Mike Huckabee

Some observers have described what we’re living in now as a “post-Constitutional America.” Okay, we still technically HAVE a Constitution, and we can go to Washington, DC, and look at it under glass at the U.S. National Archives, but it gets ignored by the government so often that it feels as if we might as well not have one at all. It often seems the only people reading the Constitution these days are the ones looking for loopholes.

Never mind that during the 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to honor “the rule of law, our Constitution.” And never mind that he constantly trashed President Trump’s “assault on the rule of law.” Jonathan Turley has a new article about what Biden is actually doing in office to violate the Constitution and how the left cheers him on when he does it. Case in point: Biden’s extension, in a “knowingly invalid” way, of the moratorium on evictions.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/566836-canceling-the-constitution-biden-hailed-for-violating-rule-of-law?rl=1

Set aside for a moment the concern for those who can’t pay their rent --- there should be concern on both sides, for the lessees and the lessors, who in many cases are barely hanging on –- and take a look at this issue from the standpoint of the rule of law. That’s what the Supreme Court had to do a few weeks ago, when they ruled on the authority of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) to impose such a moratorium. The CDC had argued that federal law gives them the authority to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission or spread of communicable diseases.”

(This seems like a good place to mention that if the Biden administration were really trying to prevent the introduction, transmission or spread of communicable diseases, they wouldn’t be welcoming in thousands of covid-infected immigrants at our southern border. But I digress.)

Anyway, Turley severely criticized the CDC’s argument, saying it would give that governmental agency “authority over huge swaths of our economy to avoid even the possibility of the ‘introduction’ or spread of a disease. It means that a Constitution designed to prevent tyranny and authoritarianism becomes largely irrelevant if you put on a white lab coat.”

In the case Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the moratorium could be kept in place but, according to Turley, “left no question that a majority of justices ultimately view the CDC order as unconstitutional.” Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett had wanted to suspend the moratorium immediately, to make it clear that it was beyond the CDC’s constitutional powers. The fifth vote to do that would have come from Brett Kavanaugh, but he decided that since the moratorium was set to expire soon, anyway, he would just allow it to expire in order to facilitate an “additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance.” It was an odd move, motivated, it seems, by practicality, but he was still agreeing with the minority on the larger point that this is supposed to be done only by act of Congress, not CDC order.

Most of even the most left-wing legal scholars who advise the Biden administration –- including Biden's own White House counsel –- said that giving the CDC this authority was unconstitutional. But Biden was not put off, and said he had found “several key scholars” who thought trying again with another order might “pass constitutional muster” and would be “worth the effort.”

The “several key scholars” are thought to be just one, actually: the unhinged, Trump-hating Harvard law weasel Laurence Tribe, whose superpower is being able to rationalize any abuse of office, no matter how objectionable, from packing the Supreme Court to spending billions under Obamacare without congressional approval to impeaching Trump as a racist and domestic terrorist. I am not kidding. If anyone reads the Constitution looking for loopholes, it’s him.

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/08/06/laurence-tribe-calls-for-the-impeachment-of-trump-as-a-terrorist-and-racist/

Tribe apparently assured Biden that even though the Court believed the original order by the CDC was unconstitutional, this would be a NEW, different order and thus would have to be ruled on again. So it would buy time for the CDC to do as Biden wanted and issue an other order before SCOTUS could rule on that one. It’s hard to imagine anything more disingenuous.

As Turley explains, “It is like being given a parole for stealing a BMW and then immediately stealing a a Lexus because it is a different car. The problem was the act, not the make of car.”

For doing this, Biden was praised by leftists for his strong leadership and “commitment to social justice,” even though his act put a few more frays and tears in the already-worn Constitution. He took an oath to preserve, protect and defend it, but he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do: use a pandemic as an excuse to abuse the law.

If Biden really wanted to help renters who still lack income, he could have done a lot for them without ripping at the Constitution and shelling out more mega-billions. How about using some of that great “leadership” ability to create conditions favorable to getting back to work and school and other normal activities? That would, OF COURSE, include closing the southern border to keep the spread of covid to a minimum and avoid undue strain on our medical facilities. But no.

Here's another example of the Biden administration trying to build up its own power by tearing down the Constitution: the relentless attack on former President Trump, meant to destroy him by any means necessary. John Eastman and John Yoo have written a good opinion piece about this for FOX NEWS.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-trump-presidency-constitution-eastman-yoo

This effort has been going on since he first became a candidate, but the latest encroachment is especially shocking: they’re intent on waiving Trump’s right to confidential communications with his closest aides while in office. Democrats who run House and Senate committees want to know everything in every conversation having to do with election fraud and have issued subpoenas to former Justice Department officials such as then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, then-assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and U.S. Attorneys for Georgia and New York.

Under Article II of the Constitution, the Justice Department should be able to reject these demands, as the President has the right to obtain frank opinions from his principal officers. This has been very well established in the courts. In other words, butt out, Congress.

Eastman and Yoo write: “While Congress has the right to investigate the events leading to the terrible riot of January 6, it does not have a right to override the constitutional prerogatives of an independent branch of government.” Indeed, they say that if Congress gets away with this, they might just as easily force the Supreme Court justices to reveal their deliberations about election fraud cases. Why not?

If Biden’s “Justice” Department refuses to withdraw its waiver of executive privilege against President Trump, then Trump needs to fight back in court with everything he’s got, to protect that right for himself and future Presidents, such as the Republican one who will win in 2024.

Mike Huckabee

Why do Democrats even run for office? Their record on border security and crime proves they have no interest in actually governing.

It’s disturbingly appropriate that Vice President Kamala Harris, whose entire career in public "service" has been little more than an exercise in self-aggrandizement and ego boosting, is the Democrat Party’s point person on illegal immigration and border security. Since taking on the role, all she’s done is hold press conferences designed to boost her own public profile while completely ignoring the problem she’s supposed to solve.

Indeed, to the extent that she and the rest of the Biden administration have done anything at all, it has been to dismantle successful Trump-era policies that were effectively holding illegal immigration at bay, such as the "Remain in Mexico" policy. Her lips may be telling would-be border crossers "do not come," but her actions are sending exactly the opposite message.

The results are as distressing as they are predictable: a historic surge in illegal border crossings, along with the accompanying human misery in the form of crime, exploitation, and disease.

In the El Paso Sector of the border, Border Patrol agents have apprehended or encountered more than 135,000 illegal immigrants over the past nine months – equivalent to about 20 percent of the entire population of El Paso, Texas. Across the entire southwest border, nearly 189,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in June alone, and Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Vally sector reported a 900 percent increase in the rate of COVID infection among those they encountered.

The public health implications are certainly alarming, especially as the country grapples with a resurgence of the pandemic brought on by the Delta variant. But disease is not the only consequence of Democrat policies that encourage hundreds of thousands of people to pour across the border. As has always been the case, floods of undocumented migrants also bring crime with them – motivated by both desperation and opportunity.

The cartels that effectively control large portions of Mexico have for years been infiltrating American cities, using the violent tactics they’ve perfected at home to displace the criminal gangs that once controlled the distribution of narcotics in our inner cities.

That’s a terrifying prospect under the best of circumstances, but it’s being made far worse by the abdication of another core governing responsibility by elected Democrats.

Driven by the irresponsible "defund the police" rhetoric of the Party’s far-left wing, Democrat leaders in cities all over the country have been tying the hands of law enforcement and leaving their own citizens to the mercies of violent criminals.

In Oakland, California, where the City Council has voted to reduce police funding despite the strenuous objections of the city’s mayor, former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer was recently mugged in broad daylight.

Another city that has defunded its own police department – over the strenuous objections of Republican Governor Greg Abbott – is Austin, Texas, which just so happens to be right on the front lines of the border crisis. Last August, the Austin City Council voted to cut the police department’s budget by a whopping $150 million, resulting in the elimination of the department’s gang unit.

"Public safety is job one, and Austin has abandoned that duty," Abbott said in response to the defunding, adding that the decision "paves the way for lawlessness."

That’s exactly what happened. In June, 25-year-old Douglas Kantor was caught in the crossfire of a gang shootout while visiting Austin. Had the police gang unit still been operational at the time, it’s likely that officers would have been in position to put a stop to the shootout before it even began, because they would have been monitoring the communications of known gang members who posted their intention to be at that location on social media.

Kantor’s family is now suing the Mayor and City Council of Austin, arguing that their decision to slash funding for the police department was a purely political decision with obvious and predictable consequences for public safety.

This wasn’t about balancing a budget or adjusting policy priorities; it was about tying the hands of the police department as a means of making a public political statement.

I spent a great deal of my adult life in public service. It’s unbelievable to me that anyone could ask voters to entrust them with such a grave responsibility and then use their power to prevent the government from doing its most basic duty to keep citizens safe. But that’s exactly what today’s Democrats are doing.

This op-ed originally ran on FoxNews.com.

Mike Huckabee

In a special election in Ohio’s 15th Congressional district, Trump-backed candidate Mike Carey beat 11 others for the Republican nomination, which in that red district pretty much means he’ll win the seat.

https://redstate.com/setonmotley/2021/08/05/oh-15-trumps-guy-wins-soros-and-steyers-guys-come-in-fourth-and-dnf-n421438

But the most interesting news is who didn’t win. At least two candidates described as “conservative environmentalists” were backed by leftist mega-donors George Soros and Tom Steyer. It was seen as a trial stealth effort to see if they could fool GOP voters into “flipping” a safe seat without realizing it.

It didn’t work: one candidate dropped out before the vote and the other came in fourth with 12.6%. But as Seton Motley at Redstate.com points out, Republicans now know that far-left power brokers are trying to meddle in GOP primaries to elect their candidates in red hats. It means from now on, Republicans will have to be even more careful to research the backgrounds of candidates before they mark their ballots.

Mike Huckabee

Here’s how you know you’re over the target: Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas wanted to know what her daughter was being taught in kindergarten, so she asked for a copy of the public school curriculum, which she has a right to see. For some reason, they refused to hand over the document. That made her suspicious, so she starting filing Freedom of Information Act requests for more documents. They fought those, and even tried to make her go away by billing her $74,000 for their alleged efforts at having to compile those documents.

Now, the powerful teachers’ union, the National Education Association-Rhode Island, has declared full-out war on Solas and is suing her, claiming they’re trying to protect “private” information. But the emails Solas is seeking were sent on public school servers, which makes them public record (anyone else getting a Hillary Clinton vibe here?) For the record, the NEA backs teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools and boasts that its president, Becky Pringle, is a “fierce social justice warrior.”

Bryan Preston at PJ Media has lots more details at this link:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/05/gigantic-teachers-union-sues-mom-for-asking-what-the-local-public-school-is-teaching-her-daughter-n1467245

If the intent was to try to intimidate Solas into backing down, it didn’t work. She’s now represented by the Goldwater Institute, and her response to the NEA lawsuit was, “Game on.” If they were trying to hide public information from FOIA requests, then they’re not going to enjoy the discovery phase of this lawsuit.

Sounds like the self-flattering “social justice warriors” are about to discover what a truly fierce warrior looks like. And by that, I mean a mom who’s being told that she has no right to know what’s being taught to her kid.

Mike Huckabee

The New York Attorney General’s report on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s multiple accusations of sexual harassment (as well as retaliation and creating a toxic workplace) seems to be the tipping point at which fellow Democrats and sycophantic media members decided it’s time to stop circling the wagons, as they usually do for powerful Democrats, and cut him loose.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-facing-impeachment-votes-from-majority-of-ny-assembly-if-he-doesnt-resign-report

Cuomo is still trying to brazen it out, accusing the report of being biased and his accusers of misunderstanding his intentions. But even some of his former top allies and defenders say he’s lost the ability to govern and should resign. If he doesn’t, a majority of Assembly members (86 out of 150 at last count) have gone on record supporting impeachment.

Howard Kurtz has a rundown of some of the former Cuomo-worshipping media outlets that are now howling for his blood, and some thoughts on why.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-the-press-wants-cuomo-their-onetime-shining-knight-to-resign

To me, the biggest question is why sexual harassment allegations, as bad as they are, are accepted as grounds for Cuomo’s removal when the same people turned a blind eye to his insane COVID policies that killed thousands of nursing home residents and his staff’s ham-fisted attempts to cover that up. Is sexual harassment deemed a worse crime in liberal circles than causing mass deaths?

But if that were true, why did such avatars of wokeness as the founder of Time’s Up and the president of the Human Rights Campaign allegedly try to save Cuomo initially by helping to smear his accusers?

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/465953/

The editors of Issues & Insights think they know why Cuomo is suddenly being thrown under the crosstown bus, and it has little to do with justice, principles or victims’ rights. It’s about raw politics. Anything is tolerable until you become a liability to the party. Only then do they spring the trap door and drop you into the shark tank.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/05/the-real-reason-dems-suddenly-want-cuomo-gone/

Mike Huckabee

A new Emerson College/Nexstar poll shows that Californians are warming to the idea of recalling and replacing Gov. Gavin Newsom.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/newsom-clings-to-lead-in-recall-while-crime-becomes-a-top-issue-for-ca-voters

Only 48% of likely voters now say they’d vote to keep Newsom with 46% wanting to fire him, his narrowest lead yet, and 6% undecided. Among Republican replacements, Larry Elder is by far the most popular, but 40% are still undecided.

Among the noteworthy details: Newsom is only in positive territory in two places (L.A. and the San Francisco Bay area) which you could argue have deteriorated the worst under his “leadership.” Over 54% of Independents want to deep-six Newsom, as do 22% of Democrats, while 16% of Republicans want to keep him, which I can only attribute to sunstroke or smoke inhalation. Oddest of all, voters who self-identify as “non-binary” gender prefer Larry Elder to Caitlyn Jenner. So maybe some people think not every election should be determined by gender politics. And in California! Imagine that!

Mike Huckabee

A big name in Texas Democrat politics, Gerry Monroe, is reportedly “blowing the lid off” the story of massive voter fraud in Harris County.. That’s the Houston metropolitan area, the third largest voting county in America with about 2.5 million voters. Monroe is set to be interviewed at 11AM Eastern Thursday on NATIONAL FILE TV.

https://twitter.com/nationalfile

They say it’s to be shown live on Twitter, but does Twitter know about this? I’m surprised that anything about voter fraud wouldn’t be censored by them. Guess we’ll find out.

Another operative, Democrat strategist Damien Thaddeum Jones, who worked as a regional director for the “Beto” O’Rourke campaign, came forward in October 2020 to blow the whistle on what NATIONAL FILE describes as a “massive voter fraud ring” in Harris County. They obtained audio from him giving details on the work for Biden by alleged ringleader Dallas Jones. Jones was fired by the Biden campaign after he was implicated in an illegal ballot harvesting operation in sworn affidavits.

https://nationalfile.com/watch-black-democrat-operative-blows-the-lid-off-democrat-voter-fraud-in-texas/

It should be noted that Democrats took complete control of Harris County in 2018 when they won offices by a 200,000-vote margin, although I’m not sure if I should be putting quotation marks around the word “vote.”

The Gerry Monroe interview is the latest development in a story that’s been emerging since last year. Much has been uncovered by the 20 (!) private investigators who have been on the case. NATIONAL FILE breaks down what happened in the 2020 election during the weeks of early, “24-hour” voting to sway the results.

The Biden campaign had hired Dallas Jones to run his campaign in Texas. And though vote harvesting is a second-degree felony under the Texas Election Code, that operation allegedly had “scores” of paid vote harvesters working for them. Audio recordings suggest that identities of both living and dead people were stolen, with a convicted forger named Gloria Palmer working as a paid campaign assistant in Sheila Jackson Lee’s office, mailing the fraudulent ballot applications in Jackson’s district. Campaign insiders allege that Jones oversaw the operation and that he was interrogated by the FBI in the weeks approaching the 2020 campaign.

Vote harvesters would go door-to-door in poor neighborhoods, often dressed to look like U.S. Census workers, and would often ply their trade at nursing homes and homeless centers, where the staff would be complicit. They would “hold” ballots to be forged by volunteers and then mailed. There’s also detailed testimony and evidence from a 30-year black police officer named Raymond T. Stewart who, while serving as a poll watcher, “saw the election judge use a table full of IDs to vote unregistered people that were voting by drive-through.”

This is a criminal act, but according to NATIONAL FILE, the local district attorney “did not even want to entertain our criminal complaint.” So the evidence has been sent on to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

In these audio recordings, people find out that they or their dead relatives “voted,” to their surprise.

The decision by Harris County’s Democrat county clerk, Chris Hollins, to institute drive-through voting with no reason required was a violation of the Texas Election Code. He committed another violation by independently mailing ballots to everyone 65 and older. At least he was stopped by the Texas Supreme Court before he could send a ballot to every name on the voter rolls, which had not been updated since 2016.

The NATIONAL FILE story is quite long and detailed and includes the sworn testimony of several other poll watchers. Former FBI investigative specialist Charles F. Marler said he was tipped to the ballot harvesting by two witnesses in December of 2019. This is hearsay, but Marler testified he’d been told that one employee named Tyler James had bragged that the operation, with the help of mass mail-in balloting, “could harvest 700,000 illegal ballots.”

We can thank citizen journalist Colleen Vera of TEXAS TRASH TALK for updates concerning Sheila Jackson Lee’s campaign office and the two convicted forgers who were getting paid. Vera’s report --- included in the NATIONAL FILE story --- makes very interesting reading. For example, she found that 32 handwritten requests for ballots, all purported to be from different voters, were in the exact same handwriting and returned in identical pre-printed envelopes with the same stamp. Even more stunning: all these “voters” happened in Precinct #259, all voted for the same candidates, and all signed with an “X.”

What are the odds? Yet additional research showed the same thing had happened in Precinct #259 every year going back to 2008.

In Vera’s words, What has been uncovered is a group of masterminds wanting to destroy the Texas voting voice.”

It sure looks like there’s a whole lotta cheatin’ goin’ on. And it would make sense that Harris County is a key spot to be doing it, just like Maricopa County (Phoenix) and Fulton County (Atlanta). Maybe it’s the most prime of all. Increasingly, as Harris County goes, so goes Texas, and as Texas goes, so goes America. If the Democrats can steal Texas, it’s all over. So it should surprise no one that if there’s coordinated voter fraud going on in large counties, this has got to be one of the hotbeds.

Mike Huckabee

Controversial Trump-hating comedian Kathy Griffin revealed that she has lung cancer and is about to undergo surgery to have half of her left lung removed. She says it’s stage one and hasn’t spread, so doctors are optimistic that she will recover without chemo or radiation.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/08/02/kathy-griffin-reveals-lung-cancer-diagnosis-n1466450

Lung cancer is a frightening and terrible disease (Griffin already knows that from having lost her brother to cancer in 2014), and like fellow conservative Matt Margolis at the link, I send her my prayers for a full recovery. As Matt notes, that’s what decent people do at times like this, even for those who have ignored basic rules of civility toward others. He hopes she will survive this ordeal and come out of it with a little more empathy for others. Amen to that.

At this writing, former President Trump has yet to comment. But a lot of people are waiting.

Mike Huckabee

Rep. Ilhan Omar and some of her fellow far-far-left colleagues are pushing a bill they call the SUPPORT Act (I guess that sounded better than the HAMMOCK Act) that would give $1200 a month to people making less than $75,000 a year or heads of household making less than $112,500 a year, plus $600 per child. This would be a first step toward a national “guaranteed income.” Because paying people for doing nothing is working out so well right now.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ilhan-omar-guaranteed-income-1200-monthly-checks

Omar declared, "Poverty is a choice. For too long we have prioritized endless growth while millions are homeless, hungry or without healthcare. We as a nation have the ability to make sure everyone has their basic needs like food, housing and healthcare met.”

Hoo-boy, where to start? I guess with the fact that America already takes care of those who genuinely need food, housing and healthcare. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on programs like Medicaid, Section 8 housing and SNAP food assistance. If we wanted to spend even more on those programs, maybe we could secure the border and stop letting millions of illegal immigrants suck up so much public assistance funding that could go to Americans, especially veterans. Just spit-balling here.

Second, prioritizing growth has enabled us to create the most dynamic economy in the world, one that was creating plenty of jobs and rising wages up until a Chinese virus and Democrat politicians strangled it (and somehow, Trump got blamed for that.)

I do agree with her on one thing: in some cases, poverty is a choice. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of people who are poor through no fault of their own. But then, there are those who make the mistake of listening to the false promises of leftist politicians who promise them things for free in exchange for their freedom. Like a subsistence wage for no work. Leftists hope you choose to stay in poverty because that keeps you dependent on government and them in power.

But one of the problems with socialist ides like this is that there is no magical forest full of money trees, so all that free stuff has to be paid for by someone else. As soon the people paying for it realize it’s not worth it to keep producing when the government is just going to take away the fruits of their labor and give it to the non-productive, then they become nonproductive, too.

And that’s when America becomes Venezuela.

For more news of my news coverage, visit my website here.

Mike Huckabee

Monday, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report that the preponderance of evidence, including recently uncovered evidence, points to COVID-19 being accidentally released from the virus lab in Wuhan, China, sometime before September 12, 2019.

https://gop-foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/mccaul-releases-addendum-to-origins-of-covid-19-report/

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul said the Wuhan virologists were “playing with fire. They were genetically manipulating at the lab this gain-of-function that was taking place." McCaul called for top researchers involved with the Wuhan lab to be sanctioned and for Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliances that sent $3.4 million in NIH grants to the Wuhan lab, to be called to testify before Congress.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-lab-report-raises-further-questions-about-possible-covid-19-lab-leak

McCaul also accused the Chinese Communist Party of engaging in “the greatest cover-up in human history.” I don’t know if there’s an award ceremony for that, but if so, I hope the CCP remembers to thank all the US-based social media sites that made their win possible.

Mike Huckabee

Other than “Trump Wins Second Non-Consecutive Term,” I can think of few headlines that would cause more anguish in liberal circles than “Sarah Palin Elected To Senate.” And for that reason alone, this story makes me smile…

https://www.westernjournal.com/sarah-palin-floats-big-2022-possibility-sen-murkowski-notice/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

In a related story, I have a feeling Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn’t the only Republican in Congress who will be facing a challenge from the right. In a new McLaughlin & Associates survey 53% of regular Republican primary voters in Wyoming described Rep. Liz Cheney, currently the darling of CNN for her spot on Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6th show trial, as “liberal.” Only 23% say they plan to vote for her, and 77% say they will not. I think you can safely call those “daunting odds.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/cheney-in-trouble-77-gop-would-not-reelect-53-call-her-liberal

Mike Huckabee

The only good thing I can say about Attorney General Merrick Garland and his stewardship of the Biden “Justice” Department is that at least he’s not a Supreme Court Justice. During his brief time in office, he’s obliterated any sense of the DOJ as a fair and impartial arbiter of laws and the Constitution and is rapidly turning it into the kind of politicized enforcement arm of the President that we normally see in banana republics.

Here are just a few recent stories out of the DOJ:

They’re threatening states that conduct ballot audits…

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/28/doj-warning-election-ballot-reviews-501295

They’re threatening states that pass laws to safeguard election integrity…

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-sets-stage-permanently-destroy-election-integrity-ensure-gop-never-wins/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

They’re suing Texas because Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to stop the feds from transporting COVID-positive illegal immigrants around the state. Imagine if this Administration went to this much effort to keep COVID-positive illegal immigrants out in the first place...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/doj-sues-texas-gov-abbott-over-the-governor-s-executive-order-on-migrant-transportation

They dropped charges against five suspected Chinese spies while hounding Trump supporters like Inspector Javert…

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/07/26/doj-drops-charges-against-5-possible-chinese-spies-as-fbi-focuses-on-january-6-n1464726

They declared vaccine mandates legal, even while admitting that some legal scholars say they’re not…

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-vaccine-mandates-legal

And now (surprise!), the Biden DOJ has ordered the IRS to turn over former President Trump’s personal income tax records to his rabid haters in Congress for them to fish through.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-orders-irs-release-trumps-tax-returns/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

The DOJ memo said, “Executive Branch officials must apply a presumption that Legislative Branch officials act in good faith and in furtherance of legitimate objectives.”

So I’ll give Biden’s and Garland’s “Justice” Department this: they may no longer be providing justice, but at least they’re trying to give us some much-needed laughter.

Mike Huckabee

The Biden White House is furious at the New York Times and the Washington Post for tweeting what they claim is false information about the risk of COVID infection among the vaccinated and their likelihood of spreading it. Details here:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/white-house-washington-post-new-york-times-covid-spread-vaccinated

Can I just point out that it’s no wonder the public is skeptical of government claims about COVID and vaccines? What does it say when the Administration’s messages are so mixed and confused that not even their court stenographers can get the official version straight?

Speaking of which…

https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/30/white-house-walks-back-biden-statement-that-national-vaccine-mandate-is-under-consideration/

And Matt Taibbi shows how vaccine skepticism is not a new phenomenon but the latest manifestation of the long term out-of-touch arrogance and doubletalk of the elites.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy/

Mike Huckabee

CORRECTION: We recently commented on a report that the CDC was revoking emergency use authorization for a particular test for COVID because it couldn’t differentiate between the COVID virus and influenza. It turns out that’s inaccurate (that test can differentiate but was withdrawn for different reasons.) Although it is true, as I said, that the initial story had a lot of people questioning whether the original COVID case numbers were accurate, but the CDC says they are. You can read full details at this fact-check article by Kaiser Health News.

https://khn.org/news/article/fact-check-cdc-pcr-covid-test-distinguishes-from-flu-eua-request-withdrawal/

On a side note, I don’t know why the writers saw fit to single me out, as if we were a source of this story, which had been widely distributed long before we touched on it. In fact, that’s the only reason we posted a brief mention of it: it was already all over the place.

As we have repeatedly made clear, in most cases, we aren’t an original news source site, we’re an aggregator/commentary site. We try hard to find multiple reliable sources for stories, but those are increasingly hard to come by in the age of social media and blatantly politicized news. Our original story even linked directly to the CDC website, so if it was incorrect, all they had to do was add a correction to that page. We may be the first people accused of spreading misinformation by linking to the CDC’s own website.

We have no interest in spreading misinformation, and if something we comment on later turns out to be inaccurate, we always run a correction, as you see here. How many original source news outlets – or for that matter, fact-checker sites – do that?

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we wrote about a letter from a newsletter reader whose son is one of those incarcerated in the wake of the Capitol breach on January 6. (His son is one of those who didn’t even go inside the building.) Imagine how it must be to have one’s son being held in jail by the feds, with no bail, for many months (like a murderer), awaiting a trial that might not even happen until sometime in 2022. It’s not even possible for the father to have a private conversation with his own son, as phone conversations are monitored at the jail, and the son isn’t even able to meet in private with an attorney. All of this, I feel compelled to remind you, is happening in America, the land of the free.

In case you didn’t see the father’s letter and our response, here it is.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=25AAFBB1-0197-4525-A6F6-CC190FDAB183

After this piece ran, we received a comment from another reader who took exception to what the father had said about his son, saying the son had nothing to apologize for and was even a hero. In fact, her letter ended in a way that seemed downright abusive to the father. (It’s all too easy to get abusive towards people we only talk to online, people we have never met and don’t know at all.) We thought this reader’s questions and observations deserved to be addressed at length. First, here is her letter...

(From Sharon)

Just a couple of questions about the father of the Capitol Hill detainee:

First of all, why would black people not support Trump people?

Because most black people do but then again these were criminals.

Also, the father says what his son did was wrong? Oh? Getting in the way of Goebbels and the Gestapo?

My father saw combat in Korea and Vietnam and if that’d been me he’d have been cheering not saying I’d done wrong.

Mister your son did right and he is a hero and if you don’t stand with him shame on you.

………………..

Dear Sharon:

Thank you for responding; we welcome responses from all sides. But I think some issues here cry out for clarification.

The father, Keith, did mention in his letter that most of the inmates at DC Correctional were black –- as are most of the residents of Washington, DC –- and that in general they were dismayed to have Trump supporters in their midst. That is not surprising and is not the same as saying black people don’t support Trump, only that these particular black people in Washington, DC, did not. And while the black conservative movement is picking up steam in some parts of the country, most black people are still not a part of that. We can deny reality if you would like, but these inmates of the DC Correctional facility, who do happen to be mostly black, are not Trump supporters. Probably some of the white ones aren’t, either; after all, this is Washington, DC. On the bright side, once they learned Alan was a Trump supporter and not a pedophile, they treated him better than they treat pedophiles.

Recall that according to the letter we previously posted from detainee Joe Biggs, some of the black people Biggs met in a Florida correctional facility were struck by what a nice guy he was. They liked him. It wasn’t the black men, but some of the white men identifying as white supremacists, who didn’t want to be associated with him. They said he was “too nice” to be in their group.

In fact, Joe said that one thing he’d learned for sure after meeting real white supremacists in this jail was that he WASN’T ONE.

Sharon, you criticize Alan’s father for saying that what his son did was wrong. We don’t know the details of the confrontation his son had with police and a reporter outside the Capitol Building, but the son does, and if he feels contrite and believes he was in the wrong, I think we should take him at his word. You know I’ve said myself that this confrontation was a bad idea and has had terrible repercussions. I’m not sure you understood me when I said the left is using this for great political benefit. In that sense, anything that was done at the Capitol Building that went beyond peaceable assembly was indeed wrong. If this young man realizes that, so much the better.

You may say he did right to fight against “Goebbels and the Gestapo,” but, again, we don’t know exactly what went down and his part in it. According to his dad, since he’s come to the Lord he’s thought deeply about the kind of man he wants to be. He’s sorry for what he did. His father respects that, and I think we should, too.

The thing that really stood out to me in this father’s letter was the dismay at the two-tier justice system. “I guess if you are a Democrat,” he said, “you can burn a city or burn a federal building with agents inside it; you may be arrested but will be out the next day without bail.”

This young man does NOT deserve to be languishing on a lower rung of our “justice” system simply because he is a Trump supporter, and he absolutely does not deserve to be held for many months with bail denied. As I’ve said, he and the other “detainees” (political prisoners) are being used as political props for the statecraft that is Nancy Pelosi’s investigatory “commission,” when they should be treated with exactly the same rights as any other American. Direct your fury at THAT, not at a father who is hurting and thinking about his son.

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, President Biden held a press conference where he promised to give us the straight facts about COVID-19 and vaccinations. To say the least, many were skeptical of that.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/07/29/joe-biden-loses-it-calls-fox-fax-snaps-at-peter-doocy-and-wrecks-his-own-argument-on-masks-n418622

The big takeaways from Biden’s speech were that Americans should get vaccinated, and he would require civilian federal workers to “attest” that they’ve been vaccinated or wear masks and undergo regular tests and travel restrictions. He also encouraged local governments to use leftover COVID relief funds to pay $100 to people who get vaccinated.

(Just as an aside: isn't making people prove they're vaccinated a form of requiring ID? And since blacks and Hispanics are less likely than whites not to be vaccinated, that would mean it's an ID requirement that disproportionately affects minorities, or as the Democrats call that, "RAAAAAAACISM!!!" But I digress...)

Many critics are taking this as a sign that the government is ramping up for tighter restrictions and even more lockdowns over a spike in cases that’s not that high and that isn’t accompanied by a big increase in deaths because the Delta variant isn’t as dangerous. All this paranoia, and the DOJ’s dubious ruling that it’s legal for companies to require workers to get vaccinated, is sparking big companies like Google, Twitter, Netflix and Facebook to require their employees to get vaccinated.

(Some legal scholars question the DOJ’s reasoning, arguing that the Geneva Convention recognizes the right to refuse to have experimental drugs injected into your body against your will, and the vaccines have received only emergency use authorization by the FDA. Please note that I’m not discouraging vaccination – I’ve been vaccinated myself – I’m just talking about other people’s right to say no.)

I expect quite a bit of pushback even from government workers (the postal union already is rebelling), and even more if they try to use COVID to hang onto the abusive power the government seized last year.

Meanwhile, Mark Theissen in the Washington Post (surprisingly) helped put this pandemic/”Dem panic” into perspective by pointing out, using the CDC’s own numbers, that only 4,072 vaccinated Americans have been hospitalized with symptoms out of 161 million, for a breakthrough infection rate of less than 0.003%. Of those hospitalized, 849 have died, for a death rate of 0.0005%. The median age of those hospitalized with breakthrough infections was 74, and an Israeli study found that only 4% of those hospitalized with breakthrough infections had no comorbidities.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/07/29/joe-sacrifices-military-readiness-and-freedom-over-stats-showing-vaxxed-people-are-more-likely-to-die-from-bee-sting-than-covid-n1465668

For comparison, that means that if you’ve been vaccinated, you are less likely to die of COVID than from a car crash; seasonal flu; a lightning strike; choking on food; sunstroke; drowning; a dog attack; or being stung by a bee. Yet some people want to bring back draconian pandemic measures.

Somehow, I get the feeling we're all being stung.

Mike Huckabee

As thousands of illegal immigrants continue streaming across our border, and getting released on the US side with no court dates (only 13% even check in as they’re ordered to), Vice President Kamala Harris finally released her five-pronged plan to deal with the problem. It has to be seen to be believed.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/29/harris-releases-migration-strategy-amid-border-crisis/

Talk about a fork full of manure. The various prongs are heaped with high-flown liberal fantasies about fixing the “root causes” of illegal immigration into America, like “combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law” and “promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and free press” in Central America. All well and good, as future goals. But, maybe, in the short term, we might consider CLOSING THE DOOR!!!

It’s like asking someone to help put out a forest fire that she started, and seven months later, she hands over an essay on the history of combustion. And it’s a D- essay. If she and President Biden really want to know the root cause of our current illegal immigration crisis, they can find it in the nearest mirror.

Meanwhile, a new cry has gone up for Biden to appoint someone else as an illegal immigration czar. Say, I know someone who’d be perfect! He has a proven track record of reducing illegal immigration, and he left his last job on January 20th, so he’s probably tanned, rested and ready.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

While it’s always sad to have to write the celebrity obituaries, this one hits especially hard. Dusty Hill, bassist and vocalist for “The Little Ol’ Band from Texas,” ZZ Top, died in his sleep at his home in Houston Wednesday at 72. The Top were on tour and Hill had taken a break, supposedly to deal with hip problems.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/dusty-hill-zz-top-bassist-dead-at-72/

Hill was a Dallas native (like me), and I can assure you that to us true Texans, ZZ Top are icons. Anyone who badmouths ZZ Top, Willie Nelson or the Alamo in Texas runs the risk of getting their butts kicked up to their shoulder blades with a pointy-toed boot. We grow up on ZZ Top, never grow tired of ZZ Top, and when the real thing isn’t touring, we go see tribute bands who wear department Santa beards. ZZ Top IS Texas. What other band ever went on tour with live longhorn steer on stage with them? Or had a hit song about the Chicken Ranch five years before “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” debuted? But I saw a recent YouTube video that attempted to list the “Most American Bands of All Time,” and they tied for #1 with Lynyrd Skynyrd, so I guess we’ll share them with the rest of y’all.

Dusty Hill, drummer Frank Beard and guitarist/vocalist Billy Gibbons had been together since 1969, making them the longest-running band ever with the original unchanged lineup (52 years!) They’ve gone through some musical changes over the years, from the bluesy sound of “ZZ Top’s First Album” through the smoother ‘80s hits like “Sharp-Dressed Man” and “Legs,” to their more recent albums like “Rhythmeen” or 2012’s “La Futura,” that returned to the rough blues/rock style I sometimes think of as the sound of heavy machinery self-destructing. But they never strayed too far from that uniquely Texan blend of blues, rock, country and sly, hilarious lyrics. If you liked the old stuff and haven’t heard any of the newer material, check it out. It’s raw and terrific.

The band announced that it will continue on, and I’m sure Billy and Frank will keep making great music (Billy has put out a couple of excellent solo albums in recent years.) But it will never be exactly the same. Especially if Gov. Huckabee grows his new beard out and becomes Dusty’s replacement.

Order a taco plate, hoist a Lone Star and put on “Tres Hombres” or "Tejas" in Dusty’s honor. And watch the Grammy-nominated documentary, “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

https://www.amazon.com/ZZ-Top-That-LIttle-Texas/dp/B085LW1FYD

But wait, there’s more! We’ve also lost yet another American icon of a very different sort: Infomercial king Ron Popeil died in Los Angeles Wednesday at 86.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/infomercial-icon-ron-popeil-dies-at-86/ar-AAMGaB6

Possibly the greatest sales/pitchman of all time, Popeil also invented many of the gadgets he hawked on TV (although two of his most famous, the Veg-O-Matic and the suggestively-named Pocket Fisherman, were actually invented by his father.) Popeil’s knack for coming up with products you never knew you needed (The Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler! The Mr. Microphone! The Electric Food Dehydrator! The Portable Smokeless Ashtray! And of course, Hair-In-A-Can!) was matched only by his talent for making them so entertaining.

While some of these products seem kitschy today, they were often surprisingly high quality. I recently saw a YouTube video of someone trying a Veg-O-Matic from the ‘60s, and it still worked like a charm. Try that with one of today’s plastic, made-in-China gadgets. And I would definitely not recommend any Chinese-made Hair-In-A-Can.

Mike Huckabee

It was a sad day in the House Thursday, and a sign of just how radical the Democrats have become, when for the first time in 45 years, the House passed on party lines a Medicaid spending bill that didn’t include the Hyde Amendment. That’s the amendment that prevents taxpayer money from being used to fund abortions, something opposed by a majority of Americans.

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2021/07/29/democrats-blow-up-the-last-bipartisan-refuge-in-congress-n418763

It also didn’t include the Weldon Amendment, which prohibits agencies that receive federal funds from discriminating against entities because they refuse to provide or fund abortions.

Later that night, House Democrats passed a State Department funding bill that dropped the Helms Amendment, which prohibits using taxpayer money to fund abortions in other countries. A Marist poll shows that’s opposed by 77% of Americans and supported by only 19%, but the Democrats care more about the abortion lobby than the will of the people.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/07/29/breaking-house-passes-bill-to-force-taxpayers-to-fund-abortion-n1465634

The Democrats have always been the more pro-abortion party, but at least there used to be room for pro-life Democrats. Not only have they all been driven out, but now, even the reasonable compromise of not forcing pro-life taxpayers to fund the killing of children in the womb is gone.

That’s been replaced by denouncing every disagreement as racist, which California Rep. Barbara Lee tried here, saying, “These provisions have long had a terrible and disproportionate impact on low-income women and women of color. Getting them off the books will be a huge step forward for reproductive and racial justice.”

In short, the Democrats now claim to be fighting racism by making it even easier to abort black babies, who are already greatly disproportionate victims of abortion. In opposing voter ID, Democrats argue that the disproportionate impact of any policy on certain races is prima facie proof of racism. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist who thought that “inferior” races should be weeded out, must be looking up and smiling.

The good news is that these radical changes aren't likely to survive in the Senate. But it should send a long-overdue wake-up call to everyday Democratic voters that this is no longer your father’s Democratic Party. The leadership is now solidly a far-left, pro-death cult of radical extremists. And the one thing I do agree with them on is that extremists are dangerous to America and should not be in positions of power.

Mike Huckabee

Citing concerns over the Delta variant, various cities and businesses including Walt Disney World are bringing back indoor mask mandates. Teachers unions are pushing to continue them in schools. And President Biden, who changes direction more often than LeBron James, now appears poised to mandate that all government workers (not surprisingly, that’s the largest workforce in America) get vaccinated or face regular tests and various restrictions. The Postal Workers Union had something to say about that.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/07/29/americas-largest-postal-worker-union-has-thoughts-about-vaccine-mandates-n2593280

We’re told that we need to bring back all these draconian measures because of the dangers of the dreaded Delta Variant. Biden once even claimed it’s deadlier than the original disease, which it is not (like all viruses, it’s mutating to forms that are weaker but easier to spread as it tries to stay alive when there are fewer potential hosts.)

This mixed messaging is destroying the CDC’s credibility and undermining their own arguments for getting vaccinated. For instance, if it’s still necessary for vaccinated people to wear masks and social distance, that implies that the vaccine is useless, which isn't true. They say we should listen to them because they represent “SCIENCE!” but they’re coming off more as politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths at once (I wish there was a vaccine to cure that.)

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw released a series of tweets blasting the CDC and claiming that the entire basis for the return of mask mandates was a single study done in India that was rejected in peer review and that involved a vaccine we don’t even use here.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/07/28/dan-crenshaw-tweets-stunning-revelation-on-new-cdc-mask-guidelines-n2593271

Wednesday, Fox News Primetime aired a series of graphs illustrating the rising cases of COVID that are sparking the return of draconian measures. They showed that the case increase was about one-tenth of the previous peak, and the more important measures (hospitalizations and deaths) were flat. In fact, US COVID deaths are at their lowest level since March of last year, around the time the pandemic began.

https://fee.org/articles/despite-delta-alarmism-us-covid-deaths-are-at-lowest-level-since-march-2020-harvard-and-stanford-professors-explain/

Since so few people trust the CDC, here’s some straight dope on the actual danger level of the Delta variant and the effectiveness of the vaccines (quite high, but not perfect), from health industry consultant Kevin Roche’s Healthy Skeptic blog.

https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/07/28/what-more-can-i-say/

He deserves a read just for his brilliant observation that “pandemic” is an anagram for “Dem panic.”

Mike Huckabee

Virginia’s Democrat nominee for Governor, Terry McAuliffe, attacked GOP opponent Glenn Youngkin for appearing at an election integrity event by claiming that anyone who questions the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory is attacking “the fundamentals of democracy,” and hurting our country, our men and women in uniform and "everybody." He demanded Youngkin “disavow this dangerous, deadly conspiracy theory once and for all."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcauliffe-says-election-doubters-hurting-our-country-despite-questioning-democrats-loss-in-2000

Problems: Youngkin’s event was about securing the upcoming election. He’s never claimed the 2020 election was stolen and even said months ago that Biden was legitimately elected President.

McAuliffe, however, did repeatedly insist that the 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore. He accused the Supreme Court of tampering with the vote; said, "Folks, you know it. I know it. They know it. We won that election and let's never forget it;" and insisted that Gore would have won if all the votes were counted in Florida (a later recount by the media found that Bush won legitimately, which would make McAuliffe's claim...how to put this?...oh yes: a Big Lie.)

Youngkin’s spokesperson responded, "If Terry McAuliffe is accusing you of something, he’s probably guilty of it himself." Well, except when he said that Youngkin attended that election integrity event. I’m sure that’s something Terry McAuliffe would never do.

Mike Huckabee

Robin DiAngelo, the white lady who’s made a fat living off of peddling woke racial divisiveness and cringing white liberal guilt to corporations and the media via her absurd book “White Fragility,” must know how many people, including some professional comedians (although not late night hosts, of course) are starting to shake off their fear of cancel culture and make fun of her nonsense. You can tell because she’s now declared comedy itself to be racist.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-fragility-author-comedy-excuse-racist

I’m not going to recount what passes for her “reasoning,” because it was painful enough just having to slog through it once. But you can read it at the link. It might remind you of the classic scene in Mel Brooks’ “History of the World” where he’s a Greek philosopher applying for unemployment, and the clerk (Bea Arthur) says, “Oh, you’re a bull-BLEEP artist,” and asks, “Did you bull-BLEEP last week?...Did you TRY to bull-BLEEP?...” No wonder she hates comedy: Mel Brooks has already summed up her profession perfectly.

You won’t be surprised to learn that this tidbit of self-interest disguised as high-mindedness came in an interview promoting her new book, "Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm." Finally, she said something we can all agree with!

Comedy is essential to free speech and free thought. Since the days when court jesters were the only ones allowed to joke about the king, it’s been the job of comedians to mock the foibles and hypocrisies of all sides, especially those in power. They perform the vital service of pointing out when the emperor has no clothes. That’s why tyrants always try to crack down on comedy, and why victims of oppressive regimes always have plenty of jokes about their leaders that they only tell amongst themselves. Here in America, we tell those jokes out in the open. Or at least we used to (I refused to stop), and I hope we’re finally getting back to doing it again.

For the record: no, Ms DiAngelo, I will not stop joking about things that richly deserve it, and if that includes certain politicians or celebrities who happen to be black, then so be it. Claiming as she does that it’s racist for white people to joke about black people is itself racist and condescending. The shows she criticizes (“Family Guy,” “South Park,” “The Simpsons”) often include jokes that are offensive to my sensibilities, but I’d never say they shouldn’t be allowed to make them. They can make fun of my beliefs, and I can make fun of theirs. And fortunately, since MsDiAngelo is white, she should have no objections to all of us making fun of her beliefs, which are a veritable Mother Lode of comedy material.

Mike Huckabee

Tuesday, the Biden Administration released a 21-point plan for processing asylum seekers more quickly.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-unveils-plan-allows-immigrants-granted-asylum-bypassing-courts/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

It would allow some to bypass immigration courts, which have a 1.2 million-case backlog, and let their cases be decided by asylum officers. (FYI: the courts would be backlogged even worse if Biden would let immigration authorities schedule court dates or if those who did have them were actually showing up for them.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/report-50000-immigrants-released-us-without-court-date-small-fraction-report-ice/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

They claim the plan would also promptly deport those who don’t qualify (question: would there be any of those under Biden?) There’s a lot of nice talk, like, “We will always be a nation of borders, and we will enforce our immigration laws in a way that is fair and just,” but is that just camouflage to hide the devil in the details?

Color me skeptical, considering that the White House statement declared that “asylum and other legal migration pathways should remain available to those seeking protection.”

Do you know who’s currently seeking protection from deadly threats by a genuinely oppressive government? Cubans.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

This story was so absurd that I held off from commenting on it until I was fairly certain it wasn't a hoax or a prank. But apparently, the leftist BLM group Dallas Justice Now really did circulate a letter to parents in the wealthy neighborhoods of Highland Park and University Park, telling them that if they wanted to prove they’re allies of BLM and not racists, they should pledge not to send their kids to Ivy League schools to leave more spots open for minority students.

https://www.westernjournal.com/dallas-leftist-group-accuses-rich-white-parents-oppressing-minorities-makes-head-scratching-demand/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

My writers live in Dallas, and they assure me that’s about as likely to happen as them being able to afford a house in Highland Park. This came about because, even though those neighborhoods are heavily old-money Republican, their kids have been indoctrinated and were virtue-signaling their BLM support. That gave the DJN group an opening to accuse them of being racist hypocrites if they don’t really make sacrifices to atone for the wealth they’ve accumulated by oppressing minorities (they seem to think that’s how wealth is accumulated; not by providing goods and services that people want to pay for – sounds like they’ve been indoctrinated with dumb ideas, too.)

While everyone is having a good laugh over this, I think the parents should take it seriously. Look at how your kids are already acting. Can you imagine what insufferable, useless little socialists they’ll become if you send them to an Ivy League university? This group may have done you the biggest favor imaginable by scaring you into sending them to Liberty University or military school before it’s too late.

Mike Huckabee

Four Republican members of Congress --- Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar --- walked to the doorstep of the Department of “Justice” headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue at midday Tuesday to express their concerns about treatment of those jailed for participating in the Capitol Hill “breach” on January 6. They had serious unanswered questions for Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The doors of the DOJ building were closed to them. The members of Congress were not allowed inside.

But guess what happened? Some leftist protesters showed up who seemed to take their inspiration from January 6th. No doubt the only reason they didn’t “breach” the DOJ headquarters themselves is that the doors had been shut to keep out the Republicans. Would those leftist protesters have been tossed into sweaty jail cells and held without bail for three months (and counting)? I think we know the answer to that question.

It was only a matter of minutes before the four Republicans speaking outside the entrance were swarmed by leftist protesters, one of them incessantly blowing a shrill whistle to keep them from being heard from their podium.

The Right Side Broadcasting Network aired their press conference live, not knowing, of course, what it was going to turn into. So now we can see from their recording the lengths to which intolerant, idiotic leftist protesters will go to shut down attempts at reasoned discussion. Video starts about 30 minutes before the press conference begins, but this time is used by reporter Liz Willis to read the letter to AG Garland and give some background, detailing some truly horrific allegations of beatings and denial of sleep and medical care.

Note: their video was removed from YouTube, but as far as we know, you’ll still be able to see it in its entirety here. If sometime between this writing and your attempted viewing it has been taken down, C-Span should have it.

https://rsbnetwork.com/video/live-reps-gaetz-gohmert-gosar-and-greene-press-conference-on-status-of-jan-6-prisoners-at-doj-7-27-21/

As soon as Greene took to the podium and started asking substantive questions, the loud, piercing whistle started, and it never let up. “We’re here standing up for due process,” Gohmert said as the whistle shrieked nonstop. Gohmert is a former defense attorney and Texas district judge, so fighting for due process and other basic civil rights has been an integral part of his career. He said that when he was a judge, he used to make unannounced visits to jails to make sure the conditions weren’t abusive.

Matt Gaetz spoke through the whistle as well, pointing out that Antifa “set fire to this country for months” when law enforcement didn’t seem to be concerned about that.

Rep. Gosar (yes, through the interminable whistle) called for all 1400 hours of security tapes from that day at the Capitol Building to be released and for all those taken into custody to have their due process rights respected.

Leftist protesters edged closer and started circling, to the concern of staffers and security personnel. To interrupt the press conference, they simply invaded, walking right up to the podium area and causing participants to scatter.

I hope you will listen through the headache-inducing whistle; they used this appalling tactic it to try to keep anyone from hearing. As it went on, they also used drums, horns and other instruments along with the whistle to prevent the members of Congress from speaking. They did manage to speak for about 15 minutes, mostly to stress that they were there to get answers concerning January 6.

As THE EPOCH TIMES has reported, “According to numerous reports, January 6 inmates have been beaten, held in solitary confinement, and denied access to evidence about their own cases.” The attorney general should provide thorough answers to questions on this, but he has responded with silence for months.

“To the guy who’s blowing the whistle, we are not deterred,” Taylor Greene finally said. They were there to ask questions, she said. It was at that point that the leftists stormed the podium and created a situation that made them have to leave. Cars were blocking traffic, and a loud band with crashing cymbals played as well.

As it turned out, the loud whistle-blower interrupting the speeches was standing directly behind the reporter and refused to stop when he was asked. She said after the event that her ears were still ringing. That’s “the intolerant left,” she said. “You’re being censored if you’re a conservative,” she said.

I would encourage you to watch the entire video, as there are some great comments from onlookers after the event ended. “These savages, they belong in jail,” said one onlooker after the speakers dispersed. She called for an investigation of what Nancy Pelosi knew about plans for the Capitol breach before it happened.

Another bystander called for interested persons to contact their representatives for an appointment to tour jail facilities where detainees were being held. She said that in one facility, the temperature had reached 114 degrees. We would add that during the winter it was freezing --- that’s how long these people have been detained! There have been reports of beatings, and of at least one detainee losing an eye in one.

THE EPOCH TIMES has a “premium” report of today’s event.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/leftist-protestors-interrupt-gop-lawmakers-inquiring-into-treatment-of-jan-6-prisoners_3921206.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-07-27-3&mktids=e8a6c285787e5b6b98f4a01dfe90b148&est=VWnwVhRU%2FPjJCAPvbXUOKiirZjUjkhSFCvTHBImWZLxe7RMBoLOSvnGNmKxNvSZkSG3xVA%3D%3D

On the same day this happened, the hearings called for by Speaker Nancy Pelosi into the events of January 6 began, with an extremely dramatic depiction of what happened from the point of view of the Capitol Hill police. Republican committee member Adam Kinzinger of Illinois got all choked up. California Rep. Adam Schiff also appeared to weep at one point (right), and a staff member was handing out Kleenex. Tucker Carlson had a field day with this on Tuesday night.

https://mediarightnews.com/tucker-carlson-mocks-emotionally-fragile-adam-kinzinger-and-adam-schiff-for-weeping-during-jan-6-hearing/

Here are more highlights –- or perhaps I should say lowlights.

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/pelosis-sham-hearings-on-jan-6-capitol-protest-are-even-more-staged-and-nauseating-than-expected/

We'll have more on this as it unfolds. If only it could be a nonpartisan attempt at fact-finding, but it won’t be. Recall that Pelosi rejected two of the Republican choices for committee members (a first), Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana. Pelosi says the “bipartisan” panel “will pursue the truth,” but I have no confidence that it will do so, as that is not its purpose

A real investigation would do what that bystander at DOJ headquarters suggested: find out what Pelosi herself knew and why she didn’t order even the barest security, when President Trump had offered her the National Guard and essentially anything she wanted. We also deserve to know more about the killing of Ashli Babbitt, but what do you think are the odds of that?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/police-officers-offer-harrowing-accounts-at-first-jan-6-panel-hearing_3920968.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-07-27-3&mktids=e8a6c285787e5b6b98f4a01dfe90b148&est=temtjr12Hlmkjye3KyC%2BgFfzhYWQD7AU7gXIHFdam2Qmd26R%2FqZ%2B%2BEYljrLLp69H4av8VA%3D%3D

Mike Huckabee

There were plenty of phony tears and histrionics at the opening day of the House’s January 6th “investigative” committee (as Mary Chastain at Legal Insurrection noted, it’s no wonder Hollywood and politicians get along so well: they’re all actors.)

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/07/kizinger-schiff-fake-cry-during-january-6th-hearing/

Among those testifying tearfully were Capitol Hill police officer Harry Dunn. He claimed that the protesters were chanting the “N-word” at him. To my knowledge, and from both my quick search and research by Redstate.com, he’s the only person who’s ever made that claim and no video or audio has surfaced to substantiate it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, but it’s so incendiary (and perfectly on the nose with the leftist narrative about Trump supporters) that it seems that someone else would’ve heard it and mentioned it before now. And since he also claimed under oath that officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of injuries sustained that day, which an autopsy proved was not true (he had a stroke), then he’s already established himself as an unreliable witness.

https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/07/27/january-6-commission-star-witness-has-a-history-of-hating-president-trump-and-support-riots-that-arent-where-hes-working-n417384

That story also includes a lot of Dunn’s previous tweets that were widely distributed by conservative media outlets and that suggest he is not exactly an unbiased, objective witness. He has a history of making nasty and even racist comments about prominent conservatives; calling his commander-in-chief, President Trump, the “racist in chief;” defending radical anti-Semitic Rep. Ilhan Omar; and most tellingly, defending the violent George Floyd rioters, even after their rioting got people killed. He tweeted to Tucker Carlson, “Why is murder an appropriate response to property damage but property damage isn’t an appropriate response to murder?”

Ironically, some people might point to justifications for the shooting of unarmed protester Ashlii Babbitt and the refusal to hold anyone accountable for it as evidence that the people running this commission think murder is an appropriate response to property damage.

https://www.westernjournal.com/gop-rep-says-hugged-cop-shot-ashli-babbitt-said/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Maybe the Democrats are right: some cops do need better training.

Mike Huckabee

I’m seeing some encouraging signs of life on the right, with more conservatives fighting back against the left’s assumption that they get to play Big Brother and determine the limits of OUR conversation. As long as we stick to facts --- not facts as determined by leftist “fact”-checkers but real, verifiable information --- it’s time to fly over the target and bomb away. Especially, we need the courage to ask questions and demand real answers. That’s true most of all when it comes to the 2020 election.

Former President Trump is right out in front on this and sets a great example. He DOES NOT CARE what the left says about him, and this weekend, he spoke out in Phoenix at Turning Point USA about cancel culture and the need to speak up about the election. Self-censoring is exactly what the left wants us to do. Regardless of what we’ve able to determine thus far about the security of Dominion Voting Systems, there’s much that leftists did to turn the 2020 election into a legal and logistical --- and unverifiable --- mess, and much they continue to do to keep us from looking at it.

“Just so you understand, you know, we talk about cancel culture,” Trump began. The biggest thing that they want canceled, is they don’t want you talking about the election that just took place. Because they say, ‘Holy sh**, they caught us! [wild applause] They caught us. [even wilder applause] THEY CAUGHT US. And you know, we’ve seen it: the scandal, the likes of which we’ve never had. But the only way you get away with the scandal, is if they don’t talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it.”

But Trump said –- and he’s right –- that they won’t be able to avoid it. They talk in general about banning speech, “but what they don’t want...is anything having to do with the 2020 election.”

Another fighter who refuses to be cowed is attorney Sidney Powell, best known for representing another deeply wronged individual, Michael Flynn. We don’t see much of Powell on TV right now because of legal saber-rattling by Dominion Voting Systems, which is acting on the theory that the best defense is a big, blustery offense. But that’s okay; the legal stuff will work itself out, and it might actually be better for Powell to fly mostly under the radar right now.

Readers have asked what she’s up to, though, and I’m happy to be able to answer that question, at least partially. Powell happens to be in the news this very day, concerning a desperately important matter: the treatment of those who “breached” the Capitol Building and are still being held without bail.

https://thenewamerican.com/sidney-powell-to-assist-jan-6-prisoners-as-inmate-letter-sheds-light-on-jail-conditions/

Last Thursday, conservative radio host Pete Santilli announced on his show that Powell will be involved in helping the January 6 detainees, who are called “political prisoners” by many (who have a point). Another attorney on the team, Cynthia Hughes, made the same claim on Steve Bannon’s show. “She [Powell] is really, really, really gonna get behind us,” Hughes said.

The announcement essentially coincided with the release of a letter from a member of the Proud Boys on the three-month anniversary of being locked up. I will not in any way defend the Proud Boys, who are labeled as by the media as being neo-facist and leaning in to white supremacy. But even if they are as evil and they have been reported to be, its members are still protected by the Constitution and are innocent until proven guilty and are guaranteed due process and not subject to unreasonable “search and seizure.” I’ll leave it up to you to determine if the treatment of this person is reasonable. It’s bad enough that he and others are being held without bail, but his description of the conditions he faces is shocking. “My body feels as if it’s aged so much,” he writes, as he can’t work out and suffers a lot of back pain. He sleeps on a thin mattress on a piece of steel welded to the wall. He gets very little protein to eat –- there’s some kind of soy-based “gelatin dog food looking stuff” –- and feels himself weakening, saying he can hardly walk.

Also, there is no privacy, ever, he says; even going to the bathroom is in full view. He has one small window in the cell, but it’s sandblasted to be opaque, so he can never see the outdoors.

If you break any rule, he says,, they put you in a brightly lit, freezing room, naked. Now he has panic attacks, “so bad I black out.”

He knows he’s not a white supremacist, he says, because he’s there with guys who really ARE white supremacists. In fact, they tell him they hate that the Proud Boys are being called white supremacists. “They all say I’m too nice,” he writes, “and nothing like the media makes me out to be.” And, in an ironic twist, the black guys he’s met there say that if the Proud Boys as a group are like him, they want to join!

He says he spends most of his time alone, reading the Bible and other Christian books. “The plus side to this [is] God was able to get ahold of me in this place,” he writes. “In the end I just pray people see the truth. I had nothing to do with that day. I never planned what happened. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The man’s name is Joe Biggs. (In fact, he signed his letter “Joe Biggs, political prisoner.”) He’s a retired Army staff sergeant, a two-time Purple Heart recipient, and described by another of the Proud Boys as a “war hero” who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s also an online personality. If you know the story, Biggs is the man who simply walked in, took a few selfies to document his peaceful protest of what he believes was a stolen election, asked a security guard if he could use the restroom and was directed to it, used the restroom, and walked out.

He’s been in a cell in Florida’s Seminole County Jail for three months. If the report of what he did is accurate, and I’ve seen nothing to the contrary, this man shouldn’t even have been detained, let alone held without bail. The left has gone so far that we can’t even recognize our country. This is why we can’t be silent any longer.

Mark Tapscott in THE EPOCH TIMES has a story about four GOP members of Congress –- Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louis Gohmert of Texas, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Ggeorgia –- taking this issue to the door of the “Justice” Department Tuesday. They have questions for law enforcement authorities about what they knew and when, and why Congress wasn’t told. They also have “unanswered questions relating to the treatment of January 6 prisoners.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/gop-congressmen-schedule-news-conference-at-justice-department-to-demand-answers-on-jan-6-detainees_3919646.html/?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=TheLibertyDaily

For several months, they’ve received no response from Attorney General Merrick Garland. (The only bright spot about having this political hack as attorney general is that I get to thank my lucky stars he didn’t get on the Supreme Court.) His failure to provide answers is why they’re headed to the DOJ in person. Texas Rep. Gohmert, in a statement, compared what has been done to these detainees to what is done in “tyrannical third-world countries, not the United States.”

So, at least some Republicans have a spine. It’s time to join them, and speak out in every way we can.

Mike Huckabee

I find it hard to believe that America has such a shortage of criminals that the FBI has to go out and manufacture them. But that seems to be the case, considering that the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is starting to smell like an entrapment scheme that might not have existed if FBI undercover agents hadn’t lured people into it. And now, another example:

https://www.westernjournal.com/former-dea-agent-tells-tucker-fbi-informant-invited-capitol-jan-6-pressured-enter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

A now-former DEA agent lost his job and is facing up to 15 years in prison for his alleged part in the January 6th Capitol violence. But he told Tucker Carlson on Fox News that he only came to Washington because an FBI informant invited him there. He says he brought his sidearm and stood outside with the informant because he thought he had been invited to help keep the peace and protect the public.

He’s now accused of breaking 40 US Code 5104. That’s what? Brace yourself: it makes it a felony to “step on or climb on any statue, seat, wall, fountain or other architectural feature or any tree, shrub, plant, or turf” on the Capitol grounds.

So this man who served his country for decades has lost his job and is facing up to 15 years in prison, not for taking part in a riot inside the Capitol but for standing outside on the grass. Meanwhile, leftist anarchists who actually did climb on public monuments, topple them, smash them and set them on fire are being released with no charges filed.

It should outrage every American to see such corruption of the legal system usher in the kind of two-tiered “justice” we used to see only in banana republics. It’s especially infuriating to see the media covering it up to protect the Biden Administration after railing for four years that Trump was “shredding the Constitution” without giving any concrete examples of how he was allegedly doing that.

Glenn Greenwald has more on the FBI creating terrorist plots, and how this isn’t really new.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/fbi-using-the-same-fear-tactic-from

Byron York has some things to say about Nancy Pelosi’s bias in picking members of her committee to “investigate” the Capitol violence.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-democrats-double-standards-and-the-capitol-riot-committee

And leave it to the satire site the Babylon Bee to summarize the FBI’s actions perfectly (aside from this newsletter, about the only outlet left that’s still interested in jokes that are funny because they’re true):

https://babylonbee.com/news/dangerous-organization-found-to-be-organizing-acts-of-terror-across-united-states

Mike Huckabee

Congratulations to the US swim team, which has already won eight medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including a record six on the first day.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/us-swimmers-win-8-medals-historic-6-sunday

It’s a shame that the accomplishments of so many great young Americans are being overshadowed by the anti-American political grandstanding of a handful of ingrates. But it appears that the squeaky wheels have soured a lot of people on watching the Summer Games. The opening ceremony pulled only 17 million US viewers across all viewing platforms, the lowest numbers in 33 years. By comparison, the 2016 Rio Games opener attracted 26.5 million viewers.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/tokyo-olympics-opening-sees-33-year-low-tv-viewership-167-million-us-viewers

In a sign of how much the knee-taking and bad-mouthing of America and its flag and anthem have turned off viewers, many are saying online that for the first time ever, they’re rooting against certain US teams, such as women’s soccer and basketball. The women’s soccer team kicked off with a 3-0 skunking by Sweden, and the US men’s basketball team, filled with NBA pros, snapped its 17-year, 25-game winning streak by losing its first game to France, 83-76.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/us-mens-basketball-team-loses-first-olympic-game-in-17-years/ar-AAMxScb

In the last 4-1/2 minutes, the US team missed five shots in a row and didn’t score a single point. And in the comments sections of conservative media outlets, normally rah-rah patriotic Americans were saying things like, “Serves ‘em right” and “Never thought I’d say this, but ‘Go, France!’” (For the record, the French team also had some NBA players.)

Unless these athletes are throwing the games so they won’t have to suffer the terrible pain of hearing their own National Anthem while receiving gold medals, I have to assume something else is up. Maybe they’re learning that pride goeth before a fall, and they should have prioritized effort, practice and teamwork over political posturing. Or maybe God really does listen when people pray for their teams to win, but this time around, all the Americans who pray are backing their opponents.

Mike Huckabee

Last week, given the difficulties President Biden was having just getting through an incomprehensible townhall meeting, we took a look at what Vice President Kamala Harris brings to the Oval Office if (when) the 25th Amendment is used to “retire” him. It’s not encouraging news, as you know if you read it.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=01A2837A-8710-4A6B-9A96-3021399FE349

Of the many reader responses we received, a couple of them pointed to a report on her that appears in the book PROFILES IN CORRUPTION, by Peter Schweizer. In fact, she’s Chapter 2.

http://www.jack-ass.net/art/pic/pic2a.html

The chapter begins with a story that shows the close connection between Harris and President Obama. She first supported him when he was running for the Senate in Illinois in 2004. Then, after he was elected, he flew to San Francisco to attend a fundraiser to help retire her campaign debt after being elected San Francisco district attorney. In 2007, when Obama announced he was running for President --- SO SOON after winning the Senate --- Kamala and several family members joined his campaign and, as Schweizer described it, worked tirelessly. When Obama won, Kamala was there in Chicago’s Grant Park for the celebration.

As Schweizer wrote, “Harris is widely admired in progressive circles as the ‘female Obama.’ Smooth, polished and confident” –- this was obviously written before that unnerving cackling began –- “she has worked hard to ‘cultivate a celebrity mystique while fiercely guarding her privacy.

What we wrote concerning her early life and Marxist influences is confirmed in Schweizer’s reporting.

And, yes, Harris’ political rise is tied to “one of California’s most corrupt political machines,” namely, the one connected to former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, Jr. As Schweizer put it, “Kamala Harris’s entre into the corridors of political power largely began with a date.” At the time, he was Speaker of the State Assembly, the second most powerful political figure in California. Brown’s relationship with Harris was well-known; as Schweizer reports, “Their affair was the talk of San Francisco in 1994.” Though he was married, her own mother is quoted as defending the affair: “Why shouldn’t she…?”

Schweizer has detailed the various boards and commissions Brown put her on; these did not require approval from the legislature. These were an extremely lucrative way to pad her salary of $100,000 a year as a county employee. He also bought her a new BMW. But most important of all was the access he gave her to “his vast network of political supporters, donors and sponsors. Soon she was arm in arm with Brown in the most elite circles of San Francisco, including lavish parties and celebrity galas.” And this was before he was even elected mayor.

In fact, it was shortly after Brown became mayor that he and Kamala split up; details aren’t known. She started dating TV talk show host Montel Williams. She and Brown were still political allies, though, and he continued helping her career, through “the most powerful political machine in California,” which he ran.

Kamala went on to head the Career Criminal Unit in San Francisco, and apparently the DA who hired her, Terrence Hallinan, soon regretted his decision. When he didn’t give her a promotion she had wanted, hiring someone else instead, she ended up with Brown’s political machine backing her to run against HIM, and, as Schweizer wrote, “the flow of money directly into her campaign was unlike anything the district attorney’s race had ever seen.” The SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY said, “She’s hauling in money like there’s no tomorrow.” The San Francisco elite with whom she’d connected while dating Brown forked over the big bucks. Schweizer’s chapter details the various ethical conflicts concerning this money and her use of city employees to do political work.

Harris outspent Hallinan two-to-one and came in second behind him in a three-person race. But in the run-off, she won and was sworn in as San Francisco DA. She took her oath on a copy of the Bill Of Rights rather than the Bible. Given her party’s anti-constitutional proclivities, I doubt the Bill Of Rights was any more honest for her to use than the Bible would have been.

Schweizer’s chapter also tells of Harris’s unimpressive history with the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests. This was a widespread scandal in California. Hallinan, as her predecessor, had uncovered documents going back 40 years, previously sealed by the Church, and had prosecuted numerous cases of child sexual abuse by priests.)

It turns out that according to San Francisco election disclosures, the Catholic Church donated big-time to Kamala Harris’s campaign against Hallinan, though she had no particular ties to the Catholic Church or Catholic organizations. And once she became DA, even though she had prosecuted sex crimes earlier in her career, she oddly moved in the opposite direction of Hallinan and worked to cover up the records. Victims’ groups wanted those records made public and were outraged that she wouldn’t do it.

From 2004 to 2011, when she was San Francisco DA, and then from 2011 to 2016, when she was California attorney general, she never brought a single documented case forward of an allegedly abusive priest.

There’s much more in Schweizer’s chapter about her performance in these jobs, and it is not pretty. He provides numerous examples of her selective enforcement of the law, to benefit friends of her “ex,” Willie Brown, and also of her husband, after she married Los Angeles attorney Doug Emhoff. We’ve also heard from readers in California who told us of her dismal performance there. Recall that when she ran for President, she bowed out even before her own state’s primary. She didn’t win one primary. And yet here she is, virtually destined to be the next President of the United States.

Throughout her career, Kamala has used her associations with powerful people to help her move forward, so it’s not surprising that her closeness to former President Obama would have led her to her current position. Before Biden was nominated in 2020, some had thought Michelle Obama might be the choice. (One of my staffers went on record with that prediction, writing at length about why she believed this would happen.) Certainly if Michelle had wanted it, she would have been the nominee and probably the next President, as the fawning media would have made sure of that. But the Obamas managed to accomplish the same thing, in a way that would still allow Michelle to sit at the beach with friends, sipping exotic drinks with little umbrellas. They did this by putting the woman known as “the female Obama” –- the far-left woman who shared their views in every way but who could never have even made it to her party’s nomination –- on the ticket with “moderate” (ha) Biden, knowing that Biden would never make it through a first term.

At this point, Biden can hardly make it through a town hall meeting.

What the left has done to our country through this scheme will not be forgotten --- or forgiven.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

I’m sorry to have to report that Maggie Peterson, most famous for playing Charlene Darling on the iconic “Andy Griffith Show,” is in need of financial help due to medical issues. Her longtime husband, musician Gus Mancuso, is suffering from Alzheimer’s and she was his caregiver before she suddenly began having serious health issues of her own. They had to give up their apartment and need full time care that insurance won’t cover. Their family has set up a GoFundMe page. You can read details and see a video by Maggie if you click on “older updates.” And please share this link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/h45wj3-maggie-quotcharlene-darlingquot-peterson-needs-help?qid=29eb89b34186406dbc8e9e75f2057221

Beloved as the only female amidst the “Deliverance”-like Darling clan (her bros played by bluegrass greats The Dillards), she also played a completely different role in an episode of the final season of the show and a third on an episode of “Mayberry RFD.” The same person popping up as different characters was a strange quirk in Mayberry, perhaps due to there not being enough people in small towns to go around.

Maggie would sometimes sing on the show with her sullen, silent siblings, on such memorable tunes as “Salty Dog” and “There Is A Time.” Here’s a delightful YouTube video of a reunion at which they performed the latter: https://youtu.be/8F8VvG99CH4  

She also did commercials; had a regular role on “The Bill Dana Show;” one-shot roles on “The Odd Couple,” “Love American Style” and other TV shows of the era; and parts in the Don Knotts movie “The Love God,” Andy’s film “Angel In My Pocket,” and, of course, the TV movie “Return to Mayberry.” She was sometimes billed as Maggie Mancuso and later worked as a location scout.

(Side note: If you’re a Griffith Show fan, try to catch “Angel In My Pocket” if it comes on TV. It’s very Mayberry-like – it even has Jack “Howard Sprague” Dodson – but for some reason, it was hard to find for years. It finally came out on an import DVD last year, but it looks as if the mastering was done by Ernest T. Bass.)

Maggie was best known as an actress, but actually devoted more time to singing. She started out in a band with her brother Jim and two friends called Margaret Ann and the Ja-Da Quartet. They were noticed at a record convention by Andy Griffith’s manager, who encouraged them to come to New York. That led to some TV variety show shots, a few singles and a 1959 Warner LP called “It’s the Most Happy Sound.” It’s filled with Shakey’s Pizza Parlor singalongs such as “Swanee River,” “Mississippi Mud” and “My Cutey’s Due at Two to Two Today.”

While touring the Vegas-Tahoe-Reno lounge circuit with a musical act called Margaret Ann and the Ernie Mariani Trio, she was spotted by the Griffith show’s producer and director and asked to play Charlene, and the rest is TV Land history. She’s always been very grateful to “Griffith” fans for remembering her, and everyone who’s met her describes her as the sweetheart you’ve always imagined her to be.

If you have fond memories of Maggie with the Darlings (and who doesn’t?), I hope you’ll kick in a few bucks to help her and her family. To answer the obvious question: no, she gets no royalties from the show and hasn’t since the 1960s. Considering it plays constantly and is more popular than ever, someone must be making a fortune off of it. It would be nice if whoever that was would crack open their money vault and help Maggie, to pay her back for her invaluable part in creating a show that’s still universally beloved nearly 60 years later.

Mike Huckabee

I’m sure some readers wonder why I don’t write daily updates on all the 2020 election audits and questions and challenges. It’s because if I did, that’s all I’d ever have time to do. The general flow of these stories is that the auditors request information, the officials refuse to hand it over, the Democrats attack the auditors and say “Jim Crow” a lot, Republicans go to a judge to force the officials to turn over the evidence, the officials refuse again, the Republicans go back to court, lather-rinse-repeat.

Occasionally, the auditors will come up with something that stinks like week-old fish, and the election officials and Democrats will insist there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation that they would have seen if they’d only examined the evidence that the election officials and Democrats fought like panthers to keep them from seeing. Pardon me if I don’t want to cover that five times a day.

I bring it up only because that’s the basic story of the latest update to the Maricopa County, Arizona, audit story. The auditors reported last week that about 74,000 absentee ballots had been mailed in and counted for which they could find no records of anyone requesting them.

https://www.westernjournal.com/az-audit-exclusive-audit-taking-long-maricopa-county-intentionally-sabotaging/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

The county officials have now responded that the auditors were wrong and nearly 400,000 more ballots were requested than received back. The auditors said they didn’t accuse the county of criminality, they just said they couldn’t verify the records because the county officials kept fighting them to keep from showing the records. I won’t bore you with all the details and serial numbers of forms and he said/they said, etc., but if you want to see it, it’s here.

https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2021/07/23/doug-logan-from-cyber-ninjas-releases-a-statement-on-the-alleged-missing-74000-ballots-in-maricopa-county/

Read that and you’ll understand why I’m cautious about reporting any stories that come out of an election audit until they're verified. I do NOT want this newsletter to read like that every day.

I will point out, however, that just a couple of days after the election, I called on Joe Biden to join with Trump in requesting an open, bipartisan examination of the vote, warning that if he didn’t, a cloud of suspicions, whether legitimate or not, would hang over his Administration, undermine his credibility and make it difficult for him to unite the country and govern. I got attacked from the left just for saying that. Well, we’re now six months into the Biden Administration, and how is that plan of telling skeptics they’re crazy while fighting to keep the evidence hidden working out?