caught-defacing-posters-capitol-complex-doj-wont

Saving the best for last, here’s David Harsanyi at THE FEDERALIST, saying, “The day Adam Schiff was named to the ‘Jan. 6’ committee was the day we knew the investigation was going to be a frivolous partisan side show.” That’s exactly what it has turned out to be.

Schiff went on TV this weekend to re-use his tired strategy of claiming he had evidence against Trump. When pressed to be more specific, he said he did not “want to get ahead of our hearing.” I’m not holding my breath, and, really, I don’t think anyone is, with the possible exception of a few deranged MSNBC hosts. And Laurence Tribe.

Even CNN wasn’t buying what he was selling.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/20/cnn-adam-schiff-dana-bash-jan-6/?utm

Harsanyi’s must-read piece goes into a whole series of Schiff’s fabrications. “Schiff’s lying goes beyond the political norm,” he writes, “which, needless to say, is bad enough.” And, of course, when found out, he NEVER apologizes. Pelosi’s appointment of Schiff for this committee is just one more way of showing total disdain for the right. We all KNOW what a serial liar Schiff is, but it doesn’t even matter to the Democrat leadership. They know we know about his lies, and their attitude is “so. what are you gonna do about it?”

Harsanyi says it’s “become insufferable watching the same people who spent four years spinning conspiracies about 2016 lecture us about the importance of honoring the outcomes of presidential elections.” This means you, Hillary –- and, of course, Schiff. “The committee has spent most of its time conflating what looks like completely legal, if often destructive and dumb, actions with the violence of rioting.”  The reason they're able to do this is there are no lawyers allowed in the room who might defend Trump's attempts to stall the certification, or, goodness knows, dare to present a factual basis for at least some of his claims. 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/20/if-dems-were-serious-adam-schiff-wouldnt-be-on-jan-6-committee/

Mike Huckabee

The next hearing of the bogus, totally one-sided January 6 kangaroo court is set for Tuesday at 1PM Eastern Time. Here are some updates going into Day 4...

The committee says it “will center on Trump’s attempts to influence state legislators to delegitimize election results.” (Never mind that constitutional scholars such as Mark Levin have said Trump had every right to appeal to state legislators.) Testimony will include Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and aide Gabriel Sterling.

On Thursday, Day 5, they say they’ll show Trump stoked “a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S. Capitol.” They apparently mean they intend to lie, because he did no such thing. And, of course, there will be no cross-examination, with the mainstream media reporting the testimony as fact.

https://heavy.com/news/when-is-the-next-jan-6-hearing/

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says she “can’t wait” to testify before the January 6 committee, which is looking into whether she had any role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. She says she wants to clear up “misconceptions.”

https://nypost.com/2022/06/18/ginni-thomas-cant-wait-to-testify-before-jan-6-committee/

Perhaps she’d like to clear up the misconceptions at MSNBC. Host Tiffany Cross said, “I mean, listen to this, and I see this playing out and my question is, is Ginni Thomas going to be perp-walked? Because she is clearly in violation of ethical norms and it definitely seems like it is a violation of the law.”

See the full story at FOX News.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-panel-wonders-ginni-thomas-should-perp-walked-jan-6-committee

Seeing Ginni Thomas testify before that group of low-lifes might actually make me tune in.

Let’s move on. A look ahead wouldn’t be complete without an assessment of the hearings up to this point, and Margot Cleveland has a must-read piece about what this “show trial” conveniently ignores: “the verifiable evidence of systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the constitutionally deficient execution of the November 2020 election –- including issues Trump challenged following the election.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/17/jan-6-committee-ignores-clear-evidence-of-mass-illegal-voting-systematically-broken-election-laws/

Remember Georgia? Biden's margin of victory was only 11,779 votes. Before the state certified the results, Trump challenged them, claiming fraud. He alleged that counterfeit ballots in suitcases and tinkering with Dominion Voting Systems software had contributed to this, and also that tens of thousands of illegal ballots were illegally counted.

With so few votes separating the two candidates, Trump’s attorney said that violations of the residence requirements in the Georgia Election Code alone would have more than closed the gap. But Secretary of State Raffensperger would never meet with the attorneys, they said. In fact, his office sent them “a very nasty letter saying they wouldn’t give us ANY data until we dismissed all pending litigation.” When they did exactly that, his office withdrew the offer to pass along that data.

Trump’s legal team found numerous other categories of violations of the election code in Georgia but were never able to present their evidence in court, because the chief judge of Fulton County, Chris Brasher, failed to appoint a judge eligible to hear the case for a month. According to Cleveland, the numbers “far exceeded” Biden’s margin of victory.

When Trump spoke on the phone with Raffenspergers’s chief investigator Frances Watkins and famously told her to “find the fraud,” that was AFTER Trump’s lawyers had already found enough illegally cast votes.

“Yet,” Cleveland says, “the January 6 committee and their cohorts in the press cast all the challenges to the November 2020 tabulations as crazy conspiracy theories of fraud peddled by Trump to steal the election.”

And under Georgia election law, if the “evidence established that there are more illegal or or irregular votes than then the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.”

Raffensperger told THE FEDERALIST last July that his office’s investigation “remains ongoing.” But since then, their calls to him and key members of his staff have gone unanswered. Since he’s going to be testifying Tuesday, that would’ve been a great time for Republicans to cross-examine him about this information. Oh, wait –- darn it, there won’t be any Republicans there! (Cheney and Kinzinger don’t count.)

“With the corrupt media’s cooperation,” Cleveland says, “the vast majority of Americans may never learn of the systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the disparate treatment of voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the latter seen most clearly with the infiltration of funding from Mark Zuckerberg to targeted Democrat-heavy populations.”

In April of this year, Pennsylvania held public hearings about the “Zuckerbucks” phenomenon. They were looking at legislation banning outside money for elections. But Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed such a ban last year. (Surprise!)

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/08/explosive-pennsylvania-testimony-explains-how-leftist-money-infiltrated-election-offices-in-2020/

Speaking of “Zuckerbucks,” here’s a new documentary for us all to see:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/rigged-documentary-details-zuckerbergs-400m-vote-juicing-for-biden

Now let’s move from Cleveland’s fine legal mind to the deranged Trump-hating mind of Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe. As Jonathan Turley says, Tribe “seems intent upon running through the entire criminal code in declaring clear evidence of every federal crime by former President Trump and/or his family...witness tampering, obstruction of justice, criminal election violations, Logan Act violations, extortion, espionage, and treason...” In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Tribe has now added ATTEMPTED MURDER to his list of charges. He says Trump is clearly guilty of an attempt to murder Mike Pence, on January 6, 2021.

I am not kidding. Tribe said this is true “beyond any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious.” Also, “There are other crimes that have been proven,” he said. “Those are plenty to start with.”

Tribe must be taking very seriously the hearsay evidence that Trump, in a moment of extreme frustration, said Pence deserved hanging. Turley says, “I know of no case where a speech of this kind was sufficient to establish attempted murder. Indeed, such a claim would contradict controlling Supreme Court precedent.” Turley calls Tribe’s “attempted murder” delusion “utter nonsense.”

The problem for the committee is that Trump never called for violence AT ALL.

Turley notes how curious it is that, with the crimes obvious “beyond any doubt,” Trump has not been charged with them. It certainly wasn’t due to any loyalty or affection for Trump --- they hate him. No, it was “due to the paucity of evidence of a crime that would hold up in court.”

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/06/17/without-any-doubt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-beyond-any-doubt-tribe-declares-trump-committed-attempted-murder/#more-190025

The people running this kangaroo court would charge Trump with anything, even attempted murder --- we all know they would --- if they could get away with it, but they have no actual evidence. So the most they can do is call witnesses to trash-talk him during this show trial, just to damage him personally and politically. And they can hope their partisan hack AG, Merrick Garland, will just go ahead and charge Trump with...I don’t know, something criminal. Tribe predicts he will.

But you know it’s crazy when even CNN analysts are throwing cold water on it.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/17/cnn-toobin-goldman-trump-capitol-riot/?utm_medium=email&pnespid

Mike Huckabee

In other “Enough is enough” news, Disney is trying to put the best face on the news that their big summer Pixar animated release “Lightyear” crash-landed at the box office this weekend. It came in well behind the second week of “Jurassic World: Dominion,” earning $51 million. That may sound like a lot, but predictions had been scaled back to $70-$85 million to lower expectations. For a Pixar summer release with a $200 million budget and no other kids’ movies in theaters, that’s a disaster.

Showbiz media outlets are trying hard to paper over Buzz’s big crash by calling it a “soft opening,” but it’s far worse than that, as John Nolte at Breitbart.com gleefully explains.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/06/18/nolte-disneys-big-gay-lightyear-is-latest-woke-box-office-flop/

As this Western Journal article notes, the friendly liberal media is making every excuse in the book short of mentioning the possibility that parents have had enough of Disney’s “not-so-secret gay agenda.” They’re largely ignoring the well-publicized reports that the film included a lesbian couple and a same-sex kiss that was cut, then deliberately reinserted as a defiant response to Florida’s law barring sexual content in schools for kids up to third grade level. No, that couldn’t possibly be a factor in the film’s failure.

https://www.westernjournal.com/disneys-woke-lightyear-tanks-us-box-office-mainstream-media-cant-seem-figure/

That kiss has also caused a number of other nations, from China to Saudi Arabia, to ban the film or demand edits, which Disney has refused. That’s made news, as did outspoken liberal actor Chris Evans (who voiced Buzz instead of conservative Tim Allen, for some reason – maybe Tim saw the script and passed) calling anyone who disapproved of putting a lesbian kiss into a Disney kids’ movie a “dinosaur.” Ironically, far more people went to see outspoken Christian actor Chris Pratt in the second weekend of a movie about dinosaurs.

All this leads one to wonder, just what business does Disney think it’s in? It used to be synonymous with wholesome, inoffensive family entertainment that was safe for kids. Now, the people running it seem willing to lose billions as long as they can keep pushing unwelcome LGBTQ messages onto small children. And it’s not a matter of “erasing” gay people from movies. It’s just a simple issue of why should a movie aimed at kids include any messaging relating to anyone’s sex life? We used to have a term for this: “Inappropriate.”  

Bonchie at Redstate.com compares the politically-motivated decisions behind “Lightyear” to the massive box office success of the unabashedly patriotic and non-woke “Top Gun: Maverick,” and asks whether Disney will learn from this and re-embrace Walt’s vision or continue alienating their core customer base to appease a small demographic of radical LGBTQ activists.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/06/20/disney-arrives-at-a-crossroads-after-lightyear-and-its-lesbian-kiss-flop-n581173

In short, Disney executives can either go back to doing what they did best or keep acting like political activists and go broke as they rocket “To insanity…and beyond!”

Mike Huckabee

Here are a couple of liberal narrative-busting stories that you likely won’t see covered in the mainstream media:

Last week in testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Lucretia Hughes, a black mom whose son was “shot point blank in the head” six years ago, told lawmakers that more gun control laws will not stop gun violence. She said her son was killed by a convicted felon with an illegally-obtained weapon, and that policies pushed by gun control advocates wouldn’t have prevented that.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/lucretia-hughes-blasts-gun-control

She said, “My son’s death resulted from a criminal with an evil heart and a justice system failing to hold him accountable for laws he had already broken.” She called it “crazy” to think the solution is more laws when there already are laws, including strict gun laws in blue cities, that aren’t being enforced, She also said law-abiding citizens need guns to protect themselves because the police aren’t doing it, adding, “I don’t need the government to save me.”

Echoing her comments was Jason Young of San Francisco, whose six-year-old son Jace was shot and killed in San Francisco in 2020. Jason told Fox News that more anti-gun laws aren’t the answer, holding criminals accountable is. Young and his family campaigned for the successful recall of criminal-coddling D.A. Chesa Boudin, who kept releasing offenders back onto the streets to do it again and again. Young said, "In my son's case, every suspect that was arrested in regards to his murder was apprehended again with another firearm during their arrest."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/san-francisco-needs-more-than-gun-control-stop-violence-father-slain-6-year-old-says

Not that it should matter, but both of the victims in these cases were black. Leftists constantly tell us that black lives matter, yet they impose policies that have greatly increased shootings and killings in black neighborhoods. If that’s more than a political slogan to them, then why don’t they prove it by adopting policies that prioritize saving black lives over making the lives of violent criminals easier?

Mike Huckabee

At least 124 House Republicans sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding that he investigate violent attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers as acts of domestic terrorism.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2022/06/15/gop-calls-on-garland-to-investigate-attacks-on-antiabortion-groups-as-domestic-terrorism-n2608812

The letter lists 11 instances of pro-life pregnancy centers, anti-abortion centers and churches being vandalized, firebombed and sprayed with threatening graffiti reading, “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.”

And in case our politicized disgrace of an AG is too busy targeting non-woke parents to comprehend what a real domestic terrorist is, here’s a primer for him. An Antifa-linked pro-abortion group called Jane’s Revenge issued a blatantly terroristic threat online against pro-life organizations, reading in part:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/06/15/proabortoin-group-declares-open-season-on-crisis-pregnancy-centers-n2608778

"We offered an honourable way out. You could have walked away. Now the leash is off. And we will make it as hard as possible for your campaign of oppression to continue. We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack. We are versatile, we are mercurial, and we answer to no one but ourselves. We promised to take increasingly drastic measures against oppressive infrastructures. Rest assured that we will, and those measures may not come in the form of something so easily cleaned up as fire and graffiti.

From here forward, any anti-choice group who closes their doors, and stops operating will no longer be a target. But until you do, it’s open season, and we know where your operations are. The infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive. We will never stop, back down, slow down, or retreat…”

You know what would make them stop? Throwing them into prison for about 20 years. AG Garland, THAT is your job, not harassing critics of Biden policies. If they are organizing and leaving threats online, then they are creating electronic trails that the FBI can use to trace, identify and arrest them. You were able to locate harmless grannies who wandered into the Capitol on January 6th to take a selfie and treat them like terrorists. Now, try using that same set of skills to hunt down and arrest these actual terrorists.

Mike Huckabee

According to transgender activists, anything anyone does that they don’t like, from requiring schools to notify parents that they want to give their kids dangerous chemicals and irreversible surgery to comedians telling jokes about their excesses, is going to result in trans kids dying. To be clear, what they’re actually talking about is these kids killing themselves. One would think that if you’re dealing with a group of young people who are that at risk of suicide, you’d want to get them psychological counseling rather than drugs and surgery. But even Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki called that “medically necessary, life-saving” treatment for gender dysphoria. To even suggest psychological counseling gets you branded as transphobic and, you guessed it, will result in more trans kids dying.

To back this up, activists point to studies claiming that suicide rates are higher among kids who are denied hormones and gender surgery. But since we’re talking about kids’ lives, shouldn’t we actually confirm whether or not that’s true?

A new analysis funded by the Heritage Foundation uncovered serious flaws in these studies that are detailed at length here:

https://www.heritage.org/gender/report/puberty-blockers-cross-sex-hormones-and-youth-suicide

The study also found that far from reducing suicides, in 2020, in states that allow hormone therapy and other “gender-reassignment” procedures without parental consent, there were on average 1.6 more suicides per 100,000 residents age 12-23. That’s 14% higher than the average state suicide rate in that age group from 1999-2020. The analysts say an observable rise in suicides began when these hormone therapies became available. They believe there’s a connection. Others will deny a causal link, but if, as they claim, these procedures reduce suicides, why are suicides rising in places there they’re most easily available?

I would think that this study would merit some serious discussion. If it doesn’t, if it’s just ignored and swept under the rug, then I would take that as a pretty good indicator that for all the talk about saving kids’ lives, their lives really take a back seat to pushing a particular social/political agenda.

During NBC’s Thursday coverage of the January 6 committee hearings, they cut away to golf. Hey, it was the U.S. Open. Here’s Nick Arama at REDSTATE.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/16/what-nbc-did-during-jan-6-hearing-shows-just-how-much-dems-have-lost-americans-n579742

The focus on Thursday was Vice President Mike Pence and what he went through that day. Not that there was any cross-examination in an attempt to really know. We did learn that Pence spent several hours in a secure location, which appeared to be a loading area deep within the complex, and we heard committee Democrats praise him lavishly for his courage in not going along with Trump. Greg Jacob, former counsel to Pence, said that “Pence’s instinct” told him there was no way the framers of the Constitution intended the VP to have that kind of power.

It seems to me that being pulled into this story might actually have helped some viewers understand how Trump was feeling at the time. Obviously, he believed the election HAD been stolen by Democrats in those battleground states and that the Judicial Branch had not done its job. Yes, he chose to listen to the advisers who said what he wanted to hear, as we all do. And the way he saw it, he wasn’t trying to instigate a coup. He was hoping to prevent one, by the left. And some on the right did go way too far.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/january-6-hearing-pence-decision-to-certify-election

Mark Levin, speaking Thursday night on HANNITY, pointed out that while Biden, Schumer and Pelosi criticize Trump for not responding “quickly enough” to the January 6 riot, they still haven’t responded to the assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanugh, which would certainly represent a more serious threat to our Republic than a bunch of unarmed ragtag Trump supporters.

They also haven’t responded to “the threats that are coming down, the potential need for the National Guard to protect the Supreme Court” when the decision is announced on their landmark abortion case.

He reminded viewers of how “extraordinarily violent” the left is, evoking the summer of 2020, the riots accompanying Trump’s inauguration –- to try to prevent HIM being sworn in as President (that apparently was okay) –- and the attack at the White House that injured 50 Secret Service agents.

So after putting January 6 in perspective, he said he was “disgusted” at the 40 minutes he watched on Thursday, seeing that it was “choreographed,” with teleprompters, spliced-up and cherry-picked video, and no contrary witnesses, contrary evidence, motions, challenges or cross-examination. No opposition whatsoever.

Even the legal analysts sit there on TV and say, we learned a lot today, he said. “You learned NOTHING."

As for the testimony regarding Pence, Levin pointed out that their chief witness, Michael Luttig, was not an adviser to Pence and never spoke to Pence. Levin’s sources close to Pence say Luttig “volunteered” his analysis by submitting it unsolicited to the Vice President’s office. None of that came out in testimony on Thursday --- could it possibly be because there was no cross-examination?

J. Michael Luttig is a conservative former federal judge who testified that Pence had no authority to stop Congress from certifying the election –- he had tweeted this on January 5 –- and that this would have brought on a “constitutional crisis.” He painted a picture of Trump as someone desperately trying to cling to power and called his efforts a “war on democracy.”

FORBES reports that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz clerked for Luttig and considers him to be a mentor. It would be very interesting to get Cruz’s take on his testimony. Amazingly, Luttig’s other law clerk was Trump attorney John Eastman, the very adviser who was the one encouraging Trump –- and Pence –- to challenge the election. What an interesting scenario. If only there were some real Republicans involved in these hearings, to bring in some cross-examination…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/06/16/jan-6-hearings-who-is-j-michael-luttig-the-conservative-judge-who-opposed-pence-overturning-2020-election/?sh=631228967498

Levin also brought up the letter we reported on yesterday, from former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia William McSwain to President Trump, dating from June 2021. Recall that he was telling Trump that Attorney General Bill Barr had instructed him not to say anything publicly about the allegations of election “irregularities” that had been coming to his office, but to pass these along to the state attorney general, who had said Trump could not win.

“Wouldn’t it be nice when Barr was testifying, that somebody was there to challenge Barr? Somebody was there to challenge Luttig?” Levin asked. He pointed out that even some leftist legal professors agreed with Trump attorney John Eastman’s position “before it was John Eastman’s [and Trump’s] position.” The final say on election law was supposed to be with state legislators, he said, not with judges, and Levin holds that Trump “had every right” to ask state legislatures to look into these matters.

He also said it’s not clear under the 12^th Amendment what the responsibilities of the Vice President are in such a situation. There needed to be challenges in the hearing about this.

“This is a railroad job,” Levin said of these hearings, “pure and simple. And it’s time the media get off its a-- and pay attention, and legal analysts act like real lawyers.”

Couldn’t have said it better.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, at the conclusion of Monday’s hearing, said the committee appeared to be trying to “lay the foundation” for what they’ve claimed was an attempted coup. But what this really seems to be is a sort of “persona non grata” trial, he said, intended to show that Trump is “a horrible person.”

Turley laughed at something that happened at the end on Monday that he said “sort of put a pin on it” regarding the outrageously one-sided nature of these hearings. “The most telling moment,” he said, was when the chairman said he was going to “introduce this video, unless there is an objection.” Of course, everyone knew there would not be an objection! Who could imagine Liz Cheney suddenly rising to her feet and saying, “Wait, this seems unfair! Maybe we need to look at other evidence to be introduced as well!” That will not be happening.

“..This sort of emphasized,” he said, “there ISN’T anyone to object.”

He’s right --- we won’t be seeing any Perry Mason-like moment when someone in the room lets conscience prevail and tearfully sputters, “I confess! We’re all guilty! This hearing is a sham! We just couldn’t help ourselves!” These people don’t have consciences.

Turley observed that this one-sidedness is a “signature move,” a “fairly common practice” by Speaker Pelosi. She “muscles through, to get the conclusion she wants.” In the first Trump impeachment, for example, she “decided to forego investigation in the Judiciary Committee and the calling of essential witnesses.” In the second impeachment, “she did one better: she had a ‘snap impeachment,’ with no hearings at all.” I would add that she had to move lightning-fast because at that point, Trump was practically out the door. She had to get in just one more impeachment before he left!

But Turley isn’t so sure she’ll get the conclusion she wants. Other than hard-core anti-Trumpers, people will see that there’s no other side presented, the ‘other side’ being not that violent protest was a good thing but that key issues such as the deliberately lax security at the Capitol are not being examined at all.

He also made the point that through all the chaos, the system actually “did actually work to some extent.” Well, it worked in that power was indeed transferred; that’s about all that can be said for it.

We would add that to support their desired conclusion, Liz Cheney had to lie, saying, for example, “Donald Trump did not condemn the attack,” when he did –- unequivocally –- in a heartfelt Oval Office address. Read what he said at the link, here. He also condemned the violence on Twitter; Twitter blocked him. Cheney is a bald-faced liar, but, by design, there was no one at the hearing to point out her lies.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-liz-cheney-fact-check-condemn/2022/06/09/id/1073784/

(By the way, as of this writing, President Biden has yet to condemn the unlawful protests at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home or even the aborted attempt to kill him, which most of the media have ignored as well. Kayleigh McEnany and I spoke about this, and the double standard of justice in general, on last night’’s HANNITY.)

So, it’s “more like messaging than it is like a real investigation," he said. No kidding. “I could have been very impressive in court if there were no defense lawyers, you know?” he laughed. “You let the government put on its own case, own witnesses, own exhibits, and then no cross-examination and no defense arguments; I’d have been 1,000-and-0.”

He later said he did not think they’re doing this to stop Trump from running again –- he thinks they might even prefer that he run –- but to set up the case against Trump in case he does. They also want to deliver what they hope would be “the predicates” for criminal prosecution against him. McCarthy is concerned that Biden’s DOJ has been giving in to “the loudest voices on the progressive left” and that a Trump prosecution is what they want, no matter how it divides the country.

Monday evening, Brit Hume echoed what McCarthy had observed, saying that the Democrats might find out “they’ve done the Republican Party a great service” if they stain Trump too much for him to run again. “Because I think many Republicans think they can’t win with Trump at the head of the ticket again. They’re afraid of his supporters --- don’t want to come out against him directly, but they’d like him to go away. If the effect of this committee is to make his possible candidacy go away, I think a great many Republicans would privately be very glad.”

That thought is consistent with our new poll, which, in breaking news, has just concluded and shows a very strong preference for DeSantis over Trump, 56.6 percent to 42.2 percent. (For “someone else,” 2.1 percent.)

Even so, I’d like to think that if Hume had had time to elaborate, he would also have said that, to any conservative, the Democrats’ flagrant abuse of the system to achieve that goal is far too great a price to pay.

But maybe the Democrat’s main goal is something else entirely. According to top Democrat strategist Murshed Zaheed, the primary purpose is “fundraising for a lot of the Democratic Party institutions and establishments.” What the heck, they spent $8 million of YOUR MONEY on this extravaganza, and they’re expecting a big payoff on that investment! Zaheed’s tweets will give you a good “inside” view.

https://valiantnews.com/2022/06/top-democrat-strategist-admits-primary-purpose-of-january-6-hearings-is-fundraising/

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/resistance-porn-ratings-fail-jan-6-committee-hearing-crushed-by-young-sheldon-rerun/

Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul elaborates:

https://cnsnews.com/commentary/ron-paul/ron-paul-out-desperation-dems-resurrect-insurrection-theater

………………………..

That we’d love to see. But we never will.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/bill-barr-belly-laughs-at-2000-mules-documentary/

Mike Huckabee

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has defeated President Donald Trump in our Huckabee Newsletter Poll.  With over 21,000 votes cast from across the country, Gov DeSantis has won:

8,807 Trump 41.2%

12,073 DeSantis 56.6%

448 someone else 2.1%

21,328 votes

This reader poll was conducted from 6/11-6/14. 

Mike Huckabee

Sunday, a group of 10 Senate Republicans and 10 Democrats announced that they had reached a “breakthrough” deal on a "framework" of new gun laws. It’s not yet in the form of legislation. It doesn’t ban any particular guns, the way many Democrats want; but it includes money for mental health and school security, it would add juvenile records to background checks for any gun buyers under 21, it would deny guns to people convicted of domestic violence, and it includes grants for states to institute “red flag” laws.

https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-report-gun-legislation-deal-reached-10-gop-senators-responsible/ 

These Republicans argue that it would be easier for people caught in red flag laws to appeal on the state level, but I’d say that depends on the state. Some of the provisions are sensible, like increasing school security, while others sound sensible on the surface but wouldn’t have prevented recent school shootings (for instance, most of the shooters didn’t have anything on their records for a background check to catch.)

Even though having the support of 10 Republicans might seem to make this a slam dunk in the Senate, it’s not clear whether Democrats who are pushing for much more radical plans will settle for it, or whether these Republicans will all stand firm after they hear from their constituents, or after they see what Democrats might try to add to it. And it will take 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

In the meantime, conservative commentators are wondering why Republicans so close to a midterm election would want to tick off their constituents by backing new anti-gun laws that are wildly unpopular with them? (Daniel Horowitz, senior editor at The Blaze, noticed that of those 10 GOP Senators, four are retiring and none of the others are running for reelection this year. Coincidence?)

Even laws as seemingly reasonable as red flag laws can be abused to deny Second Amendment rights to someone who’s done nothing wrong. Good luck trying to convince Republican voters that they can trust the government never to falsely brand them as dangerous extremists or domestic terrorists.

The NRA issued a statement, but declined to go into detail until the “framework” actually becomes a piece of legislation.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nra-real-solutions-stop-violence-bipartisan-agreement-gun-framework

At these links, Rick Moran of PJ Media and Spencer Brown of Townhall.com have more thoughts on this subject.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/06/12/senators-strike-bipartisan-framework-for-a-gun-safety-deal-n1604982

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/06/12/heres-what-senators-came-up-with-for-a-deal-on-new-gun-laws-n2608602

And Kevin Downey of PJ Media goes further, pointing out that Democrat DA’s aren’t even trying to arrest and lock up the people who are committing the vast majority of shootings. They call it “social justice” or “justice reform,” but Downey’s theory is that leftist DA’s have deliberately created a crime wave to give them an excuse to disarm the law-abiding.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/kevindowneyjr/2022/06/11/the-real-reason-the-left-wont-sign-effective-gun-safety-measures-n1603813

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

The TV ratings are in for the Democrats’ big prime time, anti-Trump show trial, and they are grim. Although to be fair, they’re better than I expected. I thought the audience might be three people: me and my two writers, who were forced to watch it so you wouldn’t have to.

The good news for Democrats is that over 11 million people total watched it on ABC, CBS and NBC. The bad news for them is that the combined daily viewership of those networks' non-prime time evening news shows is usually around 18 million. A few million more watched on CNN and MSNBC, but they were preaching to their choir of rabid Trump-hating viewers, so that wasn’t the audience they needed to convince (and even with the ratings boost, CNN still had 340,000 fewer viewers than Fox News’ regular lineup.)

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/10/trainwreck-ratings-are-in-for-jan-6-committee-production-n577240

To give you an idea of how bad that was, 3.24 million people watched the hearing on CBS. That’s 600,000 fewer than watched last week’s rerun of “Young Sheldon” in the same time slot. And on both CBS and ABC, the audience dropped in the second hour as viewers tuned out.

The public has now had a chance to see that the January 6th Kangaroo Kommittee has no game-changing new evidence or revelations, just a lot of dark innuendo, biased narratives and selectively-edited video and testimony. They may be planning days more of this political theater, but since they had just one shot at prime time and didn’t show it then, I assume they have no blockbusters that they’re saving for 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. What they gave us was, to quote Shakespeare, “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Most Americans think the riot was deplorable, but they have far bigger problems to worry about now, and Congress should be dealing with those instead of obsessing over trying to indict Trump. Not that this Committee should be completely ignored. The next Congress will have to investigate it thoroughly and change the rules so that such a biased, illegitimate and unconstitutional abuse of power never happens again.

And for those who do still care about both what really happened on January 6th and why this Committee isn’t really even trying to find out, try this.

https://www.westernjournal.com/gop-rep-draws-line-sand-refuses-order-illegitimate-jan-6-committee/

And here’s a list of Democrats, including members of this very committee, who previously tried to block the certification of elections of Republican Presidents, back before they decided that was insurrection.

https://www.conservative.org/2022/06/09/liberal-hypocrisy/

Here’s a page set up by a conservative site to counter disinformation related to January 6th.

https://www.conservative.org/j6/

Finally, while Democrats keep falsely claiming that police officers were killed on January 6th, the widower of the only person actually killed, unarmed protester Ashli Babbitt, has spoken out in the wake of the televised hearing where her name wasn’t even mentioned.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ashli-babbitts-widower-speaks-out-on-january-6-hearing