Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

This Friday, January 21st, marks the 49th annual March for Life in Washington, DC (January 22nd is the 49th anniversary of Roe. v. Wade.) Thousands of people plan to brave sub-freezing temperatures to peacefully protest (I make that clear so the FBI doesn’t brand them as “domestic terrorists”) and pray for the approximately 60 million unborn babies killed by abortionists since 1973 and for the Supreme Court to realize the terrible mistake it made.

What they will not be doing is eating at Busboys and Poets restaurant.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2022/01/18/dc-establishment-confirms-its-fine-with-discriminating-against-prolife-group-in-name-of-creating-safe-space-n2601834

A group called Democrats for Life of America (yes, there still are some of those, not that you’d know it from the Party leadership) had a reservation there. But then, the restaurant found out that DFLA is pro-life and canceled their reservation, forcing them to hunt for another place. Busboys and Poets is a chain of restaurants/event spaces with a very “social justice” vibe (their website is plastered with pro-BLM graphics.)

A restaurant spokeswoman told Catholic News Agency that the chain “stands firmly on the belief that women have the right to make their own reproductive health decisions.” (“Reproductive health” is the current preferred vague, fuzzy euphemism for “abortion,” despite the fact that abortion providers often hide the potential dangers to women’s physical and emotional health, as dramatized in the movie, “Unplanned.”)

The spokeswoman continued, “While we welcome conversations from individuals expressing different viewpoints and pride ourselves on being a venue for respectful conversations between diverse groups, we are also a ‘safe space.’ As such, we cannot knowingly accept events designed to fund an agenda which our community members believe to be trampling on the rights of others.”

In short: we support diversity of viewpoints, as long as they’re viewpoints we agree with. And we oppose discrimination, except for people whose beliefs we discriminate against (like those who think that killing children in the womb tramples on their right to life.) So if you are pro-life, you might want to make a note to avoid this joint, as you are not welcome. It might make some poor sensitive soul feel “unsafe” knowing that someone who values life is eating a burger 20 feet away. Also, I don’t think I’d want to eat at any restaurant that dispenses bull manure on the side, as you can readily see in the paragraph above.

Fortunately, the DFLA found a new venue, a restaurant called Harriet’s, which welcomes a range of ideologically diverse groups. Say, is anyone else old enough to remember when liberals used to hold marches to demand that restaurants stop discriminating and serve everyone?

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

If you’ve watched the documentary CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, about the Capitol Hill rally and riot of January 6, 2021, you’ve seen the video of Ashli Babbitt smiling and happy, enjoying herself immensely as she participates in a march to the Capitol building. She is effervescent. Even on that cold, gray day, she exudes positive energy.

But you’ve also seen the video of her just a little while later, inside the building, caught in a crush of people on a stair landing and trying to crawl through a broken-out window to the other side of a closed door when she is shot to death.

How to reconcile these two visions? Could this smiling young (unarmed) woman suddenly morph into an angry rioter, a vandal, an insurrectionist, trying to breach the Speaker’s Lobby and prevent Congress from doing its job? Her husband, Aaron Babbitt, looking at a frame-by-frame analysis conducted by The Epoch Times, says no.

That is not what happened.

“After repeatedly forcing myself to watch the murder of my wife,” he told The Epoch Times, “I have come to my own conclusion that Ashli came to a point of realization that she was in a very bad situation and the police weren’t acting appropriately to what she was witnessing.”

He said, “I know my wife very well. She is not destructive. She was not there to hurt anybody.”

“It all comes down to which mental angle a person views it from,” he said. “If they hate Ashli because they believe the lies, that’s all they see: her being part of a mob. Us who love her, know her, know every action and emotion she was displaying --- she realized a minute before her death she was not in a friendly situation and something very wrong was occurring.”

In fact, the video strongly suggests that she was trying to stop the violence, not join in. She had gone up some stairs and, only about five minutes before she was killed, was casually talking and laughing with three U.S. Capitol Police officers. (She had served in the Air Force as a military police officer herself.) But then more people started coming up behind her. Members of a U.S. Capitol Police Containment Emergency Response Team rushed up the stairs as well, in response to a false alarm –- repeat, false –- of shots fired. (No shots were ever fired except by Ashli’s killer.) She was trapped in that mass of people outside the door.

It’s evident in the video that she was horrified by what was suddenly happening. She confronted a rioter identified as Zachary Alam, getting between him and one of the officers guarding the doors to the Speaker’s Lobby. He turned away from her and punched a window in one of the doors with his hand, then punched it again with a helmet to smash it. Her face registered alarm.

According to husband Aaron, an audio analysis of the video shows that she was shouting, “Stop! No! Don’t! Wait!”

Aaron says she was trying to climb through the broken glass because she was in fear for her life. She was trying to escape. U.S. Capitol Hill Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot her as she was partway through the window frame, and she fell backwards onto the landing.

The officers who were supposed to be guarding that door were not there. “The only way we’d ever know why Ashli felt the window was the only way out is if she had been detained by one of the countless police officers that abandoned their post in front of those doors, Aaron said. “That did not happen. She was murdered and robbed of the chance to tell her side of the story.”

There are conflicting reports as to whether Byrd shouted warnings before he shot her. It was so noisy in the stairwell, it’s likely no one could hear anyone else, so we might never know. And Byrd refused to be interviewed or even give a statement for the Internal Affairs “investigation,” which apparently was fine with the investigators ("investigators"?) because they no-billed him, anyway. “We have declined criminal prosecution of the above officer as a result of this incident,” wrote Acting U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips as part of a three-sentence dismissal.

But Ashli’s family is suing. Their lawyer, DC attorney Terry Roberts, said, “If you’re acting in self-defense, you have to tell somebody you’re acting in self-defense, or it should be quite plain from the circumstances. It clearly was not plain in these circumstances. I don’t believe the officer acted in self-defense at all.”

Another witness, Tayler Hansen, told The Epoch Times that Alam broke out that window because HE wanted to get to the Speaker’s Lobby. He said the only reason Alam didn’t climb through the window before Babbitt is that his glasses got knocked down his face in the scuffle and he had had to stop to reposition them. “He was about to go through that window,” Hansen said. “It was his idea. He was the one shattering it.”

Here’s more about Alam and how the FBI tracked him down. They say if you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything at all, so we won’t say anything at all.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9225389/Man-filmed-smashing-windows-Capitol-rioter-Ashli-Babbitt-arrested.html

In contrast, there’s a lot of good to say about Ashli. Hansen, an independent journalist who knew her and was walking close behind her inside the Capitol, echoed her husband in describing her. “The reality of it is, Ashli wasn’t a violent person. She was a good person, but they’ve demonized her to become this domestic terrorist that she has never been,” he said. “She served her country for 14 years. That’s just insane to me that they can get away with pushing this narrative. They’ve done that by suppressing first-hand witnesses like me.”

So, why had the Capitol Police left their posts at the door to the Speaker’s Lobby? One of them told Internal Affairs investigators that he left because he feared for his life and hadn’t wanted to have to use deadly force. If this was a situation in which officers were afraid for their own lives, it’s easy to imagine Ashli feeling the need to escape it as well.

According to a U.S. Capitol Police sergeant, Byrd and one other officer had taken positions on the other side of the door and had their guns out. This can be seen in the video, but it doesn’t appear that it was visible to Ashli. For her, the shot would have come out of nowhere.

Incidentally, the video that is providing so much detail was shot by the mysterious John Sullivan, also known as Jayden X, who has said he was there to “document” the event. Who he’s associated with and why he was there are questions for another time, but it’s fortuitous that we have his record of what happened.  Otherwise, all we'd have to go by was what the feds and their media minions told us.

The Epoch Times story is a premium report, but ZeroHedge has a detailed account.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stop-no-dont-babbitt-tried-stop-attack-capitol-speakers-lobby-video-analysis-suggests

Thoughts? Leave a comment below.

Mike Huckabee

It’s been just over a year since a protest over the lack of transparency of voting in the 2020 election turned violent on Jan 6 in our nation’s Capitol. Of the tens of thousands of those who were there to protest, the number of those who actually crossed the line of peaceful protest into criminal trespass, vandalism, or assault of a police officer was a tiny fraction in the hundreds. But to hear Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris or the mainstream media describe it, it was the darkest day in American history, equaling or surpassing 9-11, Pearl Harbor or the Civil War. Super-charged and hyperbolic rhetoric is normal in politics, but things said about Jan 6 of 2021 have ventured into the Twilight Zone and deep into Crazy-Town.

First, what happened that day was most certainly NOT an “insurrection” if one means there was an attempted takeover of the government. Webster does define “insurrection” as “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.” It was an instance of revolt, but most certainly not an attempt to overthrow the government. If it were, it was an even dumber effort than I first stated when I called it the actions of some over-heated chuckleheads who behaved in bone-headed, hurtful and destructive behavior. And it did in fact sometimes cross the line into criminal actions. But are you aware that despite the pearl-clutching hysteria of Nancy Pelosi, there were no firearms confiscated from protestors that day? Did the people who breached the security lines that day really believe they could take down a nation that possessed a standing army of about 1.5 million personnel armed with highly sophisticated weaponry, tanks, bombers, ships and nuclear weapons and do it with some flagpoles and fire extinguishers they grabbed off the wall?

And you’ve probably heard the repeated lie that several Capitol police officers were murdered that day by the rioters. That’s a lie. Officer Brian Sicknick was pepper sprayed but returned to his office that day and reported that he was fine. He died the next day, but the coroner ruled that his death was unrelated to the riot. There were two people who were killed by violence that day. Both were protesters. One was Ashli Babbit, an unarmed Air Force veteran who was shot at close range by a Capitol police officer. He refused to participate in an internal affairs investigation and his name was kept private for months, but he was cleared of wrong doing anyway despite the many questions that linger as to why he gunned down an unarmed woman. The other was Rosanne Boyland a protester from Georgia who was crushed and trampled when the crowd was pushed back by police officers who continued to advance against the protesters despite repeated cries for help to be given to her.

I haven’t and I won’t defend those who breeched security at the Capitol or who broke doors or windows, or who occupied Congressional offices. But neither will I be silent when the real insurrectionists who use their government-funded offices to shred the Constitutional rights of free speech, freedom of religion or protection against illegal search and seizure against citizens, some held for months in untenable jail conditions without proper medical attention or access to their attorneys for misdemeanor charges.

I forcefully spoke out against those who broke the law on Jan 6 of last year who assaulted police officers, destroyed public property, or broke into Congressional offices or threatened elected officials. But don’t insult the intelligence of the American people by pretending that the actions of a few that day were worse than Pearl Harbor while ignoring the fact that if was an insurrection, not one person has been charged with that crime or even the crime of terrorism. And some who espouse such nonsense defended the riots that happened throughout the summer of 2020, including Kamala Harris, who actually raised money to pay bail for rioters who burned police cars, assaulted cops, and looted private businesses.

Law and order ought to be the same for everyone no matter their political views. And it also ought to be the same for elected officials. Maybe especially for elected officials.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://capitolpunishmentthemovie.com

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

Remember when liberals believed in “My body, my choice”? Apparently, that applies onto to abortions, sex and recreational drugs. If you object to taking a vaccine, even if you might have medical issues or already have natural immunity, too bad: you will submit or else. At least that seems to be the opinion of a number of Democrats in a shocking new Rasmussen survey.

https://summit.news/2022/01/17/poll-finds-close-to-half-of-democratic-voters-want-covid-internment-camps-for-the-unvaccinated/

The survey found that 29% of Democrat voters would favor the government taking children away from parents who refuse COVID vaccines, 47% favor a government tracking program of the unvaccinated, 48% think the government should be able to fine or imprison anyone who publicly questions or criticizes the efficacy of current vaccines (FYI: I don't even favor imprisoning people who criticize ME), and a majority, 59%, favor allowing the government to force unvaccinated citizens to remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies. Fortunately, that last one is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of independents, both of which are still frighteningly low percentages.

But if you want to put anything COVID-related other than vaccines into your body, then may God have mercy on you, because the government doesn’t. Daniel Pisano has been on a ventilator at the Mayo Clinic in Florida for 28 days. He’s been given less than a 5% chance of survival. His family wants to try the FLCCC plan that includes Ivermectin, but the Mayo Clinic refused. His family went to court to try to force the clinic to let an outside doctor give it to him, but the judge denied it. They’re now left with no alternative but to leave him on a ventilator and hope for the best.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2022/01/16/family-fights-for-ivermectin-for-dying-loved-one-courts-say-no-n1549942

If you remember, President Trump signed the “Right To Try Act” that allowed terminally ill patients to try experimental treatments when there was no other hope. Ivermectin is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines, it’s been used on humans since the 1980s and it’s the 420th most-prescribed medicine in the US. Despite claims that it helps save COVID patients, the FDA and CDC deny its efficacy and say it’s not approved for treating COVID.

My question: even if there's no approved studies showing that ivermectin helps, shouldn’t a person have a “right to try” it when the only alternative is to gasp for breath on a ventilator and “hope for the best”?

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Biden’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week continued Thursday with the lid likely being nailed shut on the coffin of both his “Legalize Vote Fraud” bill and his push to kill the Senate filibuster to get it passed.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-white-house-policy-flops-defeats

Biden was set to visit the Senate to urge them to kill the filibuster, but before he even arrived, Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema brought down the hammer, saying that while she supported the election bill, she would not vote to kill the filibuster.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stephen-kruiser/2022/01/13/sinema-wraps-filibuster-dagger-in-dem-talking-points-then-sticks-it-in-n1549212

She also had this great comment about the current political scene: “It’s more common today to demonize someone who thinks differently than us rather than to seek to understand their views.” Ironically, I think this was probably lost on the leftists who thought they could bully her into changing her mind by harassing her. It was certainly lost on her colleagues, who responded to her defense of the filibuster (which was previously defended by Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama, back when it was to their advantage) by claiming she was now on the side of “white supremacy.” So it’s official: “white supremacist” now means nothing other than “someone who refuses to vote the way I want her to.”

But Sinema wasn’t alone: Sen. Joe Manchin also said on Thursday, "I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster." And that makes the vote 52-48. Game over. Or it should be, but don’t bet that we won't see another attempted "work-around" the Constitution.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/01/13/joe-manchin-twists-the-knife-a-little-bit-more-n506255

(Incidentally, what does it say about the state of your party when only 2 out of 50 of its Senators have the courage and integrity to publicly refuse to blow up the institution of the Senate for short term partisan gain? That’s a 1-25 integrity ratio.)

In comments to the press afterward, Biden didn’t take his defeat well. I don’t know if he even realized that by inexplicably barking that election reform laws are about “who gets to count the vote! Count the vote! Count the vote!” he was reminding everyone of communist dictator Joseph Stalin, who reportedly said votes didn’t matter, all that matters is who gets to count them.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/01/13/watch-joe-biden-appears-visibly-flustered-defeated-in-post-sinema-speech-interview-n506167

By comparison, that appearance made Kamala Harris look like the star of “I Love Lucidity.”

Mike Huckabee

It appears that our “Justice” Department needs some sort of remedial instruction in what the term “domestic terrorist” means. They seem to believe that if you throw a Molotov cocktail at an occupied federal building, you’re a peaceful protester; but if you complain at a school board meeting about your kid being indoctrinated with leftist, racist, anti-American propaganda, you’re a domestic terrorist. In fact, the threat is so dire that the DOJ just announced the creation of a new “domestic terrorism” unit. That would be okay if I believed they had a realistic definition of domestic terrorists. But I think this article makes it pretty clear who they’re really planning to target.

https://www.westernjournal.com/garlands-secret-police-anxiety-abounds-doj-forms-new-unit-watch-us-citizens/

If you remember, this all started with a letter to Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland from the National School Board Association, a letter they later apologized for and Garland tried to downplay. But it’s obvious that it served its intended purpose, as grounds to politicize and weaponize the DOJ against justifiably angry parents.

There were previous reports that the NSBA had colluded with the White House to craft the letter. But the latest twist came Tuesday when the group Parents Defending Education released an email they'd obtained through the Freedom of Information (remember that?) Act that revealed that NSBA interim CEO Chip Slaven "told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by (Education) Secretary Miguel Cardona."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/education-secretary-cardona-resign-nsba-letter

Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted, "Stunning. The original source of the letter lobbying the Biden admin to use the Patriot Act to target parents as domestic terrorists? THE BIDEN ADMIN ITSELF. Biden Education Secretary: in effect, ‘Please ask us to treat Moms & Dads as terrorists.’"

Cardona’s office denied that he solicited the letter, but it hasn’t stopped calls for him to resign. Sadly, another way the Biden Administration is like Obama’s is that there is zero accountability for its appointees. Still, top Congressional Republicans are demanding that Cardona turn over his correspondence with teachers’ unions so we can all see whether he really was the source for this outrageous attack on concerned parents.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mccarthy-foxx-demand-biden-education-secretary-teachers-unions

It will be interesting to see if he complies with that request or if he tries to cite “executive privilege,” a right his boss recently undermined because he thought it would hurt Trump. Again, thinking ahead to consider the consequences of their partisan actions is not these people’s strong suit.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/4JabbiFhBAE

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

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

https://youtu.be/GM5r0Ve8Las

Mike Huckabee

One more comment on the outrageous carpetbag of lies that President Biden unpacked in Georgia: Who thought it was a good idea to use that reference to George Wallace? That may be the one thing in the speech that was actually written by Joe Biden. I like making arcane references because I figure my target audience is older people with lots of knowledge and experience and curious younger people who’ll Google something they don’t know to learn about it. That’s definitely not the crowd the Dems are targeting with this drivel.

Trying to convince young voters to be scared of Republicans by invoking the name of George Wallace is a Grandpa Simpson-like idea that could only sound good to a 79-year-old man who remembers 1968 better than he remembers what he had for breakfast. Here are three things wrong with that reference:

1. He’s talking to young Americans who learned “history” in liberal-run schools, about something that happened nearly six decades ago, involving a politician who died two years before the turn of the century. How many of them turned to one another and said, “George Wallace? Is he that black stand-up comic my parents like?”

To use my own reference that young people won't get, on his first album, Steve Martin told a Nixon joke then admitted it felt like telling “Ike” jokes. At that time, it had been only three years since Nixon resigned and the reference already seemed dated. At least Biden didn’t attack Ike. I like Ike.

2. George Wallace was a Democrat. In fact, he was a Democrat who wanted “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” just like so many current “progressive” Democrats do. (FYI, Biden also made scary references to such other historic figures as Jefferson Davis and Bull Connor, who were both – you guessed it – Democrat segregationists.)

3. Maybe Joe’s understandably forgotten, but when he was in the Senate, he was quite chummy with segregationist Southern Democrats. When campaigning in the South, he liked to tell voters that he was called one of the outstanding young politicians of America by none other than Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/01/11/analysis-brandon-biden-tells-us-who-he-really-is-in-train-wreck-of-a-speech-in-georgia-n505109

While I can understand why people would be frightened of Republicans if they thought they were anything like segregationist Democrats, it’s simply not true. Those are yours, Joe. Our Party was formed for the specific purpose of making your Party give up their slaves. So knock it off.

Mike Huckabee

On Tuesday, the offensive individual who currently occupies the White House gave such a nasty, dishonest and divisive speech about so-called "voting rights" that our commentary turned out to be part of a huge and richly-deserved backlash.

On Wednesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell said that while he has "known, liked and respected" Biden for many years, he "did not recognize "the man at the podium yesterday." Here are Sen. McConnell's remarks from the Senate floor --- highly recommended reading.

https://www.cnsnews.com/article/washington/melanie-arter/mcconnell-biden-less-year-restoring-soul-america-has-become-agree

We're mystified as to what it was in past years that caused Sen. McConnell to respect him, as Biden has been telling lies for a very long time, but whatever it was, it appears to be over now.

"The President did not get a mandate to transform America or reshape society," McConnell said. "But he did arguably get a mandate to do just one central thing that he campaigned on. Here's what that was: bridge a divided country, lower the temperature, dial down the perpetual air of crisis in politics...It is the one job citizens actually hired him to do."

McConnell is right --- Biden was presented during the 2020 campaign as the amiable, low-key personality who would calm things down and bring us together. That "unifying" persona was marketed to America like a box of bland, comforting cereal, and unfortunately a lot of Americans bought it. It's undoubtedly the main reason Biden got the support that he did. But in just one year, especially with his vile race-baiting rhetoric, he has "fundamentally transformed" that fake persona he was using and given us a look at who he really is. It's not pretty.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIGN UP FOR MY MORNING EDITION ON SUBSTACK:

Mike Huckabee

The CEO of a major New York-based supermarket chain said that Omicron and the supply chain disruption are not only causing higher food prices, but could lead to shortages of meat and eggs over the next six weeks, especially in the Northeast.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/billionaire-ceo-meat-egg-shortage-omicron-supply-chain

The Wall Street Journal also reports that home builders are struggling with shortages of many necessary supplies, including paint, bricks, appliances and garage doors.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supply-chain-issues-leave-new-homes-without-garage-doors-and-gutters-11641724201

Meanwhile, as if the President weren’t already being dogged enough by the “Let’s Go, Brandon” trend,

https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-benny-johnson-travels-delaware-discovers-biden-see-every-time-goes-vacation/

a new hashtag is trending on Twitter: #BareShelvesBiden. Many users are adding it to photos taken in their local stores of shelves that are empty or nearly empty of merchandise.

https://www.westernjournal.com/americans-unleash-biden-chilling-encounters-grocery-stores/

This tsunami of bare shelves photos is savage revenge on liberals who ridiculed someone a couple of weeks ago for posting a photo of bare shelves that they said was just an aisle that had been cleared to make way for Valentine’s Day merchandise. One of my writers noted that he’s been taking such photos in stores around Dallas, and he’s really looking forward to seeing the romantic new lines of dry spaghetti and cat food that must be coming for Valentine’s Day.

Mike Huckabee

President Biden is set to make a speech today in Georgia on voting rights, and apparently, his current approval levels are so toxic that even Stacey Abrams found something better to do than show up and stand next to him.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-pans-biden-message-on-inflation

This is surprising, since claiming that laws that ensure elections are secure and trustworthy are evil is definitely her thing. And that’s the take that Biden is pushing: the idea that voter integrity laws are racist, fascist attempts at voter suppression, and never mind that polls show vast majorities of all ethnic groups support basic election integrity laws such as voter ID.

(Incidentally, if Biden cares so much about loosening voter laws, why is he in Georgia? It’s easier to vote in Georgia than in his home state of Delaware, so why not go there?)

Biden is pushing hard to get Congress to pass what I like to call the “Legalize Vote Fraud Act,” because that’s a much more honest title for it. It would unconstitutionally federalize election laws that are supposed to be set by the states, and allow the Democrats to permanently enshrine practices such as banning voter ID requirements and legalizing ballot harvesting that they think would cement them into power forever. They claim this is to protect “democracy,” which would be hilarious if it weren’t such a serious threat. They’re trying to take away the power of states to run their own elections, and circumvent the obvious shellacking they’re about to get at the polls, while claiming they’re doing it to “protect democracy.” It’s like a bank robber claiming he’s emptying the vault to keep thieves from taking your money.

Remember, this is the same party that’s opened the borders while pushing to let non-citizens vote, and yet claims this is not part of a plan to change the population so they get elected. It’s also the same party that claims that Joe Biden got an unprecedented 82 million votes for President legitimately, and then claims the Democrat vote is being suppressed. And now they’re trying to convince us that keeping elections honest is the equivalent of violent insurrection.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/01/09/pelosi-pulls-jan-6-card-on-voting-but-clyburn-and-her-own-actions-reveal-the-truth-n504053

Fortunately, for all the hype and hot air this issue is getting, I can’t see Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema going along with this assault on election integrity laws, or with changing the filibuster rules, so this legislation is likely going nowhere.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-democrats-voting-rights-filibuster-schumer-manchin-sinema

The real function for which it’s obviously intended is distraction: to rile up the Party’s base over a phony issue and get them furious enough at the evil Republicans to turn off their brains, forget all the real problems we’re facing, and vote Democrat one more time, only afterwards to realize how they’ve been had again.

Will it work? They have to hope so because they have zero successes to run on otherwise. But I question whether even their most loyal voters are gullible enough to take yet another running kick at that football like Charlie Brown and end up on their backs one more time.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

A reader writes:

Hi, Gov. Huckabee. Thank you for your daily newsletter. Regarding Jan. 6, which was an unfortunate event, I saw a clip of [Texas] Sen. Ted Cruz referring to this as a "terrorist attack," which to my mind would equate it with Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, which is nonsense. I know Democrats are committed to keeping Jan. 6 alive as the worst day in American history, but when Republicans start jumping on that bandwagon, I get greatly concerned, especially someone like Cruz who should not be engaging in exaggerated rhetoric. (Could it be he is planning on running for President in 2024 as a challenge to Donald Trump?) God bless.

Marilyn M.

………….

Thanks for writing, Marilyn. Only Sen. Cruz knows what he thought he personally had to gain by describing the rioters of Jan. 6 as “terrorists,” but it must have been something. We’d expect to hear this from, say, Liz Cheney, but whatever is going in Cruz’s mind right now is baffling. Of course it was nonsense –- we’ve shown with hard facts over just the past couple of days how ludicrous it is to compare the Capitol Hill riot with a real terrorist attack such as 9/11 –- and Cruz had to KNOW it was nonsense before the words left his mouth. He said it anyway, very deliberately, fully aware that it was ludicrous, so there must be some method to his madness.

But madness it is.

Cruz went on Tucker Carlson’s show Thursday night to try to help himself, and I’m being charitable when I say that it did not go well. Tucker didn't buy his explanation that he’d been “sloppy” and made a mistake with his poor choice of words, because Tucker knows that master-debater Cruz doesn’t EVER choose words sloppily. Also, this isn’t even the first time Cruz has used the word “terrorist” in this context; nearly a year ago, he called the incident “a terrorist attack” and “an assault on the citadel of democracy,” which, frankly, sounds more like something Chuck Schumer would say. So, to his credit, Tucker didn’t let Cruz get away with it.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/groveling-ted-cruz-fails-to-convince-tucker-carlson-that-calling-jan-6-a-violent-terrorist-attack-was-a-sloppy-mistake?

“I don’t believe you used that word accidentally,” Tucker told him. Cruz then tried to walk it back by saying that’s the term he uses for people who attack police. Carlson still didn’t let him off the hook, noting that even those charged with assaulting officers are not actual terrorists and that no one associated with this event has been charged with terrorism. (Note: nobody’s been charged with insurrection, either.)

“Why did you use that word?” Tucker asked Cruz. “You’re playing into the other side’s characterization.”

Tucker's right --- that’s exactly what he was doing, and the "why" is a real head-scratcher. If it’s true he’s planning to run for President in 2024 and assumes he'll likely be challenging Trump in the primary, this has got to be the worst way to go about it. It makes him look bad, it fractures the GOP, and, perhaps most of all, it plays into the disgusting lie that’s become the new fake anti-Trump mantra to replace the old fake anti-Trump mantra, which is to say, “Russia Russia Russia!!”

As it is, whether or not Trump is the candidate –- we know, of course, that anyone else will be tarred as a proxy for Trump –- we’re going to hear, day in and day out until Election Day '24, the lie that Trump supporters are terrorists and a threat to “our democracy,” And that leads right into our next story...

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we had one word to say about President Biden’s “Jan. 6” commemorative speech: DISGRACEFUL. (Well, it was the one printable word we had.) Honestly, it was just too nauseating to write about right then, but perhaps it’ll be a bit less gag-inducing now, with a little distance put between us and it.

Biden repeatedly lied in his roughly 25-minute speech from the hallowed Statuary Hall inside the Capitol complex.

“For the first time in our history,” he lied, “a President had not just lost an election, but tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.” Trump did no such thing and, in fact, was working within the process laid out in the Constitution. His rally was peaceful –- he TOLD participants to be peaceful –- and as such it was an expression of his constitutional right to peacefully protest. Biden implied in his speech that Trump had wanted his supporters to breach the Capitol, to physically prevent the vote from being certified, and had even personally engineered this. That is a lie.

He said Trump had sat in the White House dining room, “doing nothing for hours” with “the nation’s Capitol under siege” and the mob “hunted down members of Congress.” A timeline has been established that shows this, too, is a detestable lie.

Biden went on to lie about the election, too, and its aftermath. As Sophie Mann reports in Just The News, “Biden said there is no evidence, anywhere, to suggest that the results of the election were altered, flawed or in any way untrustworthy.” That claim is false, and recent polling shows most Americans don’t believe it. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest interference in a variety of creative ways. Was the election stolen outright, by strategically rigging the outcome in carefully targeted locations? We can’t say until enormous questions are answered and essential materials are provided to auditors. The lack of transparency is in itself suspect.

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/anniversary-january-6-biden-says-trump-tried-prevent-peaceful-transfer-power

Biden didn’t hesitate to get personal about his predecessor, either, and that’s when the speech became shamefully unpresidential. Trump, he said, is someone who “values power over principle.” By refusing to accept the results of the election, he said, Trump is rejecting “the will of the people.” On the contrary, Trump believes the will of the people has been thwarted by those who would get into the White House by hook or by crook.

This pathetic speech was Biden’s own attempt to hold onto power as his presidency is clearly failing. A new Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows that only 28 percent think Biden will be re-elected. Another 21 percent think he’ll resign before the next election. And a plurality of 38 percent think he’ll lose to the Republican candidate. As The New York Times wrote in December, “On top of concerns about Biden’s age and general unpopularity, there is an overarching fear among Democrats of the possibility of a Trump comeback --- and a determination that the party must run a strong candidate to head it off.” Could there BE a weaker candidate for re-election than Joe Biden?

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/06/only-28-percent-voters-think-biden-will-be-reelected/

Though the histrionics we saw yesterday seem ridiculously out of proportion to what actually happened (especially when that is compared to many months of BLM/Antifa violence), Glenn Greenwald warns that the Democrat Party and “the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media” will play this for all it’s worth. “The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected --- and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic,” he writes. And later, “Far too many centers of political and economic power benefit from an exaggerated and even false narrative about January 6 to expect it ever to end.”

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-histrionics-and-melodrama-around

The only thing I can think of that might cause this, if not to end, to at least recede a bit, is the revelation that protesters were “helped” past the barricades and into the Capitol that day, a scenario that seems more plausible all the time. We’ve brought you the excellent National File reporting on that, and here’s another report from Red State that raises more questions...

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/01/06/whatever-happened-to-alleged-capitol-rioter-john-sullivan-n502773

If that’s what happened, it doesn’t excuse Trump supporters for playing along on an extremely ill-advised adventure, but it certainly adds a whole new dimension to the story. One thing Biden never mentioned in his speech was the fact that Trump offered thousands of National Guard troops to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that day –- you know, to keep things peaceful and under control –- and Pelosi, who was in charge of security, turned him down. No, he never said a word about that.

Mike Huckabee

First AOC, now Rep. Eric Swalwell is the latest far-left Democrat from a locked-down blue state to go straight from blaming the pandemic on Republicans to being caught vacationing maskless in the reviled free state of Florida.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/eric-swalwell-spotted-maskless-mandate-free-florida

This hypocrisy is as blatant as it is unsurprising to anyone who follows these people closely. But many Americans don’t follow politics all that closely (lucky them), and are shocked that anyone could be such obvious hypocrites.

Kurt Schlichter had a great comment in a subscriber-only article at Townhall.com about why merely pointing out their hypocrisy isn’t enough:

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/01/05/leftists-love-groveling-n2601345

“Let’s not fool ourselves that they will somehow be shamed into suffering the same inconveniences (as) their lessers, i.e., everyone else. They won’t. At some level, they want us peasants to see that they are beyond the rules they make for mere mortals. To whine about it for the sake of whining about it is to practice helplessness…When we point out their hypocrisy, we need to have a purpose, and that purpose is to wake up everyone else. Hypocrisy means nothing to us because we already know these are bad people. But it is powerful juju when it comes to people who have yet to gobble the red-pill and see the members of our garbage ruling caste for (what) they are.”

Mike Huckabee

Despite President Biden urging schools to stay open, the Chicago teachers’ union voted to return to remote learning due to the Omicron COVID case surge.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-cancels-classes-union-remote-learning

It reminds me of an observation I saw recently, that this was the first time our society has expected our children to sacrifice to protect adults.

Maybe it’s time for voters, especially parents, in every state to demand programs like one just created by Arizona Gov. Doug Doucey. It would provide resources for parents when schools refuse to do their job, even allowing them to take their state school funding and give it to another school if the one their child attends closes for even one day. It’s a first step to establishing that if schools refuse to open, then parents should have the right to take their education dollars elsewhere.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2022/01/04/arizona-providing-7k-to-families-facing-educational-barriers-amid-school-closures-n2601418

It’s also a reminder that public education funds do not exist to fund schools that don’t open and teachers who refuse to come to work. They’re there to provide kids with an education. If some educators refuse to educate, then the money should go to those who will.

Mike Huckabee

As social media sites become more and more blatant about their censorship of conservatives, they’re hastening the rise of free speech alternative platforms and their own march toward be becoming what Seth Meyers once called MySpace: “The abandoned amusement park of the Internet.”

After Twitter banned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her unapproved comments about COVID and vaccines (Facebook also blocked her for 24 hours), influential podcaster Joe Rogan announced that he was joining the new conservative Twitter alternative GETTR. In just two days, he surpassed eight million followers (and unlike many on Twitter, I’ll bet his followers are real.)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joe-rogan-joins-gettr-a-maga-alternative-to-twitter-following-rep-marjorie-taylor-greenes-ban/ar-AASo6dp

Also, Sen. Rand Paul announced that he’s moving away from YouTube and to the free speech platform Rumble.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rand-paul-announces-exit-from-youtube-today-i-take-my-first-step-toward-denying-my-content-to-big-tech

Meanwhile, perhaps sensing trouble, Facebook lifted the “permanent” block it put on Heroes of Liberty, a publisher of children’s books about American icons including Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell and John Wayne. Facebook claims the ban was “an error.” Funny how such “errors” always go in only one direction, and you never hear of any leftist outlets being banned “by mistake.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/4/facebook-lifts-ban-conservative-childrens-publishe/

FYI, coming up next weekend on “Huckabee” on TBN, I’ll be talking about this issue with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Does that mean that I agree with or endorse everything she says and believes? Of course not. But I will defend to the death her right to say it.

Mike Huckabee

Opponents of government vaccine mandates won a small victory in Nevada, and blogger Robert Zimmerman makes several great points about why it has larger repercussions.

https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/a-small-victory-in-nevada-against-covid-mandates-illustrates-the-ongoing-corrupt-politicizing-of-all-of-american-culture/

The Nevada State Board of Health had mandated that all college students get the shot or be banned, but that expired after 120 days. It could only be extended by the Legislative Commission, and when they split 6-6 on party lines, the tie killed the mandate. Zimmerman notes that like many such mandates, it was imposed by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. This was the first time elected representatives weighed in on it, and that ended it.

Some other important points he notes that are going overlooked: the fact that this was the first time elected representatives have had a say shows how much power has been usurped by unelected bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats ignored evidence that the mandate was ineffective and imposed a discriminatory policy that violated students’ First Amendment rights and their autonomy over their own bodies. This is also an example of how the excuse of a “medical emergency” has opened the door to many organizations violating laws protecting the privacy of citizens’ medical records. And most importantly, the party line vote shows how this issue has been completely politicized, with decisions based not on science but on politics.

I recommend you read the whole thing, but here’s a quote I have to share in this election year, because he makes the point that only the people can fix this by changing the politicians:

“The six Nevada Democrats who voted for this illogical mandate did so not because they had any facts on their side (which they did not), but because the edict expanded the power of government, and that today is the overriding goal of every Democrat. Crush the opposition, squelch free debate, and twist the law in any way possible to guarantee victory. The voters should have thrown these bums out of office years ago. It is...imperative that they do it now, because there is very little time left. Soon, if these power-hungry Democrats have their way, elections will no longer matter. They will be in control, and will not allow you to remove them.”

Sounds like the perfect response to Chuck Schumer’s balloon juice about ending the filibuster to pass the “Legalize Vote Fraud” bill to “save democracy.”

And a PS from Zimmerman that’s also important:

“Nor are the Republican politicians much better. Too often for decades they have made deals, going along to get along, rather than stand for freedom and smaller government, as they consistently would promise during every single election campaign. The voters need to throw a lot of them out of office as well.”

Mike Huckabee

A lot of finger-pointing is taking place amid Virginia state officials, placing blame for lack of preparedness that led to drivers being stuck in the snow in their cars for up to 24 hours on Interstate 95.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/interstate-95-virginia-pretreatment

Among them was Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, one of the major advocates for Virginians joining in the fight to prevent global warming. So congratulations: that worked.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/virginia-senator-hundreds-trapped-overnight-snowstorm-traffic-jam/story?id=82067117

The real heroes of this story were not, of course, the politicians who failed to do their jobs, but the law enforcement officers, nearby residents and fellow drivers, who braved the cold and snow to help strangers and each other. They used cell phones or trudged through the snow to find out who needed food, water, blankets, diapers and other necessities. Note to all the people badmouthing America as nothing but a bunch of selfish, racist identity groups: This is what America is really all about.

Incidentally, one politician who is definitely not to blame for this is the one that some liberals were blaming: Republican Glenn Youngkin, who doesn’t take office as Governor until a week from this Saturday.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/01/04/glenn-youngkin-gets-blamed-for-i-95-traffic-snarls-as-actual-governor-ralph-northam-appears-mia-n501429

Good point at the linked article: isn’t it funny how quickly liberals deleted their tweets blaming Youngkin after realizing their mistake but didn’t replace them with tweets blaming Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, who was actually in charge? I’d call that a “snow job.”

Mike Huckabee

Remember how we were told we had to elect Democrats so that “the adults would be back in charge”? Where are those adults, I wonder? Did they all go to Florida so they could enjoy life in peace and leave the kids and teenagers back in DC to destroy the house with an endless kegger party? Listening to some of the top Democrat leaders, I sometimes feel as if I’m arguing with children whose entire arsenal of replies consists of “It’s not FAIR!” and “I know you are, but what am I?”

Take Senate “Majority” Leader Chuck Schumer, please. He’s making the rounds of similarly juvenile talk shows, once again pushing the idea of doing away with the Senate filibuster so that the Dems can ram their agenda (including their unconstitutional “Federalize elections and legalize vote fraud” bill) down Americans’ throats with only a 50-50 tie plus the vote of VP Kamala “28% approval rating” Harris. He used a lot of overheated hyperbole about January 6th to try to justify it as protecting democracy, but it all really boils down to, “When we lose an election, it’s not FAIR!”

https://www.westernjournal.com/chuck-schumer-threatens-radically-alter-senate-rules-doesnt-get-way-within-two-weeks/

(I could also throw in all the Democrats who are publicly wailing about how traumatized they were by January 6th, like children who are still crying over a boo-boo they got a year ago to milk it for more free ice cream. Yes, January 6th was bad, and those who broke the law should be punished. But go tell your sob story to all the Americans who lost their homes and businesses to looters and arsonists and who were assaulted by actual armed insurrectionists, all of whom were defended and bailed out of jail by those very same Democrats.)

You’d think Schumer might have glanced at the recent obituaries for his predecessor Harry Reid that recalled how his weakening of the filibuster came back to bite Democrats when they became the minority. But that would require long-term thinking and reading the news, two things that five-year-olds are not famous for. Schumer couldn’t even be mature enough to acknowledge his own arguments in defense of the filibuster, back when it was to his advantage.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/chuck-schumer-filibuster-flashback-2017

He doesn’t have the consistent principles of a mature adult but the childish attitude of “I get my way every time, or it’s NOT FAIR!”

And then we have the case of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who responded to legitimate criticism of her rank hypocrisy by claiming that her critics are just frustrated because they find her so hot and can’t have her. Trust me, that’s not why I write about her. At least her response was more mature than Schumer’s arguments, but only in the sense that a spoiled teenage drama queen is slightly more mature than a tantrum-throwing five-year-old.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ spokeswoman Christina Pushaw (whom I assume does not find AOC too sexy for her House seat) took on the adult role and set her straight:

https://www.westernjournal.com/desantis-spokeswoman-reveals-aocs-florida-trip-something-even-worse-hypocrisy/

And some of the other responses from female critics of AOC were downright hilarious, even on CNN…

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2022/01/04/watch-mary-katharine-ham-skewers-aocs-weird-self-absorption-n2601338?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

Fortunately for America, a couple of adults still remain in the Democratic Party (Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema), and they realize the dangers of obliterating all minority power when their party is likely about to become the minority. Without their votes, Schumer won’t be able to end the filibuster. But I have no hopes that a dose of reality will make him suddenly start acting like a mature adult who is aware of the heavy responsibilities of his position.

It might be old fashioned to say this, but I think the only way to make these brats grow up is for the voters to deliver a good spanking to them.

Related: This is a good analysis by Joe Cunningham at Redstate.com about how Schumer knows he doesn’t have the power to end the filibuster, and for all the vitriol that leftists are hurling at Joe Manchin, his maturity and ability to think long range are likely their only hopes of retaining the majority after the next election.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2022/01/04/the-democratic-partys-savior-n501401

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we talked about the need to dig deep into conspiracy theories for which there’s credible evidence, noting that the term “conspiracy theory” itself is neutral until facts emerge that prove or disprove it. The claim that the Capitol Hill security breach was more of a “fed-surrection” than an insurrection is one of those so-called conspiracy theories that deserve to be taken seriously. So let’s take a closer look.

In a preposterous reach, Sen. Chuck Schumer is using January 6 to try to justify ending the filibuster so the Senate can pass the “election reform” bill that Democrats so desperately want passed, to help them cheat---I mean, preserve democracy. (Pardon my bluntness, but affecting the outcome of elections is undoubtedly what they want to use this for.) Mark Elias is already using the courts for this, but they really need a, shall we say, comprehensive strategy to ensure a win this time.

Laura Ingraham, on FOX News’ Ingraham Angle, showed the clip of Sen. Schumer saying to Joy Reid on MSNBC, “...If we don’t change the [filibuster] rules, the Republicans will block this [election reform], and our democracy could be at risk, and even wither, invariably, in real ways.”

Thanks to Laura for pointing out that in 2005, when Republicans held the majority, Schumer was saying the opposite about the filibuster. Today, he assumes most of us are too stupid to realize that, or to understand that if the Senate ends the filibuster rule and passes the so-called “Voting Rights” bill, we’ll have one-party rule and the whole Democrat agenda will be forced through, regardless of what voters think of it.

But, to get back to my original point, Schumer is using January 6 as a pretext for all of this. As we’ve said, the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill breach plays into the hands of Democrats so incredibly well, we’d naturally suspect that if Republicans hadn’t planned it to happen, the Democrats would’ve MADE it happen. So, did they? That’s a conspiracy theory –- so far neither proven or disproven –- but we’re finding out more all the time that strongly suggests covert federal operatives were urging it on.

Fortunately, even though Congress won’t do its oversight job on this –- does anyone seriously think their “committee” is anything more than a kangaroo court? –- there are other ways to uncover the full story of what happened, and one is through evidence submitted in actual court cases. To cite another example of how this works, recall that Special Counsel John Durham’s “Russia” investigation was helped a great deal by litigation that went on in London in a civil suit brought by Alfa Bank against Christopher Steele of “dossier” fame. Durham learned a LOT from testimony in that case. Likewise, even though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “special committee” won’t be turning over the rocks we’d want them to, other litigation regarding January 6 could bring to light key information.

For example, in the government’s case against Kelly Meggs, an Oath Keepers member accused of conspiring to storm the Capitol, his attorney Jon Moseley is calling some very interesting witnesses: Ray Epps (a riot instigator who’s strangely not being prosecuted), Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes (ditto), and “Utah activist” John Sullivan (an apparent leftist agitator).

Mosely told National File that he believes their testimony will prove his client’s innocence and also that the entire prosecution is politically motivated.

https://nationalfile.com/epps-sullivan-testify-oath-keepers-case/

National File reports: “FBI sources stold Reuters earlier this year that there was little to zero evidence of any plans to take hostages in the Capitol and stop the count of electoral votes.” Yet this level of interference is what Schumer uses as an excuse to end the filibuster and federalize elections.

National File also cites the Revolver News investigative reports that we’ve been bringing you. What they’ve turned up is highly suggestive that Rhodes was working in some capacity for the federal government while there that day. While defendant Meggs has been held without bail for nearly a year (!), Rhodes, for some reason, was interviewed by the FBI but was not been charged with any crime.

As for Epps, Revolver News exposed him as someone who, on both January 5 and 6, took to a bullhorn and urged conservatives to storm the Capitol during Trump’s rally. He’s on video –- check out Rumble –- “telling people to enter the Capitol and beat up police,” Moseley said. You’d think someone caught on video doing something like that would’ve been at the top of the list for indictment and detention without bail, but for some reason he just wasn’t.

In case you didn’t see this the first time we linked to it, here’s the most recent Revolver News report on Ray Epps. It’s extremely detailed but highly recommended; you might need to come back to it later.

https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

About a month ago, National File reported that they had obtained documentation of an FBI interview with “Person 10,” the Oath Keepers member who planned the security detail for that day, that made it clear: Oath Keepers had had no plans to storm the Capitol on January 6.

https://nationalfile.com/exclusive-feds-withheld-exculpatory-evidence-charging-accused-1-6-protesters/

But according to Moseley, the indictment against his client alleges there was “a well-plotted Oath Keepers conspiracy to take over the Capitol on January 6.” He describes this allegation as the government “doubling down on things they know were false.” “Person 10,” according to FBI notes, made it clear he had no idea this was going to happen and “could not believe” people went into the Capitol. He, Rhodes and others had dinner at the Olive Garden that night and talked about this and also, incidentally, about “a girl that was shot.” I wonder if they knew then that the girl, Ashli Babbitt, had been unarmed and was shot in cold blood by federal security.

National File reports that “the interview with Person 10 now makes clear that he sought to remove Oath Keepers from any danger at the Capitol, and stop fights between protesters and police officers.” He said he was in charge of what they called their “Quick Detention Force,” which was intended to help provide security if there was an attack by “antifa or others.” It was never activated, he said.

Moseley told National File that they’ve got lots of other things they’re going to do as part of Kelly Meggs’ defense. He says other witnesses have confirmed “Person 10’s” story to the FBI. He suspects prosecutorial misconduct and will be seeking notes from the grand jury to determine this.

In another court case, a 39-year-old mother of four from Minnesota, Victoria White, is claiming that on January 6, she was forced into an entrance, trapped in a crush of people, and repeatedly beaten by police. Surveillance footage reportedly shows the woman, visible in a red MAGA hat, being hit with a baton and fist nearly 40 times in about 4 minutes.

https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/woman-claims-capitol-police-beat-her-video-jan-6-protest

A judge in the case has ordered that three hours of video from that day be released. So once again, it’s through court cases related to January 6 --- NOT the government’s sham “investigation” --- that will tell us more of what we need to know about that day.

Mike Huckabee

This letter came in response to our commentary on Mark Elias’ 2022 election strategy of aggressively using litigation to decide who gets seated in Congress. That story is not from the realm of “conspiracy theory” but of fact, as Elias has tweeted to the world that he's planning to do this.

From Barry B:

Mike, I am an ardent fan of yours, but I am also frustrated by the lack of willingness on the part of you and others to "wander down the path of conspiracy theories." That is precisely why people like Elias get away with their conspiracies. If you were to wander down that path, the farther you went, the more filth and corruption you would find. Are you implying that there is [not] and has never been a conspiracy? If not, how is a conspiracy defined?

If people like you won't dare to look, who will?

Blessings to you and your family for the New Year!

From the Gov:

Thanks for writing, Barry. I bring up Elias precisely because I DON’T want him to get away with what he’s doing. If you think we don’t see the filth and corruption or that we meant to imply there “is not and has never been a conspiracy,” I can only surmise you're new to this newsletter. We don’t wander aimlessly, but facts often lead us down a particular road.

To call something a conspiracy theory is not to say it’s true or untrue, because some turn out to be true or very largely true and others are ridiculous hoaxes. To explain, the term “conspiracy theory” is neutral, kind of like “unidentified flying object.” A conspiracy theory hasn’t been proved, so it remains a theory. Similarly, a UFO hasn’t been identified, so it remains...unidentified. The answer in both of these situations is (pardon the pun) up in the air, until there’s proof one way or the other.

Every single so-called conspiracy theory we’ve reported on as worthy of being taken seriously has either been proven true or is currently gathering more and more evidence in its favor. For example, regarding the theory that links Hillary's campaign and certain government insiders with the “dossier” and the whole media-driven “Russia!” hoax, we eagerly look forward to every development in John Durham’s special counsel investigation and seeing it connect another dot.

On the other hand, the Russia hoax itself is an example of a conspiracy theory that did not deserve to be taken seriously. Nothing in the “dossier” was verified. Yet it obsessed most of the media and leftist bureaucrats throughout Trump’s presidency, long after the “dossier” had been debunked and Devin Nunes’ House Intelligence Committee had determined Hillary’s campaign had paid for it.

At the same time, there really is evidence to support investigation into other so-called conspiracy theories. For example, though we condemned the Capitol Hill breach from the first, we’ve made it clear that there is considerable reason to demand an investigation of the FBI’s involvement and also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s curious refusal of National Guard troops to provide security. Merrick Garland’s “Justice” Department is too shamefully politicized to do this, but the next Republican-led Congress will no doubt open one of their own.

That can’t happen for another year –- and then only if Republicans take back the House, but at least that does seem likely. Meanwhile, Republicans in the minority --- including those Pelosi refused for her hand-picked “Special Committee” --- will have to ferret out what they can on their own, minus subpoena power. Thankfully, the fine reporting of such organizations as Revolver News will continue, and we'll keep bringing that and our commentary to you.

Another example: the stories from battleground states about coordinated election fraud constitute another conspiracy theory that must be thoroughly investigated. Over half the country has essentially no faith in the 2020 election; this cannot stand. We can’t say definitively that the election was stolen through, say, hacked machines, but there's enough question about this and other serious problems to warrant a full investigation of all the forces at play. Any time skeptics face draconian censorship or a lack of transparency regarding evidence, that’s a red flag saying, “Here’s a conspiracy theory that might very well pan out. Better dig into this!”

It’s easy to tell that the Democrats tailor their approach to facts to suit their immediate purposes, because they'll turn on a dime. For example, starting with George W. Bush’s win over Al Gore in 2000, the Democrats decided it was their patriotic duty to cry “Stolen!” and question every election they lost. That changed when Biden was declared the winner; suddenly it was “domestic terrorism” to question the outcome, even with ample reason to suspect fraud.

We do have to have some factual basis for taking conspiracy theories seriously. If we didn’t, we’d just be a right-leaning version of CNN or the DNC (same thing). You can trust us never to be like the news/opinion writers on the left who screamed “Russia Russia Russia!!” for years even after that conspiracy theory was revealed as hogwash. Look at how some reporters who spread false information about the “dossier” are STILL resisting putting out retractions.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/12/09/journalist-authors_isikoff_corn_also_fell_for_danchenkos_mythical_dossier_source_806998.html

Unless there’s been an update, Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News and David Corn of Mother Jones, who wrote a book together on the “dossier” called ‘RUSSIAN ROULETTE: The Inside Story of Putin’s War On America and the Election of Donald Trump,” have failed to retract significant mistakes, specifically about an alleged “dossier” source (who really wasn’t one) named Sergei Millian. They cited Millian, who supports Trump, as the source for that unsavory made-up story about Trump in a Moscow hotel, supposedly on video with Russian prostitutes. Durham’s indictment of Igor Danchenko suggests that the real source of the so-called “pee tape” story was former Hillary campaign adviser Charles Dolan.

What these two “journalists” were doing was furthering a conspiracy theory that is untrue. And still it seems they won’t give it up, though it’s been debunked so thoroughly it doesn't even qualify as a theory. Only a hoax.

We have confidence in our sources, and I would never, for example, discuss members of the Clinton-allied Brookings Institution being involved with the creation and spread of the “dossier” unless there were ample reason to suspect this. By reason, I don’t mean the kind of proof you’d need to make an airtight case in court, but simply enough evidence to warrant digging deeper.

You know the story of the boy who cried “Wolf!” He wasn't taken seriously when it really counted, so it would defeat our purpose to be like him. But rest assured we'll continue digging carefully into so-called conspiracy theories --- the ones that pass the smell test --- just as we always have done.

For example, in case you missed the latest on Hillary over the holidays, Durham is taking aim...

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/durham-zeroes-clinton-campaign-could-call-some-aides