Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Part 2 observed that many of the same people who originated the Russia Hoax also were involved in Trump’s impeachment over his (appropriate) phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Paul Manafort, described as “ground zero for all manufactured Trump scandals,” was alleged to have dark dealings as a lobbyist in Ukraine, and we expressed curiosity as to how he, of all people, ended up as Trump’s campaign manager. George Soros, described as probably the most influential man in Ukraine, also ties into the story, through funding for an entity called the Democratic Integrity Project --- that name is so funny --- founded by Dianne Feinstein staffer and (yes) former FBI analyst Dan Jones, who gave Fusion GPS $3.3. million. Dan Jones brought in Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta, and their purported field of endeavor was –- egad –- to study how Russian intel operations were influencing elections.

Recall that during Trump’s impeachment, which would’ve been exposed as a joke if the existence of Hunter’s laptop had been revealed by the FBI, a parade of pro-Soros, pro-”Anti-Corruption” Action Center (AntAC) witnesses was brought in by committee chairman Adam Schiff. That’s about where we left off last week.

One quick update before we get into Part 3: Margot Cleveland has another great piece involving the laptop, this one analyzing the strategy behind the New York Times’ admission –- finally –- that it was real. First, she makes the point that if the laptop is real, that means the scandals are real, not “Russian disinformation” as was falsely maintained by so many, as calculated election interference. Like many, she also sees this admission as an attempt to “get ahead of the story” before it gets much worse. She outlines possible charges, some quite serious. Finally, she dissects the persuasive technique used by the NYT propagandists to downplay the seriousness and gain sympathy for Hunter. This last part, especially, is a must-read.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/25/4-big-takeaways-from-nyts-attempt-to-control-the-hunter-biden-narrative/

Back to Ukraine. As we said, when a new Ukrainian prosecutor tried to investigate Soros-funded AntAC, he met resistance from our own U.S. embassy staff. “We ran right into a buzz saw and we got bloodied,” is how one Ukrainian official put it. That buzz saw consisted of the Obama administration, the U.S. State Department, some in the FBI, and, of course, Soros and his Open Society Foundation.

John Solomon uncovered a memo dated around the time Manfort joined Trump’s campaign that contained a chart of people to BE investigated, including “some with ties to Manafort.” It’s thought that this refers to Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash, who was a business rival of Soros who had already been looked into on a civil charge of money laundering and cleared.

This was also the time when Glenn Simpson was doing oppo research on Trump and Manafort, and the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa, from Ukraine, was bad-mouthing Manafort in America. She visited the Obama White House 27 times.

AntAC was the perfect vehicle for going after Manafort. But as Dan Bongino points out, if AntAC really had wanted to root out corruption in Ukraine, they might have taken a peek into Burisma’s showering of money on the American Vice President’s son. As Bongino puts it, “...when your benefactor is an enormous investor in the Democratic Party committing to spending millions to try and stop Trump, maybe that investigation isn’t very appealing.”

A Latvian investigative agency, the Office for Prevention of Laundering of Proceeds Derived from Criminal Activity, was actually trying to look into it, and they sent a memo to Ukrainian officials on February 18, 2016, notifying them that a transaction involving Hunter Biden and Burisma had been flagged.

Ukrainian officials failed to respond.

Later, when COVID hit, and hospitals and relief organizations needed all the help they could get, Soros gave $3 million –- not to help with THAT, but to Priorities USA Action, the Democrats’ Super PAC. It was earmarked specifically to fund a series of ads slamming Trump’s response to the virus. Soros had already just given them $2 million in January. Priorities indeed.

Bongino calls the Obama White House “an unofficial club for Ukraine obsessives.” There are other connections between AntAC (thus, Soros), the Obama White House and the FBI. Of these, Daria Kaleniuk, who now heads AntAC, met at the White House on December 9, 2015, with Eric Ciaramella, who would later come to fame as the anonymous “whistleblower” from Trump’s impeachment. At the time, he was a CIA employee working as a Ukraine (yes) specialist on the National Security Council. Later he was replaced in that position by Alexander Vindman, who also ended up testifying at Trump’s impeachment. Ciaramella had also worked with Joe Biden and John Brennan. It’s as I said: the same people just keep turning up again and again!

Since Ciaramella’s identity was kept secret during the impeachment, nothing was ever said about why he’d been moved out of the White House: he’d been accused of “leaking and working against Trump.” (Remember the huge concern with White House leaks during Trump’s early days in office?) That revelation would've done a lot to “impeach” this whistleblower.

As for the call from Trump to Zelenskyy that supposedly sparked the complaint, there was no wrongdoing in it at all. Certainly, no quid pro quo took place, because Zelenskyy got his military aid package and there was no investigation into Burisma and the Bidens, much as it was needed. Also, there was no cover-up, as Trump countered the false characterization of his call by releasing the full transcript himself. Of course, after that, Democrats continued to mischaracterize it and “mind-read” to cast his motives in the worst light they could, as they've always done with Trump about everything he's ever said or done.

Again, the laptop was central to the whole issue. It was evidence of the legitimate need to investigate the Bidens in Ukraine, and the FBI withheld it. Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t mention it, either, even after Biden lied about it, so the media were still able to present the false narrative that it was a Russian plot. Here’s the significance of Barr’s glaring omission.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-bill-barrs-silence-impacted-the-outcome-of-an-election_4357067.html

Ciaramella filed a complaint about Trump’s phone call with Intel Community IG Michael Atkinson and also summarized it in unclassified letters to Intelligence Committee chairs Adam Schiff and Richard Burr. He claimed he had “received information from multiple government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

It seems so strange to read those words now, as we know today that Hillary’s campaign is the one that did this very thing, through the solicitation of information for the Steele “dossier.” It was also pro-Hillary people in our State Department --- oh, and Joe Biden ---who tried to intimidate Ukrainian prosecutors who might have looked too closely at Hunter.

Bongino’s Chapter 8 in FOLLOW THE MONEY reveals even more connections and conflicts, some involving Adam Schiff and IG Atkinson, who defied a Justice Department order when he set events in motion to notify Schiff about the false whistleblower complaint. Highly recommended reading!

UPDATE: In very welcome breaking news, California Rep. Darrell Issa has announced that if (when!) Republicans take back the House this year, he will lead an investigation of the 2020 election-related suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The Epoch Times has a report --- it's "premium," but we'll have the full story coming up.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/republicans-plan-to-investigate-hunter-biden-laptop-story-issa

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

The deeper significance of Hunter laptop story, Part 2

The deeper significance of Hunter laptop story, Part 1

Mike Huckabee

Before we get to the big breaking news --- and, yes, it really is the coolest story ever --- there’s also related news out of John Durham’s special counsel probe. In his request for an extended deadline for his production of classified discovery in the case against Igor Danchenko (who provided “dossier” information to Christopher Steele), Durham reveals that he plans to produce a large amount of classified material this coming week.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/john-durham-to-produce-large-volume-of-classified-discovery-in-steele-dossier-source-case

And now, fun times: On March 24, in federal court in Florida, President Trump, represented by the Ticktin Law Group of Florida and Habba Madaio & Associates LLP of New Jersey, sued former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the DNC and “dossier” author Christopher Steele, along with approximately 30 others involved in the Russia Hoax, for carrying out a plot to “weave a false narrative” that Trump was colluding with Russian actors to win the 2016 election.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21506628-trump-v-clinton

The New York Post was happy to announce it.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/trump-sues-hillary-clinton-dnc-over-unthinkable-russia-plot-in-2016-election/

In the document, there’s a long list of names of those being sued, and the cast of characters will be familiar to regular readers of this newsletter, the reporting of John Solomon, and the legal filings of John Durham. We have, in addition to Hillary and Steele, quite a lineup: Michael Sussmann and Marc Elias of Perkins Coie, Debbie Wasserman Schulz, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Hillary campaign chairman Robby Mook, Hillary communication adviser Phillipe Reines, Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, Rodney Joffe and Neustar, and many others whose names you’ll recognize. The FBI is also well represented, with Spygate Hall-of-Famers such as James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith (who has already pleaded guilty after being charged with falsifying an official document) and Andrew McCabe. Trump also lists some “fictitious and unknown” persons and entities, to be revealed, I suppose, as Durham continues.

“In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election,” it says, “Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot –- one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy.” The plot they created to exploit sensitive data sources to “weave a false narrative” about him was “so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison.”

That is true. As Paragraph 9 says, “In short, the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton.” The suit goes on to say that when their plan failed and Trump was elected anyway, “the Defendants’ efforts continued unabated, merely shifting their focus to undermining his presidential administration.”

When you have time, perhaps over this weekend, please read through the whole 108-page document --- it makes for highly entertaining and satisfying reading, especially for my readers who are already familiar with the story. (If you know people who haven’t kept up, please share the documentcloud.org link above.) It really kicks in on page 13, with the “Statement of Facts,” which lays out the whole plot step by step. Importantly, it explains the primary motivation for the Hillary campaign, which was summarized by a DNC memo that had been obtained by by an individual using the name Guccifer 2.0, revealing that the DNC, because of Hillary’s own email scandal, needed to “muddy the waters around ethics, transparency, and campaign finance attacks on HRC.”

Leave it to Hillary and the DNC to muddy the waters around ethics and transparency, while they wade right in.

So, how can a public figure who was running for President sue for damages because of what was said about him? The suit makes it clear that “Trump has sustained significant injuries and damages.” To date, he claims that monetary damages to him, his campaign and his organization are in excess of $24 million, not counting “the loss of existing and future business opportunities.” That sounds like a conservative estimate.

“The Plaintiff,” the suit says, “does not claim nor seek any compensation for damage to his reputation, but rather, he seeks damages for the cost of dealing with the legal issues and political issues, which he was required to spend to redress the injurious falsities which were propounded by the Defendants, and all other losses incurred due to the tortious conduct of the Defendants.”

Go to page 60, and –- gotta love this –- you’ll see that Trump is also suing Clinton, the DNC, Sussmann, Elias and Perkins Coie under the RICO statute. “At all relevant times,” the suit says, these defendants “constituted an associated in-fact enterprise” within the meaning of that law, with a clearly delineated, ongoing organizational framework and command structure for carrying out its objectives: the Clinton Campaign and the DNC were at all relevant times mutually controlled by Clinton, who worked in tandem with their joint counsel, Perkins Coie, whose partners, Sussmann and Elias, simultaneously worked as general counsel for the Clinton Campaign and the DNC.”

Trump accuses them of a conspiracy to obstruct justice, saying they “willfully, knowingly, deliberately, and corruptly obstructed, influenced and impeded...the due administration of justice, and/or one or more official proceedings, including, but not limited to, Crossfire Hurricane and/or other investigations by the FBI, the CIA, the IG, and the DOJ.”

The suit goes on to allege a Count II RICO conspiracy, incorporating many more of the defendants, that deals with the time Trump was in office as President. He says that they “knowingly agreed, conspired, and acted in concert for the express purpose of injuring the Plaintiff’s political career and/or impeding his ability to effectively govern through a pattern of racketeering activity.”

The allegations go on and on, through numerous counts of conspiracy to commit malicious prosecution, theft of trade secrets, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Stored Communications Act. Then, on page 95, it concentrates its ire on Hillary herself and the DNC, alleging that “Hillary was fully aware of the plan and hired and instructed the necessary parties to make it happen.”

Trump demands a jury trial “of all issues so triable.”

According to a story in The Epoch Times, the judge assigned to the case is a Clinton nominee, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks. Yes, we join you in wondering how that’s going to work. According to the court docket, U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Maynard may handle some or all of the proceedings. We would think “all.”

We like what Bonchie at RedState.com said: that Trump is “suing everyone and their mother” connected with the Trump-Russia Hoax. Yes, this hoax involved a tremendous number of participants, but that’s one reason why it’s the most stupendous political scandal in our lifetimes. True, we don’t know if he’ll prevail in court, as it’s almost impossible for a public figure to win what essentially is a defamation case, but I have a feeling that’s not the main reason he’s doing this. He’s getting the facts out. This one’s for the history books.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/03/24/donald-trump-sues-everyone-and-their-mother-over-the-infamous-steele-dossier-n540539

Mike Huckabee

Republicans scored a couple of important court victories this week. The Supreme Court rejected an attempt to replace the Wisconsin legislature’s voting district map with one drawn by the Governor that created an extra 7th majority black district. Defenders claimed this was necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

The SCOTUS ruled that this was in error. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the Court ruled that under the Equal Protection Clause, districting maps that sort voters on the basis of race “are by their very nature odious.” Any state that draws districts based on race has to withstand strict scrutiny in proving that there’s a compelling state interest in doing so, and it must be “narrowly tailored” to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

https://utexas.app.box.com/s/7ca2iocqmaz9xk8xlklcwqrvisa842bu

The larger point here is that the Court reaffirmed that states can’t use the Voting Rights Act as a blanket excuse to gerrymander voting districts based solely on race. That can only be done in a very limited way, and they must have a solid reason for why it’s necessary.

The other court win came in Ohio, where federal District Judge Michael Newman ruled in favor of attorneys general from Arizona, Montana and Ohio in a lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas.

https://www.westernjournal.com/judge-hands-republican-states-big-win-biden-blocking-dhs-order/

Mayorkas issued a memo to ICE agents, ordering them to prioritize deportations of illegal aliens who pose a threat to national security or public safety, or who recently came to the US. As for the rest, he wrote, “In exercising our discretion, we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years…The fact that an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them. We will use our discretion and focus our resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”

As you might imagine, federal immigration law doesn’t include an exception for those who’ve managed to dodge deportation long enough (those he euphemically called "removable noncitizens.") The judge quite correctly ruled that Mayorkas was attempting to rewrite the law to make it more to his liking. He cited a quote from a 1952 SCOTUS decision that we should probably embroider onto samplers and send to DC to decorate the entire executive branch:

“In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”

That’s a bedrock tenet of the Constitution that the Obama Administration regularly flouted and that Biden has continued. Whenever Obama didn’t like a law Congress had passed, his DOJ would simply refuse to enforce it; and when Congress refused to pass a law he wanted, even one he admitted he had no power to enact, he would go ahead and create it anyway by “executive order.” Too many times, activist liberal judges went along with the insane idea that somehow, Obama had the power to create laws by executive order, but Trump didn’t have the power to rescind those unconstitutional edicts.

Let’s hope that this ruling heralds a trend of judges putting the brakes on Biden’s attempts to continue lawless rule by executive order and ignoring laws that he took an oath to enforce.

Mike Huckabee

Here’s today’s link to Fox News’ continually-updated bulletins on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/ukraine-russia-live-updates-03-24-2022

President Biden is in Europe for meetings with NATO, G7 and EU officials. He’s expected to urge more sanctions on Russia. On Thursday, the White House announced sanctions on 65 Russian banks, business elites and industries that are believed to be supporting Putin’s war, as well as more than 300 members of Russia’s federal assembly and more than 40 Russian defense companies. The White House also said the US will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy told NATO that Russia is using its full army without restrictions against Ukraine, and he needs “military assistance without restrictions.” He said, "NATO has yet to show what the Alliance can do to save people…To show that this is truly the most powerful defense association in the world. And the world is waiting. And Ukraine is very much waiting, for real action.”

New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres called on the FBI to investigate the Russian Diplomatic Compound in New York City, which has long been described as a hub of Russian espionage in the US. I'd suggest fumigating the UN, too.

Those wondering how the outmatched and outgunned Ukrainians are managing to hold off the Russian army while inflicting so much damage will be interested in this story about how they received training for just such an emergency from US Army Special Forces, aka the Green Berets.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-armys-green-berets-have-lasting-impact-on-fight-in-ukraine

While Putin may dream of recreating the old Soviet Union, in one sense, he already has: thanks to the sanctions he’s brought on, Russians are once again standing in long lines to get basic necessities. They say it’s like the USSR came back overnight.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/were-going-back-to-a-ussr-long-queues-return-for-russian-shoppers-as-sanctions-bite

And this could turn the Western media against Zelenskyy: Men who identify as women are being turned back at the border when they attempt to flee Ukraine and told they’re men so they are required to stay and fight.

https://www.westernjournal.com/transgender-stopped-ukrainian-border-told-turn-around-fight-guards-find-real-gender/

This presents another logical conundrum for leftists: They think it’s transphobic for Ukraine to draft men who identify as women because they're really women and shouldn't be forced to fight. But they also think it’s sexist for the US not to draft women who were actually born female. Which is it?

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

Yesterday, we received a comment on our Substack edition by reader Marcia D:

Wondering …… why do we continue to call our “leaders and their minions” ELITE? They aren’t! You are so wonderful with words, how about coming up with something that describes our Hollywood snobs etc better. LOVE your newsletter.

Dear Marcia:

Thanks for writing and for your kind appreciation. When we use...that word...it’s almost always meant ironically, so from now on, whenever appropriate, we’ll try to use quotation marks to make that clear. I decided to look at the various dictionary definitions of the word to see how they might apply to our political and societal “elite.” Here are a few…

Oxford Dictionaries has two definitions of the word as a noun. Since the second one relates to the “elite” 12-point typeface, we’ll toss that and focus on the first one: “a select group that is superior in ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.” This definition might apply if we were talking about, say, an “elite” fighting force, but it definitely does not apply when we talk about our political and cultural leaders, as (ironically) they have aptly demonstrated. Polls certainly bear that out.

Merriam-Webster shades the meaning of “elite” a little differently, offering several entries:

1) the choice part, or ‘cream,’ as in “the elite of the entertainment world.” No, that doesn’t fit our leaders at all. If they’re a choice, it’s not our choice. If they’re the cream, it has long since curdled.

2) the best of a class, as in “the superachievers who dominate the computer elite.” Sorry, no. If these leaders are the best we’ve got, we need to start thinking outside the box about where our leaders are going to come from. The ones in power now are not superachievers by any stretch of the imagination. I think some of them must realize this. Kamala Harris, for example, surely realizes on some level that she’s in over her head. Maybe that’s why she cackles uncontrollably --- to try to dispel her own panic.

3) the socially superior part of society, as in “how the French-speaking elite was changing.” No, that definition fits only if we look at how these leaders think of THEMSELVES. They are considered socially superior only within their own circle, perhaps in Hollywood or the Upper West Side. If this definition were modified to reflect that, it could work.

4) a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power and influence, as in “members of the ruling elite.” At last, here’s a definition that really does seem to fit, with a few caveats. First, we’ve got to put the word “education” in quotation marks, considering what a so-called Ivy League education means these days. And we’d definitely want to add the word “undue,” as in “undue influence.” Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to undo all that undue influence?

If used as an adjective, M-W’s definition is “superior in quality, rank, skill, etc., as in, “The elite chess players of today...hail from all over the world.” But while, tragically, our leaders do rank higher in power and influence than the rest of us –- that’s what makes them leaders, after all –- they only think they’re superior in terms of quality and skill.

Good lord, the President of the United States, arguably the 'elitest' of the elite, can’t even read a teleprompter, and that's too bad because he can't speak without one. If he were TRYING to destroy the country, I doubt he’d be doing anything differently. On the other hand, if that’s what he actually is trying to do, I take it back: he definitely has some skills. He's been in office little more than one year, and it's hard to watch the news at any given moment without thinking the words "hell in a handbasket."

Our (probable) next Supreme Court justice --- there's hardly anything more 'elite' than that lofty perch --- says she can’t even define what a woman is and doesn’t think her views on that or on CRT would be an issue for her as a justice. The bar has really been lowered.

Moving on, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “elite” this way:

A group or class of persons considered to be superior to others because of their intelligence, social standing or wealth.

Again, our “elite” consider THEMSELVES to be superior in intelligence (some, I would call idiot savants) and, in many cases, social standing. Wealth, however, is a more objective standard that definitely does apply. To illustrate, I’ll use “elite” in a sentence: “Elites such as Mark Zuckerberg use their vast wealth and undue influence to buy elections.”

The Collins English Dictionary defines the noun “elite” like this:

The most powerful, rich, gifted or educated members of a group, community, etc.

Again, the same issues apply. This definition might work if we put “educated” in quotes and also, in quite a few cases, add just one letter to change “gifted” to “grifted.”

The Random House Kemerman Websters College Dictionary has several entries:

1) the choice or best of a group, class or the like. (NOPE.)

2) persons of the wealthiest class. (YES, generally that is true.)

3) a group of persons exercising authority within a larger group. (YES, indeed.)

Check your thesaurus, and you might see many of these synonyms for “elite”:

upper class, upper crust (I"d say it’s true, some of them are looking pretty crusty)

elect, chosen (Not by us, God knows)

cream, pick (Again, this cream is curdled)

intelligentsia (Hold on, ever hear the expression, "educated beyond one's intelligence"?)

beau monde, bon ton, high society, ‘smart set’ (Two words: Hillary’s pantsuits)

aristocracy, gentry, nobility (Two words: John Kerry)

technocrat (Well, we're definitely crawling with those)

selected (Editorial note: remember, they can be un-selected!)

I’m also reminded of the Cole Porter song, “You’re the Top.” You know, “You’re the top...you’re the Colosseum! You’re the top...you’re the Louvre Museum!” Except in the case of our “elite” leaders, I’d sing it this way:

“You’re a flop...you’re a big disaster

You’re a flop...you are not my master

You can censor me and de-monetize my words

But I’ll cause some blowback, I’ll go on Substack, I WILL be heard!

You’re a flop...just an Ivy Leaguer

You’re a flop...and your talent’s meager

As ‘elites’ you stink but you think that you’re tip-top

You are way down on the bottom, you’re a flop!

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Here’s today’s Fox News link to the latest bulletins on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/ukraine-russia-live-updates-03-23-2022

The latest headlines:

Russian forces continued shelling the cities of Mariupol and Kyiv. Thousands of Mariupol residents fled Tuesday, and Ukrainian forces continued to hold off the Russians in Kyiv. Ukraine claimed Russian troops took 15 rescue workers and bus drivers captive who were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Mariupol. Poland expelled what it said were 45 Russian spies claiming to be diplomats (in America, we call those “U.N. ambassadors” and don’t expel them.) The Russian ambassador to Indonesia claimed that Putin plans to attend the G20 Summit in Bali in October. I’d say that’s about as overly optimistic as his belief that Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops and a puppet government with open arms.

There will be a NATO summit tomorrow to discuss what to do about Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Minister warned that if NATO sends peacekeeper troops into Ukraine, that “would lead to a direct clash between the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the alliance," which was taken as a warning of it sparking World War III. Of course, if NATO, which was formed to prevent Russian aggression, sends a message to Putin that they can be so easily intimidated just by a threat from Russia, it might make an eventual World War III sparked by Russian aggression even more likely.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-issues-cryptic-warning-about-direct-clash-with-nato

Among the many Obama-era policies that left America weaker, add this: he saw no reason to maintain the Cold War policy of having a US military big enough to deal with two simultaneous regional conflicts. Yeah, we could never possibly have to deal with military threats in more than one place at the same time.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/two-war-doctrine-obama-pentagon-russia-taiwan-ukraine-china

So this continues Obama’s streak of getting everything wrong except for warning that we should “never underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to (BLEEP) things up.”

Mike Huckabee

Here’s another hopeful sign that people have had enough of “woke” corporations trying to impose leftist political views on customers:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/unamerican-express-critics-launch-campaign-against-racially-divisive-policies-at-credit-card-giant

An organization called “Color Us United” has been formed to promote the Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream of a “colorblind America” and to fight back against the forces that are trying to advance their political power by promoting Critical Race Theory and injecting racial divisiveness into every aspect of life. They’re launching a pushback campaign against what they call one of the worst corporate offenders, American Express.

CRT critic Christopher Rufo had reported that the credit card giant "is teaching its employees that the country was fundamentally racist, that capitalism was fundamentally oppressive and that their White employees were guilty of White privilege and internalized White supremacy. All of these horrific crimes based solely on their skin color." So Color Us United founder Kenny Xu contacted Rufo. He says they discovered that Rufo was correct, that AmEx was “telling their members that capitalism is racist, and they were arranging their members on a privilege hierarchy based on race” and awarding bonuses based not on merit but on practicing “equity,” meaning who hires more blacks and fires more whites, providing “a financial incentive to be racist.”

Xu says AmEx is just the tip of the corporate iceberg, but his group will focus its initial campaign, dubbed “UnAmerican Express,” on them. They plan to urge shareholders to pressure the company to drop its leftist, racist bullying and encourage consumers to use the term "UnAmerican Express" (since they're acting in a way unworthy of calling themselves “American”) and not employ their services until they change their policies.

You’ve got to give Color Us United credit for daring to stand up and speak out against this pernicious trend. There’s more at the link.

Mike Huckabee

Tuesday, questioning got underway in the Senate confirmation hearing of Biden SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. As has become standard for these hearings, it was a made-for-TV production, except the shows produced for Republican nominees like Kavanaugh and Barrett resembled “American Horror Story” while the shows produced for Democrat nominees are more like “Queen For A Day.”

To draw a few “Goofus and Gallant”-like comparisons: Democrats grilled Kavanaugh about the meaning of in-jokes from his old high school yearbook that he didn’t even write. But they accused Republicans of racism for asking Jackson about judicial rulings that she did write.

Kavanaugh was expected to remember every detail of what he did every day when he was a teenager. Jackson claimed not to remember the basis of the Dred Scott Decision, one of the most important SCOTUS rulings in history, and that was fine.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-supreme-court-nominee-says-not-quite-remember-basis-massive-scotus-decision/

With Kavanaugh, everything from his beer consumption to his personal diary was fair game for questioning. With Jackson, thousands of pages of documents have been withheld from Republicans, from records of her tenure on the US Sentencing Commission to her own probation rulings.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/outraged-republicans-allege-democrats-withheld-supreme-court-nominee-documents

Kavanaugh was falsely accused of being a rapist. Republicans were criticized for even asking Jackson why she routinely gave lower-than-requested or suggested sentences to child porn defendants.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-responds-hawley-child-porn-comments-nothing-could-be-further-from-the-truth

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Other highlights of the day included Jackson saying that “Critical Race Theory doesn’t come up in the work I do as a judge.” Sen. Ted Cruz then read a quote from her saying that Critical Race Theory is part of her work as a judge.

https://instapundit.com/511014/

Jackson also claimed that she couldn’t define what a “woman” is...

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/23/ketanji-brown-jackson-excites-a-lot-of-comment-when-shes-asked-to-define-woman-n539723

…She doesn’t know when life begins…

https://www.lifenews.com/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-has-absolutely-no-idea-when-human-life-begins-um-i-dont-know/

…And she thinks “illegal aliens” are simply “non-citizens.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-calls-illegal-aliens-noncitizens-senate-hearing/

I can only imagine the media reaction if a Republican woman had professed such shocking ignorance of issues she regularly deals with in her job.

Ironically, in this theatrical production, Jackson is playing the role of a conservative centrist who respects the Constitution, which I don’t find convincing, but she's getting raves from the media for her performance. Kavanaugh and Barrett actually were conservative centrists who respect the Constitution, and the same critics savaged them. So I guess claiming to be a conservative centrist who respects the Constitution is only praiseworthy if the media knows you’re acting.

Mike Huckabee

Part 1 observed that some of the names from Trump’s first impeachment, mostly from our own embassy in Ukraine, were the same as those involved in the Trump/Russia Hoax as revealed in special counsel John Durham’s indictment of Clinton/DNC attorney Michael Sussmann. We wondered why that might be.

Before we continue with that, here are a few updates on the Hunter laptop story:

Monday on Jesse Watters Primetime, investigative reporter Peter Schweizer reiterated what he’s said about Hunter being close to criminal indictment. He said The New York Times “got a lot of cooperation from Team Biden” before they ran the story on Hunter that included their admission that the laptop was, indeed, real. He says Biden’s team were “trying to position themselves.” Of course, this case isn’t really about Hunter but the President of the United States, and a criminal indictment would open up “that whole can of worms” concerning dad’s connections to dirty money and the associated tax issues and huge national security concerns.

https://noqreport.com/2022/03/22/the-ny-times-admitted-the-truth-about-hunter-biden-because-they-know-something-is-about-to-happen/

So, “does Hunter Biden become the sacrificial lamb?” Schweizer asked. “Does he end up taking a plea deal that might even mean jail time in order to protect his father?”

Also, Margot Cleveland has a new piece detailing eight Joe Biden scandals revealed in Hunter’s laptop that have been finally been confirmed in mainstream media as real. She echoes Schweizer, saying, “These scandals are not about Hunter Biden. They are about now-President Biden.” These are areas that an honest media would ask about, she says –- the implication being that they won’t. Her piece a must-read.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/22/8-joe-biden-scandals-inside-hunter-bidens-macbook-that-corporate-media-just-admitted-is-legit/

Now, to Part 2. Yesterday, as a way to help understand Ukraine and the Bidens’ activities there, we recommended Chapters 2 and 8 in Dan Bongino’s book “FOLLOW THE MONEY: The Shocking Deep State Connections of the Anti-Trump Cabal. Let’s pick up there…

According to Bongino, the hard-working Ukrainian people are “desperate for honest leadership” but “have been consistently let down by a broken political class eager for power and riches.” Ukraine and Washington DC are the two centers of a group he calls Scandal Manufacturers of America (SMA), which dedicated itself to a takedown of Donald Trump. These people helped come up with the Russia Hoax, and later, when that failed to take him down, they assisted with his first impeachment. That’s why we see some of the same names in both.

(Side note: The New York Times caught some richly-deserved grief from Candace Owens when they accused her of copying “Russian state media” when she “advanced the idea that Ukraine is a corrupt country.” She informed them she’d learned of Ukraine’s corruption from The New York Times, offering as one example an NYT editorial called “Ukraine’s Unyielding Corruption.” We bring this up so as not to also be falsely accused of working on behalf of Putin when we point out the deep well of Ukrainian corruption.)

Bongino calls Paul Manafort “ground zero for all the manufactured Trump scandals.” Manafort was a consultant for Trump’s campaign and then the chairman, bringing with him tons of baggage from alleged dark dealings in Ukraine. What we have always wondered --- perhaps Bongino has the answer --- is this: exactly how did someone who was so notorious as a shady lobbyist get to BE chairman of Trump’s campaign? It was just soooooo convenient for Trump’s enemies to have Manafort, of all people, in that spot. So we suspect there’s more to this story. His baggage was made to order for anyone looking to derail Trump’s campaign. Rick Gates, Manafort’s business partner, was with the campaign as well, as deputy, and later became a cooperating witness for the special counsel in Manafort's trial.

Manafort lasted with Trump for about six months. Ironically, what brought him down –- in five days –- was FAKED evidence in the form of a “black ledger” of supposed payments from a pro-Russia political party. By continuing to hound him after he left, Trump’s enemies thought they might bring Trump down, too. The ledger had nothing to do with the Russia hoax; it was a red herring, to cast a cloud over the campaign and provide a pretext for ongoing investigation.

George Soros, probably the most influential man in Ukraine, is a big part part of this story, too. He gave $1 million to the humorously-named Democratic Integrity Project, headed by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI analyst and staffer for California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Jones had started the nonprofit (seems pretty profitable to me) after Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS approached him with the idea of forming the organization. Then, after filling its coffers to the tune of $7 million, Jones turned around and wrote a check to Fusion GPS for $3.3 million! I am not making this up. The same players keep turning up again and again.

Fusion GPS’s task: to research how Russia intelligence operations were affecting elections around the world. And they brought in Hillary’s campaign chairman John Podesta to help. Still not making it up, my friends. This was after Podesta’s and the DNC’s emails had been purloined (the narrative became that they were hacked by Russia) and published by Wikileaks, to the DNC’s embarrassment.

(Incidentally, John's lobbyist brother Tony was under investigation at that time for “cashing in” in Ukraine. He was paid $1.2 million to promote a plan conceived, ironically, by Manfort and Gates.)

Then there’s the story you know, the investigation of Burisma by prosecutor Victor Shokin until then-Vice President Biden got him fired by threatening to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee. By now everyone has seen the video of Biden bragging about it before a live audience --- without mentioning Hunter was on the Burisma board.

There’s much more, involving Soros and an investigation by Shokin’s replacement into a Soros-funded organization, the ironically-named Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC). This was when the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch (remember her from Trump’s impeachment?) gave the prosecutor a list of people not to prosecute, including a founder of AntAC. Second-in-command George Kent had already tried to discourage the prosecutor from investigating. According to reporter John Solomon, their message to Ukraine officials was this: “Don’t target AntAC in the middle of an American presidential election in which Soros was backing Hillary Clinton to succeed another Soros favorite, Barack Obama.”

There are others in Ukraine tied to both the Russia hoax and Trump's impeachment. California Rep. Adam Schiff, running the impeachment, trotted out our diplomatic “experts” from Ukraine to talk about Trump and his “impeachable” phone call to President Zelenskyy. Those were Americans, our diplomatic corps, who'd been telling Ukrainian prosecutors who they could and could not prosecute and treating a Soros-funded organization like some sort of sacred cow. Soros supported Hillary and was Trump’s political enemy. He funded an organization conceived by Glenn Simpson. Something smells like bad borscht.

Of course, if our own FBI hadn’t withheld Hunter’s laptop, the justification for Trump’s phone call would have been clear.

Oh, the muck in the swamp gets deeper. Looks as though there will have to be a Part 3.

Mike Huckabee

The first day of the Senate confirmation hearings for Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson consisted of nothing but opening statements by Jackson and the Senators.

Jackson said, “During this hearing, I hope you will see how much I love this country, the Constitution, and the rights that make us free. I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath. I know that my role as a judge is a limited one – that the Constitution empowers me only to decide cases and controversies that are properly presented. And I know that my judicial role is further constrained by careful adherence to precedent.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/live-day-1-ketanji-brown-jacksons-supreme-court-confirmation-hearing/

That’s reassuring, but also hard to believe. Jackson wasn’t chosen by whoever’s making President Biden’s decisions for him just because she brings much-needed diversity to the SCOTUS by being yet another liberal Harvard alum. There were other judges who checked Biden’s “black/female” boxes, but Jackson was known as the most leftwing activist of the choices.

Senate Democrats provided the comic relief by admonishing Republicans that they had promised to keep the process “civil.” This from the same people who accused Judge Barrett of being in a "Handmaid's Tale" style religious cult and who smeared Brett Kavanaugh as a drunk, rapist and rape gang organizer with zero evidence.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/21/ted-cruz-destroys-democrats-during-jackson-confirmation-hearings-n1568303

As Sen. Ted Cruz reminded them, it’s the Democrats who have a disgusting history of turning SCOTUS hearings into “high tech lynchings” (Clarence Thomas’ term for the hearings he faced, thanks to then-Senator Joe Biden.) Biden also voted against a black female Bush nominee. He claimed it was because he disagreed with her philosophy and rulings, but by the Democrats' own claims, we can assume he just was being a racist.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/21/ted-cruz-and-ben-sasse-remind-democrats-what-scotus-hypocrites-they-are-n538948

The Republicans launched no personal attacks on Judge Jackson, but they made it clear that they had serious reservations about her previous statements and rulings. These include seven cases in which she gave pedophiles sentences far more lenient than federal guidelines called for, and her comments praising “The 1619 Project” and saying that judges should consider Critical Race Theory in sentencing defendants.

That doesn’t sound like being neutral and applying the facts without favor and in adherence to precedent. It would be nice to know more on her thinking about sentencing, but Sen. Chuck Grassley complained that his request for public records on Jackson’s four years on the US Sentencing Commission (which Democrats cited as part of her valuable experience) had been blocked and 48,000 pages worth of documents withheld from view.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/03-21-22%20Grassley%20Statement.pdf

Republican Senators, and indeed all Americans, deserve to know whether an unelected judge who may be handing down decisions that affect all our lives for decades to come is telling the truth about respecting the Constitution, the rule of law and limits on judicial power. Without that reassurance, we could end up with a two-tiered “justice” system – one in which people who, say, attempted to block the sacred duties of Congress by creating a disturbance in the chamber to block the Kavanaugh confirmation were let go without being accused of “insurrection” while a Trump supporter who was told by a Capitol Police officer that he could enter the Capitol, so he came in, looked around and left, faces up to 20 years in prison.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/03/21/man-told-by-an-officer-that-he-could-enter-the-capitol-on-jan-6-now-faces-20-years-in-prison-n1568195

It never used to be necessary even to ask SCOTUS nominees if they believed in the type of banana republic “justice” system where people are punished or released based on their political beliefs rather than their actions. Unfortunately, now it is. And Republicans didn’t create that.

Mike Huckabee

It’s good to see that more people are finally daring to speak up about the outrageous unfairness of allowing biological males to compete against female athletes and steal all their records, awards and scholarships.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/va-tech-swimmer-ncaa-transgender-participation

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-candidates-women-defeated-by-lia-thomas

Let’s hope it’s a sign that people are finally shaking off their fear of “cancel culture” and letting a tiny minority whose voices are amplified by social media cow them into quietly accepting – or at least not speaking up about -- things that are obviously wrong.

As a reminder, revisit this story from last November.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/11/11/america-is-being-held-hostage-a-progressive-left-that-represent-6-of-the-electorate-n1531975

It reported that Pew Research Center found only about 6% of the electorate are far-left “progressives” who believe the kind of radical “social justice” views that are being forced onto the rest of us. Ironically, these champions of “diversity and inclusion” are mostly young, white, college-indoctrinated (I can’t bring myself to say “educated”) atheists who’ve decided that their point of view is the only one that’s allowed to be expressed. If any other group that looked like them were doing the same thing they’re doing, they’d call those people racists and fascists. But at a paltry 6% of the population, they’re not just the tail wagging the dog, they’re a stub tail.

On a related subject, if you haven’t seen this weekend’s “Huckabee” on TBN yet, then check out my interview with Dr. Todd Rose, author of one of the most important books of the decade, “Collective Illusions.” It’s a game-changer and a mind-opener.

https://youtu.be/FMo-rxxytAE

It will make you realize how people have been misled to believe this nation is irreparably divided into warring radical camps with no common ground, when in fact, most of us still believe in the same traditional American values we’ve always believed in. We’ve just been bullied and brainwashed by a small group of far-too-influential loudmouths into accepting poisonous media and political narratives that aren’t true.

Mike Huckabee

We’re working on a deeper dig into the latest about Hunter Biden’s laptop, but until then, here’s a round-up of the New York Post’s great commentary and follow-up on the New York Times FINALLY admitting, a year-and-a-half too late, that the Post's scoop about the laptop and the incriminating information on it was true and not “Russian disinformation.”

First, the Post editors’ op-ed blasting their dishonest, biased, Democrat campaign mouthpiece competitor, the Times:

https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-times-finally-admits-hunter-bidens-laptop-is-real/

Columnist Michael Goodwin on how the Times and other Big Media and Big Tech companies continue to try to hide their successful efforts to tilt the 2020 election by preventing voters from knowing the truth about Biden family corruption:

https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-new-york-times-hates-to-say-the-post-told-you-so/

Kyle Smith has more on the actual “collusion to rig an election” that the Times eagerly took part in:

https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/how-big-tech-media-and-dems-killed-the-hunter-biden-story/

White House press secretary Jen Psaki keeps spinning and deflecting to keep from answering questions about Hunter Biden and his influence peddling deals.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/jen-psaki-brushes-off-bidens-conflicts-of-interest/

Finally, today’s MUST-READ: The New York Post’s front page story about the 51 alleged “intelligence experts” who signed a letter suggesting that the laptop story was Russian disinformation. This was used as an excuse by the media to ignore the story and by social media giants like Twitter to censor any mention of it and to suspend accounts of people who dared to share it.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/18/intelligence-experts-refuse-to-apologize-for-smearing-hunter-biden-story/

The Post attempted to contact all 51 of these lying spies to see if they wanted to apologize for their false claim misleading the voters. Most ignored their ringing shoe phones and didn’t respond.

Of the handful who did, none apologized. All lamely pointed to some weasel words in the 5th paragraph of the letter that admitted they didn’t know if the emails were genuine or not, but that it “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” If they were honest (and we’re getting deep into hypotheticals here), they would have said they “didn’t know” and let it go at that. The claim that it might be Russian disinformation was all the media outlets needed, and the signers never issued a clarification when that was treated as solid fact.

It should be pointed out that one of the chief instigators of this letter, and one of the few who responded to defend it, was former DNI director and professional liar James Clapper. I don’t use that term “professional liar” lightly or as a pejorative, but as an accurate title. Clapper is now a CNN pundit (a pretty good indication all by itself), he has a history of perjuring himself before Congress…

https://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/03/perjury-by-permission-clapper-apologizes-for-false-testimony-and-the-congress-remains-silent/

…And he spent years on CNN calling Trump a “Russian asset” as he pushed the “collusion hoax” drummed up by Hillary Clinton and her campaign.

These days, he and his CNN cohorts spend a lot of their time pushing the idea that a few unarmed nuts commandeering Nancy Pelosi’s podium for 10 minutes was a serious attempt at “insurrection.” I would argue that if Clapper and his fellow “intelligence experts” and “reputable journalists” want to see true insurrectionists who misused their positions of power to try to undermine and overthrow the duly elected President of the United States, they might try looking into the nearest mirror.

Mike Huckabee

I don’t quote every childish thing that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweets to her enraptured fans because there are only 24 hours in a day, but this one was especially weird and noteworthy. A follower asked, "How do you respond when people accuse you of being a 'socialist'?" The answer to that, of course, is that she is a socialist. She calls herself a “Democratic socialist,” which is a distinction without a difference.

But for some reason, she decided to whisper conspiratorially into the camera, "Let me tell you a secret. Most people don't really know what capitalism is. Most people don't even know what socialism is. But most people are not capitalists, because they don't have capitalist money. They're not billionaires."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2022/03/19/let-me-tell-you-a-secret-aoc-whispers-to-her-followers-that-most-people-dont-understand-what-capitalism-is-n2604764

If she learned this in her Boston University economics class, she should demand a refund of her capitalist parents' tuition money. Capitalism isn’t the money billionaires have. It’s the economic system that allows people who start with nothing to become millionaires and billionaires.

She went on, "The label doesn't matter as much as talking about policies. That's easier to understand. Do you think people should die because they can't afford insulin? Do you think that fossil fuel CEOs should decide whether the planet gets set on fire? Me neither."

For the record, I know quite a few capitalists, and none of them think people should die for lack of insulin or that anyone should set the planet on fire. But after looking at her Twitter feed, you might want to set your phone on fire.

You can see why I don’t bother to talk about this subject much, but that one was crazy enough to make the news, and it’s a good lead in to this introduction to her Republican challenger, Tina Fortes.

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/aoc-challenger-tina-fortes-new-ad-has-aoc-and-her-squad-pals-shaking-in-their-boots/

She’s a small businesswoman who supports the police, border enforcement and school choice. She recently said, “AOC and her allies have killed New Yorkers with their bail reform and soft-on-crime policies, imprisoned us in our homes with lockdowns, ruined small businesses with shutdowns, violated our rights with mandates, and tortured children with masks for political science, not medical science. Enough is enough. New Yorkers have suffered because these liberals acted like dictators drunk on power. They must be stopped and it starts with firing AOC.”

She even had a better answer than AOC to the question of why people call AOC a socialist: “AOC is a communist sympathizer. She’s the darling of the Democratic Socialists of America – a Marxist organization that glorified Cuba’s Castro regime and Venezuela’s Maduro regime.”

You’ve also gotta love her campaign slogan: “Make AOC Bartend Again.”

Sadly, AOC “represents” a New York district that’s so blue that Nancy Pelosi was likely referring to it when she said that in some New York races, a glass of water with a (D) after its name could win. But who knows? Maybe this is the year when even in districts like that, a Republican could have a chance. Especially when the Democrat glass of water is half-empty and obviously cracked.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Even the Washington Post has admitted, perhaps inadvertently, what the January 6 "investigation" is really all about for Democrats.

We won’t link to WAPO here, because they’re a paid subscription-only service and a propaganda rag --- a candy mint AND a breath mint --- but Tristan Justice at The Federalist offers a great report on the story. WAPO’s headline on Friday was “Jan. 6 committee faces a thorny challenge: persuading the public to care.” (Incidentally, they also ran an op-ed by esteemed former attorney general James Comey on March 7, “Every Jan. 6 case matters.” We think it matters, too, but for very different reasons.)

But here’s the Federalist’s piece from Sunday: “Democrats running the Jan. 6 Committee finally admitted the obvious: it’s a show trial all about the midterms.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/19/democrats-admit-jan-6-committee-is-all-about-midterms/

Democrats in Congress –- also “Republicans” Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney, who has devoted her congressional tenure not to representing the people of Wyoming but in securing a personal vendetta against Trump –- are dismayed because after 14 months, interest in their Priority-One “investigation” has grown tepid, even among many of their Democrat constituents. Gee, who would have thought that with skyrocketing gas prices, a lingering pandemic and the world suddenly becoming a giant powderkeg, Americans have had other things to think about? And those other things do NOT help Democrats.

The left is so concerned about this --- so desperate to have this one thing to run on --- that they’ve reportedly discussed hiring a journalist (correction: “journalist,” or maybe we should just go on and say “propagandist”) to write their reports and produce compelling videos that could be spread around the internet and played during their televised hearings. They’ve been talking about starting public hearings, ideally televised in prime-time (!), in April. According to the Democrat who chairs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, they intend to showcase “how Trump interfered with official congressional business through his false rhetoric and unlawful actions.”  In other words, they want to say President Trump is a liar and a criminal.  On prime-time TV.  Before the elections.

(If they do hold those televised hearings, you’ll be happy to know that “we watch the news, so you don’t have to!” My writers tell me they deserve hazard pay for this assignment, due to the extreme toxicity.)

https://www.axios.com/jan-6-committee-prime-time-hearings-418b8cbb-6ac5-48c2-807c-a307b426ba97.html

To show what kind of propagandizing we’re up against, a more recent write-up that we won’t link to, from the “social justice” website Truthout, included this paragraph: “Trump’s words were indeed incendiary. On the morning of January 6, 2021, he gave a speech to his loyalists in front of the White House, telling that their country was being ‘stolen’ and that they couldn’t take it back ‘with weakness.’ He then encouraged the mob to go to the Capitol while Congress was in session, certifying the Electoral College win for Biden.” NOT mentioned was that he told them to go “peacefully and patriotically” and that he never said anything about interfering with the process. Also not mentioned by the ironically-named "Truthout" was the fact that the people who moved the barricades and breached the Capitol were already there when Trump was speaking and didn’t even hear him.

Misinformation!  Lack of context!  Of course, Twitter and Facebook will suspend them immediately.

I digress.  Anyway, Democrats want an interim January 6 report in addition to their final report, which will be timed to fall shortly before midterm voting starts. California Rep. Peter Aguilar told WAPO that they want to make sure their reports aren’t written in “Congressional Research Service” style but in a way that will engage readers. Here’s the key observation from the WAPO story, which gives Democrats’ real motive away:

“...A final report...will be published ahead of the November midterms –- with the findings likely a key part of the Democrats’ midterm strategy. They hope their recommendations to avoid another insurrection will be adopted, but also that their work will repel voters from Republicans who they say helped propel the attack.”

Most of us understand that the vast majority of Trump supporters who showed up for the Capitol Hill rally were simply exercising their constitutionally-protected right to assemble and protest. And according to an analysis done by The Federalist, only 8 of the 96 subpoenas issued by Nancy Pelosi’s inquisition went to individuals associated with violence at the Capitol. In addition to those 96 subpoenas, there are 100 more for the telephone records of individuals whose names are still under seal.

To the surprise of no one, the Committee is not even touching the legitimate security failures on that day, including Pelosi’s failure to provide security after thousands of National Guard troops had been offered by President Trump. Here’s an enlightening article from (of all places) CNN in July of last year, explaining where the Democrats were and were not willing to go in their “investigation.”

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/20/politics/january-6-probe-republican-strategy/index.html

One thing the Democrats can in fact be gleeful about is the successful adoption into the lexicon of the word “insurrection” to describe that day’s riot. By any stretch of a sane person’s imagination, a small, ragtag group of unarmed people upset by what they saw as election fraud is NOT an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. Neither is a crowd of mostly elderly and otherwise harmless people who entered the Capitol not knowing they were doing anything wrong. But thanks to a huge propaganda push, it became the mainstream go-to word, used routinely.

It was, of course, used in the WAPO piece, as seen above. And Arnold Schwarzenegger, who unfortunately has spent way too much time around the Kennedy family, used it in his otherwise-powerful video to the Russian people about the fight in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60794809

“And may I remind you,” Schwarzenegger said, “that I speak with the same heartfelt concern as I spoke to the American people when a wild crowd was storming the U.S.Capitol, trying to overthrow our government.”

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/full-transcript-arnold-schwarzenegger-urges-russian-troops-in-ukraine-to-go-home/

News flash to Arnold: They were NOT trying to overthrow our government. But such a characterization is certainly in keeping with Tristan Justice’s observation on the anniversary of January 6: that the Democrats are using their lore about that day to substitute one hoax for another. It’s pure politics.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/06/one-year-ago-today-a-new-hoax-was-born/

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

Dear Miss Mannerly:

I am a highly respected journalist for a major, very-long-running and highly respected weekly television news show. On occasion, I am called upon to interview a particular person, a powerful but deeply frustrating individual, and I always try my best to conduct myself like the highly respected professional I am.

But he just makes it so hard! And not just for me –- none of my colleagues and friends can stand him or the people who support him.  We don't care for his uncouth, bombastic style, although I must admit he was polite when I was interviewing him.

Being a seasoned, objective journalist who is always in pursuit of the truth, I have felt the need a couple of times to actually correct this man, on camera, right in the middle of our conversation.  Perish the thought that I would allow misinformation in one of my interviews!  I tried to do it as politely as possible, even calling him “sir” as I corrected him. But both times, stories came out later that showed him, technically, to be right, I suppose. In the last instance, I had told him a particular piece of evidence was ‘unverified” when apparently it was real. Goodness, that was an honest mistake. if it was real, why would our own FBI have chosen not to reveal it?

Anyway, now some are saying not only that I owe him an apology, but two apologies. How should I handle this?

– Clueless

Gentle reader:

If she is not mistaken, Miss Mannerly believes she saw both of those “Clueless” interviews. Here is what you should do, without delay:

Go to your desk and select two pieces of the most beautiful personal stationery you own. Hand-write, preferably in calligraphy if you are skilled in that area, two heartfelt thank-you’s to this gentleman for allowing you to interview him. Apologize profusely for correcting him on camera, and admit you were wrong –- wrong in your facts, and wrong to falsely “correct” him. Include an offer to issue an on-camera apology if he would like you to do this, admitting you were wrong and promising that it will never happen again.

Mail these two letters of apology under separate cover. On the flap of each envelope, it would be a nice touch to add a wax stamp with the CBS logo, to at least offer the impression that your colleagues are sorry as well. Perhaps the producers of your show would like to write separate letters of apology. Miss Mannerly assumes they are all very sorry, as she has heard on occasion that yours is a “sorry show.”

It would be thoughtful to send flowers as well; make sure the bouquet includes some purple lisianthus, the flower of appreciation and gratitude.

Mike Huckabee

Warning to all “fact”-checkers and online content moderators (censors): This commentary discusses the theme of election interference, specifically in the 2020 presidential election. And it's all demonstrably true. While some on the left like to rail about supposed “voter suppression,” there’s something else that really can and does affect the outcome of elections, and that’s why it’s used. I’m talking about voter INFORMATION suppression. Voters need information, and to deny them this is to deceive them. We’re tired of the lies.

A poll from the Media Research Center a few weeks after the election in seven key swing states showed that, among the Biden voters who were unaware of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and some others such as the Tara Reid allegations, a full 16 percent said that if they’d known, they would not have voted for Biden. They included 4 percent who would have switched and voted for Trump, another 4 percent voting for a third candidate, and another 4 percent not voting for President. Another 5 percent would not have gone to the polls at all. Then there were 5 percent who just wouldn’t answer the question.

https://www.cnsnews.com/article/national/alexander-watson/poll-shows-media-censorship-cheated-voters-vital-info-robbed

Recall that the great Miranda Devine of the New York Post broke the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, abandoned by him at a Delaware computer repair shop, and later wrote a bestselling book –- highly recommended –- called LAPTOP FROM HELL. Of course, readers of this newsletter know all about what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop and don’t need a refresher. Along with incredible debauchery surrounding Hunter’s personal life, it contained startling information about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.

Major news outlets such The New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico and NPR suppressed the story before the 2020 election, with the NYT calling it “unsubstantiated” even in September of 2021. Later the Times re-edited that story for their archives but did not issue a formal correction.

But on Wednesday, deep into an inside-page story about Hunter Biden’s taxes being under federal investigation, they quietly acknowledged the legitimacy of the laptop story, saying that files from Hunter’s laptop had been “authenticated.”

To the surprise of no one, major TV networks other than FOX News didn’t even seem to notice, though we may safely assume they did. But on Thursday, the NY Post editorial board had this response, a must-read:

https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-times-finally-admits-hunter-bidens-laptop-is-real/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=Slack

Recall that Hunter’s former partner on some China business deals, Tony Bobulinksi, came forward in the fall of 2020, right after Devine had broken the story, and confirmed that the Hunter emails bearing his name were real. (He was also interviewed by the FBI.) “How did the Times [finally] authenticate the laptop?” asks the NYP board. “It doesn’t say...No facts have changed since fall 2020. They knew the laptop was real from the start. They just didn’t want to say so."

The Post editorial board also mentioned the meeting between Joe Biden and an official from Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian energy company that had hired Hunter and his partner Devon Archer to be on its board. The Times had cast doubt on this meeting as well, they said, simply by quoting a Biden campaign spokesperson who said it the meeting wasn’t on his official schedule. Well, if a Biden campaign spokesperson says so...!  But Devine can document that it must have taken place.

(Note: We’re not linking to NYT stories on this because it is a subscription service that only pretends to be reporting the news. You’d actually have to give them money even to read one article.)

Sixteen months after Joe Biden was elected –- barely squeaking by in key battleground states –- the Times felt it was safe to quietly mention that the laptop was “authenticated.” Can you even imagine what their reporting on this would have been like in October 2020 if such a laptop had belonged to someone in Donald Trump’s family? It would have been more frenzied than a drug-fueled orgy at Chateau Marmont, one of Hunter’s favorite places to party in Los Angeles.

Speaking of must-read commentaries, Matt Vespa at Townhall has a great one, pointing out that the Hunter Biden laptop story was THE “October Surprise” of the 2020 election, buried by the liberal news media and smeared by the same people who peddled the Steele “dossier” and the whole nonsensical Russian hoax in 2016.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/03/17/reckoning-all-the-crow-the-liberal-media-will-eat-over-hunter-biden-story-should-choke-them-out-n2604702?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2

How many times does it have to happen? In story after story, we’ve got it right and they’re shown to be wrong, and they just keep trying to keep the lies going. Vespa points out that when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about this on Thursday, she could only weakly deflect. “I would point you to the Department of Justice,” she said, “and also to Hunter Biden’s representatives. He doesn’t work in government.” That’s irrelevant, Jen, and you know it.

Of course, in this era when so many are (unwisely) getting their news from social media, it wasn’t enough that newspapers such as the Times were suppressing information before the election. Twitter had to help, too, and they did, by actively censoring the Post for days, punishment for daring to report their true story. “Twitter banned us for supposedly publishing ‘hacked materials’ that weren’t hacked,” the editorial board said. “The company’s CEO apologized, but by that point, they had accomplished what they wanted. Like the Times, they cast enough doubt to avoid making their preferred candidate look bad.”

In October of 2020, readers of the Post (and this newsletter, of course) knew “that Hunter Biden pursued business deals in Europe and Asia” to the tune of billions of dollars, and that he “may have leveraged his father’s position as Vice President to do it.” There was much more, as you’re aware, such as the reference to setting aside 10 percent of the spoils for “the big guy.” But Twitter and other social media did what they could to contain all of this.

And the term “Russian disinformation” (used interchangeably with “misinformation” because many so-called journalists don’t even seem to know the distinction) was everywhere. Biden himself blamed Russia, in a presidential debate. Thursday night, Tucker Carlson had a great interview with Miranda Devine and also aired a fun montage of “journalists” and public officials repeating variations of the same "Russian disinformation" talking point over and over.

We couldn’t find a clip of just that segment posted yet; here’s the whole episode with the segment starting at 24:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr6HL74NjHo

I said recently that Lesley Stahl needed to apologize to President Trump for contradicting him during an interview, after he correctly said he’d been spied on. Update: She now needs to apologize twice, this time for repeatedly insisting that the laptop “can’t be verified” as Hunter’s. When Trump presses her to tell him how she knows, she vapidly keeps insisting it can’t be verified.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=50581443-31DE-4A4C-9858-8274544E8A62

President Trump was asked on Thursday–- not by Lesley Stahl –- about the NYT’s admission about the laptop, and we’d like to leave you with his comments, brief and to the point.

https://100percentfedup.com/trumps-response-to-hunter-laptop-story-being-confirmed-by-nyts-is-pure-gold-video/

Mike Huckabee

There’s an old saying that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. With virtually everyone in San Francisco now having become a crime victim thanks to “progressive” district attorney Chesa Boudin’s policy of ignoring crime and releasing criminals back into the streets, is it possible that even San Francisco liberals are capable of having some sense literally knocked into their heads?

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2022/03/17/woke-california-district-attorney-finds-himself-in-hot-water-n537284

A new poll by EMC Research found that 68% of likely primary voters plan to vote to throw Boudin out of office. That includes 64% of registered Democrats. Nearly three-quarters of respondents have an unfavorable opinion of Boudin, and 61% believe he’s responsible for the rising crime rate. Really? What was their first clue?

Between this and the recent surprise ousting of three ultra-left school board members, there are hopeful signs that even in San Francisco, the “woke” can wake up when things get bad enough. It remains to be seen, however, whether they will replace these blights on the public good with anyone better, or, as New Yorkers have done, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

This is, after all, the city so tolerant and devoted to diversity that its elected officials now refuse to do business or travel to more than half of America. A recent memo from the City Administrator pointed out that due to their disapproval of other places’ insufficiently woke policies on such leftist shibboleths as abortion, LGBTQ+++ issues and election integrity laws (i.e., “voter suppression”), San Francisco is now boycotting 28 of the 50 states.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/03/15/san-francisco-boycotts-most-of-the-u-s-for-insufficient-wokeness-n1566587

This is making it difficult and expensive for the city to conduct basic public business, since they have to source every necessity from building contractors to bus parts from the dwindling handful of options that are still pure enough in their wokeness. And I’d be willing to bet there aren’t too many good contractors or bus part factories still in those places, since they’ve probably already moved to red states.

You’d think that when a city is overrun with crime, homelessness, drug needles and human feces, the people would be so furious that they’d throw out every last public official who thinks none of that is as important as virtue signaling about other places not showing enough deference to trans people. But in San Francisco, the jury is still out. I’m hopeful for the next elections, but I’ll believe they’re recovered their sanity when I see it.

Mike Huckabee

During one of her press briefings a few days ago, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki brought up that old accusation about Russia “hacking” the 2016 election. There is no evidence that Russia changed any vote tallies or did anything else to change the outcome, and Psaki never really made clear what she meant by “hacking the election,” so we find it ironic that she said this in the same briefing in which she spoke about “misinformation.”

It’s also pretty hilarious that anyone questioning the electronic security of the 2020 vote is roundly scorned, even censored and canceled, while questioning the electronic security of the 2016 vote is just fine, even patriotic at a time when Russia has shown itself to be such an enemy.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/psaki-says-russia-hacked-2016-election-during-briefing-on-combating-disinformation

We’d like to focus on one part of Jerry Dunleavy’s report, the paragraph that has to do with the supposed Russian “hacking” of the DNC’s emails. He wrote that “U.S. intelligence officials did conclude Russian operatives were behind the hacking of Democratic emails in 2016. Russian military intelligence interfered in the 2016 presidential election, in part by spearphishing Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email systems, then providing them to WikiLeaks, for dissemination, Robert Mueller’s special counsel report concluded. Russia has denied involvement, and WikiLeaks has denied receiving emails from Russia.”

Of course, we can’t believe anything that comes from the Kremlin –- or, sadly, from U.S. intelligence officials –- but I do have considerably more confidence in what comes from WikiLeaks. The story about Russia “hacking” the DNC still belongs in the category of misinformation. It’s a talking point. I say this even though Robert Mueller concluded in his special counsel report that this had happened. We know now that this conclusion was reached without any actual evidence, because the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike never allowed the FBI to do a forensic examination of the DNC server. The FBI never demanded that they turn it over and, incredibly, took CrowdStrike at its word. We scratch our heads at how the U.S. intel community could legitimately have had “high confidence” –- their words –- that the Russians did this. For what it’s worth, here’s what Mueller said at the time, as reported by Dunleavy in 2019...

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mueller-says-russias-gru-stole-clinton-dnc-emails-and-gave-them-to-wikileaks

But fast-forward to 2022, and Margot Cleveland is reporting that Special Counsel John Durham is investigating the 2016 DNC server hack. If anyone is serious about getting down to the truth about this, you know he is. Until now, there was no known link between the Alfa Bank hoax being investigated by Durham and the DNC “hack,” but now there is. As it happens, the Defense Department tasked the same Georgia Tech researcher involved in the Alfa Bank hoax –- “Researcher – 1” in Durham’s court filings pertaining to the Michael Sussmann case but known to be Mano Antonakakis –- with investigating the “origins” of the DNC hacker.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/10/exclusive-special-counsels-office-is-investigating-the-2016-dnc-server-hack/

And here is Cleveland's update on that story:

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/14/exclusive-researcher-tells-durham-he-saw-holes-in-the-alfa-bank-hoax-before-democrats-shopped-it-to-the-fbi/

According to an email obtained by The Federalist on March 9 in response to a “Right-to-Know” request, the special counsel’s office is indeed investigating the so-called “hack,” and “prosecutors harbor concerns” about the Defense Department’s choice of this particular researcher to investigate it.

Cleveland’s report provides a good refresher on Durham’s investigation, but it boils down to this: According to Durham’s indictment of Sussmann (Perkins Coie attorney for the Hillary campaign and DNC), a cyber executive named Rodney Joffe (“Tech Executive- 1”) asked Antonakakis and another Georgia Tech researcher, David Dagon (“Researcher – 2”) to find some way to use internet data to connect then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia. Antonakakis –- whom I would add has shown himself in emails to be strongly anti-Trump –- apparently couldn’t find anything useful, because he told Joffe that the results “do not make sense with the storyline you have.” Even so, Joffe came up with a draft “white paper” containing the fake story of a connection between Trump and Alfa Bank, which he gave to these two men and another researcher involved, April Lorenzen, to review. Then Sussmann passed this “white paper” to then-FBI general counsel James Baker, purportedly out of his sense of duty but secretly in service to Joffe and the Hillary campaign, which Durham found was being billed for Sussmann's services.

Until The Federalist got hold of this particular email from Antonakakis, nothing was known of any connection between the Alfa Bank story and the DNC “hack,” but he's the link. Antonakakis had written it to general counsel and other higher-ups at Georgia Tech about a week after his testimony before Durham’s DC grand jury, highlighting “areas of concern” that he wanted to discuss “after the dust settles.” In Cleveland’s words, he “launched a soliloquy that perfectly described the Russia-collusion and the plot by anti-Trump politicians and the deep state intelligence and law enforcement communities to take down the President of the United States.”

It was also a rant in which he painted himself as the victim of the special counsel. He said he’d been asked “point-blank” if “DARPA [the central R&D organization of the Defense Department] should be instructing you to investigate the origins of a hacker (Guccifer2.0) that hacked a political entity (DNC)?” How DARE the special counsel’s office ask that question, he steamed. It’s easily determined from the email that he had indeed been asked to investigate this.

The fact that he was being questioned because his team had allowed itself to be exploited by Sussmann and Joffe for political reasons seems to have been lost on him.

Antonakakis reveals himself to be a sanctimonious and hypocritical piece of work who actually believes he was involved in this fake-narrative project to “preserve our democracy.” Yes, that's the phrase he used, one we've heard all too often from Democrats.

So, why did the special counsel’s office “dare” to ask him about this? Something had to lead Durham to find out, or at least suspect, that Antonakakis had been tasked by DARPA with investigating the DNC "hack." And something had to lead Durham to be concerned about this. What did this arm of the Defense Department have to do with it, and who there was involved? Did they gain access to the DNC server? If so, was it Sussmann, as attorney for the DNC and Hillary’s campaign, who granted it?

This opens up a whole new area for Durham, but one that continues to tie together the same group of folks. Sussmann ties them to Hillary, where (as we’ve said many times) all roads lead. Too much remains a mystery about the DNC “hack” --- note that we always put "hack" in quotes, as there is no proof it even WAS a hack, let alone by Russia. Julian Assange has said flat-out that neither Russia nor any other state government was his source. Yet it seems to have been the event that spawned the whole long “Russia Russia Russia” hoax that, in some circles, still refuses to die. Other than Assange, who else knows the identity of whoever obtained the Podesta/DNC emails and gave them to him?

Mike Huckabee

Kenneth Allard

My good friend Colonel Ken Allard has sent me this Ukraine update for my newsletter readers. I hope you will read it!

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

Three weeks into the Russo-Ukraine War of 2022, it is reasonable to ask: Who is deterring whom - and from what?

So far, the only one being deterred seems to be Joe Biden, who clumsily refused to allow Polish Mig-29’s to be transferred to Ukraine despite the fervent pleas of embattled president Volodomyr Zelenskiy. Meanwhile, Old Uncle Joe was busy linking Vladimir Putin not only to the war in Ukraine but also to sky-rocketing American gas prices and rising inflation, twin outrages for which the Russian premiere bears only slight, if any, responsibility. Through such constant buffoonery, President Biden seems intent on channeling that canonical Mayor of Amity, hilariously reassuring townsfolk that a lucrative tourist season lay just ahead, despite Jaws occasionally snacking on their relatives.

Because we are a nation divorced from studying such politically incorrect subjects as military history, we can no longer distinguish the consequential from the trivial, the capillaries from the arteries.  From Afghanistan to Ukraine, our intelligence community has been hit hardest, seemingly unable to predict whether Tuesday will be followed by Wednesday. Not only were our intel weenies utterly mistaken in predicting how fast the Taliban would triumph but they also admitted last week to the House Intelligence Committee that they had seriously under-estimated the fighting spirit of Ukraine’s citizens. Naturally, they over-corrected, reciting a laundry list of Russian tactical shortcomings. Caught up in the latest zeitgeist, Francis Fukuyama - famous for predicting the end of history several decades too early - argued last week “Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine…The army in the field will reach a point whether they can no longer be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize.” https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/preparing-for-defeat/

While we can all hope that Professor Fukuyama will be proven right, America’s enemies seem to be a long way from desperation. While we plead for them to produce additional oil and prepare to sign yet another nuclear non-proliferation scam, the Iranians were not deterred at all - raining their rockets down on an American consulate in Irbil, Iraq. How much does Putin fear NATO - with or without a rearmed Germany - when he launches air-strikes that came within a dozen miles of Polish territory over the weekend? And for good measure also threatened to target logistical routes acting as lifelines to the Ukrainian resistance?

Please forgive me for casting doubt on such widely-cherished Beltway assumptions: But Vladimir Putin and his fellow conspirators in the new Axis nations are not desperate! Instead, they have concluded - correctly in my view - that America suffers from catastrophically weak leadership, that it has abandoned its core spiritual values, as well as the world-beating confidence that our country once took for granted. While conceding that American martial prowess can be painfully recovered (or at least not entirely ruled out) neo-Axis leaders believe that the timing will never be better for a basic re-ordering of the global order. That new order will naturally reflect non-Western interests and dismiss any weaker set of values.  

Ukraine is already one major stake in this game, Taiwan is surely next while NATO’s newly-minted Baltic states might not be far off. When measured against the potential stakes, who cares if Russian logistical problems persist, if they lose a few tanks or if they sacrifice a few more generals trying to recapture the morale of their troops? As my friend LTG Jim Dubik wrote recently, “Like other raw realists, Putin has no intention of stopping with Ukraine…Raw realists (like him) take what they can, when they can, until someone stops them.” https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/thehill.com/opinion/national-security/596614-the-world-after-the-war-in-ukraine-who-or-what-will-stop-putin?amp

I am also a realist of sorts, one who cherishes memories of the West Point faculty but now wonders how far the fault lines extend when five cadets are hospitalized after taking fentanyl-laced cocaine while on spring break. To say nothing of that loser who belatedly forfeited his commission only after posting a selfie that argued, “Communism will win.”  It is also frustrating to see other losers with stars on the shoulders of their World War II knock-off uniforms, who have either forgotten or never learned the harsh lessons of real war.

They now confront an opponent who will shrug off small shortcomings to focus on the larger objective- using traditional Russian reliance on massed troops and massed firepower to compel the enemy’s total compliance or complete obliteration. He will not be stopped by the mindless half-measures or the bloodless counter-moves now passing for “deterrence.”

During a three-decade career, Colonel Allard advanced from draftee to the West Point faculty and Dean of the National War College. The author of four books, he was also an on-air military analyst for the networks of NBC News.

Mike Huckabee

We have enough depressing news without people thinking up more, but Quinnipiac University released a new poll that I find extremely depressing. I think it shows how effective our schools have been at indoctrinating people to hate their country and disrespect traditional American ideals.

The poll was inspired by the brave Ukrainians who are refusing to surrender or flee and instead risking their lives to stay and fight to defend their homeland from superior Russian forces. It asked Americans, if the USA were invaded like Ukraine was, would they flee or stay and fight? At least a majority said they would fight, but it’s a pitifully small majority of 55%. 38% would run away, and I guess the rest couldn’t decide.

https://www.westernjournal.com/poll-democrats-flee-us-invaded-republicans-stay-fight/

It’s sad to think that this is what’s become of a people whose heritage includes George Washington at Valley Forge, the defenders of the Alamo, and the soldiers, sailors and airmen who saved the world twice in the 20th century.

For the record, 68% of Republicans would stay and fight, while only 25% would flee (I’m guessing those are the Beltway Republicans who like to start wars and send other people’s kids to fight them.) Among Independents, 57% would fight and 36% would flee. Only among Democrats would a majority run away rather than defend America with the skedaddlers outnumbering the patriots by 52-40 percent.

Therefore, I have a suggestion: Republican campaign ads should start referring to the millions of illegal immigrants pouring across Biden’s open borders as an “invasion.” Maybe that would scare the 52% of Democrats who think America’s not worth defending into fleeing to Sweden or wherever. Then those of us who are still here could start repairing the damage they’ve caused.

Mike Huckabee

If you pay any attention to liberal media outlets or celebrities (and I don’t recommend it, it’s bad for your brain and your digestion), you’ve no doubt heard them fulminating against what they call Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Some Florida Senate Democrats even tweeted a video of them all shouting, “Gay!” together, proving that they don’t even know about things that it’s their job to know about.

Megan Fox at PJ Media has an explanation of what this bill really is, and why it’s a “stupid lie” to claim that it bans teachers from saying the word “gay.” What it does is prohibit schools from imposing inappropriate sexual lessons (it doesn’t even specify gay or straight) on young children without parents’ knowledge or consent.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/08/florida-democrats-continue-the-stupid-lie-that-republicans-dont-want-anyone-to-say-gay-n1564614

At the heart of the issue isn’t right-wing “hatred” of gays and transsexuals but the question of who is ultimately responsible for the raising of children: parents or schools. Ms Fox offers some shocking examples of how some teachers and school administrators have not only abused public trust but done so in open contempt of parents’ rights, which is why many thought this bill necessary.

It’s a long article, but read it all the way to the end, where she gets into the unconscionable damage that has been done to young people by the movement to confuse adolescents about their gender and then convince them to take hormones and undergo surgery that can cause irreversible physical and emotional harm. And watch the video of the “trans” teen who is trying to “detransition” after realizing she had been misled and disfigured because of other people’s political agendas when what she’d really needed was therapy.

It will make you want to scream at the top of your lungs, too, but not like those juvenile Florida Democrats.

Mike Huckabee

As expected, on Tuesday, President Biden announced that he would end US imports of Russian oil. It’s assumed he didn’t want to, since he’s let it go on all through the buildup to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and past the first two weeks of shocking carnage. But after even Nancy Pelosi agreed with Ted Cruz (one of the signs of the Apocalypse) that Congress should act and cut off Russian oil, Biden reportedly asked Pelosi to delay Monday’s scheduled House vote so that he could jump out in front of the parade and pretend to be leading it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/joe-biden-can-beat-putin-transforming-economy-run-56000-electric-cars/

In the speech, Biden warned Americans that gas prices, which shot up even further beyond previous records on Tuesday, would go up even more because of the cutoff of Russian oil. But apparently, his plan is to replace Russian oil with banana oil, because he dispensed so much of it in his speech as he attempted to convince Americans that “Russia is responsible” for a gallon of gas costing more than a Burger King Whopper (I chose that because there were plenty of whoppers in the speech, too.)

The first thing that caught my ear was Biden's carefully-constructed phrase “Putin’s price hikes,” laid on with all the subtlety of a 10-year-old boy standing by a broken vase and pointing at the cat. As the media would say, “Republicans pounced” on that. Jorge Bonilla tweeted a couple of charts, the first one having already gone viral, showing how the price of gas has been climbing since the day Biden took office, with the recent “Ukraine war” spike representing only a fraction of the increase.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/08/ted-cruz-busts-bidens-latest-sorry-excuse-n533490

The second chart was the same, except it went back even further and showed that the rise in gas prices actually began right after Election Night, when oil futures investors realized that Biden would be replacing Trump. Trump had made energy independence and low gas prices a priority, while Biden had campaigned on destroying our domestic fossil fuel industry in the name of fighting “climate change.” No wonder Trump sent out a message in response that consisted of nothing but the headline about record gas prices, and one sentence: “Do you miss me yet?”

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/08/trump-nails-biden-to-the-wall-with-just-five-words-n533335

But that was hardly the end of the Biden jaw-droppers. I guess he thinks we can save energy by returning to gas lighting, which is the only way to explain lines like this:

“First, it’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. It’s simply not true.” Except it simply is true. Thanks to his policies, US oil and gas production are down by more than a million gallons a day. Again, that was actually one of his campaign promises, to kill the fossil fuel industry, and he started doing it with executive orders on his first day in office.

He also tried to blame the oil companies, saying they had 9,000 permits to drill and it was their decision not to use them to produce oil. An industry spokesman replied that that reflects a “fundamental misunderstanding” of how the industry works, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. Not only are government drilling leases down by about 75%, but a lease doesn’t even mean there’s oil on the land. There’s a long process of development to explore and start pumping the oil, and Biden has not only cut the number of leases but added lots more regulations to hamstring that process even more.

Here’s a former Keystone Pipeline worker who urges Americans not to buy this blame-shifting and reminds us that they tried to warn everyone what was coming. Hey, join the club, pal!

https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-keystone-pipeline-worker-says-us-energy-crisis-is-result-of-bidens-policies-we-tried-to-warn-you

Toni Williams at the Victory Girls blog also has a good rundown of the many lies packed into that one speech.

https://victorygirlsblog.com/joe-bidens-dirty-lies-about-u-s-energy-production/

And Katie Pavlich at Townhall.com did a good fact-check as well.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/03/09/biden-claimed-his-climate-agenda-isnt-hurting-domestic-oil-production-here-are-the-facts-n2604276

But to me, the biggest tip-off that we are dealing with people who are completely out of touch with the reality of the pain they’re causing for working Americans was that both Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg actually suggested that the solution to high gas prices was for everyone to buy electric cars.

https://www.westernjournal.com/buttigieg-buy-55000-electric-car-dont-worry-gas-prices-anymore/

The average price of an EV is over $56,000; there’s a long waiting list to obtain one just with the demand that exists now; and even if every American could afford and obtain one, they’ve still never answered where we’re going to get the power required to charge them all. It’s as if they think regular cars run on bad, dirty gas but the fuel for electric cars comes out of a wall socket directly from Heaven.

With that argument, Biden, Buttigieg and their house jester Stephen Colbert are all competing for the title of the Marie Antoinette of the 21st century: “So the peasants can’t afford gas? Well, let them buy Teslas!”

https://nypost.com/2022/03/08/stephen-colbert-blasted-for-saying-hes-willing-to-pay-more-for-gas/

Mike Huckabee

Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!

Today's newsletter includes:

• Ukraine: Biden Feels the Pressure
• Durham responds masterfully to Sussmann's lawyers
• This 2020 Trump claim was fact-checked…it turns out he was right
• And much more

Thank you again for reading.

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

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Proverbs 22:6

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3. Ukraine: Biden Feels the Pressure

This is today’s Fox News link for the latest bulletins on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-3-8-2022

Some of the top stories from the past 24 hours: President Biden has FINALLY been pressured into ending US imports of Russian oil, but at this writing it’s unknown whether he’ll take his foot off the neck of America’s oil producers or try to replace it with oil from OPEC or (God forbid) Iran (which would spike gas prices even higher), or just rely on sunshine, windmills and wishes (which would send gas prices to the moon.)

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said some of the responsibility for deaths in Ukraine falls on nations that refused to impose a no-fly zone. The UN estimated that over 2 million people have fled Ukraine. US officials estimate that more than 3,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, which is about 1 out of every 300 Russian military members. Ukraine officials claim that Russian forces are shelling a humanitarian corridor established to allow evacuees to leave safely.

For those who want to understand more of what’s going on with Russia and Ukraine, Putin’s history and motivations, and what’s likely to happen in the future, Kamil Galeev of the Wilson Center has a series of interesting Twitter threads that take a deep dive into those subjects.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1498377757536968711

You might start with this one, which is very eye-opening. All the “Z’s” you see popping up in Russia do not mean the people support Zelenskyy.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1500495309595725831

4. This 2020 Trump Claim was fact-checked, it turns out he was right

Here’s more proof that when liberal media outlets begin a story with “Experts say…” there’s a very good chance you’re about to get a snow job. If it’s a story about anything Donald Trump said, you can count on it. The self-appointed “fact-checkers” were constantly telling us that Trump was lying about something, according to “experts,” when it later became obvious that he was right. And now, here’s yet another example.

Just before the 2020 election, Trump was speaking at a rally in Grand Rapids, where he was boasting about making America energy-independent for the first time and bringing gas prices down to $2 a gallon or less. He then said, “If Biden got in, you’d be paying $7, $8, $9, then they’d say, ‘Get rid of your car.'”

https://www.westernjournal.com/video-trumps-bold-prediction-2020-comes-true-americans-live-reality-bidens-america/

The Washington Post responded with an “analysis” calling the claim that gas prices would spike under Biden “dubious,” adding, “Experts say those fears are overblown,” and that Biden’s policies could ease tensions with Iran and “result in incrementally lower gas prices.”

5. Durham responds masterfully to Sussmann's lawyers

Say what you will about former Attorney General Bill Barr…

https://www.abc4.com/news/national/trump-rips-barr-in-letter-to-nbcs-lester-holt/

...but he deserves credit for his fantastic pick of John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the phony “Trump/Russia” probe. For a long time, we all wondered what he could possibly be doing, as months and months went by without any news. But now it’s easy to understand why the case is taking so long. There’s much more to it than anyone imagined at the outset.

In his latest court filing, made Friday to counter Michael Sussmann’s attorneys’ most recent motions, Durham has shown that he'd make a great archer, as he aims right at the target and hits a rhetorical bull’s-eye. Here’s a link to the whole 16-page document.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638.44.0_6.pdf

Recall that Sussmann, conveniently the attorney for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe (Tech Executive – 1), has been charged with lying to the FBI by failing to disclose that he was acting on behalf of legal clients. He maintained that he had brought the (fake) Alfa Bank story to the FBI simply out of his sense of patriotic duty, as a concerned citizen. A couple of weeks ago, in their motion to dismiss that charge, Sussmann’s attorneys said --- try not to laugh --- that their client hadn’t lied, but that even if he HAD lied, the lie was not material to the case and was protected by the First Amendment besides, so, come on, judge, just let it go.

Durham, in his response to the First Amendment argument, took aim and said, “Far from finding himself in the vulnerable position of an ordinary person whose speech is likely to be chilled, the defendant --- a sophisticated and well-connected lawyer --- chose to bring politically-charged allegations to the FBI’s chief legal officer [James Baker] at the height of an election season.

“He then chose to lie about the clients who were behind those allegations. Using such rare access to the halls of power for the purposes of political deceit is hardly the type of speech that the Founders intended to protect. The Court should therefore reject defendant’s invitation to expand the scope of the First Amendment to protect such conduct.”

Is that not great?

As for whether his (false) statements to the FBI were material to the case, Durham was spot-on again. Imagine how things might have gone if Sussmann had been honest about his true connections, given their implied motivations. His ties to the Clinton campaign could --- at least SHOULD --- have had tremendous bearing. As Durham put it:

“Had the defendant truthfully informed the FBI General Counsel that he was providing the information on behalf of one or more clients, as opposed to merely acting as a ‘good citizen,’ the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel might have asked a multitude of additional questions material to the case initiation process.”

It’s hard to imagine information more material to the case than this. As Durham said, the lie was capable of “influencing both the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation and its subsequent conduct of that investigation.”

Knowledge of these attorney-client relationships, he said, “would have shed critical light on the origins of the allegations at issue.” It goes without saying that this would certainly not have been in the interest of Sussmann’s clients, Hillary Clinton and a man trying in an underhanded way to help get her elected. Sussmann's charade was completely in their interest.

“Given the temporal proximity to the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Durham said, “the FBI also might have taken any number of different steps in initiating, delaying, or declining the initiation of this matter had it known at the time that the defendant was providing information on behalf of the Clinton campaign and a technology executive at a private company.”

Sussmann’s attorneys had also moved to strike the “Factual Background” in Durham’s charge –- the part that went into detail about Sussmann’s ties with Clinton and Joffe as part of the larger picture. They said Durham had included that part “to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.” We'd thought their attempt to strike that section seemed like a well-we-gotta-try-something move, as they ended up calling MORE attention to it.

Durham made it clear that there was no basis to strike any part of that motion, as the factual background was “central” to proving the allegation of Sussmann’s criminal conduct. He also said that some of it was necessary for explaining the conflicts of interest that were the point of his earlier filing about various people of interest (Sussmann included) being defended by the same law firm, Latham & Watkins.

Margot Cleveland has another great article about the filings in Durham’s case, this one saying he “demolished” the attempt to get Sussmann’s charges dropped.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/07/5-new-special-counsel-arguments-against-a-russia-hoaxers-attempt-to-escape/

Cleveland offers her usual superb analysis, making points seen nowhere else. She offers five “key takeaways” from Durham’s filing:

1. On the issue of materiality, Durham states what the correct standard for that is, stressing that it refers to the “potential,” as opposed to the actual, effects of the lie. And even using the defense attorneys’ very narrow standard, Sussmann’s alleged “misrepresentation” (lie) is still material because it could have influenced the FBI’s decision-making.

Cleveland says denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss is “inevitable” and that Durham refuted “six ways to Sunday” the claim that Sussmann's lie was not material. It plainly was, he said, “because it misled the General Counsel about, among other things, the critical fact that the defendant was disseminating highly explosive allegations about a then-Presidential candidate on behalf of two specific clients, one of which was the opposing Presidential campaign.” Doesn't get much plainer than that.

2. Durham destroyed the Democrats’ talking point that the FBI already knew Sussmann was an attorney for the DNC. Sussmann had held himself out as a cybersecurity and national security attorney, “not an election lawyer or political consultant,” Durham wrote. So when Sussmann had denied any client relationships, he had made it seem that he was not there in a political capacity, when he was.

3. Durham countered the defense’s argument that Joffe’s status as “a long-standing respected FBI source” made Sussmann’s failure to disclose representing him immaterial. This one is a bit “in the weeds” but really interesting, so if you’re following these arguments closely, do read Cleveland’s piece.

4. Durham countered another defense argument that's also a talking point, the one saying that Trump was not the target because data brought by Sussmann was from before he was President. The special counsel made it clear that this is a distinction without a difference, as Trump clearly was the target.

5. Finally, Durham had some fun with the defense’s assertion that the charge against their client “risks valuable First Amendment speech,” calling a comparison they'd made “absurd.” Sussmann, he said, “as a former government attorney and prosecutor...was well aware that the law required him to honest and forthright when communicating with the FBI.”

I wonder --- is that even possible when furthering the interests of Hillary Clinton?

6. Fact: Average $ for a Gallon of Gas Hits Record High

Okay, here’s a real “fact-check,” or maybe I should say a punch in the gut with reality: Monday, the average price of a gallon of gas in the US hit a record high of $4.104, surpassing the previous record of $4.103 set in 2008. The best you can say for Biden is that it might not actually be the highest ever when you adjust it for the galloping inflation that’s the only thing he seems interested in fueling.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/u-s-gas-prices-hit-new-record-high

Naturally, the highest price is in deep blue California, where the average price of a gallon of gas is $5.43. That means in many places, it’s much higher, like in the $6 range. And if any alleged “experts” still think Trump’s prediction of even higher prices seems “dubious,” some oil traders are now bracing for oil to hit $200 a barrel by the end of this month.

https://www.westernjournal.com/warning-americans-traders-eye-200-per-oil-barrel-month-report/

Meanwhile, President Biden was finally pressured enough that he will reportedly announce an end to importing Russian oil on Tuesday morning.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-russian-oil-import-ban

But what will he replace it with? Judging by comments from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, buying it from Iran is on the table. He’d rather buy it from terrorists than let Americans pump it. A meme has gone viral that says Biden is scouring the world for any place that has oil other than Texas. That doesn’t even make sense from an environmental standpoint since our oil is much cleaner than Russia’s and doesn’t have to be transported halfway around the world.

Even in liberal Massachusetts, one Springfield man told a reporter that the gas prices made him sick to his stomach, adding, “They’re killing the working man.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/american-brutal-reaction-gas-prices-bidens-america-sick-stomach/

Biden’s fellow Democrats (the former “friend of the working man” Party) are starting to panic and suggest any gimmicks to try to temporarily lower the price of gas before the November elections.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gas-prices-democratic-bloodbath-midterms-republicans

But they’re still unwilling to do what everyone with a brain bigger than a chicken’s knows we have to do: reverse Biden’s idiotic policies and get our pumps and pipelines back online ASAP. Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill to do that, and Democrats voted it down by 221-202.

https://notthebee.com/article/house-democrats-voted-down-a-major-oil-independence-bill-because-they-prefer-renewable-energy-and-someone-needs-to-tell-them-that-you-can-do-both-its-fine-to-do-both

Maybe those $6-a-gallon gas prices will convince them to hold a do-over and get it right this time by passing Ted Cruz’s Energy Freedom Act. Or maybe they think that keeping gas prices sky-high will prevent all those truckers from reaching Washington to protest them. The big question is, how long will they keep on killing the working man before they finally force themselves to admit that Trump was right and unleash America’s energy industries?

7. Barr makes news: Defends cops and says he would vote for Trump over the “progressive agenda”

Former Attorney General Bill Barr is making appearances to promote his new book. Naturally, the media are trumpeting anything he says that reflects badly on Donald Trump, and there’s plenty of that. And he made it clear he wouldn’t support Trump for the Republican nomination. But before they start trying to elevate Barr into the next never-Trump CNN regular, I’ll bet the liberal talking heads nearly exploded when Barr said that if Trump were the nominee in 2024, the “progressive” Democrat agenda is such a threat to America that it’s “inconceivable” that he wouldn’t vote for the Republican, whoever it is.

https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/03/07/savannah-guthrie-gets-poleaxed-by-bill-barrs-answer-to-her-question-about-the-2024-election-n533046

It must be hard for those people to hear that after five years of blasting Trump with all they’ve got, even someone who doesn’t like him would say in effect, “But I’d still vote for him if that was the only alternative to the walking dumpster fires you people support.”

Barr also probably won’t make many friends in the media with his defense of cops as not being racists but as simply arresting people who commit crimes.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/liberal-media-scream-lester-holt-fights-truth-that-cops-are-where-crime-is

I Just Wanted to Say:

Thank you for reading my newsletter. 

For more news, visit my website here.

Mike Huckabee

When we think of people being arrested and then waiting for months without charges being filed, we think of dictatorships and banana republics. So why is it happening here, in the very capital of the United States of America?

https://redstate.com/leslie-mcadoo-gordon/2022/03/08/doj-rushes-obtain-indictment-for-january-6-defendant-to-cure-illegal-detention-n533107

There’s a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo to weed through, but the upshot of that article is that a January 6th defendant, Lucas Denney, was arrested back in December and still had no idea what he was charged with. His attorney filed for the case to be dismissed because under the Speedy Trial Act, prosecutors are required to issue an indictment within 30 days of arrest. Denney had a hearing set for Monday, but the DOJ rushed through a one-count indictment at the last minute and cited various excuses, such as COVID delays.

The judge ruled on a technicality that he couldn’t dismiss the case that day, but if the law means anything anymore (an open question), the charge should be dropped because the DOJ clearly violated the Speedy Trial Act.

However, the judge sharply rebuked the DOJ, saying that if they’ve charged more people over January 6th than they can keep up with, that’s their fault, not the defendants’. He pointed out that they claim these are such important cases because they’re protecting the Constitution, then they violate the defendants’ Constitutional rights in the process of prosecuting them.

But then, that seems to be a recurring theme in all the Democrats’ zealous drum-banging over January 6th: they’re going to save the Constitution and “democracy,” even if they have to trample both of them to death to do it.

Mike Huckabee

Putin's invasion of Ukraine has sparked letters touching on stories that are going around. Here are two...

From John K:

“Mike, a history lesson is in order here. Didn't USSR, now Russia, help in [email protected] the Nazis? Some pundits are saying that Russia is now invading European lands. How did that happen? We don't have history on the History channel or Wikipedia. This land was never European land but as I recall it was part of Russia before we sorted that out. The fake new Republic of the World, or as they say the New world Order promulgated by the Sorosbrand and "Progressive Liberals," is or is coming soon to a theatre near you. The play is just starting, so take your seat. I want to sit next to you.”

From Fiorella W:

“I hear many conflicting stories about Putin's real motive. One source says that the U.S. has established 11 biolabs in Ukraine and Putin has taken 7 out... And then, of course, there is the whole Biden family continuing corruption with the puppet regime. What should we believe?

Thanks to you both, and to all who have written. Yes, Soviet Russia did fight against Hitler, after Germany invaded Russia in June, 1941.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941

Technically, the Soviets became our allies when we entered the war. That’s why, with the way people tend to think in “either/or” terms, alliances ever since have been framed in that way. You checked a box: 1) pro-Nazi, or 2) pro-Russia. Later on, it became 1) pro-Russia, or 2) pro-China. The truth: NONE of them deserve our support.

Eastern Europe was carved up in 1945 at the Yalta Conference –- led by FDR (very ill at the time), British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet Premier Stalin. They were then looking at terms to induce the Soviets to enter the war in the Pacific. Because of that, and also because Russia had done much in recent days to drive back the Germans, Stalin was seen to have an advantage at the talks.

Stalin refused to relinquish Poland but said he’d permit free elections. Same with Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. At that time, Soviet Russia was an "ally," but that was exposed as a sham when, in 1945, the U.S.S.R. made it clear they’d be clamping down on Poland and not allowing political freedom at all. Our former “ally” controlled those Eastern European nations and also East Berlin, which they shockingly encased behind a wall topped with barbed wire and snipers. In March 1946, Churchill gave his speech saying an “iron curtain” had descended upon Eastern Europe, marking the start of the Cold War.

Since then, the U.S.S.R. has fallen and Russia’s borders have changed. But we see from this snippet of history that distinctions between so-called “Russian territory” and “Eastern Europe” are likely lost on Vladimir Putin.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/yalta-conference

To say Ukraine was once “part of Russia” echoes Putin’s propaganda campaign but ignores the naked, horrific aggression he committed. Some have even said that since Ukraine has corruption, the altruistic Mr. Putin was trying to right a wrong by invading. As if Russia doesn’t have corruption? I have hardly ever heard anything crazier: that Putin is trying to “save” Ukraine from corruption by bombing the daylights out of it. Couldn’t he have just...made a phone call or something?

I say that facetiously to set up a point: that when Trump tried to address corruption through a phone call, he got impeached. Putin wouldn’t have such worries.

Then there’s the story about biolabs. We don’t know --- it’s hard enough finding out about biolabs in China and talking about those freely --- but even if this is real and NOT Russian disinformation, invading Ukraine and killing thousands of innocent people is not an acceptable response. Sounds like a pretext to us. It works well as propaganda, though, because after what we’ve learned about the World Health Organization, it’s believable. But it doesn’t justify Putin’s invasion. Here’s a good write-up by Kyle Becker.

https://beckernews.com/3-russian-ministry-of-defense-claims-it-has-evidence-of-u-s-funded-bioweapons-labs-in-ukraine-44303/

We do know that Putin is a sociopath because operatives have killed many of his critics, defectors, and others besides. From the Homeland Security News Wire in 2020: “...Putin has adopted a milder version of Stalin’s tactics of random killings in order to instill a generalized sense of fear and insecurity in the Russian elite.” They provide a list of murders.

https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20200825-putin-s-victims-a-long-list-getting-longer

We’ve long known that Putin is a KGB thug, but there are loathsome factions in the U.S. that avoid criticism of him. Bizarrely, President Biden even has Putin involved in the negotiations for a new “Iran deal,” which we know would lead to Iran becoming a nuclear power. Mark Levin had a great show on this and related matters Sunday night.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6299850695001#sp=show-clips

We’ve heard some particularly inane observations, such as that Ukrainian President Zelensky shouldn’t be believed "because he was an actor.” Well, Ronald Reagan was an actor, and he was about as trustworthy as it gets. That doesn’t mean Zelensky is trustworthy, just that the observation is stupid. Putin undeniably is a thug, and Zelensky understandably wants our help with a no-fly zone, but we must anticipate the perhaps-literal fallout. To reject this step does not make one pro-Putin in any way, just pro-using-your-brain.

Trump’s political enemies call him pro-Putin because he’s flattered Vlad now and them, calling him “smart” and such. They fail to understand that this move in itself was smart –- played to discourage Putin from cozying up to China. (Too late now, it seems.) Critics play checkers when they should be playing chess.

Here are more debunked stories...

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

And here’s a fabulous more-recent Ukraine history lesson, a “premium” article by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke for The Epoch Times. Highly recommended...

https://www.theepochtimes.com/before-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-a-decade-of-destabilization_4316990.html/?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=TheLibertyDaily

(Note that The National Pulse, just for offering facts, feels the need to run a disclaimer: “For the avoidance of doubt, The National Pulse is against wars of aggression, and is not supported financially by any government or entity acting on behalf of a government or foreign interest...”)

As for George Soros, yes, his influence in Ukraine has been huge, starting in 1989, just before the fall of the Soviet Union. He’s been pushing for Ukraine to enter the E.U. We highly recommend Matt Palumbo’s book about him, THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, in which Ukraine gets its own fascinating chapter, with names you’ll recognize from Trump’s first impeachment and even the Steele “dossier.” That country’s full of the kind of secrets you’d expect from a pro-Obama, pro-Hillary crowd.

There are so many unknowns. As we said Saturday, this really is “the first draft of history.” It’s a shame we can’t trust what our own government tells us. Scott Adams, bestselling author and “Dilbert” creator,” called the situation “a big black box that we can’t see into.”

Even so, there's one truth we should agree on: that unprovoked aggression is always wrong. For everything else you might read or hear about this war, ask yourself two questions: 1) Has this person generally been right before, and 2) How can this person possibly KNOW what he’s saying is true?

Mike Huckabee

Okay, here’s a real “fact-check,” or maybe I should say a punch in the gut with reality: Monday, the average price of a gallon of gas in the US hit a record high of $4.104, surpassing the previous record of $4.103 set in 2008. The best you can say for Biden is that it might not actually be the highest ever when you adjust it for the galloping inflation that’s the only thing he seems interested in fueling.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/u-s-gas-prices-hit-new-record-high

Naturally, the highest price is in deep blue California, where the average price of a gallon of gas is $5.43. That means in many places, it’s much higher, like in the $6 range. And if any alleged “experts” still think Trump’s prediction of even higher prices seems “dubious,” some oil traders are now bracing for oil to hit $200 a barrel by the end of this month.

https://www.westernjournal.com/warning-americans-traders-eye-200-per-oil-barrel-month-report/

Meanwhile, President Biden was finally pressured enough that he will reportedly announce an end to importing Russian oil on Tuesday morning.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-russian-oil-import-ban

But what will he replace it with? Judging by comments from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, buying it from Iran is on the table. He’d rather buy it from terrorists than let Americans pump it. A meme has gone viral that says Biden is scouring the world for any place that has oil other than Texas. That doesn’t even make sense from an environmental standpoint since our oil is much cleaner than Russia’s and doesn’t have to be transported halfway around the world.

Even in liberal Massachusetts, one Springfield man told a reporter that the gas prices made him sick to his stomach, adding, “They’re killing the working man.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/american-brutal-reaction-gas-prices-bidens-america-sick-stomach/

Biden’s fellow Democrats (the former “friend of the working man” Party) are starting to panic and suggest any gimmicks to try to temporarily lower the price of gas before the November elections.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gas-prices-democratic-bloodbath-midterms-republicans

But they’re still unwilling to do what everyone with a brain bigger than a chicken’s knows we have to do: reverse Biden’s idiotic policies and get our pumps and pipelines back online ASAP. Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill to do that, and Democrats voted it down by 221-202.

https://notthebee.com/article/house-democrats-voted-down-a-major-oil-independence-bill-because-they-prefer-renewable-energy-and-someone-needs-to-tell-them-that-you-can-do-both-its-fine-to-do-both

Maybe those $6-a-gallon gas prices will convince them to hold a do-over and get it right this time by passing Ted Cruz’s Energy Freedom Act. Or maybe they think that keeping gas prices sky-high will prevent all those truckers from reaching Washington to protest them. The big question is, how long will they keep on killing the working man before they finally force themselves to admit that Trump was right and unleash America’s energy industries?

Mike Huckabee

Say what you will about former Attorney General Bill Barr…

https://www.abc4.com/news/national/trump-rips-barr-in-letter-to-nbcs-lester-holt/

...but he deserves credit for his fantastic pick of John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the phony “Trump/Russia” probe. For a long time, we all wondered what he could possibly be doing, as months and months went by without any news. But now it’s easy to understand why the case is taking so long. There’s much more to it than anyone imagined at the outset.

In his latest court filing, made Friday to counter Michael Sussmann’s attorneys’ most recent motions, Durham has shown that he'd make a great archer, as he aims right at the target and hits a rhetorical bull’s-eye. Here’s a link to the whole 16-page document.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638.44.0_6.pdf

Recall that Sussmann, conveniently the attorney for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe (Tech Executive – 1), has been charged with lying to the FBI by failing to disclose that he was acting on behalf of legal clients. He maintained that he had brought the (fake) Alfa Bank story to the FBI simply out of his sense of patriotic duty, as a concerned citizen. A couple of weeks ago, in their motion to dismiss that charge, Sussmann’s attorneys said --- try not to laugh --- that their client hadn’t lied, but that even if he HAD lied, the lie was not material to the case and was protected by the First Amendment besides, so, come on, judge, just let it go.

Durham, in his response to the First Amendment argument, took aim and said, “Far from finding himself in the vulnerable position of an ordinary person whose speech is likely to be chilled, the defendant --- a sophisticated and well-connected lawyer --- chose to bring politically-charged allegations to the FBI’s chief legal officer [James Baker] at the height of an election season.

“He then chose to lie about the clients who were behind those allegations. Using such rare access to the halls of power for the purposes of political deceit is hardly the type of speech that the Founders intended to protect. The Court should therefore reject defendant’s invitation to expand the scope of the First Amendment to protect such conduct.”

Is that not great?

As for whether his (false) statements to the FBI were material to the case, Durham was spot-on again. Imagine how things might have gone if Sussmann had been honest about his true connections, given their implied motivations. His ties to the Clinton campaign could --- at least SHOULD --- have had tremendous bearing. As Durham put it:

“Had the defendant truthfully informed the FBI General Counsel that he was providing the information on behalf of one or more clients, as opposed to merely acting as a ‘good citizen,’ the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel might have asked a multitude of additional questions material to the case initiation process.”

It’s hard to imagine information more material to the case than this. As Durham said, the lie was capable of “influencing both the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation and its subsequent conduct of that investigation.”

Knowledge of these attorney-client relationships, he said, “would have shed critical light on the origins of the allegations at issue.” It goes without saying that this would certainly not have been in the interest of Sussmann’s clients, Hillary Clinton and a man trying in an underhanded way to help get her elected. Sussmann's charade was completely in their interest.

“Given the temporal proximity to the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Durham said, “the FBI also might have taken any number of different steps in initiating, delaying, or declining the initiation of this matter had it known at the time that the defendant was providing information on behalf of the Clinton campaign and a technology executive at a private company.”

Sussmann’s attorneys had also moved to strike the “Factual Background” in Durham’s charge –- the part that went into detail about Sussmann’s ties with Clinton and Joffe as part of the larger picture. They said Durham had included that part “to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.” We'd thought their attempt to strike that section seemed like a well-we-gotta-try-something move, as they ended up calling MORE attention to it.

Durham made it clear that there was no basis to strike any part of that motion, as the factual background was “central” to proving the allegation of Sussmann’s criminal conduct. He also said that some of it was necessary for explaining the conflicts of interest that were the point of his earlier filing about various people of interest (Sussmann included) being defended by the same law firm, Latham & Watkins.

Margot Cleveland has another great article about the filings in Durham’s case, this one saying he “demolished” the attempt to get Sussmann’s charges dropped.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/07/5-new-special-counsel-arguments-against-a-russia-hoaxers-attempt-to-escape/

Cleveland offers her usual superb analysis, making points seen nowhere else. She offers five “key takeaways” from Durham’s filing:

1. On the issue of materiality, Durham states what the correct standard for that is, stressing that it refers to the “potential,” as opposed to the actual, effects of the lie. And even using the defense attorneys’ very narrow standard, Sussmann’s alleged “misrepresentation” (lie) is still material because it could have influenced the FBI’s decision-making.

Cleveland says denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss is “inevitable” and that Durham refuted “six ways to Sunday” the claim that Sussmann's lie was not material. It plainly was, he said, “because it misled the General Counsel about, among other things, the critical fact that the defendant was disseminating highly explosive allegations about a then-Presidential candidate on behalf of two specific clients, one of which was the opposing Presidential campaign.” Doesn't get much plainer than that.

2. Durham destroyed the Democrats’ talking point that the FBI already knew Sussmann was an attorney for the DNC. Sussmann had held himself out as a cybersecurity and national security attorney, “not an election lawyer or political consultant,” Durham wrote. So when Sussmann had denied any client relationships, he had made it seem that he was not there in a political capacity, when he was.

3. Durham countered the defense’s argument that Joffe’s status as “a long-standing respected FBI source” made Sussmann’s failure to disclose representing him immaterial. This one is a bit “in the weeds” but really interesting, so if you’re following these arguments closely, do read Cleveland’s piece.

4. Durham countered another defense argument that's also a talking point, the one saying that Trump was not the target because data brought by Sussmann was from before he was President. The special counsel made it clear that this is a distinction without a difference, as Trump clearly was the target.

5. Finally, Durham had some fun with the defense’s assertion that the charge against their client “risks valuable First Amendment speech,” calling a comparison they'd made “absurd.” Sussmann, he said, “as a former government attorney and prosecutor...was well aware that the law required him to honest and forthright when communicating with the FBI.”

I wonder --- is that even possible when furthering the interests of Hillary Clinton?

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee