Mike Huckabee

https://www.westernjournal.com/400-private-jets-follow-bezos-65-million-plane-summit-lecture-world-climate-change/

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrived on his own Gulfstream jet, straight from fellow “green” billionaire Bill Gates’ birthday party, for which guests were flown by helicopter to the party on a massive super yacht.

At the event, these government and industry elites got to hear Britain’s Prince Charles tell them that they had to launch a “vast military-style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector,” using the “trillions at its disposal, far beyond global GDP,” to create a “fundamental economic transition” to green power. Pretty grandiose talk for someone who’s 72 and never held a real job.

https://nationalfile.com/video-uks-prince-charles-calls-for-vast-military-style-campaign-by-elites-to-achieve-global-fundamental-economic-transition/

Maybe they could start by setting an example and holding these meetings via Zoom. Oh wait: all of the rest of us already spent the past year setting that example for them, but it didn’t seem to do any good.

To bring all this talk of remaking the world to control the weather back down to Earth, here’s Richard Fernandez at PJ Media reminding us of what all this rhetoric will really mean: sky-high gas and heating fuel costs, widespread energy shortages, and trillions of dollars spent on green energy boondoggles that are not capable of meeting the world’s needs, so a lot of people will be freezing in the dark. It’s like that old joke (“What did socialists use before candles?” “Electricity”) written on a global scale.

Well, they might not be able to create a viable source for clean energy, but at least there is no limit to the creativity greens have when it comes to spending other people's money and inventing excuses for when their policies fail. Fernandez writes of one of the more recent: if wind turbines can’t meet energy demands, it’s not because the wind can’t blow hard and often enough to replace oil. No, it’s because climate change is causing “global stilling.”

Well, maybe that’s one problem the giant collection of blowhards in Glasgow could actually fix.

Mike Huckabee

I’m not sure why people who want to be economists go to an expensive school and spend years studying something that’s really pretty simple. If there is a bunch of something, the price goes down because there’s so much of it, the seller needs to unload it. If there’s not much of something, the price goes up because the buyer has a hard time getting it and will pay more just to be able to obtain the things he or she needs or wants. And another rule is this—most people in government, especially the ones who have only been in government and never been in business or signed the front of the paycheck, just aren’t real smart about the economy works. And that’s why when they tell you they are going to fix it, you should know they are about to really screw it up. And recently, that’s just what they have done. What I’m about to tell you isn’t so much about Democrats or Republicans or the left or the right. It’s about the right and the wrong, and we’ve got some folks really getting it wrong when it comes to how much it’s going to cost YOU to put gas in your car, heat your home this winter and put groceries on your table and clothes on your family.

For about a year, the government has been paying people not to work. The idea was that Covid and the government-mandated shutdown cost a lot of people their jobs. Now keep in mind that not a single GOVERNMENT employee missed a paycheck. Even if they didn’t have to show up for work, no one got laid off from the government. And they felt bad that they were getting paid for doing nothing and figured they ought to pay others for doing nothing as well. It made sense when government ordered businesses to close and workers really did get laid off. But when the economy starting to coming back, the employees didn’t. Some realized that with government benefits, there are no taxes or take-outs, and some people made as much or even more money not working than working, so they got used to getting up at the crack of noon and watching Netflix all day. Even though there are “Help Wanted” signs on every street in America, people stayed home. And the government’s brilliant idea to fix that? Keep paying them for not working. I learned something from raising kids and training dogs: If you want a behavior to continue, reward it; if you want a behavior to stop, consequence it. If you punish people for working by taking out chunks of their check in taxes and social security obligations but reward others with tax free income for doing nothing, more and more people will take the doing nothing option. And remember that when there is a lot of stuff, it costs less, but when there is a lot of need but little supply it costs more? There’s a huge need for workers, but small supply, so labor costs more. And that makes everything else cost more. And because Joe Biden turned off our pipelines and punishes our home-grown energy industries and transportation industries because he thinks “climate change” matters more than feeding your family, your gasoline costs much more, groceries are up between 10-20%, and shelves are empty in our stores. You have to work really hard to be that dumb about turning a great economy into one where politicians brag about how money they are borrowing from your grandkids while no one can afford bacon and eggs or the gas to get to work.

When the politicians tell you they want to fix the economy, you better vote for some different politicians. The best way to FIX the economy is to get the politicians out of it, pay people to actually work instead of sitting home, and let farmers farm, let builders build, and let YOU decide whose business ought to be supported based on what you decide to buy and how much you’re willing to pay for it. See, you don’t need a PhD in economics to understand that. Just some common sense and a government that gets the heck out of your way!

Mike Huckabee

There still isn’t a finished, written version of Biden’s $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” social spending bill, but here’s an article about what’s supposedly now in it and what failed to survive Sens. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-admin-reveals-final-version-massive-build-back-better-spending-plan-includes/

You’ll notice that the biggest portion, $555 billion, is for “clean energy and climate investments,” which critics say means destroying the domestic fossil fuel industry, rewarding well-connected green companies and creating slush funds to support unemployed radical environmental activists. There’s also $90 billion for “Equity and other investments,” an awfully vague leftist buzzword description for something that’s going to cost $90 billion.

(If you’d like a better idea of what “Equity” really means, the Vermont Department of Health gave us a perfect illustration with their use of “equity” in distributing COVID vaccines. It means unconstitutional prioritizing of medical treatment based on people’s skin color):

https://www.westernjournal.com/equity-leaked-report-vermont-department-health-reveals-race-determines-can-get-booster-shot/

There’s another $130 billion to prop up Obamacare, and another $100 billion to “improve our immigration system.” Considering that after nine months of Joe Biden, we barely have an immigration system left, I shudder to think how that will be spent.

But I'm sure they'll find ways, considering this Administration is already talking about giving up to $450,000 per person in “reparations” to illegal immigrants who were separated from their families under the Trump Administration. Again, these are people who CAME HERE ILLEGALLY. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton called it “insanity” and compared it to paying a burglar for the psychological trauma he endured when he broke into your home.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-admin-plans-give-450k-per-person-illegal-alien-families-separated-border-trump-report/

With that kind of “thinking,” I’m sure the Biden White House will have no problem coming up with creative ways to blow 100 billion tax dollars on “immigration reforms” that will make illegal immigration even more attractive and encourage a lot more of it.

As bad as the Biden $1.75 trillion spending bill is, it could have been worse, and many Democrats are furious at Sens. Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema for preventing that. Matt Vespa at Townhall.com explains why all their usual tactics of media and activist harassment and insults didn’t faze either of them.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/10/28/theres-a-very-simple-reason-why-manchinsinema-have-become-the-angels-of-death-for-the-farleft-n2598158

Mike Huckabee

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/youngkin-ahead-virginia-voters

To illustrate how big a turn-around this is, just two weeks ago, McAuliffe was leading by 5 points among likely voters, by 11 points among registered voters, and by 10 points among likely voter parents, who now prefer Youngkin by 14 points!

As always, I’ll remind Republicans not to let good polls make you complacent. If you’re in Virginia, you need to get out and volunteer, campaign, vote and take your family and friends with you. You’ve got a lot of Democrat money, machinery, media and malfeasance to overcome. Thanks to the DC suburbs that are enriched by federal spending, a Republican hasn’t won statewide office in Virginia since 2009, but maybe the usual awful effects of blue rule are finally reaching critical mass.

(Incidentally, former President Trump clarified that his recent statement about election fraud possibly discouraging Republicans to vote “was in no way meant to imply that I would tell them not to vote,” and that “regardless of anything or anyone, we must get out the Republican and SANE VOTE!” The caps are his. You heard the Donald, get out and vote!)

Meanwhile, someone is obviously taking these bad poll numbers for McAuliffe seriously, and that’s his own campaign, which at this point can reasonably be described as “snake bit.” The candidate has committed one gaffe after another, from alienating parents to storming out of TV interviews. Lately, he’s been aligning himself with professional sore loser Stacey Abrams, and he recently seemed to endorse her widely-debunked claim (i.e., “Big Lie”) that the 2018 Georgia Governor’s race was stolen from her.

Now, word has come that McAuliffe’s campaign has hired a name all too familiar to readers of this newsletter, Democrat super lawyer Marc Elias of the notorious Perkins Coie law firm, famous for their roles in ginning up the false “Russian dossier” claims about Trump and suing to change state voting laws in 2020 to help elect Biden.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/team-mcauliffe-emails-reveal-effort-to-kill-this-fox-news-story

Law professor Jonathan Turley called the Elias hiring “an astonishing move” and suggested it might mean McAuliffe is planning to break his vow not to challenge the election results if he loses. This prompted Fox News reporter Tyler O’Neil to email McAuliffe spokesperson Christina Freundlich for a response.

Her response was to forward the email to colleagues with the question, “Can we try to kill this?” Which we know because she mistakenly included O’Neil in the list of email recipients.

As of this writing, the campaign had yet to respond to Fox News’ request for comment. Not even accidentally.

Now, that’s what I call a snake-bit campaign. But to look on the bright side, if McAuliffe and his team are this disorganized and incompetent, voters are lucky they’re finding out now instead of after the election, like Biden voters are.

Mike Huckabee

In a world full of fake news, we on the HUCKABEE team are dismayed on the very rare occasions when we hear we might possibly have trafficked in it, however inadvertently. But then our dismay fades away when we find out we really were on the right track after all. This is one of those occasions.

A reader named Dobbin C. wrote to say, “Governor, you are really disappointing me. You continue to promulgate the fake news about the testing on beagles. You cannot in good conscience criticize the other side by sensationalizing fake news when you are doing it, too.”

Dobbin likely read the “fact”-check by POLITIFACT that rated the claim that Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was funding certain cruel beagle studies “mostly false.” Guess it’s time to fact-check the “fact”-checkers again.

First, let’s go back to what we actually said: that it had been “reported” that while Dr. Fauci was running the NIAID, it gave $400,000 to fund the cruel experiments involving beagles and sandflies, and that some people were very upset about it. Here’s the quote from the morning newsletter for October 27: “Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing bipartisan fury and the hashtag @ArrestFauci is trending after it was reported that under his leadership, the NIH gave $400,000 in funding for medical experiments in which beagle puppies endured months of horrific, torturous treatment, then were killed.”

This is true. We did not engage in “sensationalizing” this story. We did not accuse Dr. Fauci of personally signing off on these experiments, as many probably did, nor did we even imply it. We didn’t even claim that the NIAID had funded these experiments, only that reports of it were making people mad. What we said was true.

Here is the story we linked to from FOX NEWS. They handled the story correctly as well, referring to “allegations” against the doctor and the Institute.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arrestfauci-trends-twitter-doctor-faces-criticism-controversial-virus-research-testing-dogs

I do like that they also included this link to another Fauci story, though.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arrestfauci-trends-twitter-doctor-faces-criticism-controversial-virus-research-testing-dogs

We linked to a list of other cruel animal studies that to our knowledge the “fact”-checkers have not addressed, and also to a related and correct story about PETA calling on Dr. Fauci to resign. This is true; they have. Again, we never accused Dr. Fauci or the NIAID of funding these studies.

Now, let’s look at what POLITIFACT said to refute the story. They reported that NIAID said it “did not fund one of the studies.” (“ONE OF” the studies?) Apparently that study was the one from the photograph that has been widely circulated, the one from Tunisia of the two anesthetized beagles with their heads enclosed so sandflies could eat them. (I’ms so sorry even to have to talk about something this disturbing, but that’s what it was.) However, there were two other studies –- one of which also involved the cutting of the dogs’ vocal cords and euthanizing them at the end –- that they say they DID fund. So we would say that POLITIFACT is really splitting hairs here.

According to POLITIFACT, “the NIAID said all animals used in NIH-funded research are protected by laws, regulations and policies that were followed in these studies.”

POLITIFACT goes on to quote some of the more sensationalized tweets about Dr. Fauci, terrible names he was called, etc. Again, we did not engage in any of that. They mention inaccuracies in “some reports and social media postings.” That wouldn’t be us, either.

While we were looking into this, we found something very interesting about dogs used in American medical research and are including it to provide some interesting historical perspective on the cruel beagle studies currently in the news. American tax dollars have apparently been funding extremely cruel experiments on dogs, particularly beagles, for a very long time. Researchers find that the beagle is a breed particularly suited to experimentation because of "its size and long life."

There's even such a thing as the "Beagle Data Congress," where in 2010, researchers discussed their “Beagle Dog Experiments” researching the effects of atomic radiation. An earlier project called "the Argonne Beagle Dog Experiments" was carried out on 5,000 very unlucky beagles from 1952 to 1991 and supported by grants from the Atomic Energy Commission. There were 15 "unique" (and uniquely horrifying) studies that involved blasting beagles with radiation and documenting the effects.

For example, 295 beagles were subjected to "continuous external co-60 gamma-ray exposure continued until death." Another study was called "Leukemogenesis: duration-of-life gamma irradiation of young adult beagles." And 298 beagles were given "gamma ray exposure during pregnancy," to learn the effects of radiation on the developing puppies. Good grief.

Poor Snoopy.

http://janus.northwestern.edu/nira/index.php/Beagle_Dog_Experiments

Here's more information on the Argonne National Laboratory. If you thought this place was in France, you were wrong. It's in Argonne, Illinois. It’s an American lab with, as far as we can tell, American funding.

http://janus.northwestern.edu/nira/index.php/Argonne_National_Laboratory

So when the NIAID says the dogs in their experiments are “protected by laws, regulations and policies that were followed in these studies,” what does that even mean? That it’s “policy” to cut dogs’ vocal cords when their cries of pain are too loud? Because that’s what they did. It’s time for their “policies” to change.

Anyway, we stand by everything we’ve had to say on this, and we actually appreciate the letter from Dobbin, misguided as it was, as it gave us an opportunity to clarify and update the actual story: Yes, the AIAID has had to admit that it does fund cruel research studies on dogs, just not the one in the picture.

Mike Huckabee

Who thinks Nancy Pelosi’s “9/11-style commission” to investigate what happened on Capitol Hill last January 6 is actually there to fact-find? Me, neither. But I’ll tell you who's doing some first-rate investigation and reporting on the security breach at the Capitol building, and it’s not congressional Democrats or this administration’s Department of “Justice.”

It’s REVOLVER NEWS. But what they seem to be uncovering does not fit with the narrative Democrats want to maintain. In fact, it’s what they want to hide.

An Arizona man named Ray Epps, a Marine sergeant allegedly involved in the group the Oath Keepers, clearly was acting as a provocateur the evening before the rally. According to the REVOLVER report, “...Epps was insistent that everyone stay focused on a common mission: storming the Capitol. On multiple livestreams, Epps moves from group to group throughout the plaza barging in and insisting everyone ‘stay focused’ on ‘what we’re here for’ --- which he would then explain meant going inside the U.S. Capitol building. When asked to give a reason for his crazy plot, Epps would continually fall back on his catch-all rationale: ‘It’s about the Constitution.’” People in a couple of the groups he gave his little pep talk to even suggested that he might be “a Fed.”

You’d think that if the FBI were rounding up suspects to hold them for many months without bail, essentially as political prisoners, one person very close to the top of their list, if not THE top, would be this guy. But no. They had him on their “most wanted” list for a while, but when REVOLVER NEWS came out with their first big story, he was dropped off the list.

Not only did the FBI do that, but the day after REVOLVER ran another story on Stuart Rhodes, also of the Oath Keepers, they scrubbed Epps’ face from their database. Rhodes, like Epps, remains unindicted to this day, while others who might have just walked into the Capitol Building to take a selfie are languishing in solitary, some reportedly unable even to talk with their attorneys.

The videos of Epps, seen pretty widely on Twitter, show him talking with Trump supporters the evening of January 5, repeatedly encouraging them to enter the Capitol Building the day of the rally. He’s saying in a voice that cuts through the background noise, “I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested. I’ll say it. We need to go into the Capitol.”

And now, the irony is that Epps seems to be one of relatively few people identified as having been involved in the security breach who WEREN’T arrested. But also unindicted are people who worked with him the day of the rally to, in the words of the REVOLVER team, “carry out a breach of the police barricades that induced a subsequent flood of unsuspecting MAGA protesters to unwittingly trespass on Capitol restricted grounds and place themselves in legal jeopardy.”

To give a little perspective, Epps was not even arrested, while another Oath Keeper, a Green Beret veteran named Jeremy Brown, is even now behind bars, bail denied until trial, simply for standing 100 feet too close to the Capitol steps. It hardly seems possible that the government isn’t protecting Epps.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about Epps’ activities during Garland’s recent hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, playing some of the video for him of Epps talking up the idea of going inside the Capitol. Unfortunately, it was played on a very small screen that Rep, Massie was holding, but the audio of Epps telling people they need to go inside the Capitol the next day is unmistakable.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/10/21/rep_thomas_massie_to_ag_garland_are_you_concerned_about_the_presence_of_federal_agents_or_assets_at_january_6_riot.html

Massie informed Garland that the same person who was doing this the night before the rally was actually directing people to the Capitol during the rally. Then he asked Garland if he –- after “one of the most sweeping investigations in history,” as Garland had called it –- had seen this video. Garland avoided the question with the old “we don’t comment on pending investigations” dodge. His deflection did have an extra dash of creativity, though, with Garland also saying it’s one of the “norms” of the Justice Department not to comment on “particular scenes or particular individuals.”

“I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6,” Massie said to Garland. “Can you tell us without talking about particular videos how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 6? Whether they agitated to go into the Capitol? And if any of them did?”

Garland would not address this at all. “I’m not going to violate this norm of the rule of law,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on investigation that’s ongoing.”

If Garland had wanted to allay Republicans’ concerns that the feds might have actively encouraged Trump supporters to breach the Capitol building, this would have been the perfect time to do it, with a denial. On the other hand, if Epps and others actually were working undercover as agents to make sure the “insurrection” happened, the excuse Garland cited would be a very convenient “norm” indeed.

For when you have time, REVOLVER NEWS has put together an amazing piece of investigative journalism. It’s quite long and detailed, but highly recommended. (If it’s too exhaustive, at least skip down to the conclusion.) I’ll just tell you that Ray Epps is not the only one who played an extremely active role in the breach but was mysteriously never arrested. To cite another striking example, another Marine veteran, still unidentified but called “MaroonPB,” was going around using the same “It’s about the Constitution” line as Epps did. He also removed barricades and entered Senate offices during the breach itself, armed with bear mace. No arrest for him. Not even an identification, though he is maskless and beautifully photographed, in such a way that shows off his distinctive knuckle tattoos.

The team at REVOLVER NEWS say they're just getting started. Look at everything they’ve uncovered so far, and it suggests the FBI has a way of actually becoming the thing it purportedly hates. In this case, it might even have caused, or helped cause, the Trump “insurrection” narrative needed so desperately by leftists to prime Trump for impeachment #2 and tar his supporters as "domestic terrorists." (Note: that does NOT excuse the Trump supporters who got swept into it and caused incalculable damage to the conservative cause.) We know the FBI helped fake the Russia Hoax; who knows what else they might have faked?

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

Mike Huckabee

Reading Mollie Hemingway’s new book RIGGED, about the 2020 election and the factors that tweaked the outcome, one might start to wonder what the Hillary/DNC attorney and activist Marc Elias is doing these days –- besides dodging subpoenas, of course. But if a process server from the special counsel’s office is having difficulty finding him, I know where he is, and his army of attorneys.

They’re in Virginia, for the razor-close gubernatorial race! The Elias Law Group, the new firm he started to elect “progressive” Democrats after leaving Perkins Coie, filed suit on Friday on behalf of the state Democrat Party against the U.S. Postal Service, citing delays in processing and delivering election-related materials. Over the pasts few months, the Virginia General Assembly has also repealed voter ID, allowed 45 days of “no-excuse” absentee voting, and set up automatic voter registration as part of getting a driver’s license.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/25/virginia-democrats-file-lawsuit-against-us-postal-/

The election will be over in a week –- not necessarily the counting, though. An Emerson College poll taken a few days ago shows candidates Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat and huge Clinton crony, and Glenn Youngkin, the Republican and businessman, tied at 48 percent among very likely voters. (Accuracy plus-or-minus 3.2 percent.)

Youngkin held a big rally in Suffolk on Monday evening that was attended by Republicans, independents and even apparently some Democrats who, according to FOX NEWS’ Sara Carter, are "here as a referendum of what they say is a dangerous leftist agenda that is not only growing here in Virginia, but across America.”

McAuliffe let a little too much of that agenda slip recently when he said parents shouldn’t be telling teachers what they should teach their kids. Oops. He could still win, though, even now; the clueless Democrat faithful do support their jackasses.

But the election is seen by many conservatives as the start of a “red wave” of parents fighting for kids, a national referendum on Critical Race Theory, the teaching of which has, sadly, put Loudoun and Fairfax Counties on the map in recent weeks. One dad interviewed by Carter on the HANNITY TV show said, “It’s everywhere right now. But Virginia is somewhere where we can do something about it, right now. People are charged up; all eyes are on us...We don’t want it in Suffolk, we don’t want it in Virginia, nobody else wants it in the rest of the country. We want our country back, our state, and our city.”

Carter heard one refrain over and over: We want the government out of our kids’ education! We want to be in charge. We don’t want to be called “domestic terrorists.” We’re tired of mandates. Let us talk to our school boards. We want a voice!

Former President Obama is campaigning with McAuliffe, and he might be making it worse for the candidate. He brought up that old saw, voter suppression, saying Republicans are trying to keep some people from having their voices heard. The only ones whose voices we don’t want heard are the fraudsters. We conservatives are tired of having our own voices silenced.

And who else would be on the podium with McAuliffe but Stacey Abrams, who never conceded her failed run for governor of Georgia and still maintains that voter suppression kept her from winning that race. As if voter ID and signature verification kept anyone from voting who wanted to. It’s fraud that suppresses the vote of honest people, and that’s the message that needs to be communicated far and wide.

When McAuliffe brought Abrams to the stage, he said, “She would be the governor of Georgia today had the governor of Georgia not disenfranchised 1.4 million Georgia voters before the election. That’s what happened to Stacey Abrams. They took the votes away.”

Which brings us back to Marc Elias and the discussion of just whose votes get taken away. The great Margot Cleveland has a new piece in THE FEDERALIST in which she accuses Democrats in Virginia of “working to make elections sloppy again” as we go into 2022.

In this election that’s essentially neck-and-neck, Cleveland says “the more important trend for Americans to consider...lies not in the tight election, nor even in the party affiliation of the eventual victor, but on efforts by local election officials to violate state law to profit their preferred candidate.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/25/how-virginia-democrats-are-working-to-make-elections-sloppy-again/

There’s a lawsuit in Fairfax County right now, filed by a REAL voter integrity group called the Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP) against the country registrar and three members of the local elections board, over allowing unauthenticated mail-in ballots in violation of state law. A provision is supposed to be in place requiring the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number, but apparently it’s not being followed.

According to the state constitution, officials aren’t supposed to just suspend a law they don’t like. The Anti-Suspension Clause provides that “all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not be exercised.” If the state legislature requires the last four digits of one’s Social Security number to verify a ballot, then so be it.

As of October 14, this suspension of law had affected at least 339 ballots, according to the filing. Now, 339 ballots might not sound like a lot, but when you’ve got two candidates in a dead heat, it can mean everything. And unauthenticated mail-in ballots should not be deciding this or any other race.

The VIPP has already prevailed in one similar lawsuit, stopping the Virginia State Board of Elections from counting ballots that arrived without a legible postmark as many as three days after the polls closed on Election Day. But even though they won, Cleveland says, the fact that they have to file suits like this at all tells us something very important:

DEMOCRATS ARE WILLING TO BREAK THE LAW TO WIN.

Virginia, she says, is a perfect case study. But I would add that in 2020, Maricopa County was another one, as we saw how Elias and his vast army of lawyers, marching into Arizona in a way that would make Kim Jong-Un swell with pride, got rules changed to make it easier to cheat. No matter what lip service they give to election integrity, counting “every vote,” stopping voter suppression and protecting “our democracy,” they could not actually care less about any of that, as long as they win. Their actions tell it: They’d suppress your vote in a heartbeat if it meant more leftists in office. The top Democrat attorneys like Marc Elias are showing them how it’s done.

In the movie THE RIGHT STUFF, as the U.S. is competing with Russia to be first in space, our lead scientist (who is German) quips, “Our Germans are better than their Germans.” We have to think similarly in fighting the left. Our lawyers have to be better than their lawyers.

Mike Huckabee

Saturday, Obama backed McAuliffe’s criticism of parents upset at leftist school boards by suggesting their anger is unjustified and not “serious problems that affect serious people.” He sniffed, “We don’t have time to be wasted on these phony trumped-up culture wars, this fake outrage, the right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings.”

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/10/25/obama-gets-fact-checked-hard-over-fake-outrage-claim-about-parents-in-virginia-n463456

That “fake outrage” to which he referred wasn’t just parents' outrage over Critical Race Theory, porn, trans propaganda and socialism being forced onto their kids. It was also about news that the Loudoun County School Board knew about and covered up two brutal rapes of young teenage girls in girls’ bathrooms by a “biological male” in a skirt (or as that used to be known, “a male.”) School officials reportedly moved him to another school after the first rape, where he raped another girl. Other sexual assaults in school also went unreported. Yet the school officials allowed the father of the first victim to be smeared as a “domestic terrorist” for getting justifiably furious at a school board meeting.

Barely had Obama’s haughty and dismissive comments hit the news than word came on Monday that the “biological male” had been found guilty on two rape counts against the first victim. The judge delayed sentencing until after the second case is adjudicated.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bombshell-judge-makes-swift-ruling-controversial-loudoun-county-school-bathroom-sexual-assault-case/

As you might imagine, the blowback against Obama’s highhanded comments was swift and fierce. One Loudoun County father called it “the most tone-deaf statement I have ever heard.” The director of education reform at BEST (Building Education for Students Together) said Obama was either being clueless or misleading the crowd, and that forcing politics down kids’ throats isn’t a Republican or Democrat issue, it’s a parents’ issue.

I’ll toss in my two cents by doing what leftists hate the most: applying their own standards and tactics to themselves. How DARE Obama deny those parents’ truth by seeking to invalidate the genuineness of their outrage? He needs to check his privilege as a rich and famous person whose daughters never set foot in a public school and who have armed Secret Service protection (but if other women carry guns for personal protection from “biological males” invading their private spaces, he wants to take their guns away.) He must apologize immediately and then be canceled anyway!

What’s especially galling about this is that as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party (technically, it’s Joe Biden, but come on, man), Obama heads up an organization built entirely on a mountain of fake outrage. Think about it: what successful policies do the Democrats have to run on? Their brilliant handling of the border, Afghanistan, the economy, COVID, crime, China, energy, etc. etc. etc.? No, putting them in charge for only nine months has already proven that everything they touch becomes a dumpster fire. The only thing they have left to run on is, “You can’t vote for those other guys! Sure, they actually know how to run things, but they’re racist/sexist/trans-homo-whateverphobic!”

It’s a big load of organic manure, but it works with some people. There’s a certain segment of the populace that will overlook all the existential threats brought about by Democratic rule if you scare them enough with stories about how the bad orange man and his followers want to call them by their unpreferred pronouns or make them use the bathroom that actually matches their own plumbing. But as the ugly reality of Democratic “governance” becomes more and more intolerable, more people are seeing through that phony scare tactic and the audience for it is shrinking.

For instance, Biden just hit a new low of 43% approval in Five Thirty Eight’s average of all polls.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/25/bidens-approval-rating-falls-to-new-low-of-43-percent/

And a poll of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, the first primary voting state, found that only 37% say they’d vote for Biden if the 2024 primary were held today.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2024-watch-biden-support-among-democrats-in-first-presidential-primary-state-drops

For once, the outrage is real, it’s justified, and it’s aimed at the Democrats, where it belongs.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Following George Stephanopoulos’ laughable attempt last weekend to resuscitate Christopher Steele, multiple investigative reporters came out last week to further discredit Steele’s work and to analyze what Special Counsel John Durham revealed in his “speaking indictment” of Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann.

The Sephanopoulos/Steele interview aired by ABC "News" was actually part of an hour-long “documentary” produced for HULU called “OUT OF THE SHADOWS: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier.” I’ll just tell you right now, we have not been able to bring ourselves to watch. I know my slogan is, “We read the news so you don’t have to,” but neither I nor my staff can stand the idea of sitting through it. Life is too short, and there is too much real, serious investigation to keep up with.

So we should thank California Rep. Devin Nunes, who headed the House Intelligence Committee during their investigation of “Crossfire Hurricane,” for making himself watch the whole blasted thing, which he calls “entirely fiction.” For “ABC News to put out something like that is just bizarre,” he said, quipping that ABC should move their headquarters to Fantasyland at its parent company’s Walt Disney World.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/rep-devin-nunes-abc-news-hq-should-move-disneys-fantasyland-after-steele

Nunes suspects the media don’t really still believe what Steele said about Trump is true, but that “there’s something more nefarious going on.” He said he has “no idea, you know, what’s behind this –- the timing, the release of this. That anybody would be defending Steele or those dossiers...at this point is an absolute joke.”

He has confidence that Durham is doing “a real investigation,” but he’s concerned that it might not continue, “because we know DOJ is completely politicized.”

So, will Durham be able to continue looking into the FBI’s investigation (“investigation”) of the Clinton Foundation? During AG Merrick Garland’s cringeworthy testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, he avoided saying. As part of his larger investigation of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane,” Durham has been looking into whether donors to the Clinton Foundation got special treatment from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/21/garland-wont-say-whether-special-counsel-durham-st/

Garland was asked specifically if Durham would continue free of political influence, but he skirted that question. He did say that because budgetary provisions are public, we “would know if he weren’t continuing his work.” Hey, thanks, Mr. Attorney General!

John Solomon at JUST THE NEWS followed up in detail after the ABC interview, saying that Steele’s main source and even his friends undercut his claims of “professionalism.” Steele’s work was anything but.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/steeles-defense-dossier-collides-avalanche-evidence

Of course, we already knew that the FBI had had to terminate him as a “confidential human source” because he had leaked to the media. Some professionalism.

What’s especially interesting about this latest news from Solomon is that it sheds light on how much information came to Durham from the lawsuit filed against Steele by Alfa Bank, the financial institution wrongly implicated in that story of computer servers "pinging" between their offices and Trump Tower. (Alfa Bank prevailed in that lawsuit.) Steele’s own legal team gave statements in a London courtroom stressing that the dossier was not verified, that much of its information was not corroborated and that he suffered from “strong anti-Trump biases.”

“It is raw intelligence,” they said last year. “It is the basis for further investigation by the recipients. So to put the bar too high in terms of establishing accuracy at that stage would be quite wrong in principle.”

“We can say,” they also stated, “the critical consideration is that his confidential human intelligence was not factual evidence to be used in a personal or public report or in court or anything like that...It was raw intelligence to be passed on as part of a much bigger intelligence picture.”

Someone should have told that to then-CIA Director John Brennan, back when he was insisting the dossier be included in the intelligence agencies’ assessment of Trump’s so-called “Russia” connections. One wonders why he treated such an easily discredited piece of fiction as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And as for the “much bigger intelligence picture,” we know that, despite what Brennan has tried to claim, the dossier was the cornerstone for “Crossfire Hurricane.” The FBI would not have gotten the warrant to spy on Carter Page without it; in fact, they had been turned down for a similar warrant before.

Solomon’s commentary includes links to the pdf’s of relevant testimony from the Alfa Bank case. He’s got footnotes from our own intelligence community discrediting the dossier (Brennan obviously wasn’t listening). He’s even got pdf’s of the FBI’s notes from their interview with Steele’s primary sub-source, who called it “bar talk and gossip.”

Judicial Watch unearthed still more documents that undercut Steele. JW President Tom Fitton told JUST THE NEWS he was dismayed that ABC News would be lending credibility to the dossier now. “I was disappointed that ABC...gave him, you know, more time to spread this disinformation,” Fitton said. “...He’s been, in my view, thoroughly debunked by official and unofficial investigations, documents you’ve uncovered, we’ve uncovered, the IG has uncovered.”

Bruce Ohr at the Justice Department –- wife of Nellie Ohr who did research for Fusion GPS –- warned that it was unverified raw intelligence and that Steele seemed “desperate” to defeat Trump.

Even former National Security Council expert Fiona Hill –- remember her from Trump’s impeachment? –- who is the person who introduced Steele to his sub-source (thanks, Fiona!), dismissed the dossier as a “rabbit hole,” likely Russian disinformation mixed in with other information that might or night not have been true.

Solomon links to a pdf of a recently declassified FBI re-interview with Steele himself, along with business partner Christopher Burrows, acknowledging his anti-Trump bias in the fall of 2017. The FBI had to know good and well what they were dealing with.

Solomon links to much more –- he characterizes this as an “avalanche” –- that shows Steele and his work for exactly what they were. And yet when Steele sat down with Stephanopoulos, he admitted only that the dossier was not “100 percent” and defended it. It’s shameful that ABC “News” did this horrid piece of “journalism.”

As for Michael Sussmann, he’s not looking too impressive, either. Durham has filed an opposition to his motion for a bill of particulars, arguing that his 27-page “speaking indictment” more than adequately informs him of the charges he faces.

https://technofog.substack.com/p/john-durham-gears-up-against-the

TechnoFog has deciphered Durham’s reply and thinks subpoenas will be going to the DNC, the Hillary Campaign/Hillary for America, Georgia Tech University and the team of cyber experts working on the Alfa Bank hoax, Fusion GPS, and “numerous companies” involved with “Tech Executive – 1,” identified as Rodney Jaffe.

This and much more leads him to think the perpetrators in the Alfa Bank hoax will be charged and that the investigation is much more expansive. He brings up CrowdStrike as well –- referencing, in fact, the article at REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS by Aaron Mate that we brought you a few days ago. A close look at CrowdStrike would “strike” at the heart of what the DNC was up to with the Russia Hoax.

For more on this, here’s a colorful piece from John Solomon.

James Bond or Austin Powers? Inside the cloak and dagger caper to spread Russia collusion tale

Mike Huckabee

We don’t elect kings to lead us. We are not a monarchy, and in fact we are not a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. A true democracy is rule by simple majority and every one votes on every issue. A Constitutional Republic is where we democratically elect representatives who serve on our behalf to make laws that are in line with our framing document, the Constitution. Each citizen has one vote and each individual is considered equal to every other citizen. We are considered individuals with personal liberty and personal responsibility. But our form of government has been under attack by those who want to replace it with an entirely different kind of government. A Marxist, socialist government would trade our being individuals to our being a part of a collective in which the government is to be served by its people rather than its people being served by the government. Instead of us having equal opportunity that is up to us to create prosperity, a Marxist approach diminishes the individual in deference to the state. We only matter as we bring value to the government. If we actually keep moving in that direction, it will be the end of our storied nation that empowered people from all nations, languages, religions, and economic circumstances to live freely and self-determine our future. Those who have worked hard and prospered will be penalized by the state and will have their property and their wealth confiscated. It will be redistributed to those who chose not to work, learn a valuable trade, get an education, or act as responsible stewards of their resources. And when you unfairly tear down the top and artificially raise up the bottom, the result is across the board mediocrity. It’s the equivalent of A students having points shaved off their grades and given to F students so that everyone in the class gets a C, whether one studied hard or partied hard. The incentive to work hard is destroyed, and the motivation to rise up and do better is marginalized. At that point, we become like so many nations before us who tried socialism only to see it destroy an economy, jobs, the value of capital, and creativity. Even art and architecture become bland and lifeless. Surely Americans don’t want that and will rise up against it! When I hear the left tell us that we have 10 years before climate change will turn us into greasy spots on the pavement, I want to scream to forget about climate change—we won’t last 10 years under socialism with inflationary high prices, empty shelves, lack of labor, and meaningless elections, and the only people left with a high standard of living will be those in the ruling class of government. Look around—we are rapidly becoming that. And the tone-deaf princes of power running our government have the audacity to insult us by saying that the problems of high prices for gas and groceries are only problems of the high class. It seems that the academics and people in the high perches of politics and power think you struggling to heat your home, fuel your car, put food on your table or clothes on your kids’ backs are nothing but symbols of wealth. Just when you think politicians can’t get dumber, one of them says “Hold my beer, and watch this!”

You may think you don’t want to be involved in politics, but friend, you ARE involved. You can sit back and let it happen or you stand up and take the power away from the people who hate America, but not caring really is no longer an option. If you like the direction our country is going, you don’t have to do anything but nothing. But some of us won’t give up on America without a fight. And I hope you are one of us!

Mike Huckabee

A new Fox News poll finds an overwhelming percentage of Americans are worried about the economy, and the negative ratings for President Biden’s handling of it are rising even among Democrats (an 11% drop in approval in just one month.) Almost nine in 10 voters are worried about inflation, and a staggering 84% say rising gas prices are a problem for their families.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-worry-inflation-biden-economy-ratings

And no wonder: as of today, the average cost of a gallon of regular gas according to Triple A is just under $3.38. In California, land of liberal “governance,” it’s $4.53. And in the remote small town of Gorda, California, a gallon of regular unleaded is $7.59 and premium is nearly $8.50.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-america-gas-skyrockets-7-59-per-gallon-us-town/

If you’re hoping for relief soon, dream on. The Biden Administration has backtracked and decided not to challenge a court ruling blocking the Willow Project, an oil and gas drilling project in Alaska that would have generated 100,000 barrels of oil a day and created 2,000 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs and which had already passed an extensive review for environmental impact.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/10/21/gas-hits-unbelievable-high-while-biden-shuts-down-more-american-oil-options-n460634

President Biden admitted that gas prices are up and said they likely won’t go down until 2022. I’d say 2024 is more like it, when we can get a President back into office who hasn’t declared war on our domestic fossil fuel industry that was thriving as recently as last year.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-predicts-gas-prices-wont-go-down-until-2022

Just as a reminder of how your vote has consequences: In February of 2020, when Trump was still in office, one of my writers snapped a photo of the sign at his local gas station in suburban Dallas as he filled up his tank. A gallon of regular was $1.89.

And Biden told you he wasn’t going to tax the poor and middle class!

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland was grilled by the House Judiciary Committee. Here’s a pretty dispassionate recounting of who said what.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/merrick-garland-house-judiciary-committee-hearing-doj-testimony

And here are a few more conservative-oriented assessments:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/10/22/garland-fails-to-explain-why-leftists-get-away-with-attacking-federal-buildings-n2597836

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2021/10/22/garland-gets-grilled-on-the-hill-n1525951

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/10/21/garland-once-again-proves-he-is-the-sleaziest-of-the-sleazy-on-team-biden-n460540

The major points we learned from this are that Garland denies ever referring to angry parents at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists” (to be a stickler for accuracy, that’s just how someone else described it, based on the way he proposes treating them.) He claimed only to have learned from the media about that letter from the National School Board Association that was the alleged catalyst for him calling for federal action against parents.

If so, then he’s not very well-connected at the White House, since they apparently knew about it before it was even sent.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/white-house-knew-about-letter-that-compared-parents-to-domestic-terrorists/

I noticed something interesting about the questions: Republicans focused on current issues and things Garland might do in the future, like the school board memo and parental rights, Garland’s potential conflict of interest with his son-in-law making millions selling Critical Race Theory materials to schools (he insists there is no conflict of interest, so that’s that), and whether there will be an investigation of Hunter Biden’s art sales.

Democrats’ questions were mostly attempts to keep past issues on life support, like whether Trump will be indicted for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels (Google it.) One actually complained that the DOJ was going too easy on Trump supporters arrested back on January 6th. You know, those people who were held for months, some in solitary, or under abusive conditions such as delayed medical care, before they were even charged. If that’s “going easy,” what do you call letting people go free after they loot cities, attack police and try to burn down a federal courthouse with people inside it?

And if the January 6th arrestees are ever charged with anything, what will it be? One thing we learned yesterday is that it probably won’t be “insurrection.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/10/21/merrick-garland-debunks-democrat-insurrection-claims-about-capitol-riot-n1525820

Mike Huckabee

Politico obtained the results of a private poll conducted by the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, which is warning Democrats of serious problems ahead in 2022. That poll showed that 53% of Americans think the economy has gotten worse (only 30% think it’s improved), 56% rank inflation as the most pressing economic issue, and Biden’s approval rating is only 41%, which is dragging all Democrats down.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/20/senate-dem-operatives-rough-road-516355

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 62% of Americans lay a lot or some blame for rising inflation on President Biden’s policies.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10112865/62-U-S-voters-blame-Biden-policies-increasing-inflation.html

Biden has now sunk so low in so many polls that for the first time, Real Clear Politics’ average of all polls shows a majority disapproving of the job he’s doing, by 52,3% to 43.2% approval.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joe-biden-s-job-approval-hovers-at-all-time-low-in-realclearpolitics-average/ar-AAPLl1P

Most stunning of all, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey of likely voters finds that 58% believe Biden is not mentally or physically up to the job of President, and 53% believe someone else is making his decisions for him.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/20/nolte-58-say-joe-biden-not-mentally-physically-capable-being-president/

Caveat: I always warn readers not to pay attention to polls, especially those taken well in advance of elections. It’s good to see polls going your way, but if we’re going to save America, we have to volunteer, work, donate and vote as if they’re not.

Mike Huckabee

One thing that’s been clear since Hillary’s Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann was indicted by Special Counsel John Durham for lying to the FBI is that he is a pivotal character in the Russia Hoax. From Durham’s “speaking indictment” it’s easy to see that this man surely must be the Mother Lode of information about the whole scheme and virtually everyone involved, whether in the “Justice” Department and FBI, the media, the DNC, the Hillary campaign (same thing), or, with partner-in-slime Marc Elias, the fabricators of the “dossier.”

Yes, “fabricators.” George Stephanopoulos’s transparent and laughable attempts to redeem Christopher Steele via TV interview fell flat, as there’s still no verification of that stupid, mistake-riddled dossier.

Anyway, Aaron Mate at REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS has a great piece on Sussmann and then-legal partner Marc Elias (who again made a name for himself in 2020 by dismantling election security measures in battleground states nationwide). Mate outlines how these two Democrat operatives were central to the Russia Hoax. “The emerging picture,” he says, “shows Sussmann and his Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias, the chief counsel for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, proceeding on parallel, coordinated tracks to solicit and spread disinformation tying Donald Trump to the Kremlin.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/10/19/coming_into_focus_hillarys_secretive_russiagate-flogging_pair_of_super-lawyers_799168.html

Sussmann was indicted for concealing the fact that he was working on behalf of Hillary’s campaign when he went to the FBI in September 2016 with a fake story about computer servers at Trump Tower “pinging” with those at Alfa Bank, a financial institution allegedly linked to Vladimir Putin, suggesting “collusion.” Fortunately, Alfa Bank sued Christopher Steele and others involved in this fabrication, and court documents apparently provided Durham’s investigators with a lot of pertinent details.

What we like about Mate’s piece is its look at the activities of Hillary’s “dynamic duo,” Sussman and Elias, as they fulfilled their mission to get the “Russia” narrative going. It’s also got some interesting details on Sussmann and CrowdStrike, the tech company that ended up with the DNC servers after the DNC claimed in April 2016 that their emails had been hacked. It was Sussmann who immediately hired CrowdStrike. And it was CrowdStrike who quickly made the claim –- still unproven –- that Russia had hacked the DNC servers to obtain the emails that were made public by WikiLeaks.

In moves that “smell” coordinated, just days before Sussmann hired CrowdStrike and pressed them to implicate the Kremlin, Elias retained opposition research company Fusion GPS to, as Mate puts it, “dig up dirt on Trump and the Kremlin.” CrowdStrike alleged the Russia “hack” and Christopher Steele produced his first “dossier” report within six days of each other. Mate’s report is the first we’ve seen of this part of the timeline.

In later congressional testimony, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson called the overlap of the two lawyers’ activities “an extraordinary coincidence.”

But together, these two Democrat Party lawyers played a central role in defining the fake Trump-Russia narrative. In Mate’s words, their “odd relationship” with the FBI gave them “unprecedented influence over a high-stakes national security scandal that upended U.S. politics and ensnared their political opponents.” We’ve all heard plenty about Marc Elias, Fusion GPS and the “dossier,” so for now let’s focus on the emerging story of Sussmann’s involvement with CrowdStrike.

When another Perkins Coie colleague, Graham Wilson, told Sussmann in April 2016 that a DNC server had been breached, Sussmann immediately called CrowdStrike. (He later testified to the House Intel Committee that CrowdStrike had been hired on his “recommendation.”) And here’s something dodgy: CrowdStrike’s contract to examine the DNC servers was NOT with the DNC but with Sussmann and Perkins Coie. The contract states: “CrowdStrike shall cooperate with Firm in protecting the Parties’ communications and work product from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine or other applicable privileges or protections.”

Pretty slick, huh? But Elias/Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS had the same arrangement, to protect THEIR communications, too. And apparently, both attorneys hid the fact that it was the DNC and Hillary’s campaign who were footing the bill for the Russia Hoax. Everybody in this whole scheme was set up to have privileged communications!

Still, though I’m not a lawyer, I seem to recall that such privilege is not applicable if it’s a cover for breaking the law.

Apparently, it was Sussmann who controlled what the FBI was allowed to see. It was reported by THE NEW YORK TIMES that within a day, CrowdStrike “confirmed that the intrusion had originated in Russia.” In June 2016, Sussmann and DNC executives met with the FBI and encouraged the Bureau to go public with the “Russia” story and even say specifically that it was espionage. Sussmann pushed hard for this but offered the FBI no evidence in the form of forensic images or an unredacted report from CrowdStrike.

So the FBI wasn’t ready to proclaim this, but that didn’t stop the DNC from going public on its own. Sussmann and CrowdStrike CEO Shawn Henry were named as sources for a story that ran in the WASHINGTON POST.

Much later, after his testimony before the House Intel Committee was finally declassified in May 2020, we learned that Shawn Henry had no actual indication that the DNC servers had even been hacked, let alone by Russia. “There’s circumstantial evidence,” he said, “but no evidence that they were actually infiltrated.” U.S. intel officials were using weasel-words such as “likely” and “appears to” in their own documents –- including Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report –- to cover up the lack of proof.

On big question is why the FBI would rely on CrowdStrike’s word on the “hacking” of the DNC servers. The FBI has said the DNC denied them access to the servers, while the DNC said the equivalent of, “Well, they never asked.” When Sussmann and Shawn Henry testified before the House Intel Committee in December 2017, they said the FBI “did not try” to conduct an independent investigation. Sussmann testified that he said he offered access to “everything CrowdStrike was developing,” but to his knowledge they never sought access. It’s hard to know what is true, especially since Sussmann has been INDICTED FOR LYING. Another tip-off: he’s a lawyer for the DNC.

But former FBI Director James Comey testified that the FBI had made “multiple requests at different levels” to access the servers and had been denied. Gosh, it’s hard to know what to believe when known liars are contradicting each other.

James Trainor, who was then assistant director for the FBI Cyber Division, told the Senate Intel Committee that Sussmann had “scrubbed” the CrowdStrike report before it was given to the FBI, resulting in a “stripped-down version” that was “not optimal.” So the FBI was left with no investigation of its own, only CrowdStrike’s report that Sussmann had finessed and redacted. CrowdStrike’s original, unredacted report remains unreleased to this day.

So, no one has seen evidence of a Russia “hack.” But someone got the DNC emails to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange still won’t say, but he has said it wasn’t Russia or any state. There’s no indication –- so far –- that Durham is looking into that. CrowdStrike told REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS that the special counsel hasn’t been in touch.

But maybe he'll find out from Michael Sussmann.

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, President Biden took questions in a CNN “townhall.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10118843/Biden-says-cops-emergency-responders-fired-not-getting-vaccine.html

I use the quotation marks because CNN always seems to find a “town” that’s at least 90% Democrats. In this case, of the 12 people allowed to ask questions, only two were Republicans, and the first one didn’t get to speak until 20 minutes before it ended. Even one of the questioners identified as an “Independent” attacked Republicans and “rogue moderates” and asked why Biden didn’t just force through the Democrat agenda. Sounds like that person is an “Independent” like “Democratic socialists” are “Democrats.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-biden-town-hall

The biggest news points to come out of the evening were:

* Biden admitted he didn’t have the votes to pass his $3.5 trillion spending bill if it retained his hike in the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

* He said he was considering doing away with the Senate filibuster to pass the Democrats “voting rights” (i.e., “legalize vote fraud”) bill, but not for all bills, because that would lose him three votes for his $3.5 trillion spending bill. (Note: I don’t think “doing away with the filibuster” works that way. You’d think that someone who spent 370 years in the Senate would know that.)

* He said he was considering sending in the National Guard to ease the supply chain crisis. I guess that’s easier than reversing the liberal policies that are causing it, like the AB-5 law in California that banned independent contractor truckers. A national version of that is in his $3.5 trillion bill, if you want to know how serious he really is about fixing the supply chain crisis.

By the way, over 100 House Republicans signed a letter explaining why Biden’s $3.5 trillion porkulus bill would be a death blow to the supply chain.

https://www.westernjournal.com/100-gop-reps-bidens-3-5-trillion-bill-death-blow-americas-supply-chain/

* He said the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked it. China seemed really intimidated by that threat.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-taiwan-china-defend

And why should they be, since they now seem to be outstripping us in military weapons development?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10116479/China-tested-SECOND-hypersonic-orbital-nuke.html

* And the quote that made the biggest news: Biden doubled down on threatening police officers and other emergency workers and first responders, saying that if they refuse to comply with his COVID vaccine mandate, they should stay home or be fired (the fact that this received “thunderous applause” from the audience should tell you the kind of audiences CNN assembles for these dog-and-pony shows.) He then ridiculed the very idea of Americans having the freedom of autonomy over their own bodies, mocking them by saying, “I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID. Come on.” (Still unanswered: the question of how unvaccinated people endanger vaccinated people if the vaccines work.) This also overlooks the fact that many of those people worked through the pandemic at great personal risk, and were likely already exposed to and recovered from COVID so they have natural immunity.

I have a feeling that Biden dismissing cops and first responders and mocking freedom will be a recurring theme in many 2022 campaign ads.

I couldn’t help wondering what people might be thinking who actually voted for Biden because he was sold to them as a moderate centrist who would return compromise and respect for other people’s views to the White House. Also, he hailed first responders as the heroes of the pandemic, vowed not to impose a government vaccine mandate, and even expressed reluctance himself to take any vaccine that was rushed to market under Donald Trump. Now, those first responder bums' lives can just be ruined if they’re skeptical of vaccines he sowed distrust in, and they resist the mandate he promised never to impose.

I’m leaving out the biggest news of the night: he got through it without dissolving into gibberish or wandering off stage. But it might have been better if he’d done either one of those things rather than say what he did about first responders. He might want to consider that if he plans to brutally enforce a vaccine mandate, it might be good not to alienate the police. The Democrats have done enough of that already by defunding police departments and legalizing crime.

For more on that, check out this story about how an iconic Target store is the latest to close in San Francisco because the same people come back every day and rob them blind, and the liberal leaders who refuse to make them pay any consequences for theft are denying that’s the real reason. This account comes directly from some fed-up cops speaking anonymously, so you can imagine how much loyalty they still have to liberal Democrats.

https://californiaglobe.com/local/san-francisco/exclusive-iconic-target-store-in-mission-district-to-close-amid-a-shoplifting-tidal-wave/

Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has a good op-ed on police pushback against vaccine mandates, and how forcing officers to quit will result in them becoming private security so the wealthy will be safe while poor and minority neighborhoods will suffer (thanks again, Democrats!) One silver lining: the Democrats seem to want to impose a police state, but that’s going to be hard if the police are so furious they’d rather quit than obey Democrat policies.

Finally, it wasn’t as if the Biden Townhall didn’t have a healthy scoop of false claims and incoherence, which Nick Arama at Redstate.com chronicled:

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/10/21/bid

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

I’m sad to report that on Saturday, actress Betty Lynn died at 95. She passed away peacefully in her sleep. Beloved as Barney Fife’s girlfriend Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show,” her death leaves Ron Howard as the last surviving major cast member of that classic show.

While she was most famous as Thelma Lou, she had a long acting career, stretching from movie roles as a teenager alongside such stars as Bette Davis and Maureen O’Hara to many TV roles (do you remember her as Andy Griffith’s secretary in the first season of “Matlock”?)

TV writer/blogger Mark Evanier was very close to Betty, having grown up next door to her. He wrote, “You never met a sweeter, kinder human being than Betty Lynn.” She was like an aunt to him, so his blog has many posts about her life and his memories of her. This is a great example from his childhood of just how nice and caring she was:

https://www.newsfromme.com/2021/10/12/a-story-youll-like-2-2/

Here’s his link to what he thinks is the best obituary, put out by the Andy Griffith Museum in his hometown of Mt. Airy, North Carolina:

https://www.newsfromme.com/2021/10/17/all-about-betty/

She loved Mayberry fans and was known for attending fan fests and conventions. Fans would line up around the block for a photo and autograph, and she often remembered their names and asked about their family members by name, even if she’d only met them once, years before. Her love of Mayberry and what it stood for led her to retire to the closest thing to the TV town, Mt. Airy, where she became a beloved local celebrity and appeared regularly at the Andy Griffith Museum to greet fans and pose for photos.

I know you depend on me to tell you things that most obituaries won’t mention. So here's one from Mark Evanier: “She was deeply religious and apart from acting, the only profession she had ever contemplated was to become a nun.”

Also, Don Knotts left the show after five seasons, and so did she, since she believed Thelma Lou and Barney belonged together. But Knotts returned for a later episode about a reunion dance where Barney is distraught when Thelma Lou arrives with her new husband. Betty was so upset at the writers when she saw the script that she said the only way she could get through it was by telling herself that Thelma Lou was only pretending that a platonic male friend was her husband to save face. Personally, I tell myself that, too, when I watch it.

Fortunately, that misstep was rectified in the 1986 made-for-TV movie “Return to Mayberry,” where Barney and Thelma Lou finally got married. As God intended!

Rest in peace to a fine actress and a wonderful lady who will continue winning new generations of fans far into the future, especially with so many of us looking at the sorry state of the modern world and wishing we could “return to Mayberry.”

Mike Huckabee

I know that most Americans don’t care to read about the problems of nations on the other side of the world. But I urge you to read this story from the Epoch Times about the ongoing genocide of Christians in Nigeria (70,000 so far) at the hands of Muslim extremists.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epoch-times-journalists-praised-for-coverage-of-nigerias-genocide_4051465.html

It’s shocking that so many American media outlets trumpet their belief that “black lives matter,” yet give no coverage to the genocide of black Christians in Nigeria. But Lara Logan of Fox Nation has produced a documentary on it called “21st Century Terrorism Revealed.”

One thing it reveals is that if you think, “It’s a terrible tragedy, but it has nothing to do with us,” you couldn’t be more wrong. Bad American policy under Obama had a direct impact on causing this genocide. Obama and John Kerry worked to undermine the Christian President of Nigeria because he passed a ban on gay marriage, and helped elect a Muslim President who’s turning a blind eye to the slaughter of Christians – and who also kept the ban on gay marriage.

Nor is the danger likely to stay isolated to Nigeria. As Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom told the Epoch Times, this is “not simply a human rights and humanitarian crisis of genocidal proportions, it is also an American security concern. Today, Mahanga is a terrorist base camp; tomorrow, half of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and economically prosperous country, could be one. The U.S. government must recognize the gains being made by Islamist extremists in this region under the approving eye of its President - an apologist President who continues to generously aid their efforts. Nigeria is rapidly becoming a global catastrophe.”

It may be too much to hope that the same President who just handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban and left our people behind will do anything about saving Christians in Nigeria or preventing that nation from becoming a new haven for global terrorism. But if enough Americans learn what’s going on and how it could come back to bite us, maybe our next President will.

Mike Huckabee

Here’s something the White House was so eager for you to see, they released it with great media fanfare on...late Friday afternoon.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Report.pdf

Ah, we’re just having a little fun with sarcasm. As everyone who’s not an idiot knows, late in the day on Friday is when the government dumps documents it hopes will receive minimal media attention and stay under the radar. This time, it darned near worked, too; we’d like to thank Glenn Beck for calling attention to this report, dated October 14: A ROADMAP TO BUILD A CLIMATE-RESILIENT ECONOMY --- U.S. Climate-Related Financial Risk, Executive Order #14030.

Never mind all the climate-related predictions that have not come to pass. This report assumes the absolute worst, blaming climate change for all extreme weather such as wildfires and hurricanes, in a way that allows it to say that one out of every three Americans has been affected by the “climate crisis.” Our ability to deal with the financial fallout from this “climate crisis” is lacking, the report warns: “In short, the current suite of data, tools, disclosures and mitigation strategies fail to help investors, policymakers and the public understand and make decisions grounded in the economic realities of the climate crisis.” So, hooray, the government is here to fix that. This is our lucky day.

Biden’s Executive Order #14030, signed May 20, 2021, calls for the federal government to lead financial institutions by example by “appropriately prioritizing Federal investments.” And it’s far- reaching; “This report lays out a roadmap for measuring, disclosing, managing, and mitigating climate-related financial risk across the economy, including to the Federal Government, while also catalyzing public and private investment to seize the opportunity of a net-zero, clean energy future.”

This will require radical change and control---I mean nurturing guidance, but without this, we would really miss out. As the report says, “By sustaining the status quo, we not only face the mounting repercussions of climate change, but also...of missing out on on an historic chance for job creation, shared prosperity, and a more resilient future. THE UNITED STATES MUST INTEGRATE CLIMATE RISKS THROUGHOUT ALL RELEVANT ASPECTS OF THE ECONOMY AND FINANCIAL SYSTEM. [Emphasis mine.] And, in doing so, it must meet the moral and economic imperative to rectify decades of disproportionate environmental damage imposed on historically disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

This “broader economic strategy...leverages the full talent and creativity of all Americans by elevating equity [NOTE: “equity” means an engineered equality of outcome; see Critical Theory] as a top priority in all decision-making, and restores the United States’ relationship with key allies internationally, finding common ground to meet the global goals of the Paris Accord.”

Recall that newly-inaugurated President Biden rejoined the Paris Accord his first day in office. It’s described in this government press release at the time as “an unprecedented framework for global action.” And that’s exactly what it is.

https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-officially-rejoins-the-paris-agreement/

Criticism of this new "roadmap" is bound to be interpreted as “climate skepticism,” which is now verboten on YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. So, wasn’t that timed well?

Glenn Beck warned in March that this was coming, as banks were starting to implement “environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores” on their own. These were an outgrowth of the Paris Accords –- which Trump had wisely pulled out of before Biden brought us back in –- and simultaneous meetings of the world’s largest financial institutions. The World Bank and the U.N. brought together 230 banks and insurance companies to outline what became known as “The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI),” which drafts a methodology for, as Beck put it, “to bend the private sector to the will of the government by using banks as a pressure or a choke point.” We went hunting and found their “Principles of Responsible Banking.”

https://www.unepfi.org/banking/bankingprinciples/

Consistent with these, Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Accords states: “This Agreement...aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development AND EFFORTS TO ERADICATE POVERTY [emphasis mine], including by making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse emissions and climate-resilient development.”

This is the way government gets to follow all the money---I mean, “finance flows.” (I would add that this is very much in the spirit of the recent call for U.S. banks to report every transaction over $600.) It might also determine whether a bank will loan money to you and what you have to do in order to get it. This is, well, serfdom.

The one thing that was lacking till now was full U.S. government support, which is what the "roadmap" released on Friday apparently gave. It essentially means that financial incentives will be used to make the public conform to whatever the government deems of value in controlling and dealing with climate change. They argue that this will make us more competitive with nations such as China –- which makes no sense, as China won’t be bound by any of this. (And why should they, when they already HAVE total government control?)

The "roadmap" mentions French legislation called “France’s Energy Transition Law” that uses the principle of “comply or explain.” In France, every bank and every company needs to provide a full accounting to the government “disclosing all of their ESG measures.” Beck cites the most recent report from Coca-Cola in Europe that runs to 98 pages of “explanation” to justify their license to do business. But you don’t have to read 98 pages; note the two paragraphs titled “Global Relevance” on the PRI (Principles of Responsible Investment) website at the link and see that “comply or explain” is indeed a real thing.

https://www.unpri.org/climate-change/french-energy-transition-law-global-investor-briefing-on-article-173/295.article

The White House is directing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to begin a similar initiative under the Financial Stability Oversight Council, using the justification that climate change is a national security threat. Knowing Janet Yellen, we’re sure she can’t wait to implement this.

We haven’t read the entire report yet, only the introductory parts, but according to Beck it will require Americans’ compliance in order to, say, continue having insurance or maintain a savings account. It does this under the auspices of protecting Americans’ savings and pensions.

Obviously, all businesses having contracts with the federal government will be particularly vulnerable to this control.

They're even “addressing climate risk in the VA lending programs.” That’s the amazing thing about “climate risk” –- it affects everything! VA lending is mentioned in the glowing press briefing from Friday, at the link.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/15/fact-sheet-biden-administration-roadmap-to-build-an-economy-resilient-to-climate-change-impacts/

Essentially, the government is using the perceived "climate crisis" as a pretext to run everything, to take control of what was left of the free market and everything we do or own. It’s not a crazy conspiracy theory –- it’s there in the report, and we really don’t even have to read between the lines very much to see how this works. By bringing the report out very quietly late on a Friday, they obviously were trying to keep any discussion of it as low-key as possible. Let’s see what we can do to foil that plan.

https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/glenn-beck-did-you-hear-biden-s-great-reset-warning-shot-to-banks

Mike Huckabee

The literary world in Spain is in chaos and feminists are up in arms after acclaimed female thriller novelist Carmen Mota won a prestigious book award – and the three men who secretly write under that pseudonym came up and accepted it!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/17/europe/spanish-female-writer-revealed-intl-scli/index.html

They had created an entire backstory for her, done interviews as her, and “her” works had even been included in selections of feminist writings.

It’s interesting that they’re being greeted with such anger and accused of being frauds and scammers. I thought that if a man identified as a woman, that made him (sorry, her) a woman. Obviously, these three guys are extremely good at identifying as a woman. And if their books are good enough to win awards, what difference does it make who wrote them? In fact, if we can be anything we "identify" as, then doesn't that negate the entire concept of identity politics?

Recently, we’ve seen controversies in the US in which authors had contracts cancelled because they weren’t the same ethnicity as their main character, as if the job of novelist (which requires using your imagination to see life through other people’s eyes) can only be performed by someone exactly like the book's protagonist. Returning a book because you find out the author isn’t exactly who you thought is like when people loved Milli Vanilli’s album until they found out the guys on the cover didn’t really sing on it, then they demanded refunds. Did the music in the grooves somehow change for the worse? And are these award-winning books now bad just because they were written by three men instead of one woman?

Next thing you know, someone will be telling me that Mark Twain wasn’t Samuel Clemons’ real name!

Mike Huckabee

One of the most depressing aspects of modern politics is the way that people see the death of a fellow human being not as a time to set politics aside and show respect but as an opportunity to score cheap political points. This ranges from the sewer scum level of Twitter trolls gleefully celebrating a political opponents’ death to sanctimonious attempts to utilize the deceased as a weapon to attack others.

There’s been a lot of the latter around the death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Probably the slimiest, not surprisingly, came from CNN’s Chris Cilizza, who used Powell’s death to smear the entire Republican Party. He wrote an article called “The Colin Powell Republican No Longer Exists.” But if the point is that Powell was a moderate who rejected “extremism,” then I could just as easily write an article called “The Colin Powell Democrat No Longer Exists.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-chris-cillizza-colin-powell-death-lecture-republicans

Powell obviously had his personal reasons for starting to vote for Democrats (which he did with Obama, long before Trump entered politics.) I can disagree with that decision without attacking him or millions of others, but that’s beyond some people.

Naturally, there was also sniping back and forth over the big topic of the day, since Powell was fully vaccinated but it was initially reported that he’d died of complications from COVID-19. Everyone was trying to score points over that, pro- or anti-vaccination. In fact, his vaccination status was irrelevant. Powell was 84 and suffered from several conditions that make people more vulnerable to COVID even if they are vaccinated, including a form of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. A study found that 55% of sufferers fail to fully respond to vaccination because of their limited ability to produce antibodies.

There are many tributes to Gen. Powell online and there are many criticisms. You don’t need me to point them out to you. But I will link to this column by Kurt Schichter, who is also a military veteran. While not a Powell fan, he recognizes his accomplishments, balances his praise and criticism, and does a good job of explaining why Powell might have moved from Republican to Democrat, and why it had to do with his own personal viewpoint and larger changes in government and the culture rather than tens of millions of Republicans being horrible people.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/10/19/colin-powell-and-the-crisis-of-the-boomer-elite-n2597632

UPDATE:

I’m disappointed that former President Trump used the occasion of General Powell’s death to air grievances he had with General Powell. There are times, when it’s best not to say anything than to say something that is harsh, especially when the target of the comments is deceased. Even if you’re a former President.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

The New York Post reports that the Biden Administration has been secretly flying illegal immigrants, mostly children and teens but not all, from the Texas border to suburban New York under cover of darkness to settle them across the region. A Post analysis of online flight-tracking data indicates that about 2,000 illegal border crossers have been flown to an airport outside White Plains on 21 flights since August 8th.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/midnight-biden-secretly-flying-underage-migrants-ny-night

When they land, usually between midnight and 4 a.m., they’re reportedly put on charter buses and taken to various locations from the Bronx to Connecticut.

The news was met with outrage from Republicans and some local residents, but the White House claims it’s nothing new: "It is our legal responsibility to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be swiftly unified with a parent or a vetted sponsor." That sidesteps the issue that it’s also their legal responsibility to enforce border security to prevent us having to deal with a tsunami of unaccompanied children, but here we are.

Witnesses say they’ve seen adult males get off those flights, and a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, "If the Biden Administration is so confident that their open-border policy is good for our country, why the secrecy? Why is the Biden Administration refusing to share even the most basic information about illegal alien resettlement in communities throughout our state and the entire country? Washington, DC, sets immigration policies that do not affect them, and states — that lack information about migrant resettlement and do not have the authority to change federal immigration policy — are expected to bear the brunt of Biden’s reckless open-borders agenda."

I can’t help wondering how gullible they think we are to say there’s nothing sneaky going on when they just got caught doing it in secret after midnight. It reminds me of comic Flip Wilson’s advice: “Midnight is a good time to be sneakin’. If anyone sees you, they’re sneakin’, too.”

The Post editors also have some choice things to say about why these flights are being conducted in secret: because having open borders and waving in illegal immigrants might be popular with “progressives,” but not with most Americans. So Biden’s people have to make sure most Americans never hear about it. Consider this article to be the sound of a blowing whistle.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-deadly-game-secret-flights-migrants-ny-post-editorial-board

Mike Huckabee

As a conservative, I never thought I’d be able to say “Thank Heaven for judges,” but we’ve actually seen a few recently who’ve stepped up to save the Constitution and take a stand for the justice, freedom and rationality that went out the window when Democrats took over the other two branches of government.

For instance, US District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections and the warden of the D.C. Jail held in contempt for violating the civil rights of a January 6th Capitol riot defendant.

https://www.fox19.com/2021/10/13/judge-holds-dc-jail-officials-contempt-16-riot-case/

The defendant, Proud Boys member Christopher Worrell, broke his wrist in May, was recommended for surgery in June, but still hasn’t received it, nor has the jail complied with the judge’s order to turn over his medical notes. The judge said, “It’s clear to me the civil rights of the defendant were violated by the D.C. Department of Corrections. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a January 6 defendant or not.” I assume he’s just being judicious. I think we know the answer to that one.

If he were a leftist protester who’d attacked cops and set fire to a federal building, he probably would have long ago been released without charges. Just like if he were part of the two protests that took place this week in Washington in which leftists invaded and occupied federal buildings where officials were trying to conduct government business and were treated as if they were merely unexpected house guests and not “INSURRECTIONISTS!” Instapundit has that story, along with a meme that sums up the Democrats’ two-tiered “justice” system perfectly.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/479497/

And in a semi-victory, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr., who was slapped with six charges and jailed for nine days for calling on top brass to take accountability for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout, was sentenced Friday. The prosecutors were pressing the judge to throw the book at him, but Scheller pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts and, in a surprise ruling, the judge sentenced him to receive a letter of reprimand and forfeit $5000 for one month’s pay.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scheller-marine-who-criticized-afghanistan-withdrawal-sentenced-reprimand-pay-forfeiture

I think he was treated abominably, but there are military rules against publicly badmouthing your superior officers, no matter how much they deserve it, so you could argue that this was a reasonable level of punishment.

Now, since I’m not in the military, I’ll say it on his behalf: When are the top brass going to take accountability for the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan? And let’s make it clear up front: a letter of reprimand and a month’s salary will NOT do. When will they resign or face charges?

Mike Huckabee

With just three “counting-the-seconds” months left in his term, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio is making every second count in his effort to make history as the worst mayor of all time. Having presided over the complete destruction of the clean, safe, booming city that he inherited, he’s finishing out his term doing demolition detail work, like scrapping the schools’ talented and gifted program (I guess he figures no Democrat voters will ever come out of that) and now, likely removing a statue of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson from the City Council chamber where it’s stood for 187 years.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-mayor-de-blasio-e2-80-98assumes-e2-80-99-jefferson-statue-will-be-removed-from-city-hall-punts-responsibility/ar-AAPwVKv

This is backed by the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus because Jefferson was a slave owner (another thing Trump correctly predicted would happen if we let Civil War monuments be torn down.) DeBlasio tried to pass the buck for the decision to a design commission he appointed, and hedged to reporters about how Jefferson’s legacy was “complicated.”

Yes, everyone’s is, except people who never do anything right (looking at you, Bill.) Only one perfect person ever walked the Earth, and leftists won’t let His statute appear on public grounds, either.

It's true that Jefferson owned slaves; but it was his words from the Declaration of Indepence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness") that were the foundation of the abolitionist movement. Unfortunately, New York's current political leaders don’t have the time, brains or inclination to consider history in any broader context than a Twitter tweet.

Personally, I’m amazed that the statue of Jefferson didn’t come to life and demand to be removed from the New York City Council chamber.

Mike Huckabee

Great news for those of you who want to take your kids trick or treating or attend a Halloween carnival at your kids school! Dr. Fauci said it will be okay to have Halloween this year. I really hate to bust his bubble, but I honestly don’t need Dr. Fauci’s permission to have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or for that matter, going to church or a football game. When this whole pandemic started and President Trump was doing daily press conferences and answering hours of questions, I thought Dr. Fauci was an expert and we ought to listen to him. But as time moved on, I noticed that he changed his mind about as often as a baby changes a diaper and pretty much for being filled with the same stuff. Remember he adamantly told us NOT to wear a mask. It would be useless to protect us against the virus, and in fact would be dangerous for anyone but medical people to use a mask because we’d be touching the mask and our faces and it would be bad to wear a mask. A few months later, the same Dr. Fauci told us we had to wear a mask—and later even said we ought to wear 2 or even 3 masks. He told us if we shut everything down for 2 weeks, we’d flatten the curve. We’re going on 2 years and we’ve flattened the economy and destroyed a lot of small businesses. He told us it wouldn’t be safe to go to church if there were more than 10 people. A church with less than 10 people is probably a dead church anyway. But while church or a small mom and pop store was too dangerous to keep open because if we went there we would DIE, it was fine to go to Walmart or a big supermarket and be wall-to-wall with thousands of strangers. We’d be okay there. Fauci said sporting events in open air stadiums were too dangerous, but he never said that Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots where people crowded together to burn government buildings and police cars was a problem. He told us not to even think about having Thanksgiving with our families last year. Early on, he told us to wash all the vegetables, fruits, and canned goods coming into our homes. By summer, he said, “never mind—you can’t catch Covid by touching stuff.

The more this thing has gone on, the more I think Fauci enjoys being on TV and telling people what to do and if he changes what the “science says” then he gets to go on TV again and tell us that the science has changed. I wonder if he wants to really control the very real threat of Covid, or if he wants to control US? And if we are supposed to FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, but the science seems to keep changing and zig-zagging all over the landscape, how do you follow it? And if science is so unsure that it changes every few weeks, what does that say about the so-called science of climate change? When I was in college, we were told of a coming ice age in 10 years; 10 years later, we were told the ozone layer was disappearing and we were going to get toasted in 10 years; 10 years after that, global warming was going to melt all the glaciers and we’d be drowned by flooding in 10 years; 10 years later, it’s just climate change brought on by flatulence of cows, having cars, and flying in planes. If science is that uncertain, following it seems like following a 5 year old around in a toy store.

Mike Huckabee

If you subscribe to the mailings from SAVE AMERICA PAC, you receive all the messages that former President Trump would likely be sending out on Twitter if Twitter hadn’t taken him off. They’re a mixed bag --- just as his tweets were, of course --- and a few of them would’ve perhaps been better left unsaid, but many are pithy and spot-on brilliant, and they include links to newsworthy articles.

Some are funny, too, such as the one he sent out on Thursday with the subject line, “DO YOU MISS ME YET?”

The full headline was: “ICYMI: ‘How’s Biden doing? Do you miss me yet?’ Trump attacks Biden’s mounting crises...” There’s a link to an article by Bob Crilley at the U.K.’s DAILY MAIL, and his headline goes on to include the words, “...with new poll giving him 30-point lead over 2024 Republican rivals DeSantis and Pence.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10088249/Hows-Biden-doing-miss-Trump-revels-Joes-mounting-crises.html

The Crilley story features a previous email from Trump that noted the many catastrophes erupting on Biden’s watch. “COVID is raging out of control, our supply chains are crashing with little product in our stores, we were humiliated in Afghanistan, our border is a complete disaster, gas prices and inflation are zooming upward --- how’s Biden doing? Do you miss me yet?”

That’s a rhetorical question; he knows the answer. Polling shows that President Trump is the runaway favorite to run in 2024. A Morning Consult poll for POLITICO published Wednesday showed that of almost 2,000 people polled, some 70 percent of Republicans said Trump should run again. As for the nomination, 47 percent of Republicans already thought he should get it, compared to 13 percent for former VP Mike Pence and 12 percent for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Mitt Romney got 3 percent; who ARE those people?)

But Trump has said publicly that he won’t make a decision until after next year’s midterm elections. Last week, it was reported that he wanted to go ahead and announce his intention to run but that aides talked him out of it. We don’t know if that’s true but wouldn’t be surprised.

At his rally in Des Moines on Saturday, he enumerated the many disasters that have resulted from the Biden Touch: massive illegal immigration, drug cartels flourishing, inflation, China taking over jobs, the Taliban ruling Afghanistan and more. It’s true: waking up every day to reports of the latest Biden-caused debacle is like watching a very slow-motion train wreck. It goes on and on, with gears grinding and seemingly endless destruction, and you don’t want to look but you do. It’s like a bad dream.

“There’s never been anything like what has happened,” Trump said in Des Moines. And he’s right. I say this having lived through the Carter administration. As bad as some things were then, this country faces more serious challenges now, every way we turn, from without and within.

So, if/when Trump does hit the comeback trail, some things are going to have to be different. Certainly Republicans have to do whatever it takes to have a transparent voting process in states that mismanaged that. We absolutely cannot stand for a repeat of 2020. And if the FBI tries again to tie the former President with the likes of Vladimir Putin, this will be met with howls of derision. I think those in the political middle who might have bought it the first time around are smart enough not to fall for it again.

The image of Trump throwing his MAGA hat into the ring again got us thinking about a commentary written almost a year ago by our staff writer/researcher Laura Ainsworth, about what she thought President and then-candidate Trump should say to America before the 2020 election. It turned out to be quite prescient in its description of a future Biden administration.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=40370D5E-09A1-452C-95C1-6AFB834DBD44

“Most Biden supporters really don’t know much about their own candidate --- his fading mind, his serious scandals, his lying and plagiarizing, his creepiness with women and girls, his singular lack of accomplishment, his malleability by the far-left and much more –- or even their own radicalized party,” she wrote at the time. “They just know they don’t like Trump. And for that reason, they’re ready to put into power the worst group of people imaginable.”

This all turned out to be true. The media hushed up the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and downplayed old Joe’s cognitive issues and all his other weaknesses. Most supporters assumed he was a moderate and had little idea what the country was in for with the far-left in charge. What’s also true is that we couldn’t have asked for worse people to run our country than those he brought in. Exhibit A: Attorney General Merrick Garland, a political hack who cares nothing even for the rights of parents angry at the indoctrination of their children.

Since the “Trump” that some voters hated was a fictional creation --- one that Trump admittedly played into with some of his tweets --- Ainsworth had wanted him to give a speech specifically addressing the way voters felt about him, and “most of all,” she wrote, “to show how dreadful for our country the alternative would be.”

“Because they don’t like ME,” she’d wanted him to say, “some Americans might unwittingly put into power a radical political machine that will decimate their most basic freedoms, with ruthless, violent tactics and a long list of demands that will change America into something unrecognizable, probably forever.”

The piece goes on about other forms of ruination a Biden presidency would bring: abuse of the justice system, money pouring in to radical leftist groups, the politicization of science (wow, that one went into overdrive), the continued decline of “journalism,” lax law enforcement, “anti-racism” dividing Americans, the rewriting of history, and more.

This was written in 2020 as a caution, but, sadly, it describes the chaos of 2021 America under the Biden administration. Trump lost, and it all happened. Actually, there was more; for example, the swift destruction of the southern border and trillions in crazy spending.

But this was the speech Trump should have given to the nation in 2020, to tell America who he really was, how much he loves our country, and to warn everyone of what was really hiding within the ultra-radical, rights-crushing Democrat party. Unfortunately, he didn’t. And so, simply because a lot of people didn’t like Trump’s rough style and his tweets, or believed stupid made-up stories about white supremacy and/or Russia collaboration, they gave the “unknown moderate” a try.

As a result, the margin of victory was so close in strategic counties that it’s not even possible without full, transparent audits in a number of states to prove who really won.

Disaster ensued on Day 1 of the Biden administration, and it is still ensuing. If Trump runs again, as he seems itching to do, he has to make sure the left doesn’t hijack the process as they did last time. One ray of hope: I do think voters have learned the hard way and will no longer let a few “mean tweets” stand in the way of what’s good for our country.

Mike Huckabee

Fox News has obtained leaked Border Patrol documents showing that the Biden Administration has released at least 160,000 illegal immigrants into the US, most with little or no supervision, and broadly (and possibly illegally) expanded the limited parole system to make over 30,000 of them eligible for work permits (question to low-skilled minority Americans who were enjoying their first raises in years under Trump: how is that vote for Biden working out for you?)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/leaked-border-patrol-docs-release-immigrants-us-biden-administration

This is hardly news to anyone who doesn’t get their news from the Biden-whitewashing media. Frankly, I’m surprised it isn’t more (and it soon will be, with massive caravans already on the way to our former Southern “border.”) The real news is Biden's abuse of limited paroles, which by law are to be granted “on a case by case basis and only for significant humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” with recipients being closely monitored. Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said he never approved more than five or ten in a year. Biden is treating them like house brand Halloween candy and handing them out by the tens of thousands to anyone who shows up at our doorstep.

As you can see at the link, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has a whole bag full of “root causes” for the surge, none of which have anything to do with Biden reversing all of Trump’s successful border security measures and incentivizing illegal immigration. If you want to find the “root cause” of this disaster, stop looking in Central America and search 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mike Huckabee

Katie Couric is getting all kinds of backlash over her tell-all memoir “Going There,” but the latest could be the worst yet. It’s her admission that she edited an interview with the late Supreme Court Justice and liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg to remove Ginsburg’s criticism of NFL National Anthem kneelers. Couric cut out Ginsburg’s comment that they were showing "contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/katie-couric-ruth-bader-ginsburg-kaepernick-nfl-anthem-backlash

Couric claims she was “conflicted” because she was a “big RBG fan” and wanted to protect her because she was elderly and probably didn’t understand the question (yet liberals were fine with her staying on the Supreme Court until the day she died – think about that.) So she cut out the comment – although she did leave Ginsburg’s comment that the kneelers were “dumb and disrespectful” in her Yahoo News version of the story. I guess she assumed nobody would see that.

That linked story above contains just a fraction of the outraged responses to Couric’s “galaxy-level arrogance” in editing RBG to alter her comments to make them more PC. It also includes a reminder that this is not the only time she selectively edited stories to give them a preferred political slant, like the time she edited interview footage to make gun rights activists look too dumb to answer a question they had actually answered quite well.

But aside from Ms. Couric’s bias and lack of journalistic ethics, I want to point out another aspect of this story, and that’s the unjustified kneejerk assumption that RBG’s opinion was “incorrect” and required protection or censoring. Even a spokesperson for her estate tried to speak for her from beyond the grave by claiming she “misspoke.” How does he know? It sounds to me as if she was very clear in both her reasoning and her speech. It’s also one of the few things I ever agreed with her on, and so do tens of millions of other Americans.

If you think athletes who show open contempt for the nation that allowed them to be free, famous and wealthy are acting dumb and disrespectful, that’s a perfectly valid assessment. Please note that after I’m gone, if anyone tries to claim I “misspoke” and didn’t really mean that, then don’t listen to them. They’re as full of it as Colin Kaepernick.

Mike Huckabee

Because of President Biden’s strict vaccine mandate, Americans are giving up their jobs, military heroes are facing dishonorable discharges, cities are losing desperately-needed first responders, already-strained hospitals and businesses are facing even worse staff shortages, unions are filing lawsuits, the supply chain is breaking down, and it’s rumored that resistance by airline pilots is largely responsible for hundreds of flights being canceled. All of that chaos is caused by the President’s wrongheaded and authoritarian actions that even he once swore he’d never take.

But for all the suffering and turmoil Biden is causing with his dictatorial vaccine mandate policy, one question remains: Where exactly is that policy?

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-vaccine-mandate-press-release-doesnt-actually-exist/

It doesn’t actually exist. At least not in any official form. He said he was going to order OSHA to make such a policy, but he’s yet to sign an executive order, so OSHA has yet to make the rule, and all these businesses are just enforcing what they anticipate OSHA might tell them to do. As Joy Pullman at the Federalist observes, there is no policy or order or OSHA rule: there’s nothing but press statements.

The legality of this all gets very tricky. The White House is treating this as an “emergency temporary standard,” but those can be challenged in court, and only one of the 10 ETS’s that have been issued in the past 50 years has been upheld. Once it’s actually issued, the lawsuits will hit, so we’re currently seeing all this upheaval due to nothing but a press announcement of Biden’s intention to issue an order to OSHA to make a rule that would likely be overturned in court.

In short, we have a complicated system in place to defend Americans’ rights, and this White House is doing an end-run around it and employers are just going along with it. We’ll see how long they continue to go along if the resistance to it among a large number of their employees continues to hold…

https://www.foxnews.com/media/pilot-biden-vaccine-mandate-southwest-we-have-all-control

And if entire states refuse to play ball.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2021/10/11/gov-abbott-signs-executive-order-banning-vaccine-mandates-n2597293

Whether you favor vaccine mandates or not, you should hope that this effort to exert such extreme control over American citizens and private businesses without constitutional authority fails because if it succeeds, imagine what other freedoms we’ll soon lose based on nothing more than a threatening press release.

Mike Huckabee

Earlier this week, when Southwest Airlines was reeling from the cancellations of nearly 1,000 flights, they denied that it was due to employees protesting the COVID vaccine mandates. Instead, they blamed the weather and air traffic control issues, which mysteriously didn’t seem to be grounding any other airlines’ flights.

Biden press secretary Jen Psaki mocked Sen. Ted Cruz for suggesting it was vaccine resistance-related, snarking that he was a “business travel and health care expert.” Cruz shot back on Twitter that he heard directly from an informed source that it was a planned vaccine sickout, and it appears he was correct.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2021/10/12/exclusive-southwest-whistleblower-canceled-flights-the-result-of-a-coordinated-protest-against-vaccine-mandate-n1523499

There’s a lot of information at that link, including a pilot telling Tucker Carlson that 30% of pilots are unvaccinated and if they’re fired, it will cause “massive disruptions in the supply chain.” But it’s a risk that many are willing to take on the general principle that a President should not have the power to dictate that Americans inject something into their bodies that they don’t want.

The anonymous Southwest Airlines whistleblower who spoke to PJ Media claims there are 22 airlines, along with truckers and other transportation employees, many of them connected via FreedomFlyers.org, who are banding together to fight vaccine mandates, so people should expect more disruptions in the coming days and weeks.

This movement is likely to grow as more workers realize that they have the power to push back. For instance, New York health care workers are in desperately short supply, and a federal judge just issued a temporary injunction against enforcing the state’s vaccinate-or-be-fired mandate on those with religious objections.

https://www.westernjournal.com/federal-judge-rules-religious-exemptions-vaccine-mandates-must-allowed/

Meanwhile, Biden’s OSHA has now finalized its rule requiring the mandate, making it more than just a threatening PR release. It’s setting the stage for a huge economic disruption over a disease whose case numbers have been dropping steadily since September 1st (from a peak of 191,863 new cases in the US to 52,327.) Biden might also try “following the science” and recognize natural immunity among the millions already exposed or the growing number of effective treatments. But he’s willing to risk imploding the economy over a forced vaccine mandate even with supply chain issues already reaching dangerous levels.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/supply-chain-crisis-national-emergency-home-depot-nardelli

All I can say is: “Heckuva job, Joe!”