Mike Huckabee

These last two years have been tough for many people, but Anita in New Mexico reminds us that we have survived hard times before:

“In the 1950's, my stepfather suffered a severe illness. Christmas had always been "light weight", although we didn't know it; there was love to go around and a great dinner.

On Christmas Eve, the doorbell rang and there stood a group of church people, not from our church, with gifts, some wrapped, others were secondhand, but they were new to us!!!! There were more gifts than we had ever seen before, and my mother made sure some went to other homes.

I hadn't experienced such a love of giving before, and it always makes my memories of Christmas special to the point that I enjoy helping where I can and just enjoying the day with my husband with food and remembering exactly what the day is all about.”

Jerry from Florida also shared a memory of a hard time Christmas that was made wonderful by the generosity of others:

“My greatest Christmas was when I was five years old. My mother had taken my brother, sister and myself away from an abusive father, and we were on our own. To say we were poor would be an understatement. My mom rented an old house, and she supported us on a waitress’s wages. She refused to accept welfare and told us that as long as we had each other and love that we would make it. We had our own garden and even as small kids worked to help. We had so very little. Quite often, we had to drink powdered milk and eat bread and gravy three times a day. A hot dog was considered a luxury.

Christmas that year looked bleak. We had no money, but it was the happiest time of my life because we had love. Love of family and neighbors. There was one present for each of us kids that Christmas Eve as we went to bed.

On Christmas morning, we all came down to open our present. An unbelievable sight awaited us. We got to the door of the living room and our eyes widened. There were so many toys and presents that you couldn’t even hardly get in the room. Toy trucks!! Bicycles!!! Our joy and surprise were great.

We lived in a small town…Williamsfield, Illinois. Our neighbors knew we had so little. After us kids had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, the knocks on the door started. People from all over town brought things. That is the type of people I had the honor to grow up with. No government. No welfare. Just neighbors helping neighbors by living the Christian values we were all taught.

I think of that Christmas morning so long ago today and still get a smile and a tear. It was the greatest Christmas I ever had.

My mom went on to remarry to a great guy who adopted us. They worked hard to provide us a better life and live the American Dream. Mom went back to college after we were older and at the age of 38 graduated Summa Cum Laude and taught school for years. Today they live comfortably in retirement.

I think of those days and how poor we were, but I also think of the values instilled in me by a loving mother and a great community. Values that taught us about self-reliance and helping your neighbor. These were the greatest lessons learned from my greatest Christmas.”

Thank you, Anita and Jerry, for that reminder of what a difference it makes to have churches and communities that gather together to help those who are in need. We need that more than ever now, if our politicians would just stop waging war on our churches and communities.

Mike Huckabee

The leftist reaction to Sen. Joe Manchin putting the kibosh on Biden’s “Build Back Bankruptcy” bill is giving new meaning to the term “Red Diaper Baby.” There were so many televised temper tantrums on Monday, I thought MSNBC was airing a “Bridezillas” marathon.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/12/20/aoc-goes-mean-girl-on-joe-manchin-with-retaliation-plan-sure-to-make-cocaine-mitch-smile-n494353

AOC, Ilhan Omar and the usual cast of empty talking heads have been wailing, stomping and threatening Manchin ever since he refused to buy them their multi-trillion-dollar toy on Sunday. They keep claiming he’s betrayed voters in West Virginia (who oppose this bill by 74% in the latest poll), and he has a lot to answer to them for. One of my favorite responses was a tweet showing West Virginia’s solid red electoral map from 2020 and asking which blue county he should answer to first. West Virginians also told Fox News what they think of Manchin killing the BBB bill. I don’t think he’ll lose any sleep over their comments.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/west-virginians-reaction-joe-manchins-opposition-build-back-better

The White House also railed childishly at Manchin’s “betrayal,” with Jen Psaki angrily huffing out of a press conference when questioned about it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/comical-biden-admins-reaction-manchins-stone-cold-rejection-big-gov-overreach/

Ironically, it now appears that all this spiteful, immature brattiness might actually have been the last straw that caused Manchin to kill this bill. He revealed that he’d been negotiating in good faith with the Biden White House for months to try to get a bill that he thought wasn’t too expensive, destructive or inflationary, but “my Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face. I cannot take that risk.” Still, the reason he may have given up trying may be what he called the “incivility” of the White House staff.

https://www.westernjournal.com/manchin-fires-back-white-house-amid-build-black-better-impasse-know-real-reason/

By implying in public statements that Manchin was the reason the bill was stalled, they implicitly encouraged more of the kind of deranged, obnoxious, sometimes criminal, harassment of Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema by the Democrats’ shock troops of underemployed radical troublemakers.

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2021/12/20/is-this-why-manchin-turned-on-the-white-house-n436793

But the bullying and intimidation didn’t work. Manchin said Biden’s staffers “drove some things, and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable. They know what it is, and that’s it. They figured surely to God we can move one person. We surely can badger and beat one person up. Surely, we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough that they’ll just say, ‘OK I’ll vote for anything.' Well, guess what? I’m from West Virginia. I’m not from where they’re from and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they’ll be submissive, period.”

In a sign that brain death is setting in, Party leaders actually seem to be taking advice on strategy from AOC, who is urging a combination of underhanded power-grabbing maneuvers and bullying Manchin even more. This is just one more reason why Newt Gingrich said that when dealing with today’s Democrat leaders, you can’t come at it from a political perspective, you have to bear in mind that you’re dealing with people who have mental problems and are completely divorced from reality.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2021/12/20/lashing-out-at-manchin-what-is-the-white-house-thinking-n2600806?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

Think about it: what they’re talking about is the surest way to convince Manchin to switch parties. He barely won his last reelection bid, and his state has moved much further right since, while Democrats are threatening to primary him with a more leftist opponent. It was fun being the most powerful man in the Senate, but now his own Party is determined to attack him constantly, and it would be in his best interests electorally to become a Republican.

If he does, that would throw the Senate majority back to the Republicans, and Chuck Schumer would be back in the minority seat, where he belongs. All because the immature spoiled brats running the Party now would rather throw a tantrum for not getting everything they want for Christmas than grow up and think like adults.

Even as seasoned a political player as Schumer seems to have become dumber from being around AOC and the rest. He now claims he’ll bring the BBB dead horse up for a vote in January and force everyone to go on record. He might even do it again and again.

That’s an idiot move. The bill is dead, so the vote is pointless. It will be opposed by all 50 Republicans plus Manchin, who will just become even more popular in West Virginia for saying “no” on the record. Meanwhile, he’ll be forcing all the other Democrats who just dodged a bullet by not having to support this unpopular bill either to support it and give Republicans another campaign issue to bash them with, or oppose it and make Biden and his agenda look even weaker. To quote that great philosopher Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Larry O’Connor has a reminder of how pulling a stupid, counterproductive stunt wouldn’t be the first time for Chuck.

https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2021/12/21/is-this-the-moment-schumer-ruined-whats-left-of-bidens-presidency-n2600858

Mike Huckabee

UPDATE! I reported last week about Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard “Stolen Valor” Blumenthal attending an awards dinner and praising his hosts, who happened to be an affiliate of the Communist Party USA. After this resulted in understandable criticism from the right (and the middle – you don’t have to be very far right to disapprove of COMMUNISM), Blumenthal claimed he thought that was just a labor event; that he gets invited to a lot of things; and heavens, he’s a proud capitalist and had no idea he was amidst Communists!

The media did what they always do: covered up the original story that reflected badly on a Democrat, and when it came out anyway despite their suppression efforts, they rushed to defend Blumenthal, echo his excuses, and try to turn the “real” story into how “Republicans pounced” to try to twist this into a negative political issue for their opponents. Because without the Republicans complaining, nobody would’ve batted an eye at a powerful Democratic Senator joining in a communist event.

Well, here’s the latest from the Media Research Center: Blumenthal claimed he was unaware that he was at a communist event (after all, there was food.) But here is what one awards presenter told the crowd over the microphone:

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2021/12/19/lib-tv-news-ignores-sen-blumenthal-attending-communist-party

“There's more and more people talking now about socialism in this country as it becomes more and more clear that capitalism is not going to work for our future.”

And just to make it crystal clear that they didn’t mean AOC-style “Democratic socialism” (which is, like, TOTALLY different from socialism-socialism), the emcee said this:

“We invite you to join the Communist Party in this epic time as we make good trouble to uproot systemic racism, retool the war economy, tax the rich, address climate change, secure voting rights and create a new socialist system that puts people, peace and planet before profits,”

Maybe everyone was slurping their borscht so loudly that Blumenthal didn’t hear the “Communist Party” part and just assumed from that list of euphemisms that they were fellow modern Democrats. Or he could try claiming that he suffered hearing loss from all the guns going off around him during his time on the battlefield in Vietnam. At least, that would be a lie he’s used to telling.

Mike Huckabee

Speaking of communism and Senators from New England, Bernie Sanders is very ticked at Sen. Joe Manchin for not going along with the massive “Build Back Better” spending bill. Sanders called Manchin “arrogant” for blocking what 48 other Senate Democrats want to do (never mind that the vast majority of his West Virginia constituents oppose the bill.)

https://www.westernjournal.com/build-back-blunder-manchin-causing-chaos-hill-dems-lose-minds-impatience/

Okay, let’s unpack that. First of all, 48 Senators isn’t a majority of the Senate. Even if Manchin caved, Kyrsten Sinema still opposes it, so that would make it 49…which is STILL a minority. Even if they had 50 votes, forcing massive spending and transformative government changes onto an unwilling public via a phony “budget reconciliation” bill that passes by one tie-breaking vote is pure arrogance.

But as Kennedy pointed out on Fox News’ “The Five,” Bernie’s beloved socialism itself is the epitome of arrogance. It’s the belief that you have the right to take other people’s money and property on grounds that you can spend and use it better than they can, and they should be grateful to you for it.

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised because Bernie is the poster child for arrogance. He’s never held a successful private sector job in his life, yet he’s convinced that he knows more about running the US economy and every business and industry in America than the people who actually founded and run them. If his ego were any more inflated, he could finally get a successful private sector job as a Macy’s Parade balloon.

Related: Bernie first tasted the sweet life of getting rich in socialist politics when he landed his first elected position as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Those folks apparently didn’t learn their lesson, because they bought into the “defund the police” idiocy. And even in a town like Burlington, it’s had predictable results.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/12/17/vermont-learns-a-brutal-lesson-about-defunding-the-police-n2600763?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

UPDATE:  Manchin announced on Fox News this morning that he will not vote for BBB.

Mike Huckabee

Friday, a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to lift another court’s ban on imposing President Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate on businesses with over 100 employees.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/federal-appeals-court-allows-biden-vaccine-mandate-for-large-companies-to-resume

At least 27 states and a number of business and religious groups argued that the mandate is unconstitutional, and the Fifth Circuit Court ordered OSHA not to implement it, finding it would expose the petitioners "to severe financial risk" and "threatens to decimate their workforces (and business prospects)." Since that seems to be a feature not a bug to this Administration, it appealed, even though vaccine mandates don’t appear to be doing much good for businesses that have already implemented them.

https://redstate.com/jerrywilson/2021/12/18/nfl-postpones-games-due-to-the-jab-being-jive-n493366

This throws countless already-struggling businesses back into chaos (again, another feature of the Biden Administration.) The original deadline was January 4th, and it’s unclear if that’s still operative. The plaintiffs immediately filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, which hasn’t been very inspiring so far in its defense of the Constitution when it comes to this subject.

Will there be a mass exodus of desperately-needed workers during a supply chain crisis over forcing people to take a vaccine to prevent a milder form of COVID that might provide better immunity than the vaccine the government wants to force them to take to prevent it? Or will all those states and businesses tell Biden and OSHA to pound sand and dare them to arrest half the nation? These are the type of questions that could only arise during a flailing Administration like this. Only time will tell the answer, and if the deadline is still January 4th, there’s not much of that left.

Mike Huckabee

Regardless of who is in power, the one thing Americans deserve and demand of their government is that it sees its power as a sacred trust from the people and operates even-handedly within the law. There should be no difference at all in how a Democrat or a Republican is treated by the government, whether it’s agencies like the IRS or by the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the court system. Lady Justice is supposed to be blind to everything but the law and her scales are to be even. Sadly, most of us know that is simply not the case these days. The weaponization and politicization of the highest levels of law enforcement such as the FBI in trying to tie Donald Trump to the Russians are a prime example. Indictments handed down by special prosecutor John Durham already reveal that there was a vast conspiracy that started from the Hillary Clinton campaign and its operatives resulting in fabricated dossiers used to actually spy on the Trump campaign in 2016 and even after he was sworn in as President. The cover-up led all the way to the Director of the FBI, the head of the CIA, as well as corrupt members of Congress like Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Jerry Nadler, and others who unleashed the full power of the federal government to discredit Donald Trump and to protect those who abused their positions of trust in the government and who should be in prison right now.

This is not a small thing. When Richard Nixon abused his power as President and surrounded himself with those who committed crimes to influence an election and then to cover it up, there was a universal anger from not just Democrats, but Republicans as well. And the media relentless pursued the truth wherever it led them.

Those days are gone. We’ve seen disgusting abuses of power in our government toward people just like you. In the Obama years, Lois Lerner, a high-level IRS official, singled out conservative, pro-life, and pro-Christian organizations to deny them non-profit status and targeted some with such heavy-handed tactics that they ultimately ceased to exist because they couldn’t match the resources of the federal government to fight back.

The greatest threat to our nation, its institutions, and to our children is not the national debt, although it’s a serious threat to our economy. It’s not what China or Russia might do or attempt to do, regardless of how bold they might be in cyber-attacks or worse, a military assault. The greatest threat to America is not even the hyper-partisan and radically left social media and high-tech giants, and they pose serious threats to Constitutionally protected free speech. The greatest single threat to our nation is that our own government would engage in nothing less than criminal enterprises to deprive some Americans of due process and equal protection under the law and would excuse and ignore criminal behavior on the part of those who are on the side of the political party in power. If we can’t trust our law enforcement officials, the courts, and the legislature and executive branches to play straight, it’s not a matter of IF we will collapse, but WHEN. During my tenure as Governor, one of my regulatory agencies came to me and told me that a personal friend and long-time supporter of mine was engaging in unlawful activities regarding that industry. When they asked what they should do, I immediately said, “It’s simple: You treat that individual no better or no worse, but if the law has been broken, spare nothing.” That cost me the friendship of the individual as well as friends as family members of the individual, but better to lose friends than lose one’s honor and solemn duty to treat all persons the same. That means treating a political adversary as fairly as a friend and a friend no different than a foe. If government fails to do that and treats power as if it’s a political license to destroy opposition, our government is more corrupt than anything or anyone it tries to adjudicate. And we really will have lost the country.

Mike Huckabee

While the Women’s Tennis Association is standing up to China and has canceled all tournaments there in protest of the treatment of player Peng Shuai (who “disappeared” after accusing a Communist Party official of sexual assault), the NFL is again taking a knee. This time to Beijing, since they just released a marketing map that shows Taiwan unlabeled and colored in red as a part of China.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/nfl-marks-taiwan-as-part-of-china/

And as long as we’re on the subject of people who put money over human decency, it’s been reported that during a brief period last September, Nike executives funneled more than $60,000 to the reelection campaign of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who blocked the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that the House passed unanimously, the Senate was expected to pass, and President Biden had vowed to sign.

https://tennesseestar.com/2021/12/17/nike-executives-funneled-money-to-democrat-who-blocked-uyghur-forced-labor-bill/

Mike Huckabee

On Friday, former Perkins Coie partner and Hillary/DNC attorney Marc Elias tweeted this revealing message:

“Republicans are worse than ever and their attack on democracy continues. For 2022-24, our best hope remains new federal legislation and aggressive litigation.”

Recall that Perkins Coie is the firm that brought us the fake Steele “dossier” in 2016. And now, with these words, Elias shows his hand, revealing once again that the real “attack on democracy” is coming from Democrats, notably HIM. (At least he seems to have shelved for the moment the tired but no doubt focus-group-tested leftist phrase “our democracy.” And we live in a republic, folks.) If you can’t prevent Republicans from winning by the will of the people, he rationalizes, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to change the law to make manipulating the outcome a cinch. And you’ve got to do this at the federal level, in a bill like the Democrats’ proposed H.R. 1, even though the Constitution clearly gives the authority to run elections to state legislatures.

In the months leading up to November 3, 2020, Elias did an end-run around state legislatures, jetting around from one battleground state to another with a huge team of attorneys --- generally not even licensed to practice in that state --- and legal staff to file suit at both state and county levels. The goal: to force universal "no-excuse" mail-in voting and the lifting of safeguards against dirty tricks, such as traditional restrictions on ballot harvesting. They overwhelmed the Republicans. These changes were designed to lead to chaos --- I’d call it “targeted chaos.” This has become known as the “sue till blue” strategy.

The real attack on democracy was what Elias and his cohorts did to make it easier to cheat and almost impossible to detect the cheating. The chaos they created made that possible.

After the election, Elias made a strategic exit from Perkins Coie and started an “independent” law firm, The Elias Firm, dedicated to getting more Democrats elected and "progressive" legislation passed. So his tweet above really could be taken as his mission statement for the next few years.

Elias’ tweet caught the attention of Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist, who literally wrote the book on the 2020 election, a comprehensive analysis entitled “RIGGED: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” As you might imagine, Perkins Coie and partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann (who has been indicted by Special Counsel John Durham for not telling the FBI that he was working for Hillary when he was peddling the “dossier”) figure prominently.

She tweeted back: “Marc Elias, who ran the destructive Russia collusion lie operation in 2016, says the quiet part out loud --- decreasing the security and safeguards for elections is Democrats’ ‘best hope’ for winning future elections.”

“This is nonsense,” he responded, “but I did like the part of your book where you wrote about how effective I was in beating the GOP in court in 2020. How’d it sell?”

Only a hack attorney like Elias would take what she said about him in the book as a compliment. It wasn’t meant that way.

She continued: “Oh, I don’t believe I ever wrote about your efforts against election security. But I believe I mentioned that you were sanctioned by the 5th Circuit for your dishonesty.”

Sure enough, starting on page 14 of RIGGED –- a must-read for anyone curious about the 2020 election –- she outlines Elias’ history of working to elect Democrats by changing voting laws, saying that’s his “real passion.” It’s quite a resume. Politico has called him “a dominant force in U.S. election law,” and he certainly proved that in 2020. The proof is in the pudding, which is to say the current pudding-for-brains occupying the White House as a result of his efforts. Hemingway notes that Elias was in charge of the legal challenges in 2008 that put Al Franken in the U.S. Senate in Minnesota and made it possible for the Democrats to pass Obamacare. (“The Republicans never knew what hit them,” she wrote.) She describes in detail how this was engineered. And, yes, she does mention that “the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sanctioned him [Elias] in March 2021 after he filed a supplemental motion challenging Texas voting laws that was nearly identical to one he’d filed months earlier. The first motion had been denied, and he didn’t disclose the previous denial to the judges.”

Perhaps Mollie could cut Elias a little slack, considering he filed SO MANY challenges to voting laws in different states that he might have honestly forgotten filing that one. Kidding --- one has to wonder if he’s ever “honestly” done anything. Perhaps if he thought he could win an election honestly, he might actually do that, but he’s essentially admitted he has to do it by hook or by crook. Besides, Democrat attorneys are already cut way too much slack --- by each other, as I illustrated yesterday with the failure of the DC Bar to disbar convicted felon Kevin Clinesmith, who falsified a document used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.

Anyway, Hemingway also took the opportunity to engage in a bit of well-deserved self-promotion, which we will gladly pass along: “Marc Elias was just reminding me to remind you to purchase my best-selling book. His role in running not just the Russia collusion hoax that so damaged the country in 2016, but also the chaos and confusion of 2020’s election administration is covered well.”

https://clarion.causeaction.com/2021/12/17/the-federalists-mollie-hemingway-opens-up-a-can-of-whoopass-on-discredited-democrat-russia-collusion-hoaxer-marc-elias/

Speaking of Dems trying to overhaul election law to make it easier to cheat, the Democrat Party of Virginia has been trying to block the state Constitution’s requirement for social security numbers but is facing pushback from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), headed by J. Christian Adams.. PILF maintains that this attempt is a “partisan swipe” at a requirement that has been in place for 50 years. “This lawsuit is an attack on basic election integrity measures,” Adams said in a statement. “These rules exist to protect the right to vote and must always be followed to ensure free and fair elections.”

Well, of course, they do --- why does anyone think Marc Elias and the DNC want to get rid of them?

https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/16/election-integrity-group-throws-legal-wrench-at-russia-hoaxer-backed-democrats-trying-to-overhaul-virginia-voting-rules/

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, I remarked that Adam Schiff, for repeatedly and shamelessly lying and falsifying evidence to try to get political adversaries imprisoned, should be disbarred. (Others, notably Mark Levin, have agreed.) Of course, for that to happen, lawyers themselves would have to hold their profession to at least some level of ethical standards. Unsurprisingly, that's not happening.

Consider the case of Kevin Clinesmith, who, as you’ll recall, was convicted of doctoring evidence used in a FISA application for a surveillance warrant to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. (By extension, the whole Trump campaign, even going back in time to before the warrant was issued, could have been surveilled.) With the click of a few keys, Clinesmith turned a document that said Page had previously worked with the CIA into one that said he had not. Clinesmith pleaded guilty in August of 2020 and was sentenced to 12 months’ probation in January.

You’d think the DC bar would have sought to pull his law license for something that egregious –- according to Paul Sperry at RealClear Investigations, this is customary –- but they did not. “Normally, the bar automatically suspends the license of members who plead guilty of a felony,” he reported. But they waited five long months to put Clinesmith, a registered Democrat who sent anti-Trump rants to his FBI colleagues, on even an interim suspension, taking action only after RCI exposed their delay. At that point, they temporarily suspended him “pending a review and a hearing.”

They even allowed him to negotiate his fate, which according to Sperry is quite unusual in a case involving a serious crime. Clinesmith had even broken the bar’s own rule by taking five months to report his guilty plea to them, when he was required to do this within 10 days.

In September, the court that oversees the bar and imposes sanctions decided to let Clinesmith off suspension with time served. The Democrat-controlled Board on Professional Responsibility –- I’ll pause while you fall to the floor laughing –- had rubber-stamped the very light sentence he had negotiated with Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton “Phil” Fox, a major Democrat donor. The board did this without even checking with Clinesmith’s probation officer to see if he had violated the terms of his sentence or if he’d completed his required 400 hours of community service.

In order to let Clinesmith off so lightly, Fox concluded that he'd had “no personal motive” in deceiving the court. (Never mind those vicious anti-Trump rants of his.) Fox also had to disregard key findings by Durham about Clinesmith’s intent to deceive the FISA court. Fox apparently just took Clinesmith’s word that he'd thought the change he’d made was accurate. Why, it was merely a “shortcut” to save time (!) and he’d had no intent to deceive FBI agents or the FISA court. Obviously, that is not what was found by Durham, who as evidence cited a revealing internal email between Clinesmith and the FBI agent preparing the application. Durham also cited as plausible motivating factors Clinesmith’s partisan political views and personal dislike of Trump.

Nevertheless, Clinesmith has been restored as an active member in good standing of the DC bar, presumably by others who were motivated by their own partisan political views and personal dislike of Trump.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/12/16/dc_bar_lets_convicted_fbi_russiagate_lawyer_back_in_good_standing_as_court_cuts_him_more_slack_807964.html

Sperry did determine that Clinesmith had done some community service, volunteering at the nonprofit group Street Sense Media, but that he stopped last summer. It’s not known how many hours he completed. To give you an idea of what sort of organization Street Sense Media is, Clinesmith’s job was to help edit and research articles for their weekly newspaper, which has articles for the homeless about how to “sleep on the streets” and calls for prison reform and “a universal living wage.”

Sounds as though he was really in his element. Who says punishment can’t be fun? On the other hand, isn’t editing how Clinesmith got in trouble in the first place?

Another condition of his plea deal was that he cooperate with the FBI’s Inspection Division to determine if he was involved in any other surveillance abuses related to the FISA court. This would have involved turning over any relevant materials he had. If he failed to do this, he could be charged with perjury and/or obstruction. Bar officials did not bother to check on this before reinstating him.

U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg, a Democrat appointed by President Obama, is the judge who spared Clinesmith jail time in his plea agreement. Clinesmith served out his probation from home. Boasberg also decided that losing his FBI job and its $150,000 salary was enough, so he did not impose the $10,000 fine. Clinesmith’s passport was returned to him. He got to skip the periodic drug testing, too. “Best of luck to you,” the judge told him as they parted.

So, are we looking at a double standard of justice? For comparison, let’s look at Boasberg’s treatment of former Trump attorney and Republican Rudy Giuliani. Boasberg recently opened an official ethics investigation of Giuliani, whom he also put under “temporary disciplinary suspension” pending the outcome. (I wonder if the judge will wish Rudy the best of luck.) In July, Rudy was also placed on interim suspension from the New York Bar. He has not been charged with any crime, let alone convicted of one.

But even though Clinesmith has been lovingly re-embraced by the slightly sticky arms of his fellow DC lawyers, he might still be in deeper trouble with Special Counsel John Durham. According to Sperry, Durham’s mandate “is broader than commonly understood.” Yes, he’s examining the legal justification (or lack thereof) of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into supposed Trump-Russia “collusion.” But he’s also looking into their inquiry, such as it was, into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal, non-secure email server to handle her official and classified State Department business, and also her destruction of over 30,000 subpoenaed emails from her tenure as Secretary of State. Clinesmith was deeply involved in that, too.

Durham is also said to be looking into the actions of Robert Mueller’s special counsel. As it happens, Clinesmith was also the liaison between Mueller’s office and the FBI. In fact, he was the only attorney from FBI headquarters assigned to Mueller. He was in the center of it all.

Durham had argued before Judge Boasberg that Clinesmith’s offense, creating a fake document as a false pretense to spy on an American citizen, was “a very serious crime with significant repercussions" and said it made him unfit to practice law. Apparently this made no dfference to the DC Bar. One of Sperry’s sources with direct knowledge of the case, a longstanding member of the DC Bar, said what we’re all thinking: “The District of Columbia is a very liberal bar. Basically, they went light on him because he’s also a Democrat who hated Trump.”

So that’s why Clinesmith hasn’t been disbarred. Adam Schiff would have to be disbarred in California, so don’t hold your breath on that one, either. I'm all for it, though, even though it would merely be symbolic since all he does is "play" lawyer in congressional kangaroo courts and his membership has been inactive since 2001.

https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/122595

Mike Huckabee

Here are a couple of moving stories, and I don’t mean emotionally, unless you get choked up at how badly leftists are destroying once-great states and cities and forcing people to move out.

First, we knew a lot of people had been fleeing California, but researchers from California Police Lab were surprised to discover just how many. From the end of March 2020 to the end of September 2021, they found a 12% increase in residents moving out of California and a 38% decrease in people moving in. While this was a statewide phenomenon, the worst gap was in the most liberal city in California, San Francisco, where there was a 12% increase in residents leaving for other states and a 45% drop in people moving there.

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2021/12/16/the-lack-of-people-not-moving-to-california-is-so-bad-its-surprising-researchers-but-it-shouldnt-n492393

I’m sure all the leftists running California will find something other than themselves to blame, like earthquakes or wildfires. In fact, between earthquakes, wildfires and leftist governance, earthquakes are the state’s only natural disaster that isn’t directly related to Californians voting for leftists.

Maybe in San Francisco, they can claim that so many people are moving out because now that they all have a full set of stolen Louis Vuitton luggage, they want to use it.

Our other moving story gives new meaning to the phrase, “Let the buyer beware,” especially if you’re thinking of buying a house.

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/12/16/top-real-estate-sites-remove-crime-data-and-their-excuses-couldnt-be-more-disingenuous-n492330

The major real estate websites Redfin and Realtor.com announced that they will stop including neighborhood crime data in their listings because for some inexplicable reason, that’s apparently racist now.

Realtor.com’s CEO issued a statement “explaining” this change. After some PC boilerplate about how some people may be blocked from buying homes in their preferred neighborhoods due to their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion (which is illegal, by the way, so anyone actually experiencing that would have grounds for a lawsuit), it goes on to claim that “Reported crimes may not accurately reflect actual crimes,” and that “crime statistics risk including racial bias…There’s real variety in how people define and evaluate safety, and…it doesn’t line up very well with purely crime-based data…People are interested in safety, not crime.”

So to help potential buyers, including law-abiding minority members, evaluate whether a neighborhood is safe or not, they’re not to tell them what the crime rate is? I’m used to liberals making no logical sense, but this sounds like someone has actually stolen their brains.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://www.hagemanforwyoming.com/issues

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer “Lia” Thomas (who up until 2019 was middling male swimmer Will Thomas) has been smashing all the women’s records since declaring him/herself female. In a recent 1560 freestyle, “Lia” beat the second-place finisher by a staggering 38 seconds. And while everyone is expected to just shut up and cheer this stunning and brave “woman,” like the cowed peasants in the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” one of “Lia’s” female teammates dared to tell the truth to Outkick about how the other swimmers really feel:

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/penn-trans-swimmer-teammate-lia-thomas-speaks

"Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do. When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake."

The term “very fake” doesn’t just apply to the phony congratulations “Lia’s” teammates feel they have to mouth, even though anyone with eyes and a functioning brain can see how insanely unfair this is and how it threatens to destroy all women’s sports -- especially now that the Olympics have jumped on board the trans delusion bandwagon. They claim it will be fair because they’ll make males wait two years instead of one before competing as females, which is too dumb even to comment on.

If all female athletes don’t put aside their fears of the trans Twitter mobs and stand up together to speak out against this and refuse to compete under these ridiculous conditions, then they’d better get ready to kiss women’s sports goodbye.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, after nine hours of deliberations, the jury in actor Jussie Smollett’s trial returned a verdict of guilty on five out of six counts of concocting a hoax hate crime and lying to the police about it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-jussie-smollett-verdict-revealed/

The big question remaining, of course, was “Why not all six?” Smollett was acquitted on one count of felony disorderly conduct related to making a false police report, which the prosecutor couldn’t explain, but he said it wasn’t significant to the state’s case. But Smollett’s lawyer seized on that one acquittal as proof that Smollett will win on appeal. Yes, apparently, he intends to go into a higher court and try to sell this load of bad clams a second time. If his defense is as good as it was the first time around, perhaps the appeal can result in a guilty verdict on all six charges, with perjury in the first trial thrown in for good measure.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/12/09/prosecutor-trouble-for-jussie-smollett-because-of-lying-to-jury-n489265

Reaction to the trial has been interesting. Some of the big liberal celebrities and news media figures who rushed to support Smollett at first, since his lies played into their cherished false narrative of Trump supporters being violent, homophobic racists, are being awfully quiet now. His former staunch supporter, CNN’s Don Lemon, threw Jussie under the bus and branded him a liar who’s made it harder for real victims of hate crimes. Perhaps he's smarting from Smollett’s testimony that revealed he was using his contacts, Chris Cuomo-style, to let Smollett know what the cops were thinking about his claims.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10295231/Don-Lemon-throws-old-pal-Jussie-Smollett-wolves-branding-LIAR.html

Not surprisingly, the most unhinged reaction came from the Black Lives Matter group, which doubled down on its support of Smollett, claimed that we can never believe cops, and demanded the abolition of police, even as crime and murder rates are skyrocketing in cities that have defunded police departments, and where many of the victims are black.

https://thelibertydaily.com/blm-doubles-down-on-smollett-support-and-calls-to-abolish-police-as-12-major-cities-hit-all-time-high-crime-numbers/

Personally, I would find it a lot easier to believe that some cops went out for donuts at 2 a.m. on a sub-freezing Chicago night than that Jussie went out for Subway sandwiches at that time and just happened to bump into two racist Trump supporters who (A.) recognized him because they watch “Empire” and (B.) just happened to be carrying bleach and a noose. I guess they were on their way to the all-night rope laundromat.

The reason it was so easy for liberals to believe such a transparently ridiculous story is that the media have been retailing hoaxes and lies about Trump and his supporters for so long that believing the worst has become a reflex for them. Victoria Taft notes that this case now joins a list of hundreds of fake hate crimes in the past few years (from a site we’ve cited before, fakehatecrimes.org), and reminds us of a few that got plenty of hysterical media coverage, only to fizzle out when they were exposed as hoaxes:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/12/09/jussie-smolletts-race-hoax-joins-a-long-list-of-other-fake-hate-crimes-here-are-8-out-of-hundreds-of-them-n1540264

I’ll give the final word to Stephen Kruiser of PJ Media, who says he’s so fed up with these race-baiting liars, he just wants them gone and for Smollett to “spend the rest of his pathetic life in prison.”

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/12/10/the-morning-briefing-jussie-smollett-should-spend-the-rest-of-his-pathetic-life-in-prison-n1540466

He also revives an argument that, if you’re old enough to remember, was made when “hate crime” laws were first proposed, but it’s since become so un-PC that few dare make it: that the very concept of “hate crimes” is inherently racist, and that punishment should be based on the crime, not the victim’s race. For instance, the argument is that adding extra punishment to an assault charge because of the victim’s race implies that some races are more valuable than others, and the charge should just be assault on another human being, with the punishment neither greater nor less because of the races of the victim or perpetrator.

You can agree or disagree with the premise, but there’s no denying that creating a new category of “hate crimes” has given rise to a wave of people who seek to divide Americans and advance themselves by faking hate crimes. Kruiser’s article includes a good point: if we’re going to increase the punishment for a crime because it’s branded a “hate crime,” and that's more serious than a regular crime, shouldn’t we also double the punishment for filing false police reports to fake a hate crime?

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/MbVuV6lSZSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

HEALTH AND HEALING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IN MEMORIAM

Mike Huckabee

This morning, the Labor Department released new figures showing the consumer price index rose 6.8% in November from one year ago. That’s the highest inflation rise in 39 years. The previous high was 7.1% in June 1982, when Reagan was still trying to wrestle Carter-era stagflation under control.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/consumer-price-index-november-2021

Still, those reported secret meetings between the Biden White House and the lapdog media appear to be bearing rotten fruit, as the phrase “Biden Boom” briefly trended on Twitter yesterday.

https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/12/09/the-biden-white-house-propaganda-sessions-with-colluding-media-seem-to-be-working-as-biden-boom-trends-on-social-media-n489028

Believe it or not, “boom” is not the sound of this Administration imploding. The media are actually trying to convince us that the economy is booming thanks to this Administration’s brilliant leadership. It’s a jaw dropping insult to the intelligence of the American people.

To be fair, gas prices are actually a few cents lighter, which isn’t the only gaslighting going on, although Biden is having a little trouble saying so.

https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-biden-extreme-brain-malfunction-live-tv-trying-explain-gas-prices/

But getting gas prices to under $3 a gallon when they were under $2 a gallon when you took over less than 11 months ago is not something to brag about. Neither is anything else in this economy.

Go to that first link at Redstate.com to see the charts that aren’t carefully edited and cherry picked. You’ll notice that the alleged “historically fast Biden jobs creation” is nothing but businesses reopening after being forced to close due to COVID panic, and the level of employment is still nowhere near what it was before that artificially-induced crash.

The propaganda campaign doesn’t seem to be working on small business owners.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/main-street-businesses-reject-biden-wont-reelect-61-39

A new Zogby poll found that among companies with $10 million or less in annual revenues, executives think things are worse under Biden rather than better by a 56-44% margin. Include their workers, and it’s the same result by 53-47%. Among those owners and executives, Biden’s reelection is opposed by 61-39%. Among executives of businesses that make over $10 million a year, Biden’s reelection is opposed by 54-46%. I have a feeling that if you filtered out Big Tech and pharmaceutical companies, that last number would look even worse.

Fortunately, the media have so destroyed their own credibility in recent years that I seriously doubt they have the brainwashing power to convince the 70% of Americans who think the economy is on the wrong track (November Fannie Mae National Housing Survey) that everything is rosy thanks to Joe, as they spend their kids’ college fund on a tank of gas and a week’s worth of groceries.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://www.fbi.gov

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

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

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mike Huckabee

The recent Supreme Court arguments on abortion that could repeal or roll back Roe v. Wade have reignited calls among Congressional Democrats for “court reform” (i.e., expanding the SCOTUS and packing it with liberals so they’ll always get their way.) Many are railing about how unfair it is that there’s now a conservative majority on the court, and that this injustice must be rectified. As Byron York explains, “The thinking among those Democrats is that if the court does something they oppose, it has become ‘partisan.’ Now, they need to intervene to make it less ‘partisan.’”

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2021/12/08/after-court-argument-seething-frustration-on-the-left-n2600282?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

You see, they define other people’s political viewpoints as “partisan” and their own as “objectively correct.” But even as the calls for court packing mount, the justification for it remains elusive.

When President Biden appointed a commission to study Supreme Court reform, many “progressives” assumed that its report would justify their lust for unlimited power by reading, “Pack it tighter than a carry-on bag!” Well, the report is out, and sadly for them, it doesn’t tell us anything other than what anyone with half a brain already knew.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/12/08/supreme-court-commission-n2600306

The commission said the disagreement among its members reflects that of the public: supporters of expanding the Court claim it would protect democracy, while opponents say it would harm the independence of the judiciary branch and make it subject to shifting political trends.

They wrote that any just statutory changes would require serious deliberation by Congress (are they even capable of that these days?) during which “we hope that Congress would keep in mind the central structural values of our Constitution" (good luck with that!), "particularly the principle of judicial independence, and consider what future Congresses, armed with the same constitutional powers, might someday attempt. Indeed, in recent years, we have seen democratic governments 'regress' or 'backslide' with respect to judicial independence. This has come about through electoral majorities using their power to favor the political agendas of those governments."

Unfortunately, to the people pushing court packing, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. But it is a good sign that Americans still have enough common sense to recognize a naked, unconstitutional power grab when they see one, even people who were selected in hopes that they would rubber stamp it for approval.

Ironically, the Democrats made an error by not packing their court-packing commission with partisan liberals who would give them what they want, regardless of the Constitution or the consequences. They should've packed the court commission like they did the January 6th commission.

Mike Huckabee

CNN must’ve hated Monday even more than Garfield the cat does. The “news” network’s reputation, already covered with more mud than a Louisiana pickup truck, took several more hits on Monday.

First, newly-fired anchor Chris Cuomo threw CNN boss Jeff Zucker under the bus, claiming that Zucker was fully aware from the start of all the “help” Cuomo gave his brother Andrew. CNN issued a statement that Cuomo had made “a number of accusations that are patently false,”and “This reinforces why he was terminated for violating our standards and practices, as well as his lack of candor.”

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/12/06/chris-cuomo-just-escalated-his-war-with-cnn-in-a-big-way-n487500

Also, Chris Cuomo is reportedly preparing to sue CNN for the $18-$20 million remaining on his contract. A CNN insider said they have no intention of paying him, that there’s a standard morals clause in the contract allowing for immediate firing if you do anything of disrepute, and there would be an uproar if the network paid him a settlement.

Frankly, if you can’t fire someone for doing what Cuomo did, then what can you ever fire anyone for? Oh, and in a related story, Cuomo announced that he will also no longer be doing his SiriusXM Radio show, “Let’s Get After It with Chris Cuomo.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/12/07/chris-cuomo-is-out-of-his-second-job-too-n2600242

Meanwhile, the farcical trial of actor Jussie Smollett also produced an unexpected mudball aimed at CNN.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/12/06/jussie-smolletts-testimony-about-don-lemon-shows-what-a-dumpster-fire-cnn-is-n487569

Smollett claimed in testimony that the reason he didn’t want to turn his cell phone over to Chicago Police was that CNN anchor Don Lemon texted him that the cops didn’t believe his story. So once again, a claim that a CNN anchor was abusing his inside journalist contacts to secretly help someone the network was covering.

If that doesn’t remind you enough of Chris Cuomo, recall that the openly gay Lemon is already facing a lawsuit by a man who accused him of sexual assault and battery in a Long Island bar. The accuser called CNN “a network rife with predators and perverts,” and “a predator-protecting machine.” He said they have tried to buy him off and scare him off, but he’s looking forward to forcing Lemon to testify under oath because he wants some accountability. He said, “They are complicit. This is who they are.”

And will Lemon face any repercussions from CNN? Many are skeptical…

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/12/07/don-lemon-is-proof-chris-cuomo-was-the-rule-at-cnn-not-the-exception-n487661

All this had even some CNN staffers fretting on-air that all this negative news might damage CNN’s credibility and undermine the public’s trust in CNN.

Noooo!! Say it ain’t so! The network that spent four years breathlessly pushing the Russian collusion hoax, that told us Nick Sandmann was a racist who confronted a Native American and Kyle Rittenhouse was a murderer, and that claimed Joe Rogan treated his COVID with horse medicine might have lost the public’s trust?!

Hey, CNN, I finally have some much-needed good news for you. You can’t lose what you didn’t have in the first place.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Remember Pearl Harbor!”

Mike Huckabee

All of us here at the Huckabee Newsletter wish to extend our prayers and sympathy to former Sen. Elizabeth Dole and the rest of the family of former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole, who died in his sleep Sunday at 98. He had announced earlier this year that he was being treated for stage 4 lung cancer.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bob-dole-dead-98

It was a miracle that he survived World War II, having served heroically in battle in Italy, where he was severely injured by enemy gunfire and lost the use of his right arm. His devotion to his fellow veterans became a lifelong mission, and as chairman of the World War II Memorial Commission, he helped raise nearly $200 million to build the WWII memorial on the National Mall.

Dole’s former colleagues and all the living ex-Presidents praised Dole as a statesman, patriot and war hero. President Biden recalled him as a friend with whom he often disagreed politically, but who never hesitated to work with Democrats on bipartisan areas of agreement (of course, that was back when there were a lot more of those.) Biden also announced that flags would fly at half-staff in memory of Dole, who, as his death announcement stated, “served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years.”

Dole was also famous for his quick wit and using humor to make his points. He even wrote a book called “Great Political Wit.” And he cheerfully poked fun at himself, played along with Norm McDonald’s impression of him on “SNL,” and was a great talk show guest, as this compilation of Letterman appearances shows: https://youtu.be/uBklPt7oUOc

Dole’s amazing life and career would take too much space even to summarize in this newsletter, so I suggest you click the link for more details, or read his terrific book, “One Soldier’s Story: A Memoir,” or his duel-memoir with his wife Elizabeth, “Unlimited Partners: Our American Story.”

On a personal level, I simply loved Bob Dole. When I was a fledgling candidate for the US Senate in 1992, few people thought I had a chance to defeat long-time incumbent Dale Bumpers in my very first political outing. Turned out they were right, but one person who came to Arkansas to campaign for me was Senator Bob Dole. He did events with me in NW Arkansas and in Little Rock. His presence warranted much needed news coverage and credibility for me. I was with him in the car when an elderly gentleman came rushing to the vehicle to hand the Senator a large envelope and say, “Senator, I have some ideas on reducing the deficit I’d like to give you.” I was seated in the back seat with Senator Dole, and his aide seated in the front turned and said, “Senator, want me to take that for you?” It was a kind way of saying, “Sir, I’ll take that and dispose of it for you.” The Senator said, “No son, I’ll hold on to it and give it a look. That gentleman may have better ideas than we do. Lord knows we aren’t doing much to reduce the deficit and he might have something worth considering.” It wasn’t that this legendary Senator needed the contents of that envelope. But in his words and actions, Bob Dole showed a rare quality for politicians who sometimes become removed from rubbing shoulders with anonymous citizens. He showed that man RESPECT. I never forgot it. And it also taught me the value of helping candidates when they need the help the most—in the early days of what might be an unlikely victory for their campaigns.

When I launched HuckPAC, I purposed to help elect pro-life conservatives to public office at all levels. But while we help incumbents who usually will have adequate funding, we have gotten in early for good candidates who we clearly realize may not win the race, but who might be better prepared to win their NEXT race. There are people in Congress, the Senate, Governor offices and all kinds of public offices from school board to state legislature who received the endorsement and financial support of HuckPAC. They can thank Bob Dole for teaching me that lesson.

When Senator Dole ran for President in 1996, he asked me to serve on his national steering committee. Without hesitation, I gladly and eagerly said “yes,” and campaigned with him and for him across America. The more time I spent with him, the more I loved him, respected him, and learned from him.

Bob Dole is a real hero. For all he did in World War II to give us our freedom, to his lifetime of thoughtful service to our nation in public service. He is irreplaceable. But I pray he’s never forgotten. He certainly won’t be by me. Rest in peace, Senator Dole. You’ve earned it!

Sadly, Bob Dole is not the only World War II hero to whom we’re paying our last respects. It was also announced that Edward Shames passed away peacefully at home Friday in Virginia at 99.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/edward-shames-last-of-the-surviving-wwii-officers-who-inspired-hbos-band-of-brothers-dies-at-99/ar-AARugs2

Shames was the last surviving member of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, the legendary unit whose involvement in some of the key battles in Europe inspired the hit HBO miniseries and book, “Band of Brothers.” After the war, he continued to serve America as a Middle East expert for the NSA and in the Army Reserves, where he retired with the rank of colonel.

I’m sure most Americans will join me in offering a final, grateful salute to two of the greatest members of the “Greatest Generation.”

Mike Huckabee

Chris Cuomo’s “indefinite suspension” from CNN has finally advanced to actually being fired.

https://www.westernjournal.com/chair-january-6-committee-exercising-constitutional-rights-hints-suspects-guilty/

The announcement was released Saturday night during a major college championship game, likely in hopes that nobody would notice it. Didn't work. CNN said Cuomo was fired because “additional information has come to light,” then refused to say what it was, which is sort of the opposite of information “coming to light.” It’s also rather strange to suppress a major story when you’re allegedly a news network, but then, “this…is CNN!”

The New York Times claimed it was because a former colleague at another network had made another sexual misconduct claim against Cuomo. So for the record, if you work at CNN, helping to cover up your brother’s political scandals, abusing your journalistic contacts to help him get dirt on women who accuse him of sexual harassment, lying about that, and being accused of sexual misconduct yourself will not get you fired. But if you get accused of sexual misconduct a SECOND time, that’s where they draw the line! They have standards, you know.

Check out that link for more. It also includes some undercover video (warning: rough language!) taken way back in March by Project Veritas. It shows CNN staffers saying it was an open secret that Andrew Cuomo was a “piece of (bleep)” boss, manager and Governor; comparing him to famous sex criminals Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly; and complaining that CNN should have stopped Chris from covering his brother on day one. So at least somebody at CNN does have ethics. Too bad it was nobody who was in charge.

Mike Huckabee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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