Mike Huckabee

Wednesday, the House passed on a party-line vote a bill sponsored by Rep. Ilhan Omar that would require the Secretary of State to create an “Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia” worldwide led by a presidentially-appointed “special envoy for monitoring and combating Islamophobia.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/house-democrats-force-islamophobia-bill-without-single-republican-vote/

I can see a few problems with this. First of all, I doubt it will pass the Senate. Second, there’s no clear definition of what “Islamophobia” is. Omar herself uses it as a convenient word to throw at anyone who aims deserved criticism at her. She cited as an example President Trump’s “Muslim ban,” which didn’t actually exist. That was a propaganda term designed to assign vile motives to a reasonable security measure.

For those not up on their history, Trump temporarily blocked travel from a handful of nations that were known hotbeds of anti-American terrorism and that couldn’t properly vet people coming here. Some were majority Muslim but others were not, while many majority Muslim nations weren’t on the banned list. If he was banning Muslims, it sure was a weird way to go about it.

Another problem is that if you’re going to call all violence against Muslims Islamophobia, how do you account for the fact that the worst violence and oppression against Muslims is committed by other Muslims (case in point: the Taliban in Afghanistan.)

Finally, if we’re going to make policing Islamophobia a federal concern, then we should also police Anti-Semitism. And if we create an office to crack down on that, its first action should be to remove Ilhan Omar from Congress.

Mike Huckabee

There’s an old saying: “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” Last year, a number of corporations, terrified of being called "racist" by Twitter mobs, jumped on board the “woke” bandwagon, wrote big checks to BLM and the ACLU, and voiced solidarity with the reform (actually defund) the police movement. Well, they got what they asked for. Result?

This week, the CEOs of a number of those retail chains asked Congress to take action to save them from a wave of mass smash-and-grab robberies that have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost merchandise.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/retail-companies-support-police-reform-2020-ask-congress-increase-measures-retail-theft

They want Congress to pass the INFORM Consumers Act, to help safeguard consumers from buying stolen goods. Which sounds to me like putting a Band-Aid on a severed leg, and a stolen Band-Aid at that. Instead of hoping that people won’t buy stolen goods, how about stopping people from stealing? But proving that they’ve either learned nothing or are just cowards, some of these executives continue to praise, fund and support the same organizations such as BLM that have pushed the insane policies that have resulted in letting criminals take over entire cities.

Still, it’s good to see some tiny awareness of the connection between not prosecuting criminals and rising crime rates finally starting to dawn in the foggy brains of liberals. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose home district in San Francisco is Ground Zero for leftist-enabled criminality, actually acknowledged that the retail theft mobs stripping high-end stores are “absolutely outrageous.” She said, “Obviously, it cannot continue…None of it is acceptable. It has to be stopped.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/12/16/pelosi-cant-figure-out-sf-lawlessness-n2600635

But what’s causing it? She’s as clueless as the little girl in “Family Circus” who blames every problem on an invisible fairy named “Ida Know.” Pelosi went on:

“But the fact is that there is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from I don’t know where, maybe you do, but we cannot have that lawlessness.”

Ooh, ooh! I know! Do I get a free set of Louis Vuitton luggage if I give her the answer?

Well, it’s said that a conservative is a liberal who was mugged, and maybe some liberal politicians are finally getting mugged by reality and are waking up instead of getting “woke.” After years of treating criminals like fish at a “catch-and-release” pond, San Francisco’s uber-liberal Mayor London Breed suddenly turned on a dime and started channeling famous former Frisco cop, Dirty Harry Callahan.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/12/15/san-francisco-mayor-london-breed-makes-remarkable-concession-at-city-hall-on-smash-and-grabs-n492036

Breed declared, “It’s time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end. And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement. More aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerant of all the bull(BLEEP) that has destroyed our city.”

She added that this might “make a lot of people uncomfortable, and I don’t care. At the end of the day, the safety of the people of San Francisco is the most important thing to me.”

The police union fears that her rhetoric was a lot tougher than the plan she announced, but any acknowledgement of reality at all from police-defunding leftists has to be taken as a major leap forward. Still, I can’t help thinking that they are less concerned about all the criminals smashing and grabbing other people’s property than they are the thought of all those furious voters smashing into polling places and grabbing ballots next November.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we reported new developments about Nancy Pelosi’s ‘Special Committee’ to make the case that Liz Cheney is “the new Adam Schiff.

I regret to inform you, however, that the old Adam Schiff is still practicing his usual dark magic in Congress to make lies seem true. Consider what he did Monday night during a meeting of the committee.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/15/during-january-6-hearing-schiff-doctored-text-messages-between-mark-meadows-and-rep-jim-jordan/

Remember when Schiff claimed to have proof of “collusion” between Trump and Russia to help Trump win in 2016? Remember when it turned out he had nothing? And how that's just one of his claims that have turned out to be lies? Well, he’s at it again. Monday night, he said he had proof that a member of Congress (whose name he didn't specify, but it was Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan) texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to tell him to instruct Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

As Sean Davis at The Federalist reported Wednesday, not only did Schiff twist “the substance of the message and its source,” but he also doctored original text messages. The Federalist provided for comparison the original, complete text messages and included the video of Schiff doing this.

In the video, Schiff puts up a text and reads it out loud: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

“You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr. Meadows about,” Schiff says. But according to Davis, Schiff “erased significant portions of the text and added punctuation where there was none to give the impression that Jordan himself was tersely directing Meadows to give orders to Pence on how to handle the electoral vote certification.”

The original text, though, was not from Jordan, but from Washington attorney and former Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, who had also attached a four-page “discussion draft” of a document detailing Schmitz’s legal reasoning for suggesting Pence had the authority to object to certification in “a handful of states.” Not the same thing as what Schiff was claiming at all.

Schiff had sliced-and-diced a three-paragraph summary of the document that Schmitz had sent to Jordan and then wrongly attributed it to Jordan.

Specifically, the graphic quoted above was achieved by deleting the last part of the original first sentence, which would have read, “ --- in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence.” One can see how Schiff might not have wanted that part of the sentence in there, so “poof!” the inconvenient phrase was gone.

There was more that Schiff had left out: Schmitz quoted Hamilton citing case law (Hubbard v. Lowe) and used that to support the argument that “an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally elected statute, is no elector at all.”

Schiff had erased the final two paragraphs and the final clause of the first paragraph before substituting his own punctuation to make it look as if that was all there was to the quote. Russell Dye, spokesman for Rep. Jordan, asked, “Is anyone surprised that Adam Schiff is again rifling through private text messages and cherry-picking information to fit his partisan narrative and sow misinformation?”

According to Davis’ sources, Schiff never approached Jordan to discuss the text message before taking it upon himself to change it. If he had, Jordan could have made it clear to him that he had just been passing along an attorney’s summarized legal argument. In fact, Jordan is known for NOT texting much more than “yes” or “no,” certainly not detailed legal arguments, so a text like this from him wouldn’t have been believable to people who knew him. Schiff didn’t care.

Significantly, one source said this: “...You have to remember what was going on at the time. People were sending around these law review articles and debates left and right because we had an interest in learning the facts and getting them right. And if it’s somehow seditious in this country to debate or share a law review article on Alexander Hamilton’s view on things, that’s not really a country I want to be a part of anymore.”

Davis’ report goes into Schiff’s long history of doctoring “evidence” and misrepresenting facts, and I highly recommend it. Laura Ingraham’s Wednesday show does this as well, with guest Mollie Hemingway, who also reviews what we’ve said about why the committee is not legitimate. Recall that Schiff has been caught in lies multiple times; one major example: denying he knew the identity of the mysterious impeachment “whistleblower,” who turned out to be a scammer named Eric Ciaramella who had contacted Schiff’s office before even submitting his bogus complaint.

If you have a premium subscription to The Epoch Times, check out this story by Jack Phillips, who reports that the committee has had to admit the doctoring, with a spokesperson claiming a period was placed at the end “inadvertently.” Right. “The Select Committee is responsible for and regrets the error,” they said dryly, after they got caught.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/house-jan-6-committee-confirms-it-altered-text-message-between-meadows-and-jordan_

Of course, they still voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress, as planned all along.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/hold-vote-mark-meadows-held-criminal-contempt-congress

Mark Levin, on Wednesday with Sean Hannity, suggested doing something about “this whining, unethical hack.” “Lawyers are not free to doctor evidence,” he said, noting that Schiff is trying with this to railroad (my word) Meadows into prison. It’s time to file a serious ethics complaint against Schiff, with the ethics arm of the Supreme Court of California, Levin said. A private citizen can do this, but he’s suggesting that Republicans in Congress do it. Agreed –- it’s time for Schiff to lose his law license.

Levin added, “If you want to see what the old Soviet Union was like,” look at this committee. Of course, we’ve been making that case, pointing out that they’ve violated virtually the entire Bill Of Rights, as well as the separation of powers. Also, Congress does not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations. No one should take seriously anything that comes out of this fake committee.

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted, “Expect a lot more of this. Schiff and the contemptible Jan6 committee will twist and smear the narrative every chance they get.” And Rep. Dan Bishop sounded a lot like me when he tweeted, “Adam Schiff is the Jussie Smollett of Congress.”

By the way, about “the NEW Adam Schiff” (Liz Cheney; see yesterday’s commentary), she’s facing at least one impressive primary challenge in '22, by actual Republican Harriet Hageman. Calling all Republicans in Wyoming: One Adam Schiff is more than enough; we sure don’t need another one infesting Congress, especially on our side of the aisle. Here’s Harriet on the issues.

https://www.hagemanforwyoming.com/issues

Mike Huckabee

One of the books I wrote is called a “Simple Christmas.” It was one of my favorites of the 14 books I’ve written in part because it isn’t a political book at all. It’s a series of personal stories that illustrate how the most meaningful Christmases of our lives are often the simplest ones. It’s not having the most elaborate tree or decorations, or setting the perfect table with the perfect menu, perfectly cooked and served. That rarely happens anyway. The best Christmas is usually the one that is most like the very first one—very simple. A young pregnant unmarried teenage girl probably about 14, ended up in labor while taking a trip with her fiancé, a young Jewish carpenter named Joseph. They were in a sleepy little town called Bethlehem, but there was no place for them to seek refuge and for Mary to deliver her baby other than a borrowed cave where animals were kept and fed. In a feeding trough that was designed to feed sheep and goats, she placed her newborn son. It was nothing like the scene depicted in church pageants where things seemed so…well, so clean and holy, and angelic. This was a nasty, smelly place fit for farm animals not intended to be a delivery room for a human baby. But when God wanted to reveal Himself to mankind, He didn’t choose to come in a chariot of blazing fire surrounded by angles and choirs and wonderous miracles. He came in the most humble of circumstances and in a way that identified with the lowliest people on earth—not the wealthiest or most powerful. He still is doing that. He shows up to bring comfort and love to the people who the world views as the unlovable and untouchable. No place is too low and no person is too lost for Him. It’s why I think of Christmas in simple terms. Simple memories of playing checkers with my Uncle Garvin, a lifelong bachelor who came and stayed at our house every Christmas. Or my Aunt Mary’s popcorn balls that she made every year and brought to the family Christmas dinner. They were so chewy and sticky from the Karo Syrup she made them with that it’s a miracle any of us had teeth after eating one. And my mother made chocolate chip cookies with chocolate chips and pecans that came from the pecan trees in our yard. They are still the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. At least that’s how I remember them.

I remember some of my Christmas gifts from childhood, especially the electric guitar that I begged for 3 Christmases in a row, always being told we couldn’t afford it, so what else did I want? After 3 years of getting “what else,” I finally declared I wanted an electric guitar or nothing. Only when I was an adult did I found out how close I was that year to getting the nothing. But that year, my parents ordered for my Christmas my first electric guitar from the JC Penney catalog. The whole rig, amp and all cost $99, which to them was a fortune. It took them a full year to pay for it, a little each month and they didn’t do much Christmas for themselves that year. But it was a simple guitar that changed my life. Not that I was ever good enough to make a living at it, but learning to play meant learning that for every hour of performing, there are hours of practice—a good life lesson for every endeavor. And playing in front of people helped me overcome what was an incredible shyness that you wouldn’t probably recognize today. So as you prepare for your Christmas, keep it simple. God did. And it sure has made a difference in our lives that He did.

Mike Huckabee

Last night, I appeared with Joe Concha on Sean Hannity’s TV show to talk about disgusting attempts by the administration and the media (same thing) to distort what FOX News personalities texted in real time about the Capitol Hill breach. This happened after Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney took to the floor of Congress and, like a monster, read aloud private text messages to try to imply something nefarious.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-about-those-jan-6-texts

The funniest part of that wall-to-wall media coverage, I thought, was watching someone from CNN talk about all the “lying” on FOX News. As I told Sean, the people on CNN make Jussie Smollett look like Abraham Lincoln when it comes to honesty. There was nothing untoward going on at all. This was just people saying, “Look, this is getting out of hand; it’s gonna hurt the President’s legacy and his reputation.” An honest concern. These were people who cared deeply about the President and the country and about what was happening.

As Byron York said, “The bottom line is there is much less to the texts story than the critics would have you believe. Of course, don’t look for those critics to admit that.”

I’ve been very clear from Day 1 that I strongly condemn what happened that day, and every last conservative I know feels the same way about what those chuckleheads (who were, in fact, unarmed) did. As Joe Concha said on the show, our feelings about this are well-documented.

What we’ve never heard from the other side is any real concern about the fate of the only person who lost her life to violence that day: Ashli Babbitt. This whole thing is just a political game that the Democrats are playing.

Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, current chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are the two Republican members of Congress nominated by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Special Committee” who were actually denied a seat. Instead of seating these two as she was supposed to, Pelosi took it upon HERSELF to choose the only two Republicans she allowed on the committee, the aforementioned Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. She could have searched the world over and not have found two more vicious political enemies of President Trump than these. And in seating them instead of Banks and Jordan, she violated the terms of the legislation that had been passed to set up the committee in the first place. Also, as we’ve reported, she didn’t even appoint enough total committee members to comply with the law. Her committee is, by all appearances, bogus, a kangaroo court.

Obviously, the fix was in from the beginning, courtesy of Madame Speaker. This “investigation” is a sham, every bit as much as her two sham impeachments were.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/12/14/as-the-january-6-commission-stumbles-who-has-it-worse-the-democrats-or-the-media-n491400

Rep. Banks, in another segment of Hannity’s Tuesday show, said, “Today, we had over an hour of debate on the floor, and there was absolutely not a word spoken by Liz Cheney or the Democrats about anything related to protecting the Capitol, the breakdown of security of the Capitol...or what we’re gonna do to make sure another [similar event] doesn’t happen…...they don’t care about that. The only thing they care about is tearing down their political opponents, in this case putting their political opponents in jail. They know that [former Trump chief of staff] Mark Meadows is a good man, because they served with him for seven years.”

Meadows reached across the aisle, Banks said, even working with Liz Cheney to write over 40 bills. “They know he did nothing wrong,” Banks said, “but because he worked with Donald Trump, they want to put him behind bars.” If they could do that to Meadows, he said, imagine what they could do to any Trump supporter.

As Hannity reported Tuesday evening, the ex-Capitol Police chief said his requests for National Guard troops was denied six times by Pelosi, who had the duty of oversight. Finally, days later, his request was granted, but the damage had been done, no doubt to her delight. Significantly, President Trump had made the National Guard available to her, and so had Mark Meadows. If Trump had really wanted to have an “insurrection” on Capitol Hill, why would he have offered the services of the National Guard to thwart it?

And why did YOU, Nancy, refuse the additional security when you were in charge? THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED, but she’s preventing that. Even such liberal news outlets as the Daily Beast and Politico have raised questions about the lack of security that day. But Banks told Hannity that the real reason she kept him and Jordan off the committee is that they were daring to ask about that.

“We had the leadership of the United States Capitol Police Union tell us that they weren’t prepared for what happened...they weren’t equipped for it, they weren’t trained for it. Even though there was intelligence weeks before...that something like this could happen, we were asking those questions, and that’s why Pelosi immediately fired us from the committee, because she didn’t want to go there.”

Banks said the Republicans were continuing to conduct interviews and investigate to determine what happened and how to keep the Capitol secure, and also were “telling the American people the truth about this fake, politicized commission that Pelosi and Liz Cheney and others are leading.”

“Liz Cheney is the new Adam Schiff,” he said. “She’s got her hands on emails and texts, she’s leaking them, she’s using them for political purposes and abusing her power...We’re actually digging into the facts...[to] change the bureaucratic mess that allowed that travesty to happen and make sure that something like that never happens again.”

Personally, I like what Dan Bongino said about the committee and Cheney: “This committee’s an embarrassment. It’s an immoral, unethical, unconstitutional disgrace to humanity. What Liz Cheney did last night was disgusting. Liz Cheney should never be welcomed in polite company in the Republican Party again….She decided yesterday to go and read people’s private text messages, pursuant to subpoena power they don’t have in Congress...This is an attempt to silence conservatives like you and I from communicating before the ‘22 election.” It sends the message that it’s open season on Trump supporters.

(Side note: I’d link to the HANNITY segment with Bongino but would rather spare you the nasty argument between him and Geraldo Rivera that always ensues. FOX News might think putting them on together is good for ratings, but it’s not good for television, so please think again. I digress.)

Recall that after his speech on the day of the rally, President Trump said to his supporters, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol Building, to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard...” That should be the most important take-away from the story of that day, but it’s being deliberately upstaged by all the shameless political theatre in this hideous third act.

Mike Huckabee

Wednesday is December 15, otherwise known as Bill Of Rights Day as designated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Bill Of Rights is 230 years old and starting to feel some serious wear and tear.

Believe it or not, our nation actually takes one day out of the year to pay homage to the Bill Of Rights, at least officially. The rest of the time, those ten amendments are largely trashed, as “progressives” try to dilute it, creatively misinterpret it, find ways around it, or add to it with new rights that were not intended. Leftists see this enumeration of rights mostly as an inconvenience, the dusty relic of a bygone age, believing that they, the geniuses who are so adept at running things (into the ground), should be able to assume power at will.

We’ve often quipped that today’s elected leaders, lawyers and bureaucrats read the Constitution the way W.C. Fields used to read the Bible –- looking for loopholes. But on Wednesday, it’s time for everyone to pay respect and think about what's at stake. For more about the Bill Of Rights, here’s a helpful website.

https://nationaltoday.com/bill-rights-day/

“The Bill Of Rights incorporates the basic rights every human being should have,” it says. Well, yes. But these rights are rare and precious indeed, and I don’t need to tell you that they’re gravely endangered even within our own country.

We found some surprising information on this website. For example, did you know that not all the states ratified the Bill Of Rights right away? They had enough votes in 1791, but Massachusetts, Connecticut and Georgia waited until 1939 to ratify it! No explanation given.

The Bill Of Rights, which can be viewed today in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington DC, was introduced by fourth U.S. President-to-be James Madison. (He originally drafted 19 amendments, but the list was whittled down to 10.) The Anti-Federalists had been hesitating to approve the Constitution as originally written, and it was Thomas Jefferson who suggested to Madison that a Bill Of Rights was what they needed, to guarantee “what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.”

New Jersey wast the first state to ratify it, in 1789, and the country completed this process on December 15, 1791. The bill codified our most fundamental rights: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to protest, due process, and equal protection under the law. (I already know what you’re thinking --- what has happened to all of these?) We also have the right to bear arms, the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and more. It’s important to say that the government doesn’t grant us these rights; it recognizes that they belong to us by virtue of God’s grace and natural law. The Bill Of Rights was set up to prevent the government from abridging our liberties. Little did the founders know that 230 years later, the government would morph at will into a cheesy magic act and “poof!” make those rights disappear.

To that point, Jane Hampton Cook has a timely column in American Greatness, asking the question, “Have Americans Surrendered Their Liberties on the Bill Of Rights’ 230th Anniversary?”

She notes that The Bill Of Rights’ 150th anniversary happened to fall 8 days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, bringing us into a war in two hemispheres, World War II, with no guarantee of victory. At that time, Americans could feel what an attack on liberty was, because it was sudden and literal, with bombs and guns.

FDR believed that nothing could make Americans surrender their rights. “What we face is nothing more nor less than an attempt to overthrow and to cancel the great upsurge of human liberty of which the American Bill Of Rights is the fundamental document,” he said. If they could, our enemies would once again impose “absolute authority and despotic rule.”

https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A0F99DDB671832188%40GB3NEWS-10337DF24C5528ED%402430345-10337DF26AC6A9D7%402-10337DF3B08894A1?utm_source=NBAS&referrer=https%3A//amgreatness.com/2021/12/13/have-americans-surrendered-their-liberties-on-the-bill-of-rights-230th-anniversary

Roosevelt explained that under totalitarianism, “the individual has no right by virtue of his humanity, no right to a soul, a mind, a tongue or a trade of his own or to live where he pleases,” adding that his duty is “one of obedience only to Adolf Hitler.” We see this today in societies such as China, where the CCP demands loyalty and compliance from its people –- not to mention from others even in our country who would do business there, and those in our government who would hope to maintain negotiating privileges. They’re extremely touchy and we wouldn’t want to upset them.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/12/state-dept-denies-cutting-taiwan-minister-video-feed-after-map-showed-country-in-different-color-than-china/

Sadly, as Cook points out, the American people have shown FDR to be wrong by allowing their most basic rights to be trampled. This has happened on a variety of fronts; Cook in her column focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consider this quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci: “There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your original right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.” And who decides what the right decision is for you to make for the greater good of society? Not you, goodness knows. It’s Dr. Fauci, of course.

It’s not my purpose here to get into the efficacy of vaccines and lockdowns, as –- note the irony –- I’d like to be able to make my general point about freedom without being blocked on social media. I’m vaccinated myself. We’re not talking about viruses right now unless you mean the metaphorical kind that are trying to weaken and even kill the Bill Of Rights. For that vital document to survive and mean anything, our love of freedom has to transcend other concerns.

“The rise of censorship, the rise of suppression of religious freedoms, of property rights, closing a million businesses without just compensation or due process...all of these –- and the rise of a kind of track-and-trace surveillance state has been troubling to people, both Democrats and Republicans,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said to Tucker Carlson on FOX News recently.

He has also said this: “All of these rights that the founders of our country died for, sacrificed their properties, their livelihoods, to give us the Bill Of Rights, and all these rights over 20 months [of the pandemic] have been obliterated, taken from the American people.”

“Fear stops us from exercising critical thinking,” he said. “It allows us to believe that if we just do what we’re told, that is the only way to save our lives.”

“We’re lucky that there was a whole generation of Americans in 1776 who said it would be better to die than to not have these rights written down,” he said. “And they gave us that. They gave us the Bill Of Rights.”

Yes, but they were acting as the conduit; ultimately it was God who gave us the Bill Of Rights. Our rights have to be considered THAT SACRED. We certainly can’t let 21st Century control freaks take them away 230 years later.

Mike Huckabee

Our hope is that our newsletter readers and social media followers will consider these prayer requests each day.

HEALTH AND HEALING

"Healing in my back. Very painful at times. From an old injury."

"Please pray for Andrew, age 17, having two serious surgeries to remove a very large, aggressive tumor in and around sinus area. Tuesday, 12/14 first surgery and Wednesday 12/15 lengthy removal surgery. Prayers for complete healing with no complications. Also pray for his surgeon and the operating team that God’s hands may guide them. Thank you and God bless you and yours."

"Pray that Linda will stay well enough to avoid dialysis. My cancer is in remission, but the heavy chemo ruined my kidneys. I am caregiver to my mother and husband and must stay well to help them. I do not have time for more medical problems. Thank you God, for remission of cancer. I am very grateful."

"My cousin just lost her 27-yr old daughter in an auto wreck leaving a 4 1/2 yr old daughter to be raised by grandmother. Please pray for healing, strength, comfort and peace."

"Michelle, Melis, Eric, Thomas healing and to grow in Jesus."

"Debra; In need of heart operation. Wisdom for Doctors. Son James brokn leg and wrist. Need to experience the Love from Heavenly Father. Healing body mind and sol. Relationship with parensts[ Healthy]. Blessings"

"For those in the quad states who are trying to recover from tornados!"

"Fred, I have a enlarged prostate."

"Prayers for my son & family. He's straying outside his marriage. He claims his wife doesn't care. She refuses to honor her vows to him & clings to her parents (even others have seen this ). Pray for the woman that has come between them - her two young sons are mentally challenged. She needs prayer too because of her own sexual immorality. My granddaughters need prayers of protection from all of this. My Daughter needs healing of her mental illnesses. She is in assisted living due to her mental status. I was widowed last summer for the second time and since then my husband's adult children and grand children have all abandoned me. My husband and I were very happily married for almost 27 years after both being widowed. I would ask prayer that they honor their promises to see that I am cared for & taken care of. I ask that the husband of my stepdaughter be healed from what he has suffered from & be restored to health."

"My sister MaryAnn had a glioblastoma tumor removed and now she can no longer speak and is paralyzed on her right side. We need a Miracle ????????"

"My husband was brought tothe ER with stomach pain, for a CTscan. A pancreatic cyst was discovered, and since he had a low grade fever of 100, a PCR test was done. Positive. Suddenly, nothing else mattered. The CT scan & his pain were largely ignored, and his gastro dr refuses to see him for 14 days. He can't eat or sleep well. Then, I developed symptoms of either flu, cold or C*vid. Praise God for my daughter who helps me, as I am caregiver for my sister. Please pray God heals all concerned, and uses this for his glory."

"Please pray for my husband who has serious medical problems. Thank you all so much."

"My daughter has 4th stage lung cancer, cancer in her hip, she has COPD, kidney disease, diabetes, bronchial problems. Please pray for healing."

IN MEMORIAM

"My daughter Tonya,taken by Fentanyl overdose,not self inflicted.(thank you Cartel!)"

Mike Huckabee

Sometimes our readers have the most wonderful ideas. Last week we received one from Jeanne W:

“I wonder why no one has considered demanding [Nancy] Pelosi’s texts/records of her calls and communications during January leading up to the ‘riot’ on the 6th. I fully believe she is behind it; she made it very obvious that she hated President Trump and would do anything to get rid of him and keep him from running for any office again…I want to see the TRUTH come out on what really happened that day and justice served to the guilty parties. Keep up the good work, Mike, and thanks again for keeping us informed!”

Calling for texts and call records of Pelosi and her cohorts --- I would say for all of January --- is a fabulous idea. If I were one of those being threatened with subpoenas, my response would be, “Why, Madame Speaker, I’ll be happy to submit all this information voluntarily, no subpoena needed, but under one condition. You, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler must do the same. Let’s see what YOU were talking about regarding the January 6 rally. Deal?”

Whether Democrats were working behind the scenes and even infiltrating the rally to maximize the impact of the Capitol Hill security breach is still an open question. We can’t prove it, but there’s evidence to suggest it.

“Now hold on!” Pelosi might say. “No bargaining! The commission has subpoena power, period, and you don’t, so just shut up and hand over your records.” Um, Nancy, YOU hold on. This might not be a legitimate commission at all, and if so it has no subpoena power. As superlawyer Margot Cleveland noted in her December 10 column, Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows has filed a federal complaint against the Select Committee as well as the individual committee members, alleging the subpoenas are invalid, most importantly because they were not issued by a “duly authorized” commission.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/10/another-lawsuit-holds-the-key-to-trumps-best-defense-against-the-jan-6-committee/

Section 2(a) of House Resolution 503, which created the commission, requires Speaker Pelosi to “appoint 13 members to the Select Committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.” But Pelosi appointed only 9 members, and only 2 of these are Republicans (the worst anti-Trumpers she could find; more about them below). “None of these members was appointed from the selection of five GOP congressmen put forth by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,” Meadows’ lawsuit states. The commission was never properly constituted. (Once again, the Democrats fail to comply with their own rules.) Because of this, it says, the commission lacks authority to act under Resolution 503. Translation: NO SUBPOENAS.

Pelosi’s refusal to seat any of McCarthy’s choices shows what a political ploy this “investigation” is. “Once in focus,” Cleveland writes, “one can see there is a strong interest in preserving executive privilege, and none in pushing a partisan dog-and-pony show trial."

Recall that Meadows has been informed by the chairman of the commission, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, that they would pursue criminal contempt charges against him. Here’s another write-up on Meadows’ lawsuit, by Joel B. Pollak for Breitbart.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/08/mark-meadows-sues-nancy-pelosi-and-every-member-of-january-6-committee-unconstitutional/

Meadows has already turned over some material to this commission, including a PowerPoint presentation that is the left’s Obsession Of The Day. They say it’s the “smoking gun” showing Trump’s inner circle was planning to take over Washington. Au contraire. Some apparently examined the idea of declaring a national emergency because they suspected the election REALLY HAD been interfered with. But, obviously, this idea went nowhere. There is no evidence Trump’s legal advisors, let alone Trump himself, even saw this, let alone might have acted on it. Where did it even come from? We don’t know.

To give you an idea of how the left is blowing this up, here’s the (blatantly slanted) report from The Guardian.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/capitol-attack-panel-obtains-powerpoint-that-set-out-plan-for-trump-to-stage-coup/ar-AARHAqE?ocid=msedgntp

Moving on...It’s been gratifying to hear from so many readers who want to send mail to the detainees. We included a link in our story of December 11 to a website that gave contact information for them. Here it is again, for the Patriot Freedom Project.

https://www.patriotfreedomproject.com/connect-with-a-1/6er

Important: We’ve heard from a few readers that when they tried to post this link on Facebook, they were blocked. Please let us know if this happens!

Finally, this from Gloria Jean B:

“Can we request Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham start talking about the injustice being done to the Jan. 6th prisoners. Maybe their names could be announced every night. We have to do more than send cards. I have been praying for these people for months. This is an example of Nazi Germany! We have to help these people now!!”

Thanks for writing, Gloria. Some at FOX News have been paying attention, especially Carlson, who produced a provocative show for FOX Nation called “Patriot Purge.”

https://teamtuckercarlson.com/news/watch-tucker-blows-the-doors-off-jan-6-narrative-with-new-doc/

You can stream it with a free trial membership to Fox Nation.

https://nation.foxnews.com/watch/a37dafe2a435b63ba8179e4b935d5b5c/

Some at FOX, notably Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, have even left the channel over this show, saying it’s irresponsible and promotes the conspiracy theory of a “false flag” operation on Capitol Hill. Now, we can’t say definitively that the breach was or wasn’t “helped” by FBI agents infiltrating pro-Trump groups, but viciously anti-Trump Illinois “GOP” congressman Adam Kinzinger has called the show “pure evil,” which makes me think it must be pretty darn good. Wyoming anti-Trump congresswoman Liz Cheney hated it, too. Personally, I’d wear those critiques as badges of honor.

https://www.newsweek.com/pure-evil-republican-adam-kinzinger-blasts-tucker-carlson-abusing-viewers-trust-1644285

By the way, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are the two “Republican” members of Congress appointed by Nancy Pelosi to the January 6 commission. She even made Cheney the co-chair.

One thing I’d love to see FOX News report on: the difference in how the January 6 “domestic terrorists” and the REAL terrorists detained at Gitmo have been treated by the legal profession. As Allison Schuster reported in The Federalist a couple of months ago, at least 50 high-powered law firms went out of their way to defend actual Gitmo terrorists –- pro bono –- but have ignored the plight of the Americans being held without bail on charges related to January 6. We’ve learned that most of these detainees have not been allowed to see their lawyers; maybe they don’t HAVE lawyers. This piece is a must-read.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/26/law-firms-that-raced-to-defend-terrorists-in-gitmo-leave-j6-defendants-out-to-dry/

The January 6 commission tries to paint the events of that day as an “insurrection,” but absolutely NO ONE has been charged with insurrection. For when you have time –- and to cleanse your palate after that last story –- I’ll leave you with a transcript of the lecture given by Roger Kimball in September at Hillsdale College. It superbly summarizes not one but two hoaxes: the one about Trump-Russia “collusion” and the one about “insurrection.”

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/january-6-insurrection-hoax/

Mike Huckabee

Sometimes our readers have the most wonderful ideas. Last week we received one from Jeanne W:

“I wonder why no one has considered demanding [Nancy] Pelosi’s texts/records of her calls and communications during January leading up to the ‘riot’ on the 6th. I fully believe she is behind it; she made it very obvious that she hated President Trump and would do anything to get rid of him and keep him from running for any office again…I want to see the TRUTH come out on what really happened that day and justice served to the guilty parties. Keep up the good work, Mike, and thanks again for keeping us informed!”

Calling for texts and call records of Pelosi and her cohorts --- I would say for all of January --- is a fabulous idea. If I were one of those being threatened with subpoenas, my response would be, “Why, Madame Speaker, I’ll be happy to submit all this information voluntarily, no subpoena needed, but under one condition. You, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler must do the same. Let’s see what YOU were talking about regarding the January 6 rally. Deal?”

Whether Democrats were working behind the scenes and even infiltrating the rally to maximize the impact of the Capitol Hill security breach is still an open question. We can’t prove it, but there’s evidence to suggest it.

“Now hold on!” Pelosi might say. “No bargaining! The commission has subpoena power, period, and you don’t, so just shut up and hand over your records.” Um, Nancy, YOU hold on. This might not be a legitimate commission at all, and if so it has no subpoena power. As superlawyer Margot Cleveland noted in her December 10 column, Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows has filed a federal complaint against the Select Committee as well as the individual committee members, alleging the subpoenas are invalid, most importantly because they were not issued by a “duly authorized” commission.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/10/another-lawsuit-holds-the-key-to-trumps-best-defense-against-the-jan-6-committee/

Section 2(a) of House Resolution 503, which created the commission, requires Speaker Pelosi to “appoint 13 members to the Select Committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.” But Pelosi appointed only 9 members, and only 2 of these are Republicans (the worst anti-Trumpers she could find; more about them below). “None of these members was appointed from the selection of five GOP congressmen put forth by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,” Meadows’ lawsuit states. The commission was never properly constituted. (Once again, the Democrats fail to comply with their own rules.) Because of this, it says, the commission lacks authority to act under Resolution 503. Translation: NO SUBPOENAS.

Pelosi’s refusal to seat any of McCarthy’s choices shows what a political ploy this “investigation” is. “Once in focus,” Cleveland writes, “one can see there is a strong interest in preserving executive privilege, and none in pushing a partisan dog-and-pony show trial."

Recall that Meadows has been informed by the chairman of the commission, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, that they would pursue criminal contempt charges against him. Here’s another write-up on Meadows’ lawsuit, by Joel B. Pollak for Breitbart.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/12/08/mark-meadows-sues-nancy-pelosi-and-every-member-of-january-6-committee-unconstitutional/

Meadows has already turned over some material to this commission, including a PowerPoint presentation that is the left’s Obsession Of The Day. They say it’s the “smoking gun” showing Trump’s inner circle was planning to take over Washington. Au contraire. Some apparently examined the idea of declaring a national emergency because they suspected the election REALLY HAD been interfered with. But, obviously, this idea went nowhere. There is no evidence Trump’s legal advisors, let alone Trump himself, even saw this, let alone might have acted on it. Where did it even come from? We don’t know.

To give you an idea of how the left is blowing this up, here’s the (blatantly slanted) report from The Guardian.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/capitol-attack-panel-obtains-powerpoint-that-set-out-plan-for-trump-to-stage-coup/ar-AARHAqE?ocid=msedgntp

Moving on...It’s been gratifying to hear from so many readers who want to send mail to the detainees. We included a link in our story of December 11 to a website that gave contact information for them. Here it is again, for the Patriot Freedom Project.

https://www.patriotfreedomproject.com/connect-with-a-1/6er

Important: We’ve heard from a few readers that when they tried to post this link on Facebook, they were blocked. Please let us know if this happens!

Finally, this from Gloria Jean B:

“Can we request Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham start talking about the injustice being done to the Jan. 6th prisoners. Maybe their names could be announced every night. We have to do more than send cards. I have been praying for these people for months. This is an example of Nazi Germany! We have to help these people now!!”

Thanks for writing, Gloria. Some at FOX News have been paying attention, especially Carlson, who produced a provocative show for FOX Nation called “Patriot Purge.”

https://teamtuckercarlson.com/news/watch-tucker-blows-the-doors-off-jan-6-narrative-with-new-doc/

You can stream it with a free trial membership to Fox Nation.

https://nation.foxnews.com/watch/a37dafe2a435b63ba8179e4b935d5b5c/

Some at FOX, notably Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, have even left the channel over this show, saying it’s irresponsible and promotes the conspiracy theory of a “false flag” operation on Capitol Hill. Now, we can’t say definitively that the breach was or wasn’t “helped” by FBI agents infiltrating pro-Trump groups, but viciously anti-Trump Illinois “GOP” congressman Adam Kinzinger has called the show “pure evil,” which makes me think it must be pretty darn good. Wyoming anti-Trump congresswoman Liz Cheney hated it, too. Personally, I’d wear those critiques as badges of honor.

https://www.newsweek.com/pure-evil-republican-adam-kinzinger-blasts-tucker-carlson-abusing-viewers-trust-1644285

By the way, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are the two “Republican” members of Congress appointed by Nancy Pelosi to the January 6 commission. She even made Cheney the co-chair.

One thing I’d love to see FOX News report on: the difference in how the January 6 “domestic terrorists” and the REAL terrorists detained at Gitmo have been treated by the legal profession. As Allison Schuster reported in The Federalist a couple of months ago, at least 50 high-powered law firms went out of their way to defend actual Gitmo terrorists –- pro bono –- but have ignored the plight of the Americans being held without bail on charges related to January 6. We’ve learned that most of these detainees have not been allowed to see their lawyers; maybe they don’t HAVE lawyers. This piece is a must-read.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/26/law-firms-that-raced-to-defend-terrorists-in-gitmo-leave-j6-defendants-out-to-dry/

The January 6 commission tries to paint the events of that day as an “insurrection,” but absolutely NO ONE has been charged with insurrection. For when you have time –- and to cleanse your palate after that last story –- I’ll leave you with a transcript of the lecture given by Roger Kimball in September at Hillsdale College. It superbly summarizes not one but two hoaxes: the one about Trump-Russia “collusion” and the one about “insurrection.”

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/january-6-insurrection-hoax/

Mike Huckabee

Harry Truman was a Democratic President who famously said of his presidential desk, “The buck stops here.” Meaning that it was a President’s job to step up and not try to shift blame or responsibility to someone else.

Oh, how things have changed! For our current Administration, the buck always gets passed to the same person. Every time Biden messes up, he passes the buck to Donald Trump (no wonder he’s a billionaire!) Biden can’t even take responsibility for his own words without trying to point his finger at Trump.

Friday, in light of the conviction of actor Jussie Smollett for concocting a hoax racial attack and trying to blame it on Trump supporters, Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked if he would retract his initial comments supporting Smollett. She replied, “I think there are lessons learned perhaps for everybody who commented at the time, including former President Trump.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-white-house-responds-jussie-smollett-conviction-pointing-fingers-trump/

However, this was one time when Trump was actually cautious with his words. He said of the alleged attack, “I can tell you that it’s horrible. It doesn’t get worse,” but he didn’t leap to conclusions, buy into Smollett’s defamatory narrative, and imply that Trump supporters were violent racists and homophobes, the way Biden, VP Harris and so many other prominent Democrats did.

https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1469129111327051777

Biden is proving that unlike Truman, he is quick to leap to conclusions and accuse others before he knows the facts, but he never accepts responsibility for things that he actually did himself. Whatever it is, it’s always Trump’s fault. With Biden, the buck never arrives. And even if it did, thanks to inflation, one of Truman’s 1950 bucks would only be worth nine cents.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/surging-inflation-eroding-wage-gains-americans#&_intcmp=hp1bt5,hp1bt

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

The online subscription learning service Masterclass is offering a new video in which Hillary Clinton “face(s) one of my most public defeats head-on” by reading the speech she’d planned to make if she’d won the 2016 election (which, I happily remind you, she did not.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/money-grubbing-hillary-clinton-will-read-2016-victory-speech-pay-first/

I’m not certain what this is supposed to be a Masterclass in. If Masterclass hired Hillary Clinton to teach people how to be a good loser, then their subscribers deserve a refund. They claim she’s teaching “resilience,” but that has to be a sick joke. The New York Post’s Miranda Divine suggested that it must be a Masterclass in “self-pity and delusion.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/hillary-clinton-2016-victory-speech

Watching Hillary get choked up as she reads a victory speech for a race she lost five years ago is frankly sad. It reminds me of Dickens’ Miss Havisham from “Great Expectations,” still wearing the decaying wedding dress she put on years before, only to be left at the altar.

You know, Hillary, if you actually have something to say, you could be saying it from some other position. News flash: I also didn’t get elected President in 2016, yet I somehow manage to get up each day and continue communicating to the public through this newsletter, my podcast, my TV show and other venues. You lose, you deal with it, and life goes on. If you have such a sense of entitlement about deserving the Presidency that losing it cripples your life, then you’re the type of person who should never be President.

If Masterclass wants to have Hillary Clinton teach something useful that she actually knows, they should let her do a course on influence peddling.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/04/clinton-foundation-hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-decrease-donations-corruption/

According to a study by the nonpartisan Project On Government Oversight (POGO), her family charitable organization The Clinton Foundation took in nearly $250 million in donations in 2009, after she became Secretary of State. Donations remained high up through her run for President. Then donations dropped precipitously to less than $29 million in 2020. Did Hillary’s loss so demoralize donors that they lost their charitable impulses?

A counsel for POGO said, “Many people thought people were supporting the former President, but it really looks like they were cozying up to who they thought was going to be the future President — a situation that can’t be repeated.”

While I agree it can’t be repeated, I have to take exception to one part of that. Did anyone ever seriously believe all those big donors thought they were just supporting the former President?

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

We’ve had so much news to cover recently that I haven’t had an opportunity to write about this, but I don’t want to let the passing of Arlene Dahl go unmentioned. One of the last glamorous stars of Hollywood’s big studio days, she died last week in New York at 96.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/arlene-dahl-journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-lorenzo-lamas

Lorenzo Lamas, her son by actor Fernando Lamas, wrote on Facebook, "She was the most positive influence on my life. I will remember her laughter, her joy, her dignity as she navigated the challenges that she faced. Never an ill word about anyone crossed her lips. Her ability to forgive left me speechless at times. She truly was a force of nature…”

While she never became a top star, Arlene Dahl’s flaming red hair and stunning beauty (she started out as a model) helped land her consistent work in a number of films in the 1940s and ‘50s, including “A Southern Yankee,” “Three Little Words” (both with fellow redhead Red Skelton) and “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Here’s a nice tribute by TCM:

https://youtu.be/MbVuV6lSZSE

She later took on a number of TV guest roles, and became a regular on the soap opera, “One Life to Live” after a business setback and one of her six husbands forced her to declare bankruptcy. But acting became a sideline once she began writing a long-running syndicated beauty column in 1952. She went on to write over two dozen books. Here’s my favorite title: “Always Ask a Man: Arlene Dahl’s Key to Femininity.” You can read it with a free membership at Archive.org:

https://www.amazon.com/Always-Ask-Man-Arlene-Femininity/dp/B00005VCP2

In 1954, she started her own cosmetics and lingerie company, and went on to become an entrepreneur, business lecturer and highly-paid advertising executive. She once said she liked acting, but considered her old films an “embarrassment,” and if he didn’t like business better than acting, she’d lose her shirt.

Since you depend on me for the trivia nobody else shares: If you’d like to play a love scene opposite Arlene Dahl, just hunt up a copy of “Co-Star: The Record Acting Game,” a 1958 LP on which you can practice your acting by reading Bogart’s lines from “Casablanca” with Arlene in the Ingrid Bergman role.

https://www.discogs.com/release/5576685-Arlene-Dahl-Co-Star-The-Record-Acting-Game

Sorry I can’t find it online, but it has so many silent passages that an audio equipment channel used it to test a record cleaner, so you can hear a little of it here and appreciate her acting skills as well as the gorgeous cover photo.

https://youtu.be/pj2MbDpP-HA?t=938

This tribute was written by "Huckabee" writer Pat Reeder.

Mike Huckabee

We are stronger together.  Submit your prayer request for HEALTH & HEALING or IN MEMORIAM by visiting my website here.

Our hope is that our newsletter readers and social media followers will consider these prayer requests each day.

HEALTH AND HEALING

"My sister Roxanne who’s cancer has reoccurred. She is a wonderful Christian lady who loves the Lord and is such a wonderful testimony to all those around her!"

"Pray for Joyce’s healing after serious surgery."

"My husband Bryan needs healing prayers sent to him. He has covid and his oxygen levels are very low. He is in a ICU 4. Please pray that he stays calm and gets better."

"Please pray for my daughter, Rebekah. She has developed pre-eclampsia after she delivered her baby daughter."

"My husband has Lewy Body Dementia and I want to keep him at home as long as possible. I am his sole caregiver - please pray for God’s strength, guidance, and comfort for me. I also need some respite time for myself. Many thanks"

"Please pray for healing and strength from a prostate procedure that has left me weak as a man and also pray that my fiancée's CR-1 visa will be approved in record short time and that our wedding plans materialize as planned and that God's will always be done in our lives."

"Those that live with bi polar, pray that the manage their condition and live a full and happy life free of depression and mania."

"Please pray for Henry and family as he in pediatric icu thank you."

"Daughter not allowing her father and I to see our grandchildren after her 17 year son showed up at our door asking to stay because he did not want to be exposed to Covid after his father came home from a business trip with a positive diagnosis in April. She no longer communicates with us and no longer calls us mom and dad."

"Two grandsons who are not believers .One does not believe there is a God ...............I suffer from neuropathy and would be so thankful for your prayers ..Thank You ."

"Please pray for me. My name is Emmy Purainer. I have stage 4 cancer and am fearful for my life. But I do trust in God in whom everything is possible, our living and merciful God who hears our prayers."

"My friend who is having knee surgery Dec 6. It is third surgery on the knee and my friend is concerned that it might be worse than better after third surgery. Pray for perfection surgery and perfect results."

"My sister, Linda has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer of the GE Junction. She will be starting chemo. Prayers for a miracle and Prolong Life."

"MaryLou - brain bleed, Bob - prostate cancer, Tina - mantle cell lymphoma, Sue - Covid"

"My husband, retired US Navy, for his health."

IN MEMORIAM

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

As promised, here’s a follow-up on what to do in response to the egregious civil rights violations of the January 6 political prisoners.

Louis Gohmert of Texas, who along with fellow member of Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene finally got to see the facility where J6 prisoners are confined, has a fine opinion piece on his website, reprinted from The Epoch Times. It dates from November 4, the day they and their congressional staffs took “the tour” and spent an hour speaking personally with these prisoners.

https://gohmert.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399970

This piece shames the government for ignoring their repeated requests and “refusing to allow oversight of their actions, which gives every appearance of a cover-up of wrongdoing.”

“Should ideology and abuse of power continue to drive this administration’s actions,” it continues, “the Rule of Law will cease to exist...By its [lack of transparency], the Biden administration is shredding the foundations of our legal system and the rights of the people’s representatives to protect them from government abuse.”

Gohmert agrees that at least some of the people being treated this way are essentially political prisoners. And if we allow it and let this nation finish its transformation into a banana republic, there will be nowhere else for liberty-loving Americans to turn.

According to an opinion piece in the Washington Times by criminal prosecutor and former U.S. Congressman Robert L. Livingston, almost 700 people in and near the Capitol that day were arrested and charged. Eventually, most of these were released or “had their cases disposed of in varying ways.” (I would add that some of them, even though they’re no longer behind bars, are currently under house arrest and have yet to go to court.) Reps. Greene and Gohmert met with about 40 who are still languishing in a dismal Washington DC corrections facility.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/nov/10/jan-6th-detainees-must-receive-due-process/

Livingston is “shocked” to hear of “prospective defendants who have been arrested and deprived of their livelihoods; confined in solitary confinement with little or no reasonable access to the outside world, their families or adequate legal counsel; and denied formal charges levied against them without bail and in contravention to the right to a speedy trial.” He said that he spoke with an employee at the federal Public Defender’s Office and learned “that they were not representing any of these folks.”

So-called “civil rights defenders” such as the ACLU are nowhere to be found. “Most of these people are at worst guilty of trespass or destruction of government property,” Livingston said. But for crying out loud, charge them, arraign them, and bring them to trial with counsel of their choice.”

“This atrocity must stop, and it must stop soon.”

We also came across a story from October 28 that reprints a letter from one of the detainees, Nathaniel DeGrave, who found himself in prison after apparently walking into the Capitol Building through open doors. His plea for help paints an especially bleak picture of the lives of these political prisoners in what he calls “DC’s Gitmo.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/gut-wrenching-plea-help-january-6th-detainees-tell-letter-american-public-dc-gitmo-please-help-innocent-man/

To stay informed with the best reporting on January 6 --- particularly the emerging evidence suggesting the FBI was making sure there WAS an “insurrection” –- we recommend keeping up with the stories in National File. Here’s the latest.

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

The current administration would like us to forget about these people, except as a cautionary tale of what can happen to those who step out of line. But we won’t.

We can send cards and letters to the detainees, letting them know they’re not forgotten, especially over the Christmas season when they'll be separated from their families (again). We can donate to defense funds and “adopt” families. We can send messages to our legislators, especially the ones who’ve already stepped up, including Greene, Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Bob Good. Most importantly, as we move into the 2022 campaign season and look ahead to 2024, we can actively campaign to defeat Democrats and support those who want to clean house at the DOJ. This clean-out MUST happen, as you'll see if you go to the FBI website and discover there's nothing about, say, Antifa, but an obsession with January 6:

https://www.fbi.gov

Be concerned about down-ballot races, too, and work to defeat those local candidates who want to defund police, release violent prisoners without bail, and weaponize law enforcement against so-called "domestic terrorists" (Trump supporters). Some of them are funded by groups such as Justice Democrats (who brought us AOC) and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

The Capitol Building should have been secure that day, with clearly-set boundaries that protesters should have respected. But, ultimately, it is the current administration and the Department of “Justice” that is responsible for the travesty of justice we see today. Under President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, we have as disgustingly politicized a DOJ as there has ever been. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes it three of a kind. This coming year, we all have to work harder than we ever have to elect people who respect a uniform standard of justice, even for political adversaries.

Mike Huckabee

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the January 6 rally and breach of the Capitol Building, it’s time to take an unsparing look at what our “justice” system has become.

I know you share my deep concern that our judicial system increasingly –- and quite openly –- operates like that of a banana republic. The country is changing before our eyes. Yesterday, we looked at the use of “lawfare” to sway election outcomes, with Harvard Law School graduating an army of leftist attorneys specializing in how to manipulate election law. Today, let’s examine how leftist attorneys are weaponizing law enforcement and the courts against their political enemies. Case in point: the shocking violations of the civil rights of Trump supporters who were at the Capitol on January 6. Most say they can’t see their lawyers at all.

I just received this letter from reader Marlene:

“PLEASE tell your readers how to make a difference in how the J6 prisoners are being treated. How can we get this showcased in our communities?

“I live in NY and I will find out who to start writing, and start a petition demanding justice and fairness in their treatment. What else might be successful? This is unacceptable and I can only believe not enough people know about this. Is it legal to protest at the site they are being held? I will pray first, because I know that is where any success is going to come from, but if you can help with any direction I would appreciate it.”

Thanks to Marlene for writing. Yes, this is completely unacceptable and, yes, there are things we can and must do. Two Republican members of Congress, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert are leading the way on this issue with a new report called “UNUSUALLY CRUEL: An eyewitness report from inside the DC jail.” On November 4, the two legislators, along with congressional staff members, were finally allowed to tour two jail facilities –- the Central Detention Facility (CDF) and, especially, the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), which houses the J6 detainees –-after two unsuccessful attempts by them and also by Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/12/07/reps-greene-and-gohmert-finally-met-the-j6-political-prisoners-what-they-saw-isnt-pretty-n1539714

Amazingly, it took a congressional letter and a confrontation with the DC mayor’s office and the Department of Corrections staff to get them in. The letter said they have “the right, prerogative, and duty as Members of Congress to inquire and inspect.” Even then, they say, after two hours of being shown around, they still hadn’t seen any of the J6 political prisoners (let’s call them what they are). It took an 11-minute “heated confrontation,” Greene says in her report, to make that happen. They finally got to meet with the approximately 40 prisoners, in an area of the prison that looked to them “much older” and not updated like the rest of the prison. According to one inmate, it had previously been used as a psychiatric ward.

Some prisoners cried and were “visibly shaken,” Green says. “The physical conditions in which they are held could only be described as inhumane.” The detainees claim they haven’t been able to see their lawyers and family members. Those who decline vaccination are not allowed to get haircuts –- and they’ve been there so long, they’re probably starting to look like someone else who was locked in a tower: Rapunzel. Some –- notably a 71-year-old detainee (!) named Lonnie Leroy Coffman, who has a very serious-looking injury to his arm –- need medical attention. (Other prisoners say Coffman really needs to be released.)

They hold their own religious services where they are because they are not allowed to attend any. Each day, they do their own salute to the flag and sing the National Anthem.

Greene was told of these prisoners being treated much more harshly than the others, with some reports of beatings. Other prisoners in the facility have access to flat-screen TVs, medical care, and reading material, though Greene describes this in the report as emphasizing “the supposed cruelty and racial prejudice of the U.S. prison system,” also promoting Nation of Islam and Critical Race Theory. One book prisoners were about to read was “THE NEW JIM CROW: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” At the same time, one hallway was lined with posters encouraging the freshly-indoctrinated inmates to register to vote. This in itself might be a topic for another day.

So, the J6 political prisoners have been in this place for going on a year, haven’t had their day in court, don’t see their families, don’t see their lawyers, are singled out for bad treatment and don’t even have access to reading material (not that they’d want THAT reading material)? The conclusion of Greene’s report includes this statement: “The congressional visit to the DC jail on November 4 unquestionably proved that there is a twotrack justice system in the United States. This two-tiered system is not based on race, violence or conviction of crime, but politics.”

Greene and Gohmert got to visit with the prisoners for about an hour. Before leaving, Greene prayed with them as a group and told them, “We’ve heard terrible things and I want you to know that Congressman Gohmert and I have basically refused to back down on the issue.” They said they had not lost hope. As the delegation was escorted out, they chanted, “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and then, “LET’S GO BRANDON!”

“The severe treatment of these inmates within the facility cannot be overstated,” the report says. None of these people have had trials or been found guilty of anything. Video shows that some who came into the Capitol that day were waved in by security. Some never even entered at all; they just happened to cross some “invisible line” outside.

Here’s a link to a pdf of the full report. The part specifically covering their visit with the J6 detainees –- including a transcript of the “heated conversation” preceding it –- starts on page 12 and is a must-read.

https://greene.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/greene.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Unusually%20Cruel%20An%20Eyewitness%20Report%20From%20The%20DC%20Jail.pdf

Sharon Caldwell, wife of one of the detainees who at least is now on house arrest, wrote of the plight of those in prison and offered some specific ways to help.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/how_to_help_j6_defendants.html

“There are many ways you can help a J6er,” she writes. “You may donate to individual defendants, adopt a family in need this holiday season, and get information on how to send cards and letters to those incarcerated or under house arrest. Prayers, cards and letters provide tremendous joy, hope and strength to those affected. Here’s how to get mail to them.

https://www.patriotfreedomproject.com/connect-with-a-1/6er

More this weekend on what we can do to help our American political prisoners and bring their situation to light.

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Mike Huckabee

Our hope is that our newsletter readers and social media followers will consider these prayer requests each day.

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Mike Huckabee

Not long ago, I said that when it comes to elections going forward, our lawyers have to be better than their lawyers.

Mark Hemingway at RealClearInvestigations has a similar warning in a new article, titled “Harvard’s ‘Lawfare’ Programs are an Omen of Elections Not Decided at Polls --- but in Court.” Check out the poster boy at the top of his screen; it’s Marc Elias. Elias is probably the man most responsible for the fact that Joe Biden is sitting in the Oval Office right now thinking about ice cream.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/11/30/harvards_lawfare_programs_are_an_omen_of_elections_decided_not_at_polls_-_but_in_court_804560.html

How dare President Trump challenge the results of the 2020 election! Why, that’s tantamount to treason, the argument goes. Even encouraging states to conduct forensic audits is a threat to “our democracy,” as it implies problems and destroys trust in the system.

Never mind that the system --- in its current, essentially un-auditable state, does not deserve our trust.

And never mind that in the elections of 2000, 2004 and 2016, Democrats formally challenged the results of presidential elections that had been won by Republicans, in another classic case of “our rules for you, no rules for us.” As Hemingway points out, it was that series of challenges by the Democrats that led to the development of the network of leftist election litigators we have today. Of course, we first think of the Hillary- and DNC-connected firm Perkins Coie and attorneys Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann (currently under indictment), but according to former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, there were about 30 groups that jumped into action after the pandemic hit to make fast changes in state election laws, mostly to expand mail-in voting while removing any safeguards. The percentage of Americans who voted by mail doubled between the 2016 and 2020 elections.

After Trump lost in 2020 and some conservative states started re-tightening their rules, these armies of “progressive” lawyers got busy again, filing challenges to keep them from changing back.

So, do voters get to decide who wins, or do courts get to filter their voices and decide for them? Increasingly, we see the strategy of “lawfare.” So it might come as no surprise that Harvard Law School is getting in on this big-time, preparing attorneys for the day when election outcomes are routinely decided in court. Adams calls this next phase “Let’s set up an elite training academy.”

In April, Harvard Law started the Election Law Clinic, which gives students credit for working on campaigns (why am I reminded of the students at Georgia Tech who helped create the fake Alfa Bank story?), as well as “hands-on litigation and advocacy work across a range of election law areas, with an initial focus on redistricting and voter-suppression cases.” It doesn’t sound as though they’ll be working on any conservative campaigns, but maybe they can still get Stacey Abrams declared the rightful governor of Georgia.

The director, Ruth Greenwood, sees many students wanting to go into election law and wants them to be able to “hit the ground running as election lawyers from day one.” Law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit sees this flood of new election specialists as creating more demand for that kind of expertise and litigation. In other words, it’s going to get much worse. Election days used to be something to celebrate as part of being American, but they’re increasingly something to dread.

In recent months, we’ve done some deep dives into the websites of some of these new groups that showed how amazingly organized and incestuous they are, and Harvard’s Election Law Clinic is part of that. Greenwood is a former fellow of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute and has also worked at the Campaign Legal Center.

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/campaign-legal-center/

As you can see, the CLC is funded in part by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and also by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Ford Foundation and ActBlue. Greenwood describes the proposed legislation in H.R. 1 –- what we like to call the “Legalize Voter Fraud Act” –- as “the biggest step the federal government has taken to protect the right to vote since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.” It would be a big step, all right, in that it would unconstitutionally place elections under federal control. Adams has his own name for the bill; he calls it “a partisan weapon masquerading as a civil rights law.”

Here’s how radical and intrusive this group is: Harvard Election Law Center adviser Nicholas Stephanopoulos (not sure if he might be related to George), in a piece he wrote for Marc Elias’ group Democracy Docket, argued that Congress should refuse to seat a candidate who benefits from voter suppression under Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution. He defines voter suppression as “policies that make it hard for people to register and vote.” We learned in 2020 how broadly they interpret that. They made it so easy to vote, any dead person can do it. And every vote by a dead person suppresses the vote of a live person who’s almost guaranteed to have voted Republican.

Another organization, Protect Democracy, is actually two: the 501(c)3 Protect Democracy Project, which is tax exempt and supposedly non-partisan hahahahaha, and the 501(c)4 United to Protect Democracy, which admits it is partisan. They list 70 employees on their website, but their address is a mailbox service they share with hundreds of organizations.

We wrote about the Protect Democracy Project when it gave a $300,000 check to Whistleblower Aid, which supported Eric Ciaramella, whose ginned-up complaint started Trump’s first impeachment.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/23/senate-report-confirms-suspected-impeachment-whistleblower-met-ukrainian-prosecutors/

Time Magazine wrote a piece last February about the alliance of these political groups with business titans like Mark Zuckerberg --- not to question their actions, but to praise them for “saving” the 2020 election. It was “an extraordinary shadow effort, dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.” (If you need to take a break to run and throw up, go ahead. We’ll wait.)

Feel better? Here’s the link to the full article, but I warn you, you’ll just have to throw up again.

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

The Protect Democracy Project also conveniently owns a software company, VoteShield, that monitors voter databases. I am not kidding. Hemingway’s article has details.

J. Christian Adams, who has his own organization, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, says there are far fewer groups on the right to hold the left accountable for mistakes and/or misdeeds. I’d say going to law school now seems pretty much like going to journalism school –- not to practice law or journalism, but to “fundamentally transform.”

For when you have time, I’ll link to the video and transcript of a great interview by the founder and CEO of American Majority, Ned Ryun, with another Hemingway, this time Mollie, about the 2020 election. Having written the book RIGGED, she can summarize so clearly what was done, especially by sponsors such as Mark Zuckerberg and the Center for Tech and Civic Life. Elias’ strategy, she says, is to “expand the sphere of litigation, depending on how an election turns out.”

And that’s why our lawyers have to be better than their lawyers.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/ned-ryun-interviews-author-columnist-and-fox-news-frontpagemagcom/

LEAVE ME A COMMENT BELOW, I READ THEM>>>

Mike Huckabee

In a surprise announcement Monday, Rep. Devin Nunes revealed that he will leave Congress in January to become the CEO of Trump Media and Technology Group. That’s former President Trump’s company that plans to launch a new free speech social media platform called TRUTH that’s already raised $1 billion in private funding.

https://www.westernjournal.com/shock-news-devin-nunes-donald-trump-fire-first-shot-war-big-tech-tyranny/

Nunes was instrumental in exposing the Trump-Russia hoax that Democrats like Rep. Adam “Biggest Liar In Congress (And That’s Saying Something!)” Schiff pushed for years. Nunes endured a gale of hatred and mockery from the media, but in the end, he was proven correct.

Nunes has long been a fierce critic of Big Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google for their censorship and shadow banning of conservative political views and prioritizing of leftist-slanted news. He also sued Twitter over two parody accounts with his name on them that he says defamed him, but the case was thrown out because Twitter has Section 230 protection since it’s a “neutral platform, not a publisher.”

(Pardon me while I clean up the coffee that I spit on my keyboard when I burst out laughing.)

While Nunes’ departure will leave the Republicans with one fewer vote in a closely-divided House, it likely won’t make much difference. Some Democrats talk about being moderate and not going along with the crazy, leftwing ideologues, but in the end, they almost always vote in lockstep, so one fewer Republican vote probably wouldn’t make much effect. And the Democrats who are destroying California just redrew the district where Nunes was reelected last year by over 54% to try to stick those voters with yet another Democrat, so he was facing a tough reelection.

Let’s just hope that after next November, there will be at least 60 more Republican votes, and his departure really won’t be felt that much. Judging from all the House Democrats who’ve announced that they’re leaving without even having new jobs lined up, I assume that’s what they expect, too. Then maybe the House can get to work doing something about that Section 230 protection.

Mike Huckabee

Get pizza, take a shot of vaccine! Now, that's "pizza with everything."

In a shocking story, a mom named Maribel Duarte told NBC Los Angeles that her 13-year-old son had come home from school with a vaccine card and told her he had accepted the shot after being offered pizza.

Offered? The word is “bribed.” (Not sure if he put it that way to his mom, but that’s what it was.) The boy was even told not to say anything about it.

“It hurt to know he got a shot without my permission, without knowing and without signing any papers for him to get the shot,” Duarte said.

The school was Barack Obama Global Prep Academy in South L.A. How ironic that this happened at a school named for the President who pushed a mandate for government health care policies. Feel free to make up your own joke.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has determined that all students 12 and over are required to be “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19 by January 10, 2022, unless they’re granted a waiver or “other exemption.” That date is looming, but it looks as though they’re getting there, largely because, according to the story in FOX News, this district –- the second largest in the United States –- saw its enrollment drop by more than 27,000, or 6 percent, at the start of this school year over the mandate. At this point, among those who are still enrolled, the district boasts a vaccination rate of over 80 percent.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-boy-coronavirus-vaccine-pizza-consent-school

For LAUSD employees, the requirement started earlier. October 15 was the deadline for teachers and other staff to get their first shot. Those who hadn’t had one dose by then would not be able to return to work. One might think that in California, everybody was on board with the mandate, but that is definitely not the case.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/school-vaccine-mandate-california-covid-coroanvirus-gavin-newsom/2719402/

The district says they haven’t confirmed that this incident with the student occurred, but Duarte said her son told her that the woman who’d given him the shot --- and signed the paper --- had told him to keep it a secret. “Please don’t say anything,” she said to the student. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

The school district does have what they call an “incentive program,” with the word “incentive” apparently meaning, at least in this case, “bribe.” They call it their Safe Steps to Safe Schools Incentive Program. “This program offers incentives to families who upload proof of their vaccine, have an approved medical exemption, or have conditional admissions.” Once they upload this proof, they are issued a “Daily Pass” to be able to attend class. They still have to wear a mask and socially distance “as best possible.”

It’s not clear what “conditional admissions” means. Perhaps some kids are sensitive to gluten and can’t eat the free pizza. Here's a closer look at the program.

https://achieve.lausd.net/covid

“The science is clear,” it begins, even though the scientific evidence in favor of vaccinating 12-year-olds for COVID-19 is not clear at all. Elsewhere on the site, it says, “Strong scientific evidence shows that vaccinations are an essential part of protecting our communities,” and links to this from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/148/2/e2021052336/179782/COVID-19-Vaccines-in-Children-and-Adolescents

It recommends COVID vaccination for children 12 and up. Still, if you read all the way to the bottom, there is this caveat: “The guidance in this statement does not indicate an exclusive course of treatment or serve as the standard of medical care. Variations, taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.”

That’s funny, because by adhering to these strict deadlines, district officials ARE requiring “an exclusive course of treatment” and setting "the standard of medical care.” They need to remember they are not doctors –- or parents –- so they are about the last people who should be determining which “individual circumstances” to take into account.

The school district told NBC Los Angeles that “several steps are in place to ensure vaccinated students receive prizes.”

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/mom-says-son-vaccinated-in-exchange-for-pizza-at-lausd-without-her-consent/2773619/

In all our searching, we still couldn’t turn up what the supposed “incentives” or “prizes” are that go to students and families (other than simply to be able to come in and attend class in person –- and free pizza, of course), or what those “conditional admissions” are. But the site explains that in order to be fully vaccinated by the deadline of January 10, every student 12 years old or older must receive the first shot no later than November 21 and the second no later than December 19. Younger students “must receive their first vaccine dose by no later than 30 days after their 12th birthday, and their second dose by no later than 8 weeks after their 12th birthday.”

For students 5-11, the vaccine is “highly encouraged” but not currently mandatory. The district started offering it on November 8.

Presumably, Duarte’s son had hit the deadline of November 21 without being vaccinated and would have had to leave school and take his classes online unless he got the first shot on schedule.

Tammy Bruce, host of Tuesday’s “Fox News Primetime,” spoke about this with with flabbergasted attorney Pam Bondi, former attorney general of Florida. “It’s not only disturbing,” she said, “but it is illegal, obviously, in the state of California.” Parental consent is still absolutely required for children under 18 to receive a COVID vaccine. Bondi pointed out that this boy has asthma and allergies –- something his mother would have known but the school likely did not. What if he’d had a reaction to the shot? Schools never used to give a child so much as a baby aspirin without parental approval.

“Parents, it is your choice,” Bondi said, “whether or not your children are going to be vaccinated. Not teachers, not the socialists, not the school bureaucrats who go rogue, and they have to be held accountable.” She said this parent has a civil case, and that it might even be considered criminal battery, as children can’t give consent.

The woman who gave the shot was right about one thing: if this kid said anything, she WOULD be in trouble, along with the school, the district, and everyone who’s pushing to do this or anything else to kids against their parents’ wishes. It’s a good thing he told his mom.

Mike Huckabee

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, the 80th anniversary of the “date which will live in infamy.” On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack on the US Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that brought the US into World War II. 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded, making it the deadliest attack on America until September 11, 2001.

It is very important that we commemorate these days. I know that the horror and tragedy are not easy to think about, but only by remembering these tragic days will we prevent letting ourselves be lulled into complacency about evil in the world and forgetting to prepare for unexpected attacks. Even now, we have an entire generation for whom 9/11 happened before they were even born, and the media’s attempts to suppress the ugly truth of it have convinced many of these young people that America somehow “had it coming.”

Americans are now very divided, and remembering these attacks also reminds us of how we put petty differences aside and came together as Americans, because what America stands for is bigger than any one group’s personal political agenda. That’s inconvenient for those who profit by dividing us, but it’s good for the nation. As one Vietnam veteran told Fox News, “If we don't unite today, we will certainly fall."

Fox News has more on the history of Pearl Harbor and veterans’ thoughts about it:

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/pearl-harbor-80th-anniversary-veterans-america-unite

And here’s a story about a small group of elderly survivors of the attack who gathered today at that site in Hawaii to remember the fallen heroes and the attack that launched America into World War II.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/pearl-harbor-survivors-gather-remember-lost-attack

All of us at the Huckabee Newsletter send our greatest respect and gratitude to them and to all veterans. I will end by saying what our grandparents said all through World War II:

“Remember Pearl Harbor!”

Mike Huckabee

President Trump, during a wide-ranging interview on Sunday’s LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN sparked by the release of his new book OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER, discussed what we know about “Election Fraud 2020” and the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which are linked through the law firm Perkins Coie.

It was Perkins Coie attorney Marc Elias, host Mark Levin noted, “who went all through the states, from 2016 to 2020, trying to change the rules and so forth, had all kinds of dark money behind him.”

Trump interjected that Elias “got fired from Perkins Coie,” though our understanding is that Elias’ exit --- Michael Sussmann’s, too --- was part of an overall legal strategy, as The Elias Firm is still affiliated and is dedicated to getting “progressive” Democrats elected. But certainly Elias “was hot,” as Trump put it.

And, as we’ve known for a long time, all roads led back to Hillary. “They made it up in either her kitchen or a law office,” Trump said of the Russia “collusion” story. Hillary spent millions of dollars to hire “nut job” Steele, he said, though more accurately it seems Steele pocketed relatively little of the money that poured in to attorneys at Perkins Coie and dirt-diggers at Fusion GPS.

Trump reminded Levin that then-Sen. John McCain gave a copy of the “dossier” to the FBI, which we’ve noted was bombarded on all sides with copies of the phony document. “If you did a movie,” he said, “nobody would believe it.”

He said people come up to him and marvel, “How you survived is one of the most incredible things.” Had he not fired Comey, he said, “you might not be talking to me right now about a beautiful book of four years at the White House.” Yet he sees that crew coming back again, which he says “shouldn’t be allowed” to happen. That’s presumably what we have a special counsel for, to determine once and for all what the evidence shows about their roles in the hoax and to issue criminal indictments.

Lee Smith, author of THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT and THE PERMANENT COUP, has a new article examining how the media are now distancing themselves from the “dossier” –- not to put an end to the Russia Hoax, but to save it. There are some who will NEVER give up the Russia Hoax.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/12/02/investigative_issues_medias_nixonian_dossier_dodge_to_save_russiagate_itself_806294.html

Just because the “dossier” was discredited, The New York Times argues, doesn’t mean the “Russia” investigation is undercut. Really?

As Smith explains, this strategy is right out of the Watergate playbook used by President Nixon’s aides to try to head off looming disaster. It’s a standard ploy called “the limited hangout” that goes like this: When you can no longer maintain a phony cover story, acknowledge a few partial truths and a few “small, albeit honest miscues” in order to keep the most damning parts of the story hidden.

“Just as this strategy failed to protect Richard Nixon and his men,” Smith writes, “chances are it won’t help culpable reporters and news organizations avoid responsibility for their active role in the country’s biggest political crime of the past half-century. But it does show quite plainly what the American press has become.”

Here’s a link to the full article –- very highly recommended.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/limited-hangout-lee-smith

We don’t yet know if Durham has conclusive proof that Hillary was personally aware of her campaign's creation of the Trump-Russia hoax, but we do have circumstantial evidence in the form of her tweet about the fake Alfa Bank story. We also know from then-CIA Director John Brennan in a July 2016 meeting with Obama that Clinton had approved a plan concerning “Trump and Russia hackers hampering U.S. elections as a mean of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Still, it’s crystal clear that, as Smith succinctly explains it, “top operatives in her 2016 campaign used concocted falsehoods to leverage active law enforcement officials who in turn used U.S. government programs and resources to spy on the Trump campaign –- a violation of American political norms whose only real parallel is Watergate."

Actually, we’d say it’s much more far-reaching than Watergate, as Smith points out that under the pretext of investigating the “collusion” story, at least 40 Obama officials, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, spied on Trump and/or his team.

And even with the circumstantial evidence that President Obama was aware of what was going on, he has never been asked publicly about the Russia story. Not once.

Smith offers a run-down of the various charges in the Sussmann and Danchenko indictments that will be familiar, but then goes on to hypothesize about how Durham will get what he needs on the FBI officials who were willing participants. “Durham now appears to be using well-documented and relatively easy cases to pressure Sussmann and Danchenko to give up accomplices ‘one rung up,’ likely under the threat of jail time.”

But as the media now scramble to put as much distance between themselves and the Steele “dossier” as possible, the “limited hangout” ploy is in full swing, even though there is no Russia Hoax without the “dossier,” which was the main piece of evidence presented to the FISA court. Smith offers a history lesson on how the Watergate story was broken by the Washington Post, as depicted in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, and how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were rightfully “lionized” for uncovering very real criminal wrongdoing. But when it comes to criminal wrongdoing related to Hillary’s campaign, we have the opposite situation today. WAPO and other major outlets were (and are) actually part of the cover-up.

“The job of these new media outlets was not to speak truth to the powerful men and women who owned their platforms and paid their bills,” Smith writes. “Rather, it was to serve as a megaphone for their power --- to use the forms of journalism like ‘investigations’ and ‘whistleblowers’ and ‘inside sources’ to protect and advance the interests of an increasingly ambitious oligarchy that employed the country’s corporate, political, academic and cultural elites as their retainers and servants.”

That pretty well sums up what has happened to journalism, seemingly in the past decade. The fact that the Pulitzer committee rewarded “journalists” for working with a government intel operation falsely targeting a U.S. president tells us we’ve entered a sad new era.

Smith’s article is lengthy and detailed but very clearly written. For when you have time, you can’t do better than this report for a comprehensive look, especially at Clinton campaign operatives’ attempt to frame a man named Sergei Millian, a naturalized U.S. citizen who’d dared to come out publicly in favor of Trump. He’d met Trump in Florida, where he’d assisted in selling some units in a Trump property, and liked Trump’s pro-business attitude. Russian name, support for Trump –- that’s apparently all it took.

I’ll leave you with some added perspective on the warped attempt of the media to tie Trump to some kind of Russia threat. While they’re still obsessed with that, here’s the threat Russia REALLY poses. This is VIP content, but the headline alone says it all.

https://redstate.com/andrewmalcolm/2021/12/05/while-biden-sleeps-putin-prepares-to-grab-ukraine-n486415

Mike Huckabee

As the Supreme Court ponders its ruling in the Mississippi abortion restrictions case, Democratic strategists are hoping to gin up “OUTRAGE!” over abortion rights to turn around their increasingly dire election prospects for 2022. This was to be expected. When the Democrats are out of power, they can claim they have to be returned so that competent adult leadership can be restored. But when they’re in power, they can’t make that argument, for obvious reasons.

So they have to terrify their base with claims that the eeeeevil Republicans are going to take away women’s rights (actually, Democrats have done that, under the guise of “trans rights”), or bring back Jim Crow laws (a Democrat invention), or do away with the sacred Constitutional right of women to kill their unborn children. But there are signs that scaring people into voting for more incompetent Democrat rule is wearing thin.

For one thing, look around: it’s hard to think of anything scarier than the current situation under Democratic rule. Does the hypothetical loss of the right to kill your hypothetical unborn child really outweigh the very real fear that the violent criminals Democrats have turned loose on the streets will kill you? Besides, Americans have too many other things to worry about.

As Rick Moran at PJ Media points out, outrage over abortion laws may not be the motivating factor for voters that some Democrats think it is.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/12/05/a-post-outrage-world-abortion-wont-be-the-winning-issue-democrats-think-it-will-be-n1539027

Politico reported that it played no factor in the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey, where voters were more concerned about stopping school boards from assaulting their children than allowing abortionists to assault their children. A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that voters rank abortion behind taxes and government spending, health care, climate change and the environment, immigration, jobs and the economy as an issue of interest. Exit polls in 2016 found that in picking between the pro-life Trump and the pro-abortion Hillary, only one in five voters named Supreme Court nominations as their most important voting factor, and by a wide margin, those voters were Republicans.

As Moran notes, polls show that only about 10-15% of Americans want abortion banned under all circumstances, 25-30% want it legal in all cases, and the vast majority fall somewhere in the middle. While I wish more people were pro-life, I know enough about politics to know that you can’t run a successful campaign on only that one issue. We’ll soon find out whether Democrats really believe they can retain power solely on a radical pro-abortion stance that’s shared by, at most, 30% of the country. That's actually lower than Joe Biden's approval rating, and that's the thing that has them genuinely terrified.

John Boozman, U.S. Senator

For nearly 50 years, Americans who have held to a belief that all human life is sacred and valuable have grieved the fact that the United States is among a handful of nations – including Communist China and North Korea – that allow for abortion on demand beyond the point when babies can feel pain.

Many on the other side of the political aisle often point to aspects of European culture or economic policy as worthy of aspiring toward, but refuse to confront the fact that even the overwhelming majority of these nations limit abortion at 15 weeks or earlier.

Which brings us to the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case on December 1, marking the first serious challenge in a generation to the abortion regime established under Roe v. Wade and clarified under Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The case concerns a Mississippi law that prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, when we know unborn children have limbs and fully-developed hearts, can taste, make facial expressions, yawn, hiccup, swallow and suck their thumbs.

Protecting these little ones from gruesome, painful and barbaric abortion procedures is the duty of any society that claims the mantles of morality and justice.

This is not a fringe position. In fact, three-quarters of Americans, including a majority who identify as pro-choice, want significant restrictions on abortion according to a Marist survey conducted earlier this year.

Americans may be familiar with the concept that the legal precent under Roe v. Wade grants women the right to terminate a pregnancy, but most are far less clear on the specifics around abortion or what it would mean if the nation’s highest court struck the ruling down.

Simply put, a decision by a majority of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe would not create a federal ban on abortion. What it would do is return to the states and the people the policy decisions related to this issue rather than nine justices in black robes based in Washington, D.C. Notably, the movement to defend the unborn also does not seek to punish vulnerable women susceptible to the false notion that abortion is their only or most sensible option.

With the Dobbs case, the day I and many pro-life advocates throughout Arkansas and across our country have been praying for has come. There is a very real possibility that our nearly five-decade nightmare, which has cost the lives of over 60 million children, could be on the verge of ending.

I joined supporters of life who rallied out in front of the Court before and during the oral arguments in this case. I met Arkansans who traveled to the nation’s capital to lend their voices to this essential cause. It was encouraging to be with these passionate individuals who care deeply about this issue.

Defending the right to life is one of the most important things we can do, because every life is precious and protecting the sanctity of life will demonstrate where the true values of our country are found.

This moment could be a turning point in our society’s moral and cultural evolution. The science tells us the unborn are human beings worthy of protection. Our consciences echo that truth.

We pray that our nation’s highest court helps put us back on the right track. We must draw this line in the sand and not shrink back. The stakes are too high. We will continue to lift our voices in defense of life.

Mike Huckabee

In 2018, The New York Times and the Washington Post were honored with the coveted Pulitzer Prize for 20 articles described as “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the public’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

The award was for their coverage of Trump-Russia "collusion," based on Christopher Steele’s thoroughly discredited “dossier,” and now that the story has been exposed as a lie, these “news” outlets should have to give it back.

Here's OUR description of their work (are you listening, Pulitzer committee?): deeply flawed, badly sourced yet relentlessly reported fake news that defied the public interest by furthering the public’s misunderstanding, by lying about Russian "collusion" with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.

Real journalist Aaron Mate at RealClearInvestigations has written a fabulous article on these publications’ completely inadequate attempts at “fixing” some of their mistakes/lies, offering detailed suggestions for how they really could correct what they wrote. It’s called “Five Trump-Russia ‘Collusion’ Corrections We Need From the Media Now –- Just For Starters.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/11/24/five_trump-russia_collusion_corrections_we_need_from_the_media_now_-_just_for_starters_804205.html

It’s been FIVE YEARS since BuzzFeed published the “dossier,” peddled by Michael Sussmann, now under indictment by Special Counsel John Durham for failing to tell the FBI that he was Hillary’s attorney when he gave them the story. Steele’s main source, Igor Danchenko, is charged with lying as well. Sara Fischer at Axios has called this reporting “one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history” and says the media’s response to its own fake reporting has been “tepid.” She points out that Axios did not publish the “dossier” or any original reporting based on its contents, as it was not verified. Thank you, Axios.

(Note: Also, in all these years, the Huckabee team has never had to retract or correct anything we’ve said about Trump and Russia.)

https://www.axios.com/steele-dossier-discredited-media-corrections-buzzfeed-washington-post-6b762a0b-64a9-4259-8697-298e2f04fb3e.html

Fischer does give WAPO credit for allowing their media critic, Eric Wemple, to write about the mistakes they and other media outlets made in covering the Russia “collusion” story. In contrast, BuzzFeed still has the “dossier” posted, with a note added that “The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.” Nice of them to at least say that, five years later.

Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s then-editor-in-chief, told Axios, “My view on the logic of publishing hasn’t changed.” He’s now a columnist for The New York Times.

Some outlets didn’t respond to Fischer’s calls about this. David Corn, in a comment to Wemple, revealed his continuing denial of reality: “My priority has been to deal with the much larger topic of Russia’s undisputed attack and Trump’s undisputed collaboration with Moscow’s cover-up.” What??

After the federal indictment of Danchenko, WAPO quietly re-edited a dozen stories related to Steele and the “dossier,” In a couple of cases –- stories written by Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamberger –- this involved removal of entire sections, changing headlines, and adding lengthier editor’s notes. But, as the RealClearInvestigations article points out, the editors never explain how the mistakes happened or offer names of the anonymous sources who deceived “them and the public over months and years.”

Helderman and Hamberger are two of the dozen-plus reporters who now share the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction---I mean, for Reporting. Neither WAPO or the NYT has given any indication that they might return the award, even though, as Mate points out, “the Post’s and the Times’ reporting has the same problem as the Steele document that these same outlets are now distancing themselves from: a reliance on anonymous, deceptive, and almost certainly partisan sources for claims that proved to be false.” (Note: I’d remove the “almost” –- the sources were certainly partisan.)

It took seemingly forever for WAPO to address this at all, as the “dossier” has been discredited since April 2019, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his FBI team failed to verify any of its contents. That didn’t matter; most of the media still aggressively pushed the Trump-Russia narrative. Some, like David Corn, will never really give it up.

After BuzzFeed published the “dossier,” WAPO and the NYT were joined by other outlets in a media frenzy. Mate cites particularly outrageous stories that ran in the New Yorker (a “fawning” profile of Steele), McClatchy (Mueller had "evidence" Trump attorney Michael Cohen had been to Prague), and The Guardian (Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange in London’s Ecuadorian embassy). BuzzFeed stayed in the act, too, with a false story that Trump had instructed Cohen to lie to Congress. All fake, fake, fake.

To add juice to the argument that WAPO and the NYT should return their Pulitzer, Mate documents five specific stories “containing false or misleading claims, and thereby due for retraction or correction, that were either among the Post and Times’ winning entries, or other work of reporters who shared that prize.” These outright falsehoods can be shown to be wrong with information that has “long been in the public domain,” he says.

FALSEHOOD #1: Michael Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia and lied about it. We’ve covered the real story in detail here, throughout Flynn’s long ordeal of personal destruction. WAPO did not tell the truth in February of 2017 when they added their own spin and plenty of mind-reading to their report on Flynn’s phone call with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Both WAPO and the NYT continued the deception in articles from May of 2020 about the transcripts.

FALSEHOOD #2: Trump officials had repeated contacts with Russian officials. This fake story, written by three members of the NYT Pulitzer-winning team, came out the day after Flynn resigned as national security adviser in February of 2017. Debunked.

FALSEHOOD #3: George Papadopoulos’ “night of heavy drinking” with Australian envoy Alexander Downer in which he supposedly said the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary. This fake story was reported in December of 2017, a couple of months after it was revealed that Marc Elias of the Clinton-funded law firm Perkins Coie paid for the “dossier.” (Yes, this was uncovered that soon, by House Republicans led by Devin Nunes.) Their characterization of this conversation turned out to be false, as documented by declassified FBI recordings.

FALSEHOOD #4: Russia’s “sweeping interference campaign” posed a national security threat. Read the details in Mate’s article and you will see this story was a complete crock. To be fair, Mueller sensationalized this, too, as the body of his report fails miserably to live up to the headline.

FALSEHOOD #5: The DOJ never fully examined Trump’s ties to Russia. Reporters tried to “explain” why Mueller hadn’t found anything on Trump by saying Attorney General Barr and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein had handcuffed him. More fakeness. Even Peter Strzok later contradicted this.

Caution: reading through Mate’s article will raise your blood pressure, with example after example of this steaming load of Pulitzer-winning “journalism.” This utter waste of the public’s and the government’s time was created out of essentially nothing to damage Trump and his presidency as much as possible. It was all made up.

So, New York Times and Washington Post: GIVE THE PULITZER BACK NOW.

Mike Huckabee

Actor Matthew McConaughey ended speculation Sunday by announcing that he’s decided not to run for Governor of Texas. He said, "As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership. It's a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I am choosing not to take at this moment."

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/matthew-mcconaughey-rules-out-run-public-office-texas

Even though a recent poll showed him as the frontrunner against both incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the Harold Stassen of our time, Democrat “Beto” O’Rourke, I can certainly understand why Matthew wouldn’t want to give up being a successful and beloved movie star to take on the heavy work and brickbats of being a Governor (salary in Texas: $153,750.)

Polls can be deceiving, too. At this early stage, all the respondents know is the cool guy from the movies. But the glamor disappears fast once you get into the 24-hour colonoscopy of running for office. You have to take positions on issues that some people will strongly disagree with (and if you don’t, you’re criticized for that, too.) Matthew has some views that are conservative and some that are liberal, which means he’d face attacks from both sides.

I’ve read his recent book, “Green Lights,” and was impressed. Even more so when I interviewed him on TBN.

https://youtu.be/xOe-ZhFKunY

He seems to be a rare celebrity who has his head screwed on straight, and maybe this decision on staying out of politics is just more proof of that.

In the meantime, it’s bad news for Democrats, for whom a wild card McConaughey candidacy was their best shot at unseating a Republican Governor in 2022. But they still have “Beto,” and it’s reported that fools with money (I’m assuming from outside Texas) have already pumped $2 million into his latest quixotic run. That’s money that won’t be going to Democrats who have a chance of winning, so it’s “Awright, awright, awright” with me.

Mike Huckabee

Hopefully you have enjoyed a great Thanksgiving with your family and you’re trying to figure out how to make best use of the leftover turkey. 

Remember last year at this time, Dr. Fauci was telling us not to gather in groups of more than 8 or 10 and better to just eat by yourself while wearing 2 or 3 masks. Not many of us did that last year, and probably no one paid any attention to that kind of stuff this year. Most people by now have either had a vaccination or have had Covid and have natural antibodies. I just can’t imagine that many people worried about what some big-government cosmic kill-joys had to say about enjoying Thanksgiving with your families.

Sadly, some people from the cancel culture left didn’t enjoy a Thanksgiving this year. To begin with, they think the Pilgrims were a bunch of imperialist racists who stole the land, and whose Puritan religious views were bigoted because their beliefs came right out of the Bible. I feel sad for the irreligious left, as they probably gathered in groups of 3 eating tofu, raw radishes, and baked carrots.

This uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving is one of the most important to me. It’s a reminder that our nation was started by people who sought religious liberty and the freedom to worship God. They risked their very lives to come to a country they didn’t know to try and make a better life for their children. They weren’t perfect, but after some failed attempts at what we’d call socialism today, in which they tried communal living, they resorted to capitalism and allowed families to own land and reap the benefits and rewards of their labor. The result was that the greatest and free-est nation in the history of the world was birthed, and in a really short period of time that colony grew into what would become the United States of America and would rapidly become the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of civilization. We are rare in that people from all ethnicities, colors, religions, and races make up America. And all are equally endowed by their Creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That alone is plenty of reason to celebrate this holiday and to take time out to offer a sincere prayer of thanks for this God-blessed land.

I have much to be thankful for. A devoted wife. Three grown children. Seven truly extraordinary grandchildren. Lots of friends. A roof over my head. Food on the table, even if thanks to Joe Biden and Congress it costs a lot more this year. And because gasoline was so much more expensive this year, most of us stayed close to home and that was good too.

I hope you made your list of reasons to be thankful as well. And that you expressed your thanks to God, from whom ALL blessings flow!

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

As a big fan of Broadway musicals and the Great American Songbook (I run the indie label, Eclectus Records, that releases my wife, Laura Ainsworth’s, retro jazz albums), like many, I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death Friday of legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim at 91.

https://variety.com/2021/legit/news/stephen-sondheim-dead-sweeney-todd-1235120388/

It’s hard to imagine being shocked to hear that someone died at 91, but Sondheim seemed both ageless and timeless. He’d been writing landmark musicals longer than many of us have been alive, and it seemed as if he would always be here and working on a new show.

An abused child of wealthy divorced parents, he wrote his first musical in prep school in the early ‘40s. His best friend’s dad, Oscar Hammerstein II, became his surrogate father and mentor, and Sondheim worked as an assistant on the original productions of “South Pacific” and “The King And I.” Frustrated that the powers on Broadway wouldn’t let him write both words and music, he started out by writing the lyrics to such classic shows as “West Side Story” and “Gypsy.”

He finally got to create an entire score in 1962, for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” with its rousing opener, “Comedy Tonight!” It’s regularly revived and is still his most profitable show. He went on to create a string of ground-breaking musicals that forged new, sometimes uncomfortable ground for Broadway, but opened the genre up to more serious, adult themes. It’s ironic that Cameron Mackintosh, producer of such touristy spectacles as “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats” and “Miss Saigon,” is quoted praising him in his obituary, since his shows were seen as the antithesis of everything Sondheim stood for.

Some were hits, like “Follies;” “Company,” (which yielded the standards “Being Alive” and “The Ladies Who Lunch”); the Ingmar Bergman adaptation “A Little Night Music” (“Send In The Clowns” became one of the most-recorded songs of all time); “Into The Woods,” his version of classic fairy tales that follows the characters beyond “happily ever after,” and whose great score includes the gorgeous “No One Is Alone” (it became an all-star Disney movie, but the original Broadway cast version filmed for PBS is far better and viewable on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kqCsQCsinK4); and the dark masterpiece “Sweeney Todd.”

Some were just too esoteric for Broadway, like “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Assassins,” “Passion,” and “Pacific Overtures” (ten Tony nominations, closed in six months.) “Sunday in the Park with George” ran for over 600 performances but still lost money. But their original cast albums are considered works of genius and include many great songs that will keep cabaret performers in material for years to come.

Sondheim was the recipient of virtually every honor the performing arts world can bestow, some of them many times over, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Since you depend on me to give you the trivia other obits overlook, here are three things you might not know that Stephen Sondheim did:

His love of intricate wordplay wasn’t limited to the tongue-twisting lyrics of songs like “I’m Not Getting Married Today” or “Your Fault.” He earned a little money early in his career by writing 11 episodes of the witty early ‘50s sitcom, “Topper.” After pocketing the paychecks, he immediately left Hollywood and fled back to New York.

His love of puzzles and murder mystery games inspired him to write the 1973 murder mystery movie “The Last of Shiela” with “Psycho” star Anthony Perkins.

And his smoldering faux-1940s torch song “Sooner Or Later” was definitely the highlight of Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” movie. Here’s Madonna singing it at the Oscars in 1991 (it won for Best Original Song) and proving that she cleaned up real good when she wanted to: https://youtu.be/8bgNyaAz1jg

If you’re a theater nerd and would like to dig deeper into Sondheim’s creative process, check out the documentaries “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” about the failed original production of “Merrily We Roll Along,” and “Original Cast Album: Company,” about the tortured recording of that classic LP under Sondheim’s perfectionist oversight. At one point, the engineer aptly says, “‘You Could Drive A Person Crazy,’ take ten.” (It was parodied on the TV series “Documentary Now” as “Original Cast Album: Co-op.”)