Mike Huckabee

The New York Times is trying to pull the Democrats’ bacon out of the electoral fire by promoting the ridiculous narrative that Americans just don’t realize all the accomplishments the Biden White House has achieved to help them (as Oliver Hardy used to say to Stan Laurel, “Stop trying to HELP me!”)

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/22/the-times-tries-to-rescue-bidens-american-rescue-plan-and-fails/

At the link, Issues & Insights examines the latest attempt by the Times to hoodwink us into believing the $2 trillion “American Rescue Plan” caused the economy to rebound and why that’s total hooey. It was actually a huge amount of inflation-boosting deficit spending that was injected into an economy that was already strongly rebounding from the artificial COVID lockdowns.

Much of the alleged “emergency stimulus spending” went to state and local governments for projects that - due to the long lead time of debate, contracting, environmental impact studies, etc. - are still years away from breaking ground. And since tax revenues had already rebounded by record amounts, many recipients didn’t even need the money.

Read it all so you’ll be prepared if anyone tries this Fantasyland argument on you.

Related: The director of the International Monetary Fund admits that “We printed too much money and didn’t think of unintended consequences.” You know, little things like runaway inflation and exploding government debt levels.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/04/22/imf_director_maybe_we_printed_too_much_money_without_thinking_of_the_unintended_consequences.html

Sorry to break this to her, but some of us did think about those things and tried to warn about them. I do agree, however, with her comparison of international monetary authorities to a soccer team of eight-year-olds, all fixated on the ball and not noticing the rest of the field.

Mike Huckabee

Last week, we brought you details of the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax and financial affairs, along with the story about a letter from 16 congressional Republicans to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding a briefing on that investigation as part of fulfilling their oversight duties.

Now, the update: Miranda Devine, who broke the laptop story in the New York Post and wrote LAPTOP FROM HELL, has co-written with Jon Levine a report saying that Hunter’s closest Rosemont Seneca partner, Eric Schwerin, visited the Obama White House 19 times, according to visitor logs. On November 17, 2010, around the time Hunter took a downward slide and checked into rehab, Schwerin even had a sit-down meeting with the Vice President in the West Wing.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/joe-biden-met-with-hunter-biden-business-partner-at-the-white-house/

Recall that Joe Biden has repeatedly maintained that he knew nothing about his son’s business affairs. But according to Devine, the visits recorded in the logs correspond closely to “key moments in Hunter’s life when he was striking multi-million dollar deals in foreign countries, including China.”

Devine cites several striking examples of this; here’s just one: In August of 2011, the Vice President went to China for three days of top-level meetings, including with future President Xi Jinping. Just a few days later, Schweriin was in the White House for a meeting with Kellen Suber, Biden’s executive assistant.

Judging from correspondence on Hunter’s laptop, Schwerin appears to have been the Biden business associate with the most intimate access to Hunter’s personal finances.

Evan Ryan, VP Biden’s assistant for intergovernmental affairs and his public liaison, was apparently the White House conduit for Hunter and his Rosemont Seneca colleagues. She married Tony Blinken, who is now President Biden’s Secretary of State, and she got an appointment from Joe as well, as White House Cabinet Secretary.

Devine called attention to a July 6, 2010, memo we recently discussed, with the subject line, “JRB Future Memo.” (JRB could only be “Joseph Robinette Biden.”) It was Schwerin who wrote that memo, saying to Hunter: Your Dad just called me (about his mortgage)...He could use some positive news about his future earnings potential.”

Peter Schweizer, author of “RED HANDED: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,” along with Devine, appeared with Maria Bartiromo on FOX News Sunday to add to the update.

House investigators intend to call Hunter to testify before Congress if (when!) they retake the House this fall, he said. Meanwhile, the federal investigation in Delaware awaits responses from its subpoena in December for “all documents, emails, or communications created, provided, produced, and/or filed by [Hunter] Biden, regarding Biden’s income, expenses, assets, debts, obligations, and financial transactions, including, but not limited to, all payments made to or from Biden, whether directly or through third parties, and all personal and business expenditures by Biden.” In other words, they're following the money.

According to Devine, the investigation has broadened from tax violations to include potential money laundering and violations of lobbying laws. Devine reported that the grand jury is “making good progress,” holding interviews with Hunter’s “business partners and also his former lovers.” She said they’re asking witnesses who “the big guy” is.

Recall that “the big guy” is mentioned in an email from James Gilliar (subject line: “Expectations”) to Tony Bobulinski and others, including Hunter, that breaks down the percentages of money going to various individuals. Whoever the big guy was, the “expectation” according to this memo was that he would get 10 percent. Former business associate Tony Bobulinski said in an interview with Tucker Carlson just a few days before the 2020 election that “the big guy” was definitely Joe Biden, but that story was suppressed.

Speaking of James Gilliar, we found some excellent reporting on him from Breitbart News that might have been missed the first time around. It concerns Hunter's negotiations with Chinese energy company CEFC. (The breakdown above is for that deal.) Devine has alleged that Joe Biden attended at least one of their meetings with chairman Ye Jianming.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/01/emails-hunter-biden-is-true-sheikh-of-washington/

Obviously, what started out as a story about Hunter Biden is now about President Biden. “He’s the center of it,” Schweizer said. “He’s the planet around which the moons in the family, Hunter Biden and James Biden, revolve.” He does have a concern with the issue of statute of limitations, he said, as this grand jury was convened in 2018. COVID intervened, he explained, and they lost “about a year and a half.” He hopes we’ll hear something from them very soon. (Note: you'd think a statute of limitations might be eased if grand juries can't even convene due to an emergency.)

“I don’t know if Miranda shares this opinion,” he said, “but I think they’ve got him dead to rights on tax evasion, and I think the money laundering and other charges are equally very troublesome from Team Biden. And their nightmare scenario is that there’s a trial. They want a deal, even if Hunter goes to jail for a little bit.” A trial would highlight the role Joe Biden played in all of this, he said.

Barring a plea from Hunter, AG Garland would have to decide whether or not to go to trial. Devine pointed out that Garland has already been “burned” by the controversy over investigating parents protesting CRT in their kids’ classrooms, and suggests he might have “no appetite for ruining his reputation further by being seen to be covering up for the Biden family.” She thinks he might just “let justice take its course.” Hope she’s right.

Hunter repaid his overdue taxes in 2021, even though it took huge loan –- at least $1 million, possibly double that, according to Devine –- from a "generous benefactor" in California to do it. She said his defense is going to be that he was a drug addict and didn’t know what he was doing, but that he is now clean.

But whatever happens to Hunter personally, the Democrat establishment “appears to be turning on Joe Biden,” according to Schweizer, largely because he’s polling so dismally. “I’m sure there are certain elements now that would just as soon that he leave the stage at some point,” he said, adding that this is true even if it makes Kamala Harris President.

The Secret Service, unbelievably, has said it has NO visitation logs of those who met with Biden at his home in Delaware –- and he spends over a quarter of his time there.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/no-records-kept-of-bidens-meetings-in-delaware-report

Schweizer has cited numerous instances of off-the-books meetings between Biden personally and various Chinese officials in the White House; he knows about them through references in emails and social media posts from 2011. Curiously, the logs show only meetings with other White House officials, not with the President.

“This is a pattern,” Schweizer said. “When political figures are trying to hide who they’re meeting with...that, to me, is a hugely important avenue to show what’s really going on in this scheme.”

Mike Huckabee

Here’s today’s link to continually-updated Russia-Ukraine stories from Fox News:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-zelenskyy-live

Weekend developments: Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were in Kyiv for a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Afterward, Blinken said, “The strategy that we’ve put in place — massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts — is having real results. When it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence. That has failed.” Nevertheless, Putin shows no signs of ending his military assault on eastern Ukraine, and he reportedly aims to take control of southern Ukraine.

While it’s debatable whether Russia is actually losing, it isn’t winning the swift and overwhelming victory that Putin apparently thought it would. Why? Lawrence Person has some fascinating data and theories on that, and it’s a lesson Americans can learn some lessons from.

https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=51256

Russia spends 5% of its GDP on defense and 20% of the nation’s industrial jobs are in arms manufacturing. Yet some of their missiles turned out to have a 60% failure rate, their planes are being shot down, their tanks are stuck in the mud, and their soldiers not only don’t have enough ammo, they don’t even have decent food. What’s the problem? The rotten thing that ruins everything it touches: socialism!

Instead of embracing free market capitalism and cutting deals with private companies for weapons and supplies, Russia relies on state monopolies that are staggeringly corrupt and incompetent and have no incentives to do better. Read the full article. It will make it clear why Russia’s military looks so fearsome in parades but gets its rump kicked by Ukrainian volunteers with personal small firearms. You’ll understand why the term “Potemkin village” – a phony façade created to fool onlookers into thinking things are going better than they really are – originated in Russia.

Mike Huckabee

Former President Obama is taking heat over a speech for which he should’ve worn a mask and maybe nobody would’ve noticed that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth.

He began with a defense of free speech, claiming he was pretty close to a First Amendment “absolutist.” Then came the “but…” But because of social media spreading harmful “disinformation,” Big Tech needs to regulate speech more. And “content moderation” doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t prevent the distribution of “clearly dangerous content.” Which is why the federal government needs to get involved by creating a “regulatory structure” to ensure Internet speech platforms are “following certain safety standards that we as a country – not just them – have agreed are necessary for the greater good.” Funny, I don't recall being asked if I thought the federal government regulating speech was necessary for the greater good. Were you?

https://www.theblaze.com/news/obama-promptly-gets-called-out-for-demanding-govt-intervention-over-harmful-online-content-after-promoting-free-speech

So to recap: he’s a “free speech absolutist,” except he thinks that Big Tech should monitor and censor speech and the federal government should have laws regulating speech to make sure they’re censoring it the way he thinks they should be – for our own good, of course.

Obama does have a point: people who tell gigantic lies can cause great harm. Like when you take away millions of peoples’ health insurance coverage while assuring them it will be replaced with something that allows them to keep their doctor if they like their doctor. I remember that being declared “Lie of the Year.” Yet irresponsible media companies broadcast it as if it were true.

And then there were the Trump years, which was the golden age of fake news, when trust in the government was poisoned by the media credulously repeating the Russia collusion hoax, the “very fine people” hoax, the “all Mexicans are rapists and criminals” hoax, the Nick Sandmann hoax, the Jussie Smollett hoax, etc. etc.

So maybe Obama has a point: we need federal regulation to ride herd on media outlets that fill the public square with dangerous lies.

Or we could zealously protect freedom of speech so that these unrepentant liars could be called out in the public square and everyone would simply learn not to listen to them anymore. I like that solution better, and it's already well under way.