Political correctness - Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Monday, Pfizer reported that its COVID vaccine is safe for 5-11-year-olds. This was taken as a likely sign that the FDA will approve it and the Biden Administration might mandate it, since the Delta variant is more transmissible and has infected more children. But that was a bridge too far for many parents who think it should be their decision whether the risks of COVID to their children outweigh the risks of possible side effects from a vaccine with no longterm studies.

That hesitancy caused some media figures like columnist David Frum to slam reluctant parents as “Anti-vaxxers,” which has become a kneejerk pejorative hurled at anyone who has questions about the vaccines, no matter how reasonable. Megyn Kelly took Frum to the woodshed over that.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/09/20/david-frum-cant-deal-after-megyn-kelly-buries-him-during-child-vaccination-debate-n445633

As I’ve said repeatedly, I’ve been vaccinated, and like the vast majority of people, I’ve had no negative side effects. But that doesn’t mean that other people who might be particularly susceptible, or especially parents concerned about their children, should be attacked, ridiculed or told to just shut up when they have legitimate concerns that deserve to be addressed.

It’s likely that the questions are going to multiply in light of the latest undercover video release by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas. It came from a whistleblower who’s a registered nurse at a Health and Human Services-affiliated medical center. She recorded conversations with doctors and other nurses about the high number of patients with serious vaccine side effects and their concern that these reactions weren’t getting reported by the government. One doctor complained that they want “to shove it under the mat.”

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/federal-govt-whistleblower-goes-public-with-secret-recordings-government/

If the CDC and other government health agencies want Americans to trust them, then they need to openly address people’s concerns and stop trying to bully them into submission. That only makes them more suspicious. If they’re ever going to win back the public’s trust, the first step would be to start acting trustworthy.

Mike Huckabee

As the illegal immigration crisis on the Texas border grows worse with each day while the Biden Administration that caused it tries to ignore it or change the subject, many people are asking how such a thing could keep going on and on if the Administration didn’t want it going on and on? In other words, is this by incompetence or intention?

One person in a position to know believes it’s the latter. Rodney S. Scott is a 29-year law enforcement veteran and the recently-retired head of the US Border Patrol. He wrote a letter to Senate leaders of both parties that was obtained by JustTheNews.com, and it makes some stunning allegations. Scott writes:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/09/21/ex-biden-border-chief-makes-bombshell-accusations-against-administration-n1480382

“Common sense border security recommendations from experienced career professionals are being ignored and stymied by inexperienced political appointees. The Biden administration’s team at DHS is laser-focused on expediting the flow of migrants into the U.S. and downplaying the significant vulnerability this creates for terrorists, narcotics smugglers, human traffickers, and even hostile nations to gain access to our homeland.”

Scott also asserts that every option for reducing illegal entries and restoring order that has been offered to the White House has been “summarily rejected.” Meanwhile, he says that the DHS Secretary “and other political appointees within DHS have provided factually incorrect information to Congressional Representatives and to the American public. Furthermore, they have directed USBP personnel to allow otherwise ineligible aliens to remain in the U.S. inconsistent with the…established legal processes and law.”

That’s a serious charge by someone in a position to know, of aiding in the violation of federal law and lying to Congress about it. But what are the odds that we’ll see a Congressional investigation before the 2022 midterm elections? Let’s hope we see one immediately afterward.

In the meantime, I was on “Hannity” last night on Fox News and was asked why Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s doing all he can to protect his citizens from the dangers of the Biden-created border disaster (disease, crime, drugs, etc. etc. etc.), didn’t call out the State Guard to secure the border.

As a former Governor myself, I knew the answer: because as soon as he does, the President (or whoever’s really giving the orders) would nationalize the Guard and override him. Abbott already has enough on his hands dealing with the horrific repercussions of Biden’s deliberate border fiasco. He has to rely on the tools he can use without handing even more power to the White House to wield against Texas, and by extension, all Americans who care about stopping this unfettered invasion.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

The fact that Special Counsel John Durham would release 27 pages of detailed narrative to indict one measly person on one count of making a false statement to the FBI got us wondering immediately what his purpose might have been. We’re not attorneys, but over the next couple of days, some of our favorite legal minds noticed the same thing.

Over the years, you and I have learned not to expect much in the way of justice from the “Justice” Department --- especially now, with an obvious political hack like Merrick Garland running it --- but the indictment of this Clinton attorney might be the harbinger of bigger things to come. It is likely that Hillary will escape jail once again, as she did even after using a private server to circumvent FOIA requests and destroying evidence with BleachBit and hammers, but remember: even though Nixon escaped legal accountability in the Watergate scandal, the whole story did come out. What we’re looking at is probably another situation like that.

For now, many thanks to Dan Bongino for pointing us to a superb analysis of Sussmann’s indictment on SUBSTACK by Shipwreckedcrew’s Port-O-Call. This is long but important to read.

https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/the-sussmann-indictment-reads-like

“The Sussmann indictment reads like overt acts in furtherance of a conspiracy,” he writes, “because that’s what it is.”

He explains that the indictment on that one charge is contained in just one paragraph, Paragraph 46, which reads, “On or about September 19, 2016, within the District of Columbia, MICHAEL A. SUSSMANN, the defendant, did willingly and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious and false statement or representation in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the Government of the United States, to wit, on or about September 19, 2016, the defendant stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning a Presidential candidate, when in truth, and in fact, and as the defendant well knew, he was acting on behalf of specific clients, namely – Tech Executive 1 and the Clinton campaign.”

That’s it. That’s what he stands accused of. What are all those other pages for? A “false statement” charge doesn’t require all that narrative. What Durham filed is called a “speaking indictment,” which “discloses information in a public document that would not otherwise be known if the indictment set forth only facts needed to meet the requirements of due process.”

“Shipwrecked” says, “In over 30 years of practice as both a federal prosecutor and a defense attorney specializing in federal cases, I’ve never before seen anything remotely resembling the Sussmann indictment in a single ‘false statement’ case.”

He writes that the facts Durham has alleged probably have at least a dozen “strings” hanging off them. Some of these are legal and others are “more in the ‘court of public opinion.’” (See Nixon, above.)

Those who are understandably cynical about the process as it typically applies to Hillary & Co. and dismayed at the length of time Durham has taken to come up with this one indictment should definitely read this analysis. “Shipwrecked” explains why it has taken as long as it has, notably regarding Durham’s search for source materials. Some materials he needed to look at could only be sought by grand jury subpoena if they were over six months old. Anything more recent needed “probable cause.”

So, what materials was Durham waiting on? At least some of them must have been billing records for Perkins Coie, some of which showed Sussmann billing Hillary’s campaign for his work relating to the phony Alfa Bank story. These were absolutely key to the indictment on the false statement. One might imagine that even after being hit with the grand jury subpoena, Perkins Coie put up a huge fight over turning over that information, as it involves attorney-client communications and attorney work product information, both of which would typically be shielded from disclosure to a grand jury.

Perhaps Durham made it clear to Perkins Coie that they themselves could be held criminally liable for their attorney’s misconduct, and that they’d better darn well cooperate.

But even if they did, attorney-client privilege applies to clients as well, which in this case include the DNC, the Clinton campaign and “Tech Executive 1.” They would have had to waive THEIR privilege for some reason. What might that reason be? This situation suggests to me that they might face some pretty fierce legal jeopardy themselves --- that they knew it could be even worse for them if they didn’t cooperate. This is one area that I hope legal experts like "Shipwrecked" will explore in detail.

He does note something called “the crime-fraud exception,” which applies when the normally privileged communications relate to a fraud that is currently occurring or might be contemplated by THE CLIENT (as opposed to the law firm) in the future. That would make sense to me, since clients like the DNC and Hillary can’t go one day without contemplating more fraud. Perhaps it had something to do with their ongoing anti-Trump activities after he was in office.

But, anyway, if you’ve been wondering, “Why is Durham taking SO LONG?,” this legal fight is one reason why.

Something else of interest: we recently reported that Marc Elias had left Perkins Coie to open his own separate firm dedicated to the Dark Art of getting more Democrats elected to office and furthering the progressive agenda. Sussmann was gone, too, on leave until resigning the day of his indictment. As “Shipwrecked” explains, catapulting these two partners might have been one way that Perkins Coie showed its willingness to cooperate with investigators to save its own sorry hide.

The reason we haven’t known about this legal fight is that Durham apparently didn’t take it before a DC grand jury. He could keep it quiet by going to any district where he had a grand jury convened. As “Shipwrecked” points out, disputes over the production of documents to a federal grand jury typically take place behind closed doors –- or, in the age of COVID, on a private Zoom call; no travel required –- and are not part of the public docket. All references to the dispute would be sealed,

I highly recommend this article, as it’s very clearly written for the non-lawyer and brings up a number of considerations we haven’t seen anywhere else. This apparently is the first installment of a series; we’re grateful for the insight and eagerly anticipate the next one. The writer mentions as a tease that another “scene of the crime” (that’s my phraseology) mentioned in the indictment as being outside the District of Columbia, is likely the CIA (“Agency -2”), headquartered in Langley, Virginia. So this gets more interesting all the time.

Mike Huckabee

Tuesday, President Biden addressed the UN General Assembly, but his speech was so detached from reality that he might as well have been speaking to the United Federation of Planets. Redstate.com has a good recap complete with video clips.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/09/21/joe-bidens-speech-at-the-un-features-senility-and-highly-destructive-policies-n446009

Biden didn’t mention the border crisis at all. His mention of Afghanistan was to congratulate himself for America no longer being at war (thanks to his supercharging the Taliban, it’s likely to be just a pause before the storm.) He talked about “accountability” over COVID, but didn’t mention China. He announced his intention to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council, which Trump pulled out of because it’s filled with nations that spit on human rights, like China, Cuba, Russia, Somalia, Venezuela and Pakistan. He claimed he’d spent the past months “rebuilding our alliances” (our allies are so furious at him that Britain’s Parliament voted to censure him and France recalled its ambassador.)

He also cited the importance of the UN Declaration of Human Rights in protecting rights from being “trampled and twisted in the pursuit of naked political power,” which is a pretty good description of what he’s been doing to Americans’ Constitutional rights from the moment he took office. And at one point, he mistakenly referred to the United Nations as the “United States.” I suspect that he’d like to turn the USA into the UN, but this is the first time he’s let it slip out loud.

Here’s a complete transcript if you’re so inclined:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/full-transcript-biden-addresses-76th-un-general-assembly/ar-AAOFWZn

Considering President Biden’s performance at the UN, and frankly, any appearances recently, it’s no surprise that White House staff are frantic to keep him from answering any questions from the press. But they’re taking it so far that even the normally sycophantic White House Press Corps lodged a formal complaint Tuesday after Biden’s “press conference” with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/reporters-slam-white-house-aides-shouting-down-press-pool-questions

After Johnson took a few questions from British reporters, White House staffers suddenly interrupted as reporters tried to question Biden and started shouting at reporters to clear the room. A reporter who shouted a question about the border said he thought Biden said something in reply, but with all the noise, Biden’s facemask and his being led away, whatever he said was indecipherable. I have a feeling it would have been equally indecipherable if he’d been standing at a podium at the UN. His staffers know that, hence the panicked room-clearing.

Mike Huckabee

It’s not just the leftist racist brainwashing and the crushing COVID rules that are driving Americans to take their kids out of public schools. While many schools do a good job, some aren’t even worthy of the name “school.” Or maybe I should spell that “Skool.”

In Baltimore, during the 2020-2021 school year, 41% of public school students averaged less than a 1.0 GPA. At one school, a student with a 0.13 GPA was ranked near the top half of his class. This despite Baltimore spending $18,000 per student, 40% higher than the national average. Also worth mentioning: Baltimore is run solidly by Democrats and hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1967.

https://www.westernjournal.com/public-schools-broken-student-got-0-13-gpa-yet-graduated-near-top-half-class/

And then there’s Maspeth High School, a public school in Queens, New York, where a special investigation turned up so much shocking corruption that one city council member said it was run more like a crime ring than a school. Among the many accusations: fake classes, counting students as present even if they didn’t show up, passing kids with no credits, and handing out diplomas that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. The principal is quoted as saying about one uneducated student who was graduated anyway that he can “have fun working at Taco Bell.”

https://nypost.com/2021/09/18/maspeth-hs-diplomas-not-worth-the-paper-theyre-printed-on/

It sounds as if there are a lot of people in our current education system who should be working at Taco Bell, and I don’t mean the students. I think the idea of public schools is great, but somehow, we’ve allowed it to go off track. Too often these days, the public school system is being used for anti-American indoctrination, a jobs program for incompetent teachers, and political staff and slush funds for Democrat politicians. It desperately needs reforming, to put the focus back where it belongs: on giving our children a real educational foundation for life.

Until we can overcome the entrenched resistance and turn our schools back into schools again, I predict that home-schooling will continue to grow in popularity.

Mike Huckabee

You know, when it’s trash pickup day and you have only one Hefty bag left, you try to stuff all your garbage into it? That’s sort of how Congressional Democrats have treated their $3.5 trillion “budget reconciliation” bill. Since that type of bill can pass with only 51 votes and isn’t subject to filibuster, they’ve tried to cram every garbage idea the left’s got into that bag, from expensive climate change boondoggles to amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. But Sunday, the Senate Parliamentarian popped their Hefty bag.

Elizabeth McDonough ruled that just because something involves money (and everything Congress does involves money), that doesn’t make it a budget issue. Major non-budgetary legislation can’t be passed with 51 votes in a budget reconciliation bill. So the illegal immigrant amnesty cannot be included.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-parliamentarian-deals-blow-to-dems-immigration-push

Since no Republicans support it, that should kill it. But the Biden White House, which has yet to hesitate to do a flamenco dance all over the Constitution, urged Democrats to come up with some other creative end-run around Senate rules to get amnesty passed with 51 votes. What should be happening instead is that the Parliamentarian should yank out all the other things that have no business being in a budget reconciliation bill.

One other obstacle that Biden would have to get around is Sen. Joe Manchin, who already said he won’t back a spending bill that big, and who is now reportedly saying privately that he thinks the Senate should take a “strategic pause” until 2022 before voting on it.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/09/19/manchin-wants-to-delay-consideration-of-35t-budget-until-2022-n2596144

That would be an election year when many Democrats in swing states and districts might not be too keen to put their names on a garbage bag full of government-bloating, debt-exploding, freedom-killing “progressivism.”

Meanwhile, some far-leftists are demanding that Biden get tough with Congressional Democrats and order them to pass the bill. Considering that his approval rating is now down to the low-mid-40s and a new survey finds that 55% of voters in seven Democrat-controlled swing districts think the $3.5 trillion bill is “wasteful and unnecessary,” that doesn’t give him much leverage for threatening Congress members – unless he threatens to publicly endorse them if they don’t do what he wants.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/09/17/joe-bidens-toxicity-is-finally-leeching-into-these-swing-districts-n2596091?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

News you can trust...

Congratulations on some exciting news for our contributor Laura Ainsworth, who in addition to being a top notch writer/news researcher is also an award-winning retro jazz singer in the Julie London/Rosemary Clooney tradition.

Her three CDs and best-of LP were recently picked up for distribution in Japan and proved so popular that an expanded CD best of, “Top Shelf,” has just been released there. It includes 16 tracks (one a previously-unreleased Irving Berlin classic), all remastered by Jessica Thompson, who was Grammy-nominated for her work on Erroll Garner’s “The Complete Concert by the Sea.” It includes a 16-page color booklet on Laura’s music and her unique upbringing as the daughter of musician Billy Ainsworth, who played with Tommy Dorsey, Freddy Martin and other legendary big band leaders.

The new Japanese CD just debuted and is available in the US, along with all her other music, through her website, www.lauraainsworth.com.

If you love great American music, here’s your chance to pick up some terrific CDs for yourself or Christmas gifts, and support one of the “Huckabee” family. You can also follow her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/lauraainsworthsings and on Twitter at @lauraainsworth1.

Just to give you a taste, here she is singing a great old Mills Brothers tune on “Huckabee”:

https://youtu.be/AGorRNgp4t4

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

People who deserve to be held accountable but won’t be.

Here’s a story about the top World Health Organization official who botched the pandemic response and helped cover for China (among other serious accusations), and now appears almost certain to retain his job.

https://www.westernjournal.com/dr-tedros-appears-set-keep-top-job-despite-handling-pandemic-problems-home-country/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

As one critic put it in a comment that’s also becoming a recurring theme, “It’s a glaring failure of the Biden administration not to have prepared an alternative.” Just as he apparently has no alternative ready for Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley or his Secretary of State or any number of other people who should be held accountable for the disastrous handling of Afghanistan (and the latest development: the drone strike on an innocent family), but won’t be. Biden seems determined to continue the Obama policy of standing by and even promoting the biggest screw-ups in his Administration.

That’s why the indictment by John Durham was so shocking to the DC ecosystem: it looks as if someone in their high-powered orbit might actually be held to the same laws the rest of us have to follow! That’s one down and…thousands to go.

Kurt Schichter has also noticed this recurring theme of the elites never holding each other accountable for their massive failures, lies and malfeasances. He has some comments on that, in his inimitable style.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/09/20/heads-wont-roll-n2596077

Mike Huckabee

I think it’s safe to assume that you didn’t watch the Emmy Awards last night (yes, that was actually on last night.) That’s not just a statement about conservatives; I think the only people who watch the Emmys anymore are the nominees. You didn’t miss much, but there was one thing of note: it provided the final punchline to a long stretch of escalating elitist liberal mask hypocrisy.

The same leftist politicians and celebrities who love to berate the masses for not wearing three masks whenever they step outside their bedrooms have given us a number of high profile examples of their “Rules for thee but not for me” philosophy. One biggie was Obama's birthday bash. Last week, the mayor of San Francisco and a co-founder of BLM were among the leftist elites caught defying the city’s mask mandate at a jazz club (where the staff, of course, had to wear masks)…

https://reason.com/2021/09/17/london-breed-san-francisco-mask-covid-hypocrisy/

There were also the notorious photos of the ultra-swank Met Gala in New York, where AOC wore her designer “Tax The Rich” gown but like all the other swells, did not wear a mask (the staff, of course, had to wear masks.) And then last night at the Emmy Awards, hundreds of celebrities gathered close together without masks (the staff, of course, had to wear masks.)

Seth Rogan even remarked on the hypocritical flouting of the rules, noting that it had been described as an outdoor event, but there were way too many people in a hermetically-sealed tent.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/09/19/liberal-elites-gather-for-emmys-in-la-where-apparently-covid-doesnt-exist-n2596147

I know hypocrisy is nothing new. These are the same liberal celebrities and the same events where they used to preach to normal Americans about how sexist and unwoke we were, while protecting powerful celebrities who were later revealed to be serial rapists and child molesters. Now, they lecture us about not wearing masks while not wearing masks.

But kudos to everyone who pointed out that in the background, the wait staff and security people are always wearing masks. I guess COVID only attacks hourly wage workers, not celebrities. The same way it knew to spread only at Trump rallies and never at BLM protests.

Kenneth Allard

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top-ranking military man, is either the most courageous adult in the room while our political system tottered on the brink of instability - or else a camouflaged Democratic swamp-creature who may have committed treason while colluding with the Communist Chinese. Where you stand on these flamboyant issues depends mostly on what you think of mega-journalist Bob Woodward, whose headlines famously out-run his sources. But ever since Watergate, Woodward has pioneered a whole new genre in which his sources remain carefully veiled while the nation’s most highly classified secrets are revealed in voluptuous detail. Perusing one of his earlier books, I was startled to read page after page of intelligence revelations that went beyond top-secret. “But hey man”, as Joe Biden would put it, “isn’t that all just part of the public’s right to know?”

Well maybe but no one in authority ever seems to have asked Bob Woodward about that or to question the ethics of transforming national secrets into highly profitable book sales. Looking over his 50-year track record, Washington insiders know that it pays to stay on Woodward’s good side. If you give him the juicy gossip and inside-the-Beltway psycho-babble he craves, you can be assured of favorable treatment, either in his books or maybe in the pages of the Washington Post (possibly one and the same). An essential part of the gamesmanship includes the pre-publication leaking of lurid headlines. Specifically:

Shortly before the 2020 election, GEN Milley called his Chinese counter-part to re-assure him that the US would not attack China. “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley reportedly said.
Similar reassurances were repeated shortly after the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill; “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.” (Lolita C. Baldor, AP, “Milley: Calls were perfectly within scope of the job,” Sept. 17)
Also according to the AP, “Milley believed the president suffered a mental decline after the November election, agreeing with a view shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call they had on Jan. 8, according to officials. Milley also asked senior officers to swear an “oath” that Milley had to be involved if Trump gave an order to launch nuclear weapons, according to the book.” (Mary C. Jalonick, AP, “Jan 6 Committee seeking records on Milley’s China calls,” Sep 17)

As you would expect, outraged Republicans called for General Milley to be fired while Democrats from President Biden to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed continued confidence in his judgment. Since Milley and Austin will testify before the House Armed Services Committee on September 28, the controversy will likely simmer for at least another week: Exactly as Bob Woodward and his media colleagues would have anticipated. Not only is this kind of publicity essential in fueling sales, but it also helps to move the Afghanistan and Southern Border fiascos off the front pages.

As it happens, my Harvard dissertation and first book was a history of the American command and control system. Shortly thereafter, I had the privilege of working for Congressman Bill Nichols as Congress reformed that system in 1986, including the powers exercised by every subsequent JCS Chairman, including General Milley. If he was indeed free-lancing with his Chinese counter-part, those particulars will certainly become known in our immediate future.

But in that last AP story refenced above, there is a question most observers have missed. Did General Milley actually require senior officers to swear an oath promising to short-circuit the nuclear command and control exercised by President Trump? And if so, what was his authority for making such an extraordinary (and possibly illegal) demand? You see, in their sweeping 1986 reforms, Congress firmly chose to place the JCS Chairman outside the chain of command extending from the National Command Authorities (i.e. the President and SECDEF) directly to the Commanders of our combatant forces in the field. The principle: Civilians make the decision to go to war while commanders on the ground employ forces and direct missions. The JCS Chairman is expected to give military advice while administering our global command and control systems.

But he is only a Washington staffer, like so many others. That is a distinction General Milley should know well: Bob Woodward not so much!

LEAVE KEN A COMMENT BELOW, WE KNOW HE WILL APPRECIATE IT!

NOTE: Colonel Allard is the author of Command, Control and the Common Defense, winner of the 1991 National Security Book Award. After leaving active duty, he became an on-air military analyst for the networks of NBC News.

Mike Huckabee

Fearmonger-in-Chief Nancy Pelosi had the security fence put back up around the Capitol (because walls only provide security when they’re protecting Democrats) in anticipation of the sure-to-be-violent “Justice For J6” rally this weekend. It was a protest of the political over-prosecution of non-violent protesters who entered the Capitol on January 6th. Liberal media outlets attacked conservative outlets for “downplaying” the threat, but as usual, the liberal outlets were hysterically wrong.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/09/20/the-big-scary-january-6-solidarity-protest-was-entirely-media-concocted-n445336

President Trump warned supporters to stay away from the rally because it was “a trap,” and that leftist agitators would try to stir up trouble so that they could be blamed and arrested for it. And he wasn’t the only one who smelled a trap. The handful of nonviolent rally attendees were likely outnumbered by all the security people (some of whom were laughably trying to “blend in” with the right-wingers and about as convincing as when Bob Hope used to dress up as a hippie for comedy sketches.) It reached the height of absurdity when the undercover feds reportedly arrested someone for carrying a weapon, and it turned out he was also an undercover cop. Let’s hope this helps pound the last nail into the coffin of the idiotic idea that the biggest threats to America are white supremacists and the weather.

Just as I expected, the rally was a non-story, but it did give conservative wags an opening to create some hilarious memes from the photo of the overzealous feds in their “4Chan Follower” Halloween costumes.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/09/19/the-one-photo-that-sums-up-the-spooky-far-right-rally-in-dc-everyone-was-worried-about-n2596122

Mike Huckabee

Here are the latest dispatches from Afghanistan, where we’re continually assured that only about 100 Americans are still waiting to get out and that we’ll be able to work with the new, more moderate Taliban.

After weeks of the Taliban holding up flights of evacuees, one plane was finally allowed to take off.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/17/finally-action-on-taliban-hostage-situation-with-americans-in-mazar-i-sharif-n444641

As for the others, in spite of the Taliban’s claims that it will be more moderate and cooperative, Biden spokesman Ned Price said they’ve “pulled every lever available” but the Taliban are still holding up the flights. Which sounds an awful lot like a hostage situation. Really, Joe? Have you REALLY pulled every lever available?

Here’s a heartbreaking story about an American citizen who lost 18 of her family members in the Kabul suicide bombing and is stuck there and terrified. She broke down while telling a TV reporter how the State Department is ignoring her pleas for help and saying, “Sorry, we can’t do anything for you.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/terrified-american-trapped-afghanistan-breaks-live-tv-pins-biden-administration/

While it’s getting harder to get reliable news out of Afghanistan, here’s a report that the Taliban are methodically tracking down Afghans who helped the US (and whom Biden promised to evacuate, then didn’t.) It includes a report of women being watched constantly and terrified to go to school or work, and Taliban militants decapitating two boys, ages nine and ten.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2021/09/17/reports-taliban-decapitates-children-hunting-down-us-collaborators-n2596061?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

And this is why the Biden-supporting media want to talk about nothing but vaccine mandates.

Mike Huckabee

On the subject of masks, I previously reported on a Canadian university study that found that the type of cloth masks most people wear are only about 10% effective at stopping the spread of COVID (prompting one of my writers to observe, “So to stop a disease that we have a 99.7% chance of surviving, we have to wear masks that have a 90% chance of failing.”)

Now, at long last, there’s finally a large-scale study awaiting peer review that assesses the real-world effectiveness of masks. It was a “cluster randomized trial” done in Bangladesh and involved over 342,000 unvaccinated people in 600 villages. Some villages had no masks and people were just told to social distance, some had typical cloth masks, and some had more effective surgical masks. Here’s a video explaining the results.

https://youtu.be/fFCYv0X4kf4

As usual, there are various caveats that you can hear about in the video, but in a nutshell: surgical masks made enough of a difference in infection rates to be noticeable, but the difference between those using the cloth masks most people wear and those with no masks at all was “statistically insignificant.”

Yet in some liberal cities, actual criminals are being let out of jail while people are being arrested for refusing to wear masks. So to avoid jail in a leftist-run city, you can rob a convenience store, just as long as you're wearing a mask.

Mike Huckabee

At first glance, the indictment of a single participant in Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s bogus “Crossfire Hurricane” might not seem like a big deal. In fact, many of you cynics out there, sensing that little more will come of this, have already written me to express dismay, predicting this one person, Perkins Coie attorney and partner Michael Sussmann, will take the fall for all the scammers who collaborated to create what is likely the biggest political hoax of all time. But, believe me, even though this story is currently overshadowed in the news cycle by multiple Biden-caused disasters –- the border catastrophe, the Afghanistan debacle, the vaccine hysteria, to name just three –- it is picking up steam as we find out more.

For example, we know that some of the players in the Russia Hoax happen to be members of President Biden’s current group of White House insiders. One of particular note is Biden foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan.

FOX NEWS’ “Special Report” had a segment on this Monday night, with Mike Emanuel reporting that the Sussmann indictment “might only be scratching the surface.” He said, “One expert [Jonathan Turley, in an opinion piece for THE HILL] says this indictment exposes a type of Nixonian dirty tricks operation run by, or at least billed to, the 2016 Clinton campaign.” The goal was to spread stories in the media and at the FBI that would trigger an investigation of Trump’s Russia connections. The stories were not true, and they knew they were not true.

This is so crooked, it’s almost beyond belief. It really does make the Watergate scandal look like a mere warm-up. Here is Turley’s MUST-READ piece, the most damning account yet.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/572861-clinton-lawyers-indictment-reveals-bag-of-tricks

On October 31, 2016, Hillary retweeted this whopper from Jake Sullivan: “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” That bank was Alfa Bank, which later responded to this and similar lies by suing Christopher Steele for libel over what he’d said about them in his now-discredited “dossier.” Fortunately for us, that lawsuit brought Steele out of the woodwork and motivated him to testify in his own defense, revealing much about “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Speaking of Jake Sullivan, Turley said on FOX NEWS, “It’s unnerving that he’s now in charge of looking at intelligence reports and telling President Biden what seems to be good intelligence. This was the ultimate of conspiracy theories, I mean, this was a real tinfoil-hat type of conspiracy theory.”

Sussmann is the Clinton attorney who spread the Alfa Bank story to the FBI, telling them he was there as a concerned private citizen doing his duty (oh, brother), NOT representing anyone else’s legal interests. Perkins Coie billing records show differently, so if that’s what he said to the FBI, it was indeed a lie. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty, and in a court of law he will and should be presumed innocent, but we are not in court and certainly won’t be selected for his jury, so forgive us for failing to find any extenuating circumstances in his case.

As Emanuel reported, “The top Republican on House Judiciary [Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan] says, “This indictment is a sign Durham is getting to the root of the matter.” The Alfa Bank story, Jordan made clear, was one of “the” lies in the very beginning “that launched this whole crazy investigation that we know was all based on just political operatives making things up.”

Emanuel ends his report by implying the Biden “Justice” Department might choose not to make Durham’s final report public. Legally, he gets to make that decision, no matter how unethical it might be. Knowing how Attorney General Merrick Garland operates, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to deep-six the report, or else redact the heck out of it. Either action will not be acceptable.

J. D. Gordon, the Pentagon spokesperson under George W. Bush, has written a piece for the DAILY CALLER that summarizes well what Durham has established so far and clarifies some of the connections between actors in this drama.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/09/20/gordon-durham-indictment-in-russiagate-leads-to-jake-sullivan/

For example, Gordon reminds us that Sussmann is the attorney who represented the DNC when it claimed to have been hacked by Russia. Recall that they never turned over their servers to the FBI, and there was never any evidence that Russia did it, even though that’s a story the media like to maintain. We’re thinking Sussmann is a man with a lot of secrets pertaining to this.

As for Jake Sullivan, Gordon tells us he admitted during congressional testimony in 2017 that he had met with producers for CNN, FOX NEWS, ABC, CBS and NBC about his “suspicions,” which, as Gordon puts it, “were later exposed as conspiracy theories without evidence.” There is no doubt, these people were on a mission to spread lies about Trump. Sullivan was candidate Hillary’s senior policy adviser; now he advises Biden on foreign policy. (I wouldn’t admit that in public if I were him. Sorry; I digress.) In other words, the same man whom we know was busy spreading lies on Hillary’s behalf is now giving press conferences on Biden’s behalf.

Gordon also prods our memories about James Baker, the FBI general counsel who himself was under investigation for leaking stories to Michael Isikoff and David Corn, “Russiagate’s first two journalist instigators.”

And he dips a toe in the issue of accountability as well, not just for Sussmann but for a list of others who are alluded to in Durham’s indictment.

There’s something else of interest about Baker that we rediscovered in BALL OF COLLUSION, by Andrew McCarthy: Baker happens to have been the one who signed off on FISA warrants issued for “Crossfire Hurricane” to spy on Trump’s campaign associates.

BALL OF COLLUSION, written in 2019, has an account of Sussmann's actions on September 19, 2016, the day he brought the Alfa Bank story to Baker at the FBI, that puts it into context well. It’s in Chapter 15, “FISA Warrants: Targeting Trump, Not Page,” under the subhead “Final FISA Warrant Preparations.” We recommend this book highly if you’d like to be well-versed in what we call THE GREATEST POLITICAL HOAX OF ALL TIME.

I do believe that by the time Durham is finished, it will be revealed as just that.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Larry Gatlin

PROLOGUE

On a cold January day in 1842, a half-starved soldier – slumping across the neck of a dying horse - appeared at the gates of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The horse and rider had survived a 10 day, 90-mile “retreat” over and through the Spin Ghar Range that sprawls between Kabul through Jalalabad to the Khyber Pass. Behind them lay the frozen, mangled bodies of General Sir William Elphinstone and more than 4,500 soldiers of The British and East India Expeditionary Force. The General had been promised a safe withdrawal to India by Muhammad Akbar Khan, the leader of the Afghan tribesmen who had revolted against British rule; but after evacuating Kabul, the British force was attacked by Khan’s tribesman army at Gandamak, where the British Force made a valiant but futile last stand. When Dr. William Brydon, the lone survivor of that first Battle of Kabul was asked where the rest of the army was, he simply answered, “I am the army.” In 1879, Dr. Brydon and his horse were immortalized on canvas by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. Her painting, “Remnants of an Army,” ranks with Picasso’s “Guernica,” Goya’s “The Third of May,” Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” William Bass’ “The Battle of Bosworth Field,” Paul Phillipoteaux’s “The Battle of Gettysburg” and God knows too many more paintings depicting the horrors of war.

CHAPTER ONE

On a hot August day in 2021, I was reminded of Lady Butler’s painting as I watched another “remnant of an army,” General Chris Donahue, retreat from this most recent Battle of Kabul, a retreat which I’m guessing was against the General’s will and better military judgment. General Donahue, Commander of the vaunted 82nd Airborne, was “captured on film” by a night vision camera as he solemnly trudged up the gangway of a C-17 to leave Afghanistan and GOD only knows how many American citizens behind.

Over the last “fortnight” as the Brits would say, I have searched my heart, soul and mind, trying to get my brain wrapped around the events of the last two weeks. President Biden’s shameful, cowardly, militarily indefensible, politically-motivated decision to surrender the most powerful military force on the planet to a rabble of 7th century Neanderthals - murderers, terrorists, and rapists - the Taliban. I confess that I am so damned mad at the “Surrenderor-in-Chief that any clear-eyed assessment of the situation on my part is difficult if not impossible. What I really want to say cannot be printed “in these pages” and if it could be printed, would probably prompt a visit to my house by “employees” of one or more security agencies of the United States government. At the very least, I would be cancelled from Facebook and Twitter (I don’t “do” either one, BTW.)

CHAPTER TWO

In order to try to accomplish that probably impossible task, I decided to try to get some historical perspective regarding wars - the victories, defeats, surrenders and retreats - the cowards and the heroes from the past. I went back and re-read some of the classical writers on warfare: Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon and more recent writers, Stephen Crane, Eric Maria Remarque, and finally my contemporary literary hero, Ernest Hemingway, because I remembered what he had said when asked how he started a new novel, “I just sit down at my typewriter and bleed.” So this morning over coffee, I re-read for the umpteenth time, parts of Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” on the chance that it might help me understand this latest chapter (THE BIDEN BLUNDER) of what Captain Arthur Conolly and Rudyard Kipling long ago dubbed “The Great Game,” the fight for Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Since I don’t own a typewriter, and since my iPad is a cold, black piece of metal and composite poly something or other and has no soul, I sat down at my writing table, the surface of which are my two priceless 1798 Imperial Editions of Charles Knightly’s “The Plays of William Shakespeare;” took my Palomino Blackwing 602 Pencil in hand; and let it “bleed” onto a piece of unlined white paper.

It bled:

1) I am not a warrior.

2) I have never REALLY been shot at. (Once in Somalia...a few rounds fired over my head...different story for another time)

3) I have never shot at anything that didn’t have 4 legs or 2 wings.

4) I have never been in that “hell” that General Sheridan called war.

5) I’ve never seen another human being blown apart in front of my eyes.

6) I’ve never heard the dogs of war howling all around me, or felt the earth shake from exploding ordinance on a killing field where life seemed to be so cheap and so costly at the same time, so how can I possibly write anything that matters?

The answer is, maybe I can’t; but this morning I watched and listened as a “30-something preppy-looking buttoned-down Ivy League-looking” robot was trotted out by the Pentagon to try to convince me and my fellow Americans that we need not worry about the $90,000,000,000 worth of state-of-the-art military equipment that was left behind in this latest retreat from Afghanistan and that it poses no threat to us. I respectfully offer that those who believe that are either heartlessly indifferent, woefully naive, ignorant of history, just plain stupid or all of the above; and I will state emphatically that there is a danger looming in those remote mountains that has been, for almost 300 years, and still is one of the most strategically important places in the world - the Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan and our “friends and “allies” to whom we have given almost $80,000,000 since 1948. And our “friends” have nukes…a lot of nukes…and they have friends called the Taliban...and the Taliban has poppy fields…a lot of poppy fields…which means money...a lot of money…which means weapons...a lot of weapons...which means dead bodies...a lot of dead bodies...because the Khyber Pass is still right there where it has been since the beginning of time - at the crossroads between England, through Europe, through the Straits of Bosporus to Central Asia, India, Arabia and Russia to Africa, intersecting the Silk Road from China to Africa and the Mediterranean. And whoever controls it, to a large extent, controls half of the world.

[SEE: Tom Clancy’s “Sum of All Fears,” wherein the bad guys obtain fissile material from an unexplored Israeli nuke and make a “ dirty bomb” that they explode at The Super Bowl in D.C.] The scariest thing of all is that Joe Biden and “all the usual suspects,” his lemmings/handlers/sycophants, are still in charge of keeping America safe and protecting America’s interests, including the above-mentioned Khyber Pass....and…

THEY JUST DONT GET IT...HELP US!! So Clueless Joe Biden surrendered...again, GOD HELP US!!

Dr. Brydon and his fellow British soldiers were fighting to keep the Khyber Pass open because it was the gateway for trade, for “goods and services” back and forth between England and India, the Jewel of The British Empire. The passing of “goods and services” is no longer the reason to secure “THE KHYBER,” unless by “goods and services” you mean nukes or fissile material, and I’m afraid that there will be nothing “good” passing through The Khyber any time soon.

EPILOGUE

George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would offer that Clueless Joe can’t remember what he had for breakfast, and he is repeating the same old mistakes.

And finally, Plato wrote that “Argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are some one cannot instruct.” Clueless Joe has proven that being knowledgeable is not one of his strong suits, and that he cannot be instructed unless by “instructed” you mean, “I was instructed to call on Kelly O’Donnell,” etc. etc.”

I would offer that there are some whom one cannot even shame, which is, in fact, a shame.

Charlie Wilson said, “Three things happened. They were glorious. They changed the world. Then we f’d up the end game.”

I would offer that because we “f’d up” the end game back in ‘88, we had to go back to Afghanistan, and that’s what precipitated this latest tragic episode - Clueless Joe Biden’s disastrous surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

GOD HELP US...Dr. William Brydon must be rolling over in his grave.

Mike Huckabee

Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted attorney Michael Sussmann, a partner in the Clinton-connected law firm Perkins Coie, on one count of providing false information to the FBI. If you didn’t see our story on Friday, here it is…

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=E86B8ADD-E9A9-44C4-AE53-B7C1EA509F74

In this case, “providing false information” is a euphemism for “lying his fool head off,” which is the way I'd want to write up the charge. Special counsel John Durham’s full description of events makes it clear that nothing about his actions was inadvertent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clinton-campaign-attorney-michael-sussmann-pleads-not-guilty-fbi

Sussmann met with James A. Baker, at that time general counsel for the FBI, to plant the fabricated “Russia Hoax” story about computer servers in Trump Tower and the Russia-connected Alfa Bank “pinging” back and forth. (He planted the same story with THE NEW YORK TIMES soon afterwards.) When asked if he was talking to the FBI on behalf of any legal client, he did not disclose that he was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Billing records for Perkins Coie obtained by the special counsel show that he was.

The Alfa Bank story was debunked as of September 2017, but that doesn’t mean the story didn’t keep turning up in the news and on social media, adding fuel to the completely fictional narrative that Trump had “colluded” with Putin to become President. Alfa Bank sued British ex-spy Christopher Steele for libel in a London court –- tell me, who does President Trump sue? –- and Steele’s deposition in that case probably helped Durham immeasurably. Steele testified he didn’t know much about Alfa Bank –- that’s believable; in fact, he had repeatedly misspelled it as “Alpha” Bank in his phony dossier –- but that what he did know had come from...(drum roll please)...Michael Sussmann.

Anyway, when the indictment became public, we wondered something: Why did Durham choose to tell so much of the story here? The indictment runs 27 pages, when it required just a few sentences. As it turns out, one of our go-to legal experts, Andrew C. McCarthy, noticed the same thing.

McCarthy divides the significance of the indictment into aspects: the short game and the long game. In brief, the special counsel alleges that Sussmann, on September 19, 2016, made a false statement to FBI Special Counsel Baker at the FBI. That’s it.

But you’ll notice that September 19, 2016, is just barely within the statute of limitations of 5 years. That --- not the timetable for the investigation as a whole --- is what determined the date of Sussmann’s indictment. For Durham to be able to try Sussmann on the false statements charge, he could not have delayed past Sunday. Successful prosecution of that case is the immediate concern.

But then there’s the long game, and thankfully, Durham has chosen to tell us a lot about it. He's communicating that he’s put the puzzle together. He KNOWS. In McCarthy’s words, “The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was essentially a fabrication of the Clinton campaign that was peddled to the FBI (among other government agencies) and to the media by agents of the Clinton campaign --- particularly, its lawyers at Perkins Coie --- who concealed the fact that they were quite intentionally working on the campaign’s behalf, and that they did not actually believe there was much, if anything, to the collusion narrative.”

Sussmann was also apparently working on behalf of a cyber expert and powerful executive identified in the indictment as “Tech Executive—1.” That is someone whose identity we eagerly anticipate. For more details on that person's role, here’s what McCarthy wrote for NATIONAL REVIEW.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/the-real-story-in-durhams-indictment-of-democratic-lawyer-michael-sussmann/

Back when Steele was testifying in the Alfa Bank lawsuit filed against him, Chuck Ross at the DAILY CALLER was following that trial. Ross reported in April of 2020 that Steele, in his “investigation” of Trump, met with two Democratic National Committee lawyers, Sussmann and Marc Elias. He met with Elias in September of 2016, just a week after writing the fictional memo accusing Alfa Bank of “illicit” ties with Vladimir Putin.

I’ll bet he got a BIG pat on the back for that.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/27/christopher-steele-dossier-alfa-bank-perkins-coie/

By the way, Steele lost in court and was ordered to pay damages to Alfa Bank. One would think the bank could have had quite a case agains Perkins Coie as well, as they were apparently the ones who fed the phony-baloney “pinging servers” story to Steele.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/08/christopher-steele-alfa-dossier-lawsuit-aven-fridman/

In fact, Steele mentioned that in his own defense. Jerry Dunleavy of the WASHINGTON EXAMINER reported in April 2020 that “Christopher Steele claims Clinton lawyers fed him debunked claim about Russian collusion in 2016.” Guess that didn't help him.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/christopher-steele-claims-clinton-lawyer-fed-him-debunked-claim-about-russian-collusion-in-2016

One frustration is that this is information we’ve had for over a year, some of it much longer than that, and it’s just now “formally” coming out. Even now, most of the media will give it short shrift. The very fact that it’s so long in coming gives the press an excuse not to cover it. Why? It’s old news!

But we did learn quite a lot about this story a couple of years ago from Andrew McCarthy’s magnificent book, BALL OF COLLUSION, published in 2019. In Chapter 8, “The Brennan Clearinghouse,” under the subhead “The Mythical Alfa Bank Backchannel,” McCarthy outlined the whole story of Alfa Bank and the rush by “journalists” to cover that story a week before Election Day. This is highly recommended reading, along with anything else he comes out with about it, as he and this story go way back.

Eric Trump, who serves as executive VP of the Trump Organization, was on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES with Maria Bartiromo, and he said he “remembered this story like it was yesterday.” On September 29, 2016, he said, he got an email from THE NEW YORK TIMES telling him of their fable about the Trump Organization having servers connected with those of the Putin-funded Alfa Bank. Eric replied that they did not. They said, “Yes you do.” They told him they had a tip that was “very, very credible.”

Eric told Bartiromo that until Durham’s indictment of Michael Sussmann came down a few days ago, he "did not know the whole thing was actually done by the Clinton campaign.” They’d had no idea where it came from, he said. He said they and all their IT vendors had been working with the FBI for “a year, year and a half.”

The Clinton campaign was after one thing, he said. That was the big headline, “Trump Organization under investigation by the FBI for ties with Russia.” Eric pointed out that Pulitzer Prizes were won for perpetuating the lie of Trump/Russia collusion. (Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t think they should have to give those awards back?) “We all know now that it was funded by Hillary Clinton," he said. "It’s an absolute disgrace. It makes our country look like a banana republic. It just shouldn’t have happened.”

You bet it shouldn't have.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6273267659001?playlist_id=3386055101001#sp=show-clips

Mike Huckabee

Are the media barricades against admitting the efficacy of natural immunity from COVID finally starting to crumble? There are some positive indications, like the growing coverage of the recent large-scale Israeli study, and now this shocking twist: the “fact-checking” site Politifact actually admitted that a politician’s statement that people who have recovered from COVID-19 have “very strong immunity” to the virus is “Mostly true.”

And what’s even more shocking: it was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis whom they admitted was right!

PJ Media has the full story, but it’s behind a paywall.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/09/16/politifact-abruptly-breaks-with-the-preferred-covid-19-narrative-on-recovered-immunity-n1479353

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s why they said it was only “mostly true.” Politifact says the Israeli study did find that natural immunity gives longer-lasting and stronger protection than the Pfizer vaccine. However, “the same study said natural immunity plus a single vaccine dose gave the best protection.” But, fact-checking the “fact-checkers,” PJ Media’s Stacey Lennon adds the “missing context” that the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated recovered patients was so small, it was ruled “statistically insignificant.”

Still, as far as earth-shattering news goes, Politifact admitting that Gov. DeSantis was correct is right up there with “Man Bites Dog, and Gives It COVID.”

Mike Huckabee

Isn’t it great to have competent, adult leadership in the White House that will make other nations respect us again? Yet for some reason, all our allies are furious with us. And in a stunning move on Friday, our oldest ally, France (which helped the Colonies win the Revolutionary War) recalled its ambassador from Washington, DC. French leaders are furious at the Biden White House for blocking them out of a national security pact with the UK and Australia and agreeing to provide nuclear submarines to Australia (France also recalled its ambassador to Australia.) It will cost France billions because Australia canceled a contract to buy subs from France. This follows hot on the heels of Biden pulling disastrously out of Afghanistan without informing our allies such as France.

https://www.westernjournal.com/nation-recalls-us-ambassador-biden-carelessly-humiliates-americas-oldest-ally/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian railed, “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do. I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.”

I should point out that Le Drain, a former Socialist Party member, probably felt he had to include that kneejerk slap at Trump. But guess how many times France recalled its ambassador while Trump was President.

Mike Huckabee

The Biden White House’s plan to start rolling out COVID-19 booster shots as soon as Monday hit a wall on Friday when an FDA advisory panel overwhelmingly voted against it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/fda-panel-stages-revolt-biden-admin-pfizer-gives-good-news-vaccine-skeptical-parents/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

In a 16-2 vote, the committee rejected the idea of giving a third booster vaccine shot to 16-to-64-year-old Americans who are not at high risk for a severe case of the disease. The panel voted unanimously to give emergency authorization for booster shots for seniors and those at high risk, but most members believe the average vaccinated person doesn’t need them. There’s also concern about the rare but real possibility of side effects, particularly heart inflammation in young males, when the disease itself poses such a small risk to that group.

This came after two top FDA officials quit and co-authored a paper in the British medical journal The Lancet denouncing the push for universal booster shots.

The FDA doesn’t have to take the panel’s recommendation, but if it doesn’t, it will be interesting to hear their justification, especially considering that 16-2 margin. Journalist Jordan Schachtel tweeted that this was a clear and “legit revolt” by the FDA bureaucracy against the Biden plan to roll out booster shots for everyone, and “The White House is not happy.”

I’m fascinated to see what they’ll do next. They keep telling us to “follow the science” and treating any questions or objections as if they’re coming from knuckle-dragging cave persons. Now, experts from their own FDA have voted 16-2 against their booster plan. Will they try to tell us those people don’t know science as well as Joe Biden? Or will they just get their friends in the news and social media worlds to silence them?

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

Sad news for fans of classic film musicals: One of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Jane Powell, passed away Thursday of natural causes at 92. Powell had a very long career in movies, stage and TV, but is most famous for the classic MGM musicals “Royal Wedding” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Some of her other notable films include “Hit The Deck,” “Small Town Girl” and “A Date With Judy.”

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/jane-powell-dead-dies-royal-wedding-1235066697/

Powell became a star at a time when operatic sopranos such as Jeannette McDonald, Deanna Durbin and Kathryn Grayson could actually become movie stars. She never learned to read music, but despite being only 5-foot-1, she had a powerful coloratura voice. I assume she must’ve had to stand on a pretty tall box to do love scenes with Howard Keel. I had the honor of meeting him once. I’m 6-1, and I had to look up at his face as I shook his hand.

Younger readers might know Powell for her many TV appearances, including a recurring role as Alan Thicke’s mother on “Growing Pains.” Powell’s career spanned 67 years, from her first movie, “Song of the Open Road,” in 1944 to her final guest-hosting stint on Turner Classic Movies in 2011. She even performed in concert with the hot lounge group Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010.

Fun Fact: even though she was so famous as the sunny “girl next door” that her autobiography was called “The Girl Next Door and How She Grew,” she was married five times. I guess she lived next door to a lot of people at one time or another.

If you’d like to check out Jane Powell at her best, stream “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” a fantastic musical with a wonderfully politically-incorrect plot. Or pick up a copy of “Royal Wedding” (the movie in which Fred Astaire dances up the wall and across the ceiling.) It’s out of copyright, so you can find very cheap DVDs. Just make sure you get a good transfer since some of them look like you’re watching it at the drive-in through a dirty windshield

Mike Huckabee

An Obama-appointed federal judge denied the Biden DOJ’s request for an emergency court order to block Texas’ new “heartbeat” anti-abortion law.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-administrations-attempt-immediately-shut-texas-abortion-law-just-crashed-burned/

The judge said this case presents complex, important questions of law, and both sides should be allowed to present their arguments. He’d previously set October 1st as the deadline for submitting paperwork. A senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center defended the Texas law, saying it was not an incitement to vigilantism or frivolous lawsuits, and that instead of waiting to see if a Texas citizen would bring an enforcement action with enough proof to support it, the DOJ was trying to enjoin every Texas citizen from being allowed to file suit, no matter how blatant the violation.

He summed it up this way: “In the name of defending an invented constitutional right to abortion, Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to suspend an actual right found in the Constitution — the due process of law.”

There’s more at the link. This case could have wide repercussions, since other states are waiting to see if courts will uphold the law before passing similar ones.

In the meantime, we’ll likely hear more hysterical reactions from the same liberals who proudly boast that they won’t eat anything with a face, but will fight to preserve their right to kill humans with a heartbeat.

Mike Huckabee

Friday, the head of US Central Command Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. announced that the drone strike on alleged ISIS-K terrorists in Kabul on August 29th didn’t kill any terrorists. Instead, it mistakenly killed an aid worker who was loading water canisters into his car and nine of his family members, including seven children.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-official-announces-no-isis-k-members-killed-in-august-kabul-drone-which-led-to-civilian-casualties

The attack that was previously called a “righteous strike” by Gen. Mark Milley is now described as a “tragic mistake” for which McKenzie offered “my sincere apology.”

It has to be said that this never would have happened if the pullout hadn’t been so botched and left us with an uncontrollable, chaotic situation, no forces or reliable intelligence on the ground, and an opening for terrorists to launch attacks. But I don’t want to be accused of trying to score political points off of a terrible tragedy, so I’ll just point out that this was so bad, even some of Biden’s most loyal liberal media handmaidens couldn’t stop themselves from expressing outrage.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-admin-botched-drone-strike-reactions

I’ll let you know how they eventually manage to find a way to blame Trump for this.

Mike Huckabee

I haven’t spent much time talking about the fallout from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wearing a designer “Tax The Rich” gown to the ultra-swank Met Gala ($30,000 a ticket/$200,000 a table) because it seemed like one of those “good for a laugh for one day” stories. But it just keeps hanging on because it’s such a perfect illustration of the stunning hypocrisy of the limousine socialist crowd. Some of the latest developments:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aoc-a-closet-capitalist

The Met claims the ticket was comped. Conservative watchdogs are demanding that the cost of her ticket be declared as taxable income or a campaign contribution. Even Bill Maher felt compelled to school AOC on the fact that most taxes are already paid by the rich.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/09/18/bill-maher-slams-aoc-and-her-met-dress-you-wear-tax-the-rich-on-your-ass-lets-not-lie-1136121/

Many people seem to have overlooked that AOC was also carrying a “Tax the Rich” handbag by the same designer. AOC defended her as a “black woman immigrant” who started in flea markets. She now sells those handbags for $995 each and is dating billionaire Seagrams heir Benjamin Bronfman.

Meanwhile, socialist fashionista AOC is now selling her own “Tax the Rich” T-shirts for $27 and hoodies for $56. Priced for the proletariat, relatively speaking.

That’s why I had to revisit this story. Because it shows what can only happen in America: two minority females, one a struggling immigrant. One is now a fabulously successful designer dating a billionaire, and the other is a Congress member making six figures, attending $30,000 celebrity galas, wearing designer gowns and selling tons of swag on her website.

Both are a shining example of the greatness and wide open opportunities of the American capitalist system!

Too bad they’ll have to give up so much of the fruits of their labor when they get their enormous tax bills.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

While we’re on the subject of comparing Joe Biden to LBJ, some media outlets are trying to do that favorably by comparing the $3.5 trillion spending boondoggle bill he’s attempting to force through Congress to FDR’s “New Deal” and Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” Anyone who studied history before it was subverted by leftist politics should feel his blood run cold at the very thought. Those two massive expansions of government are almost entirely responsible for the bloated, Constitution-shredding government, corrosive welfare state and back-breaking national debt that we’re now enjoying.

Like Biden, those Presidents claimed that their massive spending and government programs were going to result in countless jobs, as if jobs were created by government, not the private sector when government gets out of the way and off its back.

At The Hill Newspaper, Amity Shlaes has a MUST-READ article about FDR’s New Deal, its similarities to the plan by Biden and today's Democrats, and why in most ways, it failed to work and made things worse for years.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/552354-biden-as-the-new-fdr-its-the-same-old-bad-deal-for-jobs

In a statement that could easily apply to today’s Democratic socialist schemes, the chief economist at Chase Bank, Benjamin Anderson, said of the New Deal that after failing by playing God, the government chose not to retire but simply “to play God more vigorously.”

Finally, a hat tip to Instapundit for reminding everyone of this 2015 study by UCLA economists that found that FDR’s New Deal actually prolonged the Depression for seven years past the point when it should’ve ended. Coincidentally, the Obama-Biden Administration managed to drag out the 2009 recession for seven years past the point when it should’ve ended. And now, Biden’s trying to do it again with the pandemic shutdown recession.

https://www.ff.org/fdrs-policies-prolonged-depression-by-7-years-ucla-economists-calculate/

These people just keep repeating history, maybe because they keep flunking it.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

Facebook has blocked musician John Ondrasik (who records under the band name Five For Fighting) from buying an ad to promote his new single, "Blood On My Hands." The song blasts the Biden Administration for abandoning Americans and Afghan allies to the Taliban and singles out Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

https://freebeacon.com/media/facebook-blocks-ad-for-song-critical-of-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal/

Facebook claims the song violated their policy on social issues: "Ads must not contain content that exploits crises or controversial political or social issues for commercial purposes." However, they’ve allowed ads for BLM, defunding the police, and other controversial leftwing issues.

This could be a case in which rock star Ondrasik and Mike Huckabee actually had the exact same reaction. Ondrasik said, "I'm glad Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, Dylan, Creedence...and (CSNY) didn't live in the age of (Facebook) overlords."

That was also my first thought: Imagine if musicians had had to get “Masters of War,” “Eve of Destruction” or “For What It’s Worth” past today’s Silicon Valley speech police protecting LBJ from criticism. Today’s documentary footage of Vietnam protests would be accompanied by the only music of the ‘60s they would have been allowed to be heard: “Sugar, Sugar” and “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (“I’ve Got Love In My Tummy.)”

Mike Huckabee

The security fence has been put back up around the Capitol Building in advance of a rally Saturday in support of January 6th arrestees who are not accused of committing violence, yet some are being held indefinitely without charges and allegedly under appalling conditions such as solitary confinement. The rally is called “Justice for J6.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/thats-a-setup-capitol-fence-comes-back-up-trump-weighs-in-on-rally

The organizer said they’ve already held two events, at the prison and the DOJ, and there have been no incidents. He urged anyone who might commit violence to stay away.

However, many Republicans, including President Trump, say they’re staying away from the rally and urge others to as well. Trump told the Federalist that it’s “a set-up”: “If people don’t show up they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a lack of spirit.’ And if people do show up they’ll be harassed.”

There’s also the potential that leftist agitators from groups like Antifa will show up dressed as Trump supporters and start violence. Not that that would EVER happen, of course. But if they wanted to, they probably could, since most of them who were ever arrested for rioting or attacking federal buildings were immediately released.

I think it’s also worth noting that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi insist that it’s crazy to think a border wall would provide any security, but the minute they feel even slightly threatened, what happens? They put up a security wall.

Mike Huckabee

Sen. Ted Cruz went to Del Rio, Texas, to highlight the massive surge of illegal immigration. Fox News reported that the number of people trying to cross the border doubled from 4,000 to 8,000 in one day. Cruz said when he arrived, there were an estimated 10,503 illegal immigrants gathered under the Del Rio International Bridge.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/hannity-questions-faa-grounded-drones-southern-border-cover-up-bidens-failures

But don’t worry, the Biden Administration is doing something about this. Fox News reported that “for special security reasons,” the FAA declared a two-week temporary flight restriction over the bridge, so Fox can’t fly its drone cameras overhead and show viewers pictures of the massive crowd of illegal entrants.

And that should stop the coverage, since liberal outlets certainly aren't covering the border crisis.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/media-coverage-of-border-mayhem-drops-94-under-biden

Problem solved! Well, Biden’s problem. Not America’s.

Mike Huckabee

Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal are launching a bipartisan investigation of Facebook, following a blockbuster investigative piece by the Wall Street Journal. It found that Facebook was keeping secret from the public internal research that shows that Facebook’s photo social media platform Instagram was harmful to the mental health of users, particularly teenage girls. The research showed that teens blamed Instagram for increases in anxiety, depression and poor body image. This is especially worrisome since Facebook is planning a version of Instagram for children 13 and under.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/facebook-faces-senate-probe-after-report-reveals-instagrams-harmful-effects-on-teenage-girls_3999329.html

The Senators said in a statement, “It is clear that Facebook is incapable of holding itself accountable. The Wall Street Journal’s reporting reveals Facebook’s leadership to be focused on a growth-at-all-costs mindset that valued profits over the health and lives of children and teens.”

While it’s a welcome development that someone is finally paying attention, I don’t know which is less of a surprise: that social media is harmful to the minds and bodies of young people (it isn’t doing many favors for the minds of some adults, either) or that the people running Facebook don’t really give a hoot. Senate hearings might drag some of this out into the light of day, but if they’re like most Senate hearings, nothing will come of them except providing a few days’ worth of TV footage of Facebook executives feigning shock that anyone would think they’re not acting with the purest of motives, and then it’s right back to being evil.

While I’d like to see a miracle, like the government reining in Big Tech or Big Tech oligarchs magically developing consciences, short of that, the only solutions are much harder: Self-control (breaking yourself of the social media habit) and parenting (not letting your kids fall into that rabbit hole.) Remember, like any parasite, social media platforms live off of what they suck out of you (in their case, personal data.) If you don’t want the parasite to make you sick, then shake it off and avoid it.

Mike Huckabee

All the cries from the left to expand and pack the Supreme Court for not giving them what they want have led to a rare flurry of public responses by members of the Court from across the ideological spectrum. Over the past week, Justices Steven Breyer, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas have all spoken up against politicians and the media pressuring the Court to be more political or reading political motives into their decisions.

Liberal Justice Breyer said judges are not “junior league politicians,” while Barrett said the Justices are not “partisan hacks,” and she sometimes doesn’t like the results of her own decisions, but it’s not her job to decide cases based on the outcome she wants. Last night, Justice Thomas voiced agreement to an audience at Notre Dame University.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clarence-thomas-media-supreme-court-texas-abortion

Since this latest round of “Pack the court” screeching was sparked by the SCOTUS not blocking Texas’ new abortion law, Thomas said the media make it sound as if the Justices always go to their personal preference; for instance, if they’re personally pro-life, they’ll always rule that way and become like a politician. Thomas said, “We have lost the capacity" as leaders "to not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don't get the outcomes that we like." Because of this politicization, he said, "The court was thought to be the least dangerous branch, and we may have become the most dangerous."

One of the main reasons leftists want to pack the SCOTUS is their fear that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and for the record, Thomas has called on the Court to do just that. But it’s not because he’s personally pro-life. As he explained in 2007, the Roe v. Wade decision has "no basis in the Constitution." And last year, he said Roe is "grievously wrong for many reasons, but the most fundamental is that its core holding -- that the Constitution protects a woman's right to abort her unborn child -- finds no support in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. "

It’s ironic that the very people who are accusing conservative Justices of acting politically are actually terrified that a conservative majority would overturn decisions that were based purely on the Justices’ liberal political views.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

A couple of new polls show the public is about evenly split on President Biden’s recent vaccination mandates, although the mandate on companies with over 100 employees has approval of 53-46%. Larger percentages of Americans approve of other levels of government-enforced COVID measures, such as vaccine mandates for various groups such as health care workers and teachers, mask mandates and social distancing guidelines.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/americans-divided-biden-covid-poll

And, feeling their oats after the failed recall of Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles County officials plan to lead the way with the strictest “Show us your papers!” rule yet. They plan to require people to show proof of vaccination to enter indoor bars, wineries, breweries, nightclubs, and lounges and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for "outdoor mega-events" such as Dodgers, Rams, and Chargers games. They will also recommend, but not require (for now) customers at indoor restaurants to show proof of vaccination. As usual, there’s nothing about exceptions for people who’ve actually had the disease and may have natural immunity as good as or superior to vaccination. This is the government, after all, so one size fits all.

I continue to believe that it’s wise for most people to get vaccinated (I am), providing their own doctors okay it, but I don’t believe the government should be forcing people to do it, or denying you basic rights and freedoms until you submit to having something injected into your body that you object to. If vaccinations work, then how are the unvaccinated a danger to anyone but themselves?

My bigger concern is that even after COVID is under control, with authorities having tasted this unprecedented level of power over people’s lives – and the people having willingly given up their freedom for a false promise of security – there will be no end to future restrictions “for the public good.” In that sense, this could spell the end of America as we knew it.

Disclaimer: yes, this kind of severe reaction is extremely rare. But so is death by COVID in this person’s age group. It’s another reason why vaccination should be a personal decision of risk assessment between you and your doctor and not a government mandate.

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

Several days ago, I related a story about my personal experience with someone who exhibited blind, irrational fear of a non-vaccinated person (me), even though the non-vaccinated person had already had COVID-19 and as a result possessed natural immunity that studies increasingly suggest surpasses the protection provided by vaccines.

The reason for telling this story in the first place was to show that we really are living in a time of mass hysteria --- a time when facts don’t much matter because everyone believes he HAS the facts and “the science is settled” –- and that in many cases our fears are being exploited to achieve desired behavior. How does the government get everyone to do what it wants them to do? By scaring them half to death.

We received numerous reader comments, a few of which we highlighted. One we did not include but that I’d like to address now came from a reader named Chris who identifies himself/herself as a “pediatric technician.” Chris is about to become famous as “Exhibit A” in my case that logic flies right out the door when fear climbs in the window. Here’s the letter, with slight editing...

………………………

You and the Christian Broadcasting Network are totally immoral and irresponsible. You all claim to be "Pro-Life" and you are all miserable hypocrites in the eyes of the world. You don't follow scripture or read your own revised Bible.

Kids are dying daily by the thousands in America and the Pediatric wards are packed with kids who have COVID. YOU ARE KID - KILLERS AND THAT IS HOW YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED. Infants are dying. Toddlers are dying. Small children are dying. You are not pro-life. You are anti-science and anti-fact. You are ignorant and stupid! You can't fix stupid. Too much inbreeding in your own family.

COVID is preventable by a simple vaccine but because you want money from the Trump base, you keep quiet while many children are being killed by their parents and their miserable stupidity. Pure GREED. This is not your finest moment. Maybe your grandchildren will be waiting on a ventilator soon....possible, because of the stupidity that runs in your family.

By remaining quiet you are executing children......you are kid - murderers and kid - killers. No different than serial killers and rapists but you all claim to speak the "truth" and follow Jesus. What a joke.

You are weak and cowardly and you will be judged on this by the big guy in the sky. BURN IN HELL.

You can take that banjo and Bible of yours and shove it up your a--.

…………………………...

Okay, where to start? Do you sense the terror that has transported this person to Crazy Town? First of all, in his (her?) rage, Chris directed this abuse at “all” of us “miserable hypocrites,” including Gov. Huckabee, when I’m the person who wrote the piece. I guess if anyone is going to be judged by “the big guy in the sky” and “burn in hell,” it is me. Though I’m tempted to say this person is not guilty by reason of insanity, I think he or she or xi owes the Gov. an apology. The individual who wrote this also owes the “Christian Broadcasting Network” --- does he mean Trinity Broadcasting Network? --- an apology. Gov. Huckabee, CBN/TBN, the pro-life movement, Christian believers in general, and the version of the Bible the Gov. prefers to read (I have no idea) have absolutely nothing to do with the commentary on vaccines and virus-fear, which I wrote, would write again, and proudly put my name on.

So, Chris, let’s talk about what has inflamed you so and how much truth there is to it. As you are an irrational person, this analysis will not change your mind at all --- probably just anger you more, if that’s possible --- but there are other, sane readers who might benefit from the discussion. Let’s look at a few things you claimed in your letter:

1. “Children are dying daily by the thousands in America and the pediatric wards are packed with children who have COVID.” This is wildly incorrect. Can you even imagine what it would be like in our country if this were actually happening to our children? The total number of children who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. since the pandemic began is just over 400. Of course, that’s a terrible tragedy, but it’s not thousands of deaths a day. A Johns Hopkins research team looked at records from 48,000 cases in young people under 18 from April to August of 2020. At that time, they found zero deaths that didn’t involve a serious comorbidity such as leukemia. More here…

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects-hospitalization-kids-11626706868

So, who fed you that lie about thousands of children dying every day? Someone has an interest in making you believe this. And if you’re really a “pediatric technician,” it stands to reason that you would know it’s false. You certainly haven’t witnessed it on your job, because it isn’t happening.

2. “You are not pro-life. You are anti-science and anti-fact.” Chris, you are stating opinions that are not based in any fact at all. To say Gov. Huckabee is not pro-life is like saying Dr. Kevorkian was not pro-death. And nothing makes a real scientist cringe like the phrase “follow the science.” That is a talking point; you do not understand how science works. Instead of discussing the research, you stoop to crass personal insults.

3. “COVID is preventable by a simple vaccine but because you want money from the Trump base, you keep quiet while many children are being killed...” Chris, the vaccine can provide a lot of protection and lessen the severity of symptoms but it does not PREVENT infection. Gov. Huckabee has said numerous times that he personally has been vaccinated, and he advises everyone to seek their doctor's advice. He would never tell someone not to get vaccinated, and neither would I.

Again, though every death from this virus is tragic, it’s not true that “many children are being killed.” This is true though vaccines weren’t even approved for children until very recently, and then only for kids 12 and older.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/covid-19-vaccines-for-kids/art-20513332

Ah, and we see from your reference to “the Trump base” that it really does come down to politics. Chris, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump or his base. You are off-base. But I would say the current administration has worked hard to make you believe it does, so that you'll associate your fear with Trump, and they have succeeded.

4. “Maybe your grandchildren will be waiting on a ventilator soon.” Chris, I can tell from this remark that you are one of those compassionate liberals I’ve heard so much about.

Finally, what was that banjo remark? The Gov. plays bass. Facts matter!

Chris, your letter is so out-there that at first I thought it might even be an attempt at satire. Satire is very challenging to do well –- and even to recognize in this age when real stories can be as crazy as made-up ones. If you were just impersonating a crazy person, you succeeded. Be well.

Mike Huckabee

The report that special prosecutor John Durham was, at long last, going to indict someone in the Russiagate investigation was confirmed Thursday when a grand jury indicted attorney Michael Sussman of the powerful Democratic-linked law firm Perkins Coie. The charge is providing false information to the FBI to smear Donald Trump and then lying by denying that he represented the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The New York Times now admits that Sussman was the source of their fake story about the Trump Organization having a secret web server to communicate privately with Alfa Bank, a Russian bank connected to Vladimir Putin. That story was trumpeted by Hillary Clinton, and naturally, picked up and flogged like crazy by other liberal news outlets that demanded an FBI investigation.

The Conservative Treehouse has a good untangling of this web of lies…

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/09/16/clinton-lawyer-michael-sussmann-indicted-for-lying-to-fbi-while-spreading-the-false-alfa-bank-trump-russia-collusion-conspiracy-on-behalf-of-clinton-campaign/

For an even more succinct recap, read Glenn Greenwald’s blunt Twitter thread:

https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2021/09/16/russiagate-in-a-nutshell-glenn-greenwald-sums-up-the-latest-on-john-durhams-investigation-pulls-hillary-clintons-old-tweet-about-trumps-covert-server/

Greenwald calls this “Russiagate in a nutshell”:

“A DNC-linked lawyer, partners with Clinton lawyer Marc Elias, fabricated a Trump/Russia leak, fed it to DNC operatives masquerading as journalists, had Hillary trumpet it, then lied to (the) FBI about who he worked for.” He adds, “Along with the FBI lawyer who previously pled guilty for lying to the FISA court to spy on ex-Trump campaign official Carter Page, it's clear that much of the criminality of Russiagate was not from any Trump/Russia collusion but by those who fabricated this conspiracy theory."

I’ll have more about this story as it develops, but for now, let me just make one observation: for four years, a duly-elected President was relentlessly slandered as a Russian agent by the media until millions of Americans believed it, undermining trust in their own government and in the electoral process. His agenda was hamstrung; innocent people who worked for him were hounded, harassed and bankrupted; and qualified people who might have made great contributions to America were frightened away from public service for fear of being targeted by the FBI.

And all over a story that was a complete lie. A fabrication designed purely for the purposes of ensuring that Hillary Clinton achieved her lifelong dream that she had a divine right to be President, whether the voters agreed or not.

How much expense, damage, division, turmoil, and distrust in government has been inflicted on this nation by one woman’s insatiable ambition and the utter lack of scruples of those around her in achieving her goal? And who do the Democrats blame for “lowering the tone of political discourse” and undermining faith in the electoral system? Why, Trump, of course.

Mike Huckabee

Wednesday, four female Olympic gymnasts – Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman – came out from behind official anonymity to testify to the Senate about the horrific sexual abuse they suffered from former USA Gymnastics team physician Larry Nassar (now serving a sentence of up to 360 years in prison - yes, you read that correctly.) Much of that was already known, but what also was revealed was the shocking way in which the FBI, then under our self-appointed national conscience James Comey, turned a blind eye to their accusations against Nassar and attempted to cover it all up so the public would never learn about it.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stephen-kruiser/2021/09/15/lock-em-up-same-fbi-that-chased-russia-collusion-hoax-for-years-covered-up-sexual-abuse-of-usa-gymnasts-n1479070

As Stephen Kruiser reminds us at the link, this was the same FBI leadership that busied itself with trying to manufacture accusations of Russian collusion against innocent political opponents while at the same time refusing to investigate “a serial predator who was attacking the most vulnerable among us.” He quite rightly calls for us to “start casting a wide net for people within the Bureau who need to be locked up.”

There’s a lot more at the link, including a video of Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s statement (sample quote: “Every single person in authority who turned a blind eye to these young athletes’ allegations is complicit in Nassar’s crime, and each one of them should be considered a predator.”) There’s also video of Ms Maroney’s testimony, which I warn you is disturbing and graphic.

Here’s more on this story from Matt Vespa at Townhall.com.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/09/15/its-not-hard-to-see-why-the-fbi-didnt-care-about-larry-nassar-raping-scores-of-young-women-n2595948

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

As the person who covers the entertainment world, it falls to me to write show biz obituaries. While it’s always a sad duty, this one hits especially hard for me and my wife/co-writer, Laura Ainsworth. Comedian Norm MacDonald has died at 61 of cancer, which he had reportedly been fighting for nine years. His producing partner Lori Jo Hoekstra said he kept it a secret because comedy came first and he never wanted that to color how people saw him.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/norm-macdonald-snl-comedian-dies-age-61/

For a comic who never became a major star, Norm’s death was met with a massive outpouring of grief and accolades from fellow comedians and hardcore fans like us. Seth Meyers called him the “gold standard” of comedy and admitted the hardest part of doing “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update was not reading jokes the way Norm would say them.

He had a distinctive voice and delivery, a unique and unpredictable perspective, and most importantly of all in this cancel culture age, he was utterly fearless. If he thought a joke was funny (and to those of us who “got” his sense of humor, he was gutbustingly funny), no matter how bizarre the premise, he would pursue and expand on it, even if the audience greeted it with silence (you could usually hear a few fellow comedians in the back, howling with laughter.) One of the funniest things you’ll ever see on TV is Norm on Conan O’Brien’s show, using up his entire segment to tell an ancient, rambling, deadpan shaggy dog story with a groaner of a punchline that somehow was hilarious all the way through.

When Laura and I used to write our syndicated topical radio service, the Comedy Wire, nothing made me prouder than to write a joke that I could describe as “a Norm MacDonald line.”

These days, what passes for a “joke” on “SNL” is a smug two-minute political lecture. Norm could pack more laughs into two short sentences (“College radio reports that the #1 band this summer was Better Than Ezra. At #2: Ezra!”) He defied orders to stop doing O.J. Simpson jokes even when it got him fired. He didn’t care if he bombed, got fired, the audience didn’t get it or Twitter mobs cried about being offended: if he thought it was funny, he went with it. And to me, he was always right. He ruthlessly mocked leftist icons like Bill and Hillary Clinton at a time when other comics were giving them a free ride. He even dared to joke about COVID (“None of us know how we’re going to die… Well, we know NOW.”)

He was also surprisingly intelligent, once taking home $500,000 on a charity celebrity edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (he also knew the answer to the million dollar question, but Regis talked him out of trying for it.) I still remember him lecturing a comic on a talent show for performing a lazy Christian-bashing bit that the other judges loved.

Norm was a “comedian’s comedian,” but to his cult fan base like us, he was one of the funniest men of all time. You never knew what might come out of his mouth, but you knew it would be hilarious and like nothing that anyone else would think of. And if someone didn’t like it and took offense, he couldn’t care less. Let’s hope more comedians take inspiration from him and reclaim comedy from the humorless woke mobs.

Here are a few of Norm’s more mainstream funny moments, courtesy of Fox News. You’ll find many, many more on YouTube.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/norm-macdonald-snl-late-night-funniest-moments

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

The Pentagon seemed to confirm Bob Woodward’s claim that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley attempted to usurp President Trump’s powers by calling his Chinese counterpart and assuring him he would give China advance warning if Trump launched an attack.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pentagon-appears-confirm-bombshell-gen-milley-report/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

I’m not going to quote their statement verbatim (you can read it at the link), since it went on at length in the kind of gaseous government-speak that’s meant to make outrageous acts sound not merely defensible and reasonable but downright laudable. Indeed, a lot of liberal news outlets (those that aren’t ignoring this story entirely) are trying to present it that way and hail Milley as a heroic figure for protecting America from the “unhinged” duly-elected Commander-in-Chief that they hated. Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki called Milley a “patriot.” So chalk up “insurrection” and “undermining our democracy” as yet another area in which the Democrats’ sacred principles are highly situational.

Even Biden himself reportedly said he has “great confidence” in Milley.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-great-confidence-in-milley-china-calls

Really? So Joe Biden wants to keep a guy around him who has a history of trying to overthrow Presidents whom he thinks are showing mental decline? REALLY?!

If Milley thought it was his duty to step in and take control away from a cognitively-challenged President who was about to commit a dangerous foreign policy blunder, then why didn’t he do that two months ago?

Finally, the line of the day is about this story, and it’s courtesy of former Rep. Trey Gowdy, who said you know who would have appreciated an advance call to warn him of an attack? The Afghan aid worker who was blown up by a drone while loading water cans into his car.

Mike Huckabee

Congressional Democrats have put forward a massive tax hike plan that they claim will only soak the very wealthy. That may sound popular to people who think that refers to someone else, but as Grover Norquist explains at the link, it will affect everyone negatively.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/norquist-bidens-tax-increases-reconciliation-bill-will-lead-gop-led-house-maybe

It not only raises taxes on people making less than $400,000, in violation of Biden’s campaign promise, but it will raise business taxes higher than those in Europe and even communist China. That will impact hiring and expansion, and encourage the return of businesses moving overseas and taking their jobs with them. It will impact 401K retirement plans, inheritances, capital gains and the prices we pay for most products, especially our electric and gas bills. The only upside Norquist sees is that it will probably lead to a GOP Congress that will put the brakes on more socialist insanity.

He also makes a great observation that voters in swing states and districts should take to heart: there are no “moderate Democrats” in the House or Senate. There are Democrats from moderate districts and swing states. They might say they oppose runaway taxing and spending. But every last one of them voted over and over to keep advancing the $3.5 trillion spending orgy through Congress.

Here’s another analysis of the Democrats’ tax plan showing that wealthy residents of blue states like California, New York, New Jersey and Hawaii could end up paying a combined tax rate of nearly 60%.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/democrats-tax-plan-combined-tax-rates-new-york-california

Not that they actually would, of course. They’d probably move to Texas or Florida, and then start giving a lot of money to leftist politicians so they could ruin those states, too. But as bad as this tax plan is, thinking of all those wealthy liberals having to fork over 60% of their income to the wasteful, oppressive politicians they did so much to help elect would be heartwarming if the rest of us weren’t also having to pay for their dumb political decisions.

Mike Huckabee

In breaking news Wednesday night, THE NEW YORK TIMES reports that Special Counsel John Durham has informed the Department of Justice that he will seek a grand jury indictment against Michael Sussmann of the law firm Perkins Coie for making a false statement to the FBI.

John Durham, remember him? Even President Trump has wondered from time to time what happened to him. Apparently, he’s just had his head down working, ever since he was assigned to the case by Bill Barr...in 2019. His status was raised to Special Counsel in December of 2020.

The NYT is subscription-only, but Rebecca Downs at TOWNHALL has details.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/09/15/durham-indictment-n2595973?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

No discussion of the “Russia Russia Russia!” hoax would complete without bringing in the huge role played by Perkins Coie, the Clinton-affiliated law firm that in 2016 paid opposition research company Fusion GPS to hire former MI-6 spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt and provide a report on then-candidate Donald Trump. That scheme produced the infamous “dossier” that contained outrageously fake stories like the one we all know involving Trump and some prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. We’ve covered the story of the phony “dossier” from the start and had always hoped the story of how it came to be would be completely exposed. Now, perhaps this is the first shoe dropping.

Incidentally, Perkins Coie was involved in shady activities in 2020 as well. For the year preceding the Trump/Biden race, it was Marc Elias, a partner at Perkins Coie, who coordinated the state-by-state effort to change election laws and procedures in ways that made it much easier to cheat almost undetectably. And never mind that these changes were supposed to be made by the state legislators, not judges and bureaucrats. All those millions of ballots being mailed out to every name on out-of-date voter rolls and stuffed into unmanned dropboxes? For destroying all trust in our election system, we have Marc Elias of Perkins Coie largely to thank.

Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor, is a partner at the firm as well. As reported by the NYT, he represented the Democratic National Committee “on issues related to Russia’s 2016 hacking of its servers.” As you can see, I’m quoting the TIMES there, as we do not actually have evidence that this “hacking” of the DNC servers was carried out by Russia. It’s part of their narrative that the mainstream media take as a given and keep repeating. We don’t.

But the fact that Sussmann was representing the DNC on this matter should tell you he is the Mother Lode of information on what really happened with that and where all the bodies are buried, so to speak. Not that we can pry it all out of him. There’s this little inconvenience called “attorney-client privilege” that limits what investigators can ask.

Anyway, the Special Counsel has been investigating Sussmann’s activities conveying “certain suspicions” about Trump and Russia –- related to what we have come to know as “the Russia Hoax” –- to James Baker at the FBI in September of 2016. Specifically, investigators want to know who his client was at the time. Investigators have been looking into whether he was secretly working for Hillary’s campaign. He denies that.

Sussmann’s reason for meeting with Baker was to further a long-since-debunked story about covert communication through suspicious “pings” between computer servers associated with the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian financial institution linked to the Kremlin. That story has been so thoroughly discredited that Special Counsel Robert Mueller didn’t even mention it in his final report. But there was Sussmann, apparently trying to hand the FBI a fake story. I would add that this was the James Comey FBI, which was eager to run with all the anti-Trump stories it could find.

Baker, now out of the FBI, reportedly told investigators he recalled Sussmann saying he was not meeting him on behalf of any client. Likewise, according to Sussmann’s lawyers, Sussmann simply wanted to give the FBI a “heads-up” because he thought the NEW YORK TIMES was about to publish a story about the Alfa Bank allegations. Wasn’t that nice of him? (The NYT didn’t mention Alfa Bank at all until six weeks later.)

One problem, though: in a 2017 deposition before Congress, Sussmann testified that he had sought the meeting on behalf of an unnamed client, a cybersecurity expert whom he said had helped analyze the Alfa Bank data.

Second, even bigger problem: Durham has obtained billing records from Perkins Coie that show some of Sussmann’s time working on the Alfa Bank matter was billed to...(drum roll, please)...the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.

By the way, just a month ago, Marc Elias left Perkins Coie to form a separate law firm, Elias Law Group LLP. The press release says this new spinoff firm “will represent candidates, party committees, political committees, nonprofit organizations, entities and voters. Elias Law Group will be mission-driven, focusing on electing Democrats, supporting voting rights, and helping progressives make change.” More details here.

https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/perkins-coie-and-its-political-law-group-announce-the-formation-of-the-independent-firm-elias-law-group-llp.html

This new separation “will provide Elias Law Group with the independence to broaden its advocacy and types of matters on which it works, including by engaging more directly in the political and electoral process.”

As if Elias and Perkins Coie haven’t been engaged enough in that already. Elias will have offices in both DC and Seattle, where they’ll be “focused on helping Democrats win, citizens vote, and progressives make change.” And anyone who thought Perkins Coie was some little boutique law firm should think again: Perkins Coie is a huge international operation with 1,200 lawyers in offices “across the United States and Asia.” Watch out –- they’ve made this move as part of their gearing-up for the 2022 elections and are looking ahead to 2024, and judging from their past behavior, I don’t think they’ll waste much time debating the ethics of what they’re doing.

For now, though, Michael Sussmann is a major player who finally appears to have been caught in Durham’s net. Colton Salaz at JUST THE NEWS also has a write-up, and we look forward to investigative reporter John Solomon’s take as well, as he’s been all over this story for years.

https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/special-counsel-seeks-indictment-against-lawyer-center-steel-dossier

“Mr. Sussmann has committed no crime,” his attorneys told the NYT. “Any prosecution here would be baseless, unprecedented and an unwarranted deviation from the apolitical and principled way in which the Department of Justice is supposed to do its work.”

Are these really Sussmann’s attorneys or a comedy writing team? Because that line about the DOJ is pretty darn funny.

Mike Huckabee

One reason why it’s so hard to get Americans to “trust the experts” on COVID-19 is because the “experts” and “authorities” have given us so many conflicting stories. I’ve always cut them slack for getting things wrong: I get that it was a new disease, and new data can require changing our assumptions. However, we seem to have settled on some official assumptions that are almost impervious to new data. And public trust is eroded further when the “experts” keep dodging basic questions.

One question people have been asking for over a year is whether the hospitalization rates used to justify mass lockdowns, school closures and mask and vaccine mandates are accurate. Are they counting only people who are actually hospitalized or killed due to COVID, or inflating the numbers by including people who tested positive regardless of the actual reason they were in the hospital? The answer may finally be at hand.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/09/13/the-atlantic-scoop-almost-half-of-covid-hospitalizations-are-exactly-what-you-suspected-they-were-n2595832

David Zweig at the Atlantic magazine (hardly a rightwing or anti-vaxxer outlet) reports that the VA office of Research and Development backed a study of nearly 48,000 admissions to over 100 VA hospitals nationwide. It found that from March 2020 to early January 2021, before the Delta variant or widespread vaccination, 36% of recorded COVID patients had mild or asymptomatic cases, which makes it questionable whether they were or needed to be hospitalized due to COVID. From mid-January to June, that number rose to 48%. That suggests that nearly half the recorded COVID hospitalizations were mild or asymptomatic cases or else people who tested positive but were hospitalized for something unrelated.

None of this is to downplay the dangers of the disease (that’s still a lot of people hospitalized due to severe COVID.) But the good news is that this suggests vaccination has created more mild or asymptomatic cases. The bad news is that it suggests authorities are relying on misleading data to impose draconian measures on the entire population. And when people know “the experts” are being misleading about the reasons for their policies, it makes it all the more likely that they will reject those policies.

In short, once you lose the public’s trust, it’s hard to get it back. Particularly if you do nothing to earn it back except to say, “I order you to trust me!”

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

Is the biggest story in the nation Tuesday a bombshell revelation of treasonous behavior by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Or just one of the biggest examples yet of fake news? As the Magic 8-Ball tells us, “Unclear, ask again later.” Here’s the story:

https://www.westernjournal.com/book-milley-took-top-secret-action-cut-trump-off-nuclear-weapons/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

According to an upcoming book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley was so concerned that then-President Trump, who was daring to call out China over its coronavirus cover-up, would launch a military attack on China that he took action to subvert Trump’s command of the military.

The book claims that Milley met with senior military officers to tell them that Trump could not launch nuclear weapons unless Milley was involved to okay it…that he called his counterpart in the Chinese military to assure him that he would warn China in advance if the US was going to attack…and that he met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 8th (who, of course, agreed with him that Trump was mentally “unhinged” – the term leftists use for anyone who disagrees with their disastrous policies) to discuss ways to block him from using his Presidential powers.

The Pentagon claims this was just standard operating procedure, nothing to see here. And liberal media outlets are trying to paint Milley as a hero protecting our democracy from…democracy, apparently. Incidentally, there’s no need for Milley’s “heroic” usurpation of power because there’s already a constitutional way to deal with a President who is mentally incompetent for real. It’s called the 25th Amendment. Democrats might want to bone up on it.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/09/14/the-gaslighting-begins-after-mark-milleys-treasonous-actions-are-revealed-n443122

Conservative commentators, however, say that if true, this is a stunning incident of out-and-out treason: an unelected official staging a clandestine coup to usurp the powers of the duly-elected Commander-in-Chief and conspiring with our enemies against the US President. It’s the most shocking example yet (and we’ve seen a mountain of them recently) of entrenched deep state elites completely disregarding the elected representatives of the people and acting as if they have a divine right to rule.

Here’s a hint as to how bad this is: even Alexander Vindman, who thought he should decide policy instead of Trump, says that if true, Milley “usurped civilian authority, broke Chain of Command, and violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military” and he “must resign.” He called this a “dangerous precedent” that we can’t simply walk away from.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/14/hilarious-mark-milley-has-even-lost-alexander-vindman-now-n443064

All this hinges, of course, on two key words: “If true.” Bob Woodward has a track record of making incendiary claims for which he offers no supporting evidence. Trump agrees that if it’s true, it would be treason, but he also doubts the story. He called Woodward a writer of fiction, but he still called on Milley to resign because he believes Milley made up the story to deflect attention from this Administration’s catastrophe in Afghanistan. Trump also made the excellent point that it’s ridiculous to think he would attack China, which never even occurred to him, noting that he’s the only President in decades who didn’t start a new war.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-doubts-report-of-milley-calling-chinese-general-but-says-treason-if-true

So where do we go from here? Obviously, we need a full investigation to determine whether this incredibly serious charge against the Joint Chiefs Chairman is credible. If he met with senior officers and Pelosi, then there should be plenty of witnesses and/or co-conspirators to call.

I suggest that Congress immediately convene a 9-11 style commission to investigate this allegation of what could be the most serious attempt at insurrection and the worst assault on our democracy since the Civil War! Since Nancy Pelosi has been accused of being a secret conspirator with Milley to overthrow the duly-elected President, she should probably be jailed (perhaps in solitary confinement) until such time as authorities decide whether to charge her with anything or not.

I know this sounds a tad harsh, but hey: Speaker Pelosi did establish the precedent.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

You can always tell when the Democrats are either solidly in power or think they’re about to be kicked out of power – or, as is currently the case, both. That’s when they push for massive taxing and spending. The Democrats’ reputation for taxing and spending is so well-established, Will Rogers was telling jokes about it in the 1920s, although if he’d known it would end up in a $28 trillion debt, it might have been harder to laugh about it.

When the Dems are out of power, they do everything possible to convince voters that they’ve learned the error of their ways. They’re now the new pro-business, fiscally-responsible Democrats. And the voters, prodded by a leftwing media who convince them that whatever Republicans have the economy humming and the border secure are really Nazis, believe the Dems and reelect them. And then they go on a spree like a spoiled teenager with mom’s platinum card.

Right now, the Dems are in power and sense the foot of the voters itching to kick them out of office in 2022, so they’re not only pushing two spending bills that total nearly $5 trillion, but on Monday, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled a massive tax hike proposal to pay for it. This is their definition of fiscal responsibility now: massive inflationary spending responsibly offset by economy-killing taxes.

Here’s an analysis from Fox Business News, explaining how these proposals will once again kill American jobs and drive US businesses overseas.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-dems-proposed-tax-plan-could-increase-offshore-avoidance-shift-burden-onto-small-businesses/ar-AAOqBfs

It’s really astounding the way voters have to keep learning the same basic economic lessons the hard way, over and over again. But at least they learn it, even if they forget after a few years. Democrat politicians haven’t learned anything since the ‘20s. Well, at least I know I’ll always be able to recycle Will Rogers’ jokes about them.

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

Thanks to all who responded to my story about the government’s latest very successful fear campaign --- the one against the unvaccinated.

By the way, since then it’s become obvious that the same motivation was just used in California to help a failing governor survive a recall election. To keep his office when California is a disaster on so many fronts, Gov. Newsom needed people to be AFRAID of the alternative, Republican opponent Larry Elder. And how was that going to happen, given that Elder is a genial, self-made black man who wants to fix problems and make life better for everybody in California? That’s easy: liken him to the biggest object of fear to the left, former President Trump.

An aggressive fear campaign had already been waged against Trump for years, and so progressives are TERRIFIED of him. To them, he’s the COVID-19 of political leaders. If you know the George Orwell novel “1984,” Trump is Emmanuel Goldstein in the daily government-mandated “Two Minutes Hate.” I’m talking abject, screaming-at-the-sky fear and loathing, as satirized in this masterpiece must-see video that I wish I could take credit for...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6fNtODWUwY

You understand, of course, that these people aren’t terrified of the actual Trump, about whom they typically know little, but of the imaginary Trump that has been created out of the thin air in their heads. You know, the evil white supremacist who thinks the KKK are “fine people” and collaborated with Putin to become President. THAT Donald Trump. I’d be scared of him, too, if he existed. The real Trump, I like.

But the Democrats’ anti-Trump fear campaign wasn’t aimed at me.

And it laid the foundation for Newsom’s recall election. This time, it was pounded into California voters’ heads that Elder was, in effect, Trump. Newsom then ran against Trump. He'd say, “A vote for Elder is a vote for Trump.” Or even, “Larry Elder is a clone of Donald Trump.” (They wanted voters to forget Elder is black.)

So, in the end, Newsom beat Trump---I mean, Elder.

But back to my story. I received some great comments on my real-life tale of being leper-ized by someone out of his mind with irrational fear...

From Tyna:

My daughter works FROM HOME and is an HR generalist. She sees NO patients or co-workers. She was given an ultimatum to get vaccinated or she will be terminated. She already has had Covid, and she has a health condition that was supposed to kill her by age 14. She wants to see her kids and grands grow up and get married. What happened to FREEDOM?

From Laura:

Someone who works from home can’t transmit anything to patients or co-workers but a computer virus! This makes no sense. And your daughter likely has better immunity than someone who hasn’t had COVID but took the vaccine. The decision should be hers, with advice from her doctor. Good luck to her with her employer. Time is on her side if she can stall; I think personal choice in this matter will win in the courts.

From Kathleen:

I was helping a neighbor with her yard sale a few weeks ago. A young man drove up in a Tesla; I had never been close to one and asked if I could sit in it. He had a “VACCINATED” button on his shirt, and I said, “By the way, I am not vaccinated.” Upon hearing that, he said I could not sit in the car. Then he went on a ten-minute rant on why everyone should get vaccinated. All the friends at the sale were friends and were not vaccinated, and we all felt sorry for the fool.”

From Laura:

I can picture this guy finishing his rant; hearing the rest of you weren’t vaccinated, either; speeding off in a panic and driving his Tesla smack into a tree.

If he’s vaccinated, he must not have much confidence that it will protect him. Why would your vaccination keep him safe if his own is that iffy? Again, none of this is rational.

From Prudence (excerpt):

Hello, Laura -- Thank you for your spot-on article. You are not alone. I experienced a similar incident two weeks ago. My regular doctor is out with cancer and so I had to see her colleague to get a prescription refilled...This doctor's visit was almost surreal! He wanted to know why I wasn't vaccinated, and I explained that I've had adverse reactions to vaccines in the past, including the flu shot. He began to berate me, telling me I believed all the rot on the internet and bought into all the foolishness, continuing to give me his "expert" advice on why he felt I needed to just take the vaccine. I'd never seen this idiot doctor before and will never seen him again.

My doctor knows my circumstances and respects my wishes on why I won't take the shot. Unfortunately, not only are people divided on the vaccines, so is the medical community! I didn't mention to him about my conversations with my doctor for fear of her receiving retribution from her colleague if and when she returns.

From Laura:

Your concern for your own doctor was well-founded. Doctors are also running into problems within their profession for prescribing treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I hope your independent-minded regular doctor is soon able to return to her practice.

From Mike:

Very disappointed you have decided not to be vaccinated, I had Covid in February 2020 when doctors didn’t really know what it was. I was diagnosed with severe bronchitis. Haven’t smoked in 36 years, [am] a jogger, and I developed COPD and my antibodies were gone in 60 days. Please rethink you position.

From Laura:

I’m grateful for your concern, Mike, but am hesitant because of some vascular issues in my family that might be hereditary. If I hadn’t had the virus, I definitely would have gone ahead and been vaccinated, but my personal risk analysis is telling me to stick with natural immunity. Also, my understanding is that the antibody test after one is recovered is not necessarily an accurate measure of one’s immune response once the virus is re-introduced. Thanks and be well!

Finally, a reader with a wicked sense of fun left me this gem…

From Doug:

I was just reading your latest article, "The Latest Government Fear Campaign," when I got to the part where you said that YOU HAVEN'T BEEN VACCINATED!!! Needless to say, I IMMEDIATELY stopped reading your unvaccinated words, erased the article from my tablet, wiped down the tablet with an anti-bacterial wipe, then bleach, then ran an antivirus program on said tablet. Fortunately, it came up clean, so I am hopeful that I avoided exposure to the Delta Variant that you are most assuredly carrying and exposing everyone to, YOU HEARTLESS, SELFISH, EVIL, TRUMP-LOVING, PLAGUE-CARRYING RADICAL RIGHT FASCIST!!!!

By the way, I went to the public library to write this comment to you because I didn't want to expose my device to your plague. Pretty smart, huh?

From Laura:

You can’t be too careful! Uh-oh, you’re reading my unvaccinated words again.

Mike Huckabee

In Tuesday’s election, Californians went for the “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” option, and Gov. Gavin Newsom easily escaped being replaced by about 67-33%. It was disappointing but hardly unexpected, as the recall was always a longshot. That’s why we have the saying, “You can’t fix…California.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/the-nos-have-it-gov-gavin-newsom-survives-in-california-recall-election

Newsom claimed that what the election was about was, "We said yes to science, yes to vaccines, yes to ending this pandemic." Funny, just one day before, he was claiming that the election was about protecting “racial justice” by not replacing the wealthy white guy with a black man who grew up poor.

Also, his policies of shutting down churches while allowing BLM protests, closing neighborhood restaurants while he dined in fancy French restaurants and let Hollywood productions set up big catering stations, and forcing other people’s kids to wear masks at summer camp while sending his son to one that didn’t require masking don’t exactly scream, “I care about science.”

Here’s a good analysis of the race and its likely aftermath from Joe Cunningham at Redstate. He expects Democrats to do what they always do: interpret this win as a mandate to inflict more disastrous, freedom-crushing policies that will eventually hurt them in the upcoming general election.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/09/15/gavin-newsoms-win-will-end-up-dragging-democrats-down-n443242

I expect that the immediate result will be that more people will decide California is beyond redemption and move out. But wherever you end up, please don’t forget what you came there to escape and vote for more Gavin Newsoms to ruin your new home. It’s bad enough that Texas has to deal with Austin now. They don’t need “Beto” O’Rourke actually getting elected to anything important.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

Today is the recall election on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, but voting has already been underway for a while. And apparently, so has “voting.” While I’d love to report that Californians have come to their senses, some conservatives are concerned that the effort will fail, not because voters want to keep Newsom (“Thank you, sir, may I have another?!”) but because the heavily-entrenched Democrats have made election cheating so easy.

Wayne Allen Root is one of those people. He describes the many ways in which California Dems have made vote fraud simpler than ordering a pizza online.

https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2021/09/12/why-larry-elder-will-win-the-california-recall-election--but-he-will-lose-a-rigged-election-just-like-trump-n2595719

To back him up, here are two reports from KTLA-TV, the first about multiple people in a Republican district in the San Fernando Valley showing up to vote and finding that someone had already cast ballots in their names.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/san-fernando-valley-residents-have-trouble-casting-recall-ballots/

They were allowed to cast provisional ballots, but I’m curious as to whether someone else had actually voted in their names, and if so, what happens to those ballots? Can they be identified and disqualified? If not, and the fraudulent vote is also counted and cancels out the real provisional vote, then fraud DISENFRANCHISED a legitimate voter. I thought the Dems were all about preventing voters from being disenfranchised.

The other story is about police in Torrance arresting a known felon who was found passed out in his car in a 7-11 parking lot. The car contained a loaded firearm, meth and other drugs, thousands of pieces of mail, multiple driver’s licenses and credit cards in various people’s names, and approximately 300 recall ballots. This story said that police “reminded community members to report any suspicious election activity.” I think this would qualify, even by California standards.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/300-recall-ballots-drugs-multiple-drivers-licenses-found-in-vehicle-of-passed-out-felon-torrance-police/amp/

However, some conservative organizations are bracing to fight any attempts at fraud and asking people to report suspicious activity. You can find that information here:

https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2021/09/12/ca-recall-so-it-begins-woodland-hills-voters-report-trouble-casting-ballots-n441999

I don’t think it’s impossible for the recall effort to succeed, but it will take all fed-up California voters turning out and making their voices heard. Please don’t sit on the couch and then complain on Wednesday that not enough people voted.

Meanwhile, the California campaigning is still going strong and taking some unusual twists. Actress Rose McGowan already risked her Hollywood career by daring to go public with her sexual assault allegations against movie mogul and Democrat mega-backer Harvey Weinstein. She once again proved that she refuses to bow to industry groupthink by appearing with GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder over the weekend.

McGowan said she is no longer a Democrat and she rejects people who want us to micro-label each other by race and views. She said she may disagree with Elder on some policies, but he’s “the better candidate and the better man.” Her message to the state, the voters and the media was “Be human first, vote for humanity."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rose-mcgowan-calls-out-blm-during-event-with-larry-elder

McGowan also cautioned those who attack Elder as not really being black because he disagrees with Black Lives Matter to "understand who it's coming from and that he might just know more than you, living in a different skin."

Of course, McGowan might also have another reason for not supporting Gov. Gavin Newsom or the Democrats in general: she claimed recently that his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom called her when she was about to go public about Weinstein’s serial sex crimes and told her that Clinton fixer and Weinstein’s then-attorney David Boies wanted to know what it would take to “make her happy.” Fortunately, she refused to keep quiet and she got what she wanted anyway: Weinstein is currently in prison.

In other Elder campaign news, two Venice neighborhood council board members who were showing Elder around a homeless camp have filed hate crime charges with the LAPD against leftist protesters who showed up and threw things and yelled sexist and racist slurs. One woman wearing a gorilla mask threw an egg that narrowly missed Elder.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/venice-neighborhood-councilors-file-hate-crime-complaint-against-larry-elders-attackers_3993026.html

Elder and other conservatives have pointed out that if that had been a conservative activist attacking a black Democrat, it would make 24/7 news about systemic racism and racist Republicans, but instead, there’s been barely a peep from local liberal media outlets that would rather fill space with ridiculous articles about Elder being a black white supremacist.

If you think that sounds insane, congratulations, you’re sane. But it’s just the latest leftist insanity on race. Check out these CNN talking heads pushing the idea that even after America becomes a majority-minority nation, it will still be plagued by white supremacy because of all the black and brown white supremacists. I kid you not.

https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/09/13/cnn-sees-a-racist-future-full-of-nonwhite-white-supremacists-n442101

The racially-obsessed left has become like a Dave Chappelle sketch in real life. (Warning: Lots of “N-words” in this brutally satirical sketch that would never be allowed to air today.)

https://youtu.be/7HcQ87RFN5k

Finally, I’m going to wrap up this wrap-up of California recall stories with our Headline of the Day, from Fox News:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dont-let-california-become-texas-newsom-says-as-residents-businesses-flee

“Don’t Let California become Texas, Newsom says – as residents, businesses flee” (to Texas.)

Mike Huckabee

In yesterday’s newsletter, we discussed the way fear has been used to make Americans do what their government wants them to do, most recently to get vaccinated (two or maybe even three times, whether they need it or not) for COVID-19. Staff writer Laura Ainsworth related how she had just witnessed firsthand the cold, irrational fear someone was experiencing just from being in the same room with an unvaccinated person. This was the case even though he knew the unvaccinated person had previously had COVID, which appears to provide far better immunity, especially against variants, than the vaccines do.

So, would it surprise you to know that according to a new Scott Rasmussen poll, a majority of Democrat voters believe that Trump supporters and unvaccinated Americans pose a bigger threat to the nation than either the Taliban or China? I am not kidding. That’s what it’s like on Planet Democrat, now that a relentless and apparently successful propaganda campaign has been waged against both of these groups. These days, who needs a terrorist attack aided and abetted by the Taliban when you can feel terror just from the presence of an unvaccinated neighbor or friend? Even when that neighbor or friend has already recovered from COVID and has virtually zero chance of giving it to anyone.

The poll is real. Breakdown at the link.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/democrats-believe-trump-supporters-and-unvaccinated-pose-bigger-threat

I’m reminded of that infamous video of Maxine Waters urging people to harass former Trump administration officials and “tell them they’re not welcome.” The unvaccinated, even those with natural immunity (which, for some reason, doesn’t count), are now in that category of deplorables as well. Socially aware people see the unvaccinated as ignorant, extremist, irresponsible, uncaring, and dangerous. Never mind that they might have a heart condition, clotting disorder, autoimmune disease or...pregnancy, or that about 40 percent of health care workers are vaccine-hesitant. If “those people” don’t worship at the altar of Dr. Fauci, they’re to be feared and marginalized, barred from as much of public life as possible.

Governments know: nothing motivates the populace to do what you want more than fear. And, at least among Democrats, this fear campaign is working. Ironically, that’s a little scary.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

The report from the 2020 Maricopa County election canvass conducted by Liz Harris of the Voter Integrity Project and sponsored by Arizona Senate Republicans, which we brought to you last week, has drawn "fact"-checkers like a picnic draws ants, so let’s take a look.

Keep in mind that, as we pointed out in our original commentary, this two-month effort was NOT part of the official audit currently going on in Maricopa County. The huge, official one has no set deadline and keeps stretching into the future because, according to auditors, they haven’t been getting cooperation from either state officials or Dominion Voting Systems, who have withheld materials the auditors say they need. That’s something we know is true.

So, we just have to cool our heels, as the official report will take as long as it takes. In the meantime, the Voter Integrity Project did their own canvass of just mail-in votes. Something else we know is true: the sudden and widespread implementation of mail-in balloting, in itself, doesn’t prove cheating but sure does make it easier. And, the easier it is to cheat and the more difficult it is to detect, the more likely there is to BE cheating. The key question is, “How MUCH cheating?”

One story we linked to, from THE GATEWAY PUNDIT, had a headline we made clear was theirs, not ours, as it out-and-out said that “Election steal is now confirmed.” We advised readers to look at the story and come to their own conclusions, which I assume they did.

One thing we credited these canvassers with was transparency. It’s possible to go back and see their methodology. It was made clear that, unlike the enormous official audit, this was another one of those attempts to extrapolate from a limited sample. For example, from the 330 registered voters –- 34 percent of their total sample –- who claimed they had voted but whose votes couldn't be unaccounted for, they came up with an estimate, county-wide, of 173,104 votes that were cast but not counted.

Opinion writer Laurie Roberts at the ARIZONA REPUBLIC predictably made fun of the canvass for its process of statistical sampling and the “conspiracy crowd” that was “abuzz with excitement” about it.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2021/09/09/canvass-report-arizonas-election-out-and-is-indeed-shocking/8258447002/

Never mind that at least going from what 34 percent of voters told them, those people didn’t have their mail-in votes counted. That’s something to LOOK INTO, we would think, not dismiss as, in Roberts’ words, “laughably ridiculous.” Like a poll, this type of study has a margin of error, sometimes a pretty big one, but it’s invaluable to examine a process and help identify potential problems. The all-encompassing audit currently underway should eventually either confirm these findings or show them to be wrong. That’s why we wait.

As for “ghost” voting --- mail-in ballots cast by people that residents said they didn’t know or had moved away --- the same extrapolating was done. Canvassers looking at a sample of voters ended up talking with 164 people who told them this had happened. They extrapolated from that number to get their rough estimate of 96,389 “ghost” votes counted county-wide.

Even so, Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem is premature in saying the statewide election should be decertified. He’s running for secretary of state and wants to show how proactive he is, but we’re not there yet. Quite possibly we will be after the full audit is complete, but not now. They can’t decertify with only rough estimates based on statistical samples. Still, this does give us a pretty good idea of what probably happened.

“Our questions were really simple,” Harris said. What method did you use to vote? Did you receive extra ballots? What did you do with those extra ballots? How many registered voters are supposed to be here, and how many actually voted? Not once do we ask who the person voted for.”

See her interviewed by Steve Bannon here.

https://www.worldtribune.com/decertify-maricopa-county-canvas-found-173000-lost-votes-96000-ghost-votes/

The canvassers did run into trouble identifying a couple of properties as vacant lots. One of these appears to be a mistake; there’s actually a house with a pool at that address. The other, which was unfortunately used in a cover photo for the report –- inviting ridicule –- is something we’re checking into. There’s data from 2019 showing that it was a mobile home park and from 2021 showing it to be vacant lot, under construction. So, was anyone at that address actually registered to vote at the time of the 2020 election? We’re not sure; it’s possible. But the issue with that one property is just a small part of the big picture this canvass paints, the one that “debunkers” desperately want to turn your attention from.

As Bannon says of Liz during the interview, “She never states here that this is definitive or final. But this is why you need a full canvass to be part of a full forensic audit.”

Exactly. But that doesn’t matter to agenda-driven “fact”-checkers determined to discredit any challenge to the 2020 election. They’re jumping all over this as if it WERE intended to be a definitive accounting. That’s what Lead Stories does --- they criticize Harris for using only “rough reckoning,” when, of course, that’s all it’s intended to be and, given realistic budget restraints, all it really CAN be.

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/09/fact-check-arizona-republicans-estimates-do-not-document-173104-lost-votes.html

“Has an Arizona Republican’s door-knocking campaign and back-of-the-envelope estimate proved there were “173,104 lost votes and 96,389 ‘ghost’ votes in Maricopa County’s 2020 election,” asks Dean Miller. “No, that’s not true.” The problem with his critique is that Harris doesn’t claim her canvass IS proof of those exact counts.

Lead Stories also points out that there are problems when people are just asked for their responses, because they don’t always answer accurately. And that is right; people might not want to tell the truth, or they might not remember correctly. This is the same problem pollsters have. But, again, Harris’ report is not intended to provide a perfect, definitive vote count, just an idea of how bad the problems were with all those mail-in ballots in 2020. In a state with a tiny margin of “victory” of just over 10,000 votes, these problems essentially render the real election outcome unknown. For this reason, the report proposes banning mail-in voting.

Harris did tweet that those who “knew the election was stolen” and had been ridiculed as conspiracy theorists should feel vindicated, and it would have been better for her to hold off on that until the official audit is done. Similarly, GATEWAY PUNDIT should not have oversold this as they did. As bad as the results look, it’s not time to decertify the Arizona election at this point, which is not to say that we won’t get there.

But to the “fact”-checkers: You dissected Harris’ study so you could say she didn’t “prove” those numbers when she wasn’t even claiming to –- and, of course, so you could get in some digs at the right. We think, though, that your main goal here was to pull focus from the real take-away, which is that there are massive problems with mail-in ballots and even more reasons to suspect the Biden win in razor-close Arizona.

Maricopa County canvassing uncovers huge discrepancies

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer

Question: What’s the most sure-fire strategy to get people to behave the way you want them to?

Answer: Scare them half to death.

And that’s really how the Democrats roll in the 21st century, citing so-called threats ranging from climate change to right-wing “insurrection,” though the strategy of cultivating fear certainly isn’t new. As H. L. Mencken said in the last century, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

There seems to be some discrepancy as to whether Mencken said “all of them imaginary” or “most of them imaginary.” Given the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, he would have been smarter to say “most.” This virus is certainly not imaginary; it’s all too real and can cause everything from mild, even unnoticeable symptoms to consignment to a ventilator and eventual death in an ICU. It seems almost everyone knows at least someone who has died of this disease, though most of those have been elderly or affected by underlying health problems such as obesity or diabetes. Some of us, including me, are grieving for friends and family and even beloved entertainers who have died. I don’t mean to make light of the impact of this virus.

But since the vaccines came along, the government has been working overtime to make sure everyone gets “the jab” (or, in most cases, two or more jabs). Radio ads produced by the CDC call “Delta” the “new, more dangerous variant,” essentially pointing to a new hobgoblin, even though we don’t have evidence that it’s more deadly, just more easily transmissible. (But, hey, if the Delta variant isn’t deadlier, the NEXT variant to come along surely will be.) The ads say vaccines offer us “our best chance to get back to normal." Right.

The President himself is doing everything he can –- ethical or not, constitutional or not –- to get everyone vaccinated. Yet the protection provided by vaccines is so sketchy that many vaccinated people are still going around in masks.

But stories about hospitals filling up with unvaccinated people in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” turned out to be fake news. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, there are 15 academic studies showing the superiority of natural immunity, including the latest out of Israel showing natural immunity to be far more effective than that produced by the vaccines. Details of that study are here.

https://fee.org/articles/harvard-epidemiologist-says-the-case-for-covid-vaccine-passports-was-just-demolished/

But it doesn’t matter to apostles of Dr. Fauci terrified of the threat posed by the unvaccinated, who must now be fired from their jobs and generally treated as lepers, no matter what the reason for their personal choice not to get jabbed.

Think I’m exaggerating the fear? I saw it firsthand in an incident over the weekend and realized the emotional power of government propaganda. Here’s what happened, with some of the conversation condensed but, I swear, including these exact words. It got intense...

On Saturday, I went to the home of someone who had graciously allowed me to use his striking interiors for a photo shoot. (He’s probably in his 50s, not obese, with no underlying health problems that I’m aware of.) I had met him a couple of times before, but he didn’t know my politics and certainly didn’t know I’m a news writer/researcher for a conservative commentator. I think our conversation would have gone even more disastrously if he had.

His first question when I walked in was, “How are you feeling?,” as in, “Have any covid symptoms?”

Me: “I’m feeling great. And don’t be concerned --- I’ve already have covid.”

Him: “Okay, but you’ve been vaccinated, right?”

Me: “No...I’ve been doing a lot of study on this and choose to rely on my natural immunity.”

Him: (moving across the room) “What??? You mean, you’re NOT VACCINATED???

Me: No, in fact, it’s looking as though natural immunity might be way better than the vaccines---

Him: (horrified) But you didn’t get vaccinated TOO??? I just ASSUMED someone like YOU would be VACCINATED!! Are you an ANTI-VAXXER???

Me: No, not at all. I traveled to India just a few years back and had to get some shots, and that was fine with me. But with covid, there are some studies---

Him: That’s just your OPINION!

Me: Well, opinion based on what I’ve been able to find out---

Him: It seems like most of the people who don’t want the vaccines are evangelical Christians!

Me: Actually, the groups with the greatest percentage of unvaccinated are Ph.D.’s and health care workers.

Him: I BELIEVE Dr. Fauci!! And I don’t think I can have an unvaccinated person in my house!

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. This man was freaking out over the fact that I wasn’t vaccinated, even though I’d had the virus months ago and was perfectly fine. My photographer was already there to do the shoot and had been setting up. I’d spent hours getting ready for this and was on a deadline to get these pictures. And this homeowner was so fearful of the unvaxxed, he was about to kick us out of his house.

What he decided to do instead of banishing us was leave the house himself, with his wife, and they went out to a restaurant for dinner, where, presumably, there were people who hadn’t been vaccinated, taking off their masks to eat. They didn’t come home till after we had left. I never said fear was rational. Nothing about this makes sense.

This is really the first time I’ve personally witnessed such an irrational expression of fear. I’ve seen images on TV, of course: Democrats screaming at the sky when Trump got elected and leftist women donning “Handmaid’s Tale” garb out of genuine terror of what he was going to do to women’s rights. But of course, those women had nothing to fear but fear itself. Their fear was based on nothing. They had been brainwashed to be terrified of Trump.

So it is now with the campaign against the unvaccinated. They (we) are "those" people.

Whatever the reason for this one-size-fits-all insistence on everyone getting these vaccines --- I won’t speculate here, but it’s obviously not to “get back to normal” --- it is ruining some people’s lives. I’d like to leave you with this video made by an ethics professor at Ontario’s Huron University College, Dr. Julie Ponesse, just before she was fired after 20 years for not following their new COVID-19 vaccination mandate. In it, she explains that coercing someone (like her) into a medical procedure is...not ethical.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/vaccine-mandate-ethics-professor-video

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

Elsewhere today, we linked to a Fox News article about precisely what’s in the new Texas election integrity law that Democrats are howling about. But for those who have subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, this is also worth a read.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-really-in-the-texas-voting-law-elections-republicans-11630533819

The Journal editorial board talks about what’s in the law, but also explains why the hysterical attacks on it as “voter suppression” are ludicrous. For instance, while 24-hour voting is banned, since letting people drop off ballots at 3 a.m. makes fraud easier, in some cases, voting hours are actually expanded. 24-hour voting and drive-in voting are banned (except the latter is okay for disabled people), but they were only allowed for the first time last year due to the pandemic.

The editors also point out that in a previous case in Georgia, when the ACLU argued that expecting people to buy a stamp to mail in their ballots was an “unconstitutional poll tax,” the judges said that “bordered on the frivolous.” I’d say that like most leftists these days, it showed no respect for borders at all.

Just bear in mind that when everything Biden has touched, from the border to the economy, has turned into a blazing dumpster fire, and he’s just surrendered Afghanistan and $85 billion worth of weaponry to the Taliban on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, while leaving unknown numbers of Americans and allies behind in the process, it’s not surprising that the Democrats are desperate to distract the public with anything else.

I guess, “Look, Texas is securing elections and protecting babies’ lives! GET ‘EM!!” is the best they can come up with.

Mike Huckabee

Showing the deep-seated love of “DEMOCRACY” for which the left has become famous lately, leftist agitators disrupted California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder’s public appearances Wednesday, shooting pellet guns at his security detail. And one “activist” (that’s the current leftst term for “thug”) in a gorilla mask rode by on a bicycle and tried to throw eggs at Elder, but missed.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/larry-elder-says-his-security-details-was-hit-by-pellet-gun-while-campaigning

Ed Driscoll at Instapundit noted that this is now the Los Angeles Times headlined that story: “Larry Elder cuts short Venice homeless encampment tour after hostile reception.” Notice how it’s obviously meant to imply that Elder is unpopular, not that he was targeted by a handful of violent radicals.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/472670/

Now, try to imagine the L.A. Times headline if a conservative activist in a GORILLA (!!) mask had thrown eggs at a Democrat who was seeking to become the first black Governor of California. Think maybe the word “racist” would’ve been in that headline somewhere?

Conservative media seems to have noticed the glaring double standard and the deafening silence from “progressives”…

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/09/09/whether-its-racism-mental-illness-or-intentional-progressives-silence-on-the-larry-elder-attack-is-deafening-n440203

Mike Huckabee

The latest YouGov/Economist poll shows President Biden’s approval rating sinking so low, he’s almost reaching the approval levels of used car salesmen, cockroaches and Congress.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/09/08/the-most-brutal-poll-of-bidens-presidency-is-released-shows-reality-has-undoubtedly-set-in-n439877

Biden’s approval rating is down to 39%, a 6-point drop just from last week. It’s only that high because he still has 77% approval of Democrats (many of whom I believe are lying to the pollsters), 65% approval of blacks and 53% approval of women with degrees (I can only imagine what those degrees are in and where they came from.)

That’s offset by an approval rating of 42% among women in general, 36% among men, 41% of Hispanics, 43% of registered voters, 28% of white men with no degree (no surprise, since this Administration thinks working class white males are a bigger threat than radical Islamic terrorists), 35% of Independents and a whopping 9% of Republicans.

Even worse for a guy whose only real campaign issue was that he was the anti-Trump and would unite the country in bipartisan unity, when asked, “Do you believe Biden will be able to bring the country together?,” only 17% said yes.

I think that’s unfair. At the rate his approval numbers are cratering, I think it won’t be long before almost all of the country will be united in their opinion of him.

Mike Huckabee

Thursday morning, the Labor Department reported that 310,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, the lowest number since the pandemic began.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/initial-jobless-claims-pandemic-era-low-september-4

Meanwhile, there is much wailing coming from the left over the fact that federal expanded unemployment benefits that were paying people more to stay home than to work have now expired. There are anguished cries of “What will people do to survive?!,” usually not followed by the suggestion that they take one of the 10 million job openings that are going unfilled.

To be clear: I don’t begrudge help to anyone who can’t work and really needs it. But it’s not the government’s job to keep paying able-bodied people to sit on their couches, which is driving small business owners out of business and saddling our grandchildren with unsustainable debt.

And while this won’t come as any surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to economic numbers over the past few months, a new study confirms that states that ended the expanded unemployment benefits early enjoyed twice as much job growth as states that kept paying them.

https://fee.org/articles/new-study-vindicates-states-that-canceled-expanded-unemployment-welfare-early/

The Mercatus Center researchers said these results are consistent with a long and extensive economic literature finding that higher unemployment benefits that essentially subsidize joblessness tend to discourage employment, whereas ending them “appears to motivate more workers to become employed.”

That conclusion would also be consistent with having at least two brain cells to rub together.

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

A reader of our newsletter, to be identified for our purpose here merely as Carl, left us a phone message after reading Thursday’s story, “Maricopa County canvassing uncovers huge discrepancies.” This reader had called with firsthand knowledge of the same type of ballot “discrepancies” in Maricopa County that canvassers had found.

To set the scene for what he told us, we’d first like to call attention to an interview on Stephen Colbert’s late-night “comedy” show –- not so much what Colbert had to say (no surprises there) as what guest Chris Wallace contributed to the discussion. The interview was part of the promotion for Chris’ new book on 9/11, which I’m sure is a great read. To be clear, I bring attention to this not to single out Chris Wallace specifically, but rather to highlight the dismissal with which legitimate concerns about the election are typically received.

Let's start with how Colbert phrases his question: “I’m wondering whether you and your fellow Sunday morning guys out there who are doin’ the Sunday shows, talkin’ about the week, if you ever feel like you shouldn’t have on people who have the irrational belief that the last election...” (Pause for predictable applause from Colbert’s audience.) “...the people who are cynically –- and I know you’ve held these guys’ feet to the fire; I don’t want to suggest that you haven’t pushed back; you have, quite famously –- but have you ever seen anything so cynical in Washington, DC, than...people saying things they know aren’t true, uh, that they KNOW has to have lasting damage on our democracy, coming on TV and saying these things with a straight face?”

This is where Perry Mason would rise and say “Objection, leading the witness.” But leading questions ARE asked in court, at least whenever opposing counsel is asleep and they can be gotten away with, because they work. The same holds true in TV studios, and this one worked here, setting the tone for the whole exchange. If you have a strong stomach, hear it all at the link.

https://www.toddstarnes.com/media/chris-wallace-d-fox-i-dont-frankly-wanna-hear-their-election-was-stolen-crap/

I debated whether or not to provide a full transcript of the conversation, since the video is available, but I think it’s instructive to see at least a part of it in print. So here’s a condensed version, starting where Chris answers the above question from Colbert:

“I have never seen this...I’ve been in Washington 40 years, so I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff [chuckle], but nothing like this, where --- and, you know, someone would say to me, ‘Well, are they delusional?’ No --- well, maybe some of them are --- but what’s worse, I think some of them have cynically decided, because of the Trump base, because they don’t want to get crosswise with the former President, they’re gonna say something they know is not true. Now, I don’t believe you’re just gonna sit there and say, ‘I’m not gonna have them on. But if I’m gonna have them on, I’m gonna hold them to account, over and over, about, you know, ‘what about, you know, this election, what about --- I’ve said this to many of them, ‘Is Joe Biden the duly-elected President of the United States, and they’ll say ‘Well, he’s the President,’ and I’ll say ‘No, no, was he elected fair and square?’ So, we go back on this, and I don’t let it pass...”

More: “There are plenty of people who were the leaders in the Congress who were challenging [the election] that I just have not had on the show ever since then, and have purposefully not had on the show, because I frankly don’t wanna hear their crap. But having said that, there are some leaders that you have to ask them questions. There are people in leadership and the Senate and I won’t let them come on without putting them through the wringer.”

Colbert interjects at this point, referring to such concerns as ‘garbage.” Wallace segues into January 6, “one of the worst days,” as he watched “this mob coming to the cathedral of our democracy.” “I was sickened,” he says, to applause. Colbert goes on to say that anyone who isn’t “wiling to stand up for that truth” –- I guess he means the “truth” that Biden was duly elected –- should be “DISQUALIFIED to be in the public sphere.” (!!!) He says that appearing on those Sunday shows is of value to such people because it helps them “promulgate that lie.”

“Does it worry you,” he asks Chris, “that you have given legitimacy to people who have abdicated all public responsibility?” (Again, where's Perry Mason when you need him?)

Chris responds that there are members of Congress who have been the leaders on that argument whom he just has deliberately not had on the show, “ever since then.” He says it was because he “frankly, didn’t want to hear their crap.” (This is followed by predictable audience cheers and applause.)

He goes on to say there are certain ones you have to have on, “but I won’t let ‘em come on without putting ‘em through the wringer.” That was pretty much the end of the interview, except for a book plug, and then on to the commercial break, which should have been for Pepto-Bismol.

So, Chris Wallace said he essentially gives his guests a litmus test, and it’s not enough for them to say, “Biden is the President.” It SHOULD be enough, but no –- the guest has to say that, yes, Biden was elected “fair and square,” even though it’s not known for sure that he was. We do not have definitive proof that the election was “stolen,” either, but after known problems with mass mail-in balloting in 2020, we have good reason to call for audits, and this does not make us “cynical,” "irrational" or “delusional.” It certainly does not mean that we "lie." Likewise, fact-based observations that there were problems with the last election that need to be fixed or that elections need to be more transparent are not “garbage” or “crap,” and to suggest this is offensive and insulting to millions of intelligent and informed people.

Such observations are not made to stay in good with “Trump’s base.” They are made because there are valid reasons for concern. Concerned Americans want to make sure we can TRUST the system, and maintaining that trust is PRO-democracy --- much more pro-democracy than pulling the curtain over the election and saying, “You have to talk about this in a certain way or you can’t participate in public life.”

Indeed, though I strongly and repeatedly condemned the breach of the Capitol Building, it's easy to understand why it happened. People were fed up because no one, not even the courts, would take their concerns seriously, saying that whatever the truth, the issue was "moot."

So, back to Carl. (Remember Carl?) Our commentary on Maricopa County sparked him to call and tell us about his niece, who moved from Maricopa County to Florida ten years ago. She found out something very interesting this year when a jury summons from Maricopa County was forwarded to her. She received this because they still had her on the Maricopa County voter rolls.

And the records showed her as having “voted” in the 2020 election.

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, President Biden gave what many commentators are describing as the most disturbing, dictatorial speech ever given by an American President. I’m so angry about this speech that I’m glad I don’t have to describe it in detail, since the writer Bonchie at Redstate.com did it so well for me:

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/09/09/joe-biden-threatens-the-unvaccinated-and-announces-his-unconstitutional-vaccine-mandate-in-disturbing-dictatorial-speech-n440634

Stacey Lennox at PJ Media also has a good rundown…

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/09/09/breaking-joe-biden-unveils-authoritarian-plan-to-defeat-covid-19-blames-the-unvaccinated-n1477304

And Lincoln Brown has some pointed questions about it…

https://pjmedia.com/columns/lincolnbrown/2021/09/10/mr-president-a-few-questions-n1477380

The President who didn’t dare say “boo” to the Taliban attacked the “freedom and personal choice” of tens of millions of Americans who are hesitant to get vaccinated for COVID, darkly warning that his “patience is wearing thin” with them. The man who, as a candidate and as recently as six weeks ago, rejected vaccine mandates…

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/09/biden-proved-today-what-liars-they-are-with-vaccine-mandate-n440681

declared that he would impose a draconian mandate on both government and private sector employees, including every business with more than 100 workers, forcing them to force their workers to be vaccinated or be tested weekly. Considering businesses are already having trouble finding workers, what would it do to the economy if millions of workers simply refused to show up and comply? Particularly since that includes a large percentage of healthcare workers.

Biden also spat on the entire idea of federalism by warning that if any state Governors opposed him, he would use his powers to “get them out of the way.”

I know he’s been acting more and more like King Lear lately, but someone needs to tell him he’s not a king, and he doesn’t rule by Divine Right. He’s also not Tony Soprano. And of this writing, 14 Governors have already announced plans to sue the second he tries to impose this.

Bear in mind, I’m only talking about the parts that blatantly overstepped his powers, and not even the parts that defied logic, like saying, “We’re going to protect the vaccinated from unvaccinated co-workers” (if vaccines work, why would the vaccinated be threatened? It sounds as if he’s saying vaccination is useless while attacking anyone who thinks that.) Or claiming that GOP officials are actively working to undermine the fight against COVID and not encouraging people to get vaccinated. That’s not merely a lie, it’s a slanderous lie. The Governors he attacks most often, DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas, are both vaccinated, both strongly encourage vaccination, and they’ve both done a far better job of distributing vaccines than just about any blue state.

I’m stunned by the openly authoritarian tone of this speech. For four years, the left railed that Trump was a dictator, he was “literally Hitler,” just for using his Constitutional authority to enact his agenda. And yet they’re cheering this insane power grab, with Biden angrily dictating to private businesses, state officials and individual citizens that they will do what he says and inject something into their bodies that they don’t want injected, or else.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/intense-mixed-reactions-biden-anger-at-the-unvaccinated

If Afghanistan didn’t convince Americans, this should: he needs to resign, NOW. I’m sure a lot of Republicans would agree, as both GOP Governors and Congress members are already declaring Biden’s threats and mandates to be blatantly unconstitutional, calling him the wannabe dictator that the left falsely accused Trump of being, and prepping to fight him in court and Congress.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-respond-to-vaccine-mandates-issued-by-biden-absolutely-unconstitutional

That rising spirit of resistance to government overreach may be the only silver lining to this toxic cloud. To be clear: I’ve been quite open that I’m vaccinated myself, and I think people should be vaccinated, but it’s not the government’s place to force it on anyone (the “My body, my choice” crowd thinks that only applies to abortion, which actually destroys someone else’s body.) And this is such an unprecedented abuse of power that there’s no way it will stand.

But Brandon Morse argues that it will serve the left’s political aims because when the Supreme Court inevitably throws it out, that will give Democrats the opening to fire up their crazy base by claiming the conservative court wants people to DIE and the only solution is to expand and pack the Court, and so we’re back to that end-run around the Constitution.

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2021/09/09/bidens-unconstitutional-promise-to-force-vaccinations-on-private-companies-is-hollow-but-dont-get-comfortable-n440604

If Biden and his cohorts spent as much time and effort figuring out how to get around the Taliban as they do trying to get around the Constitution, all our people would be out of Afghanistan by now.

Mike Huckabee

Thanks to Instapundit for directing readers to this article by George Korda of the Knoxville News Sentinel, who shows where much of the blame for vaccine hesitancy really lies. Maybe Biden doesn’t remember 2020 (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t), but he, his running mate, other top Democrats, their lackeys in the media from CNN to Newsweek, and even their godhead Dr. Fauci, all spent last year casting doubt on the safety and effectiveness of any vaccine developed under President Trump. Mr. Korda went through the archives and dug up some of their scare quotes about the unlikelihood of a vaccine being developed that quickly, and the safety risks if it were.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/george-korda/2021/09/09/mixed-messages-2020-may-behind-vaccine-resistance-george-korda-opinion/5751974001/

Biden seems to have forgotten that he was at the forefront of a Democratic Party/liberal media PR push to convince Americans that any vaccine that didn’t take years to test and wasn’t fully FDA-approved might be dangerous. Biden would like us to forget, too, since he and Harris got themselves jabbed with the Trump vaccine before they even took office, and then promptly started taking credit for it. Now, they’re demonizing anyone who might have the same doubts they were promoting less than a year ago.

Instead of attacking people who are skeptical of the vaccines, Biden might be more effective, and certainly more believable, if he’d come clean and say, “Look, I was just playing a cynical political game with the lives of 320 million Americans. So don’t distrust the vaccines. Just distrust anything I say.”

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

We’re saddened to report that longtime NBC “Today Show” weatherman and parade host Willard Scott died Saturday at 87. While he didn’t live long enough to wish himself a 100th birthday, he did pass away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.

https://www.today.com/news/willard-scott-dead-t152927?cid=sm_npd_td_tw_ma

Scott got his start in radio in the 1950s, and his early TV work included entertaining kids as Bozo the Clown. He was also the first person ever to play Ronald McDonald in local commercials in Washington (the character looked very different than he does now.)

Scott brought his love of clowning and entertaining people to his weatherman gig at NBC, for instance, dressing up as a groundhog on Groundhog Day, or famously, as Carmen Miranda to earn a $1000 donation to the USO (warning: there’s a photo of that at the link.) He took flak for it, but he told the New York Times, “People said I was a buffoon to do it. Well, all my life I’ve been a buffoon. That’s my act.”

Scott was deeply hurt when in 1989, Bryant Gumbel, the poster child for arrogant elitist anchormen, wrote a memo to NBC blaming Scott for a slip in ratings, and claiming he was holding “the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste. This guy is killing us and no one’s even trying to rein him in.” But a USA Today call-in poll found that 27,300 people liked Scott’s weather segments and only 854 sided with Gumbel.

I like to think of that as one of the first examples of the divide between the media elites and normal Americans that Gov. Huckabee wrote about in “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” and that eventually led to the rise of Trump (and the demonization of him and his voters by the pompous Bryant Gumbel types.) Scott once told Time, “If you watch, you’ll see that I am trying to weave a web of love. I want to make the whole country feel as if we are one. I may be a cornball, but I am me – not a sophisticated, slick New York wazoo act.” I wonder who he was referring to?

It reminds me of John Candy’s speech to the pompous Steve Martin character in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”: “You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you...but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing...I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.”

That was Willard Scott: the real article in a business of self-important, image-obsessed phonies. I don’t think “Today” viewers miss Bryant Gumbel any more than they miss Matt Lauer, but it’s definitely a duller show without Willard Scott, one of the last true American everymen allowed on network TV. Or as Instapundit quoted him from his 1982 autobiography:

“If you were to look at my resume, you’d see that I’m bald, I’m overweight, I don’t make all the smooth moves, and I dress like a slob. I take tremendous pride in the fact that I beat the system.”

Mike Huckabee

Did you ever see the classic episode of “Friends” where Ross bought a couch that he roped his friends into helping carry up a stairwell? Even after it was hopelessly stuck in place, he kept frantically yelling, “Pivot! Pivot!! PIV-OT!!!”

Well, that’s pretty much the Biden White House strategy for pivoting away from his Afghanistan catastrophe and getting us all to forget about the Americans and Afghan allies he left behind at the mercy of the Taliban.

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/09/07/biden-hoping-to-turn-the-page-on-afghanistan-stranded-americans-unavailable-for-comment-n439248

As Mike Miller of Redstate.com reports at the link, Biden’s staffers are hoping to “turn the page” on this “unrelenting summer” (Yeah, all these disasters must be the summer’s fault! No wonder Biden thinks the weather is America’s #1 threat.) They want the media to direct Americans' attention away from Afghanistan, the border, and all of Biden’s other self-inflicted disasters and get us to focus on the shiny object of his “domestic agenda.” That is, the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill (only about 23% of which will go to actual infrastructure) and the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion “expansion of the social safety net,” or as we critics more accurately call it, their government-bloating, socialist spending orgy. (And Sen. Joe Manchin may have just scuttled that, or at least $2.5 trillion worth of it.)

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/08/manchin-destroys-dems-dreams-delivers-his-ultimatum-on-3-5-trillion-spending-bill-n439628

Biden will also use try to distract us with an all-out battle against the new Texas abortion law protecting babies with a fetal heartbeat. He wouldn’t stand up and fight the Taliban when they were slaughtering post-born humans, but he will bravely go to battle to ensure the slaughter of pre-born humans.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ari-j-kaufman/2021/09/06/biden-seems-more-determined-to-fight-texas-than-the-taliban-n1476297

In this, he’ll have the help of big tech companies like GoDaddy and others that are trying to punish Texas for protecting life.

https://freebeacon.com/policy/big-tech-companies-mobilize-to-disrupt-texas-abortion-law/

Will this Penn & Teller-level feat of misdirection work? So far, it’s not going too well, even in deep blue New Jersey.

https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-bidens-trip-new-jersey-blows-face-protesters-special-greeting/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Nor is Biden reacting well to criticism. Or even coherently.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/08/biden-lies-his-head-off-and-attacks-americans-who-yelled-at-him-about-afghanistan-n439601

But as powerful and politically biased as the mass media are, it will undoubtedly work with some people, particularly those whose political prejudices make them predisposed toward wanting to be gaslighted. But I believe in Abe Lincoln's principle that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

I especially don’t believe that Americans can be distracted into forgetting the horrific scenes in Afghanistan, not when I fear more horror stories will continue to come pouring out; or that they will ever forget the shame of an American President leaving Americans behind enemy lines and running away while he took orders from a group of terrorists who gave a safe haven to the people who plotted 9/11.

I’m not a doctor, so I won’t make any guesses about the state of Joe Biden’s memory, but I can assure you that’s something that most Americans will never be able to forget, no matter how much they wish they could.

Mike Huckabee

The Democrat Protection Industry (i.e., the media) has another explosive document to ignore aside from those obtained by the Intercept suggesting that Dr. Fauci lied to the Senate about funding gain-of-function virus research in China. Now, they also have to try to bury the original Trump plan for pulling out of Afghanistan. It lays out the conditions the Taliban was required to meet, and the sequence of events that were to take place. Needless to say, closing Bagram Air Base and removing our troops before we evacuated our people was NOT Trump’s plan. That was entirely Biden’s.

https://www.westernjournal.com/document-nobodys-heard-confirms-afghanistan-disaster-bidens-alone/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Speaking of the media as the Democrat Protection Industry, the Media Research Center notes that none of the big three network newscasts mentioned the bombshell documents revealing that Dr. Anthony Fauci apparently lied to the Senate about the NIH under his leadership funding gain-of-function research on viruses in China, and the possibility that experiments he funded resulted in COVID-19.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2021/09/07/nets-censor-evidence-fauci-lied-about-funding-wuhan-covid

ABC and CBS had a more important story: attacking Texas for passing an election integrity law. ABC covered Fauci, but only to repeat his COVID scaremongering against attending Labor Day events and his touting of a third COVID booster shot (or is a fourth by now? It is in Israel.)

Meanwhile, CNN actually interviewed Fauci and didn’t even bring up the new revelations, instead using the segment to attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for refusing to impose draconian COVID measures.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/09/07/this-is-cnn-dr-fauci-gets-a-complete-pass-following-bombshell-report-on-wuhan-research-n1476618

Moral: When you rely on these sources for your news, you get all the news that fits the left’s agenda.

In a related story, the news networks might not be serious about holding Dr. Fauci accountable for lying to the Senate, but Sen. Rand Paul is.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/09/08/rand-paul--fauci-n2595510

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

Kevin D. Williamson has a thought-provoking article at National Review Online about why liberal media outlets like Rolling Stone that accuse conservatives of spreading “disinformation” are so quick to trumpet transparently fake stories, from Jussie Smollett to the Ivermectin overdose hoax.

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/like-a-rolling-stone/

They also give lots of attention to any dubious accusation against a Republican or a member of a class or group they don’t like, from fraternity members to Catholic school boys. Yet they ignore real offenses, such as rape and sexual abuse, if the accused is a Democrat or the victims aren’t in social classes they can relate to (poor urban blacks, say, instead of white college students), or the victims are in cities run by Democrats, so that reporting on the epidemic of that crime might reflect badly on their favored politicians.

Their “news coverage” isn’t about the facts, or what’s newsworthy. It’s about politics and social class and whether the story raises or lowers the status of their cultural enemies. For instance, the Ivermectin story made rural people (i.e., Trump voters who won’t take the COVID vaccine) sound like idiots, so they blasted it all over, and never mind that it was an easily-debunked hoax.

Another of many examples he cites: NPR will run countless stories on forgiving college loan debt, but nothing about school vouchers that would help poor, inner city blacks go to good schools and get out of poverty. And who works at NPR? Hint: it's not poor, inner city blacks.

A couple of quotes that will make you want to read more:

“These stories don’t get published because nobody knows how to prevent that from happening — these stories get published because nobody cares, because these stories serve the purposes of a particular narrow cultural agenda and flatter the prejudices of a particular narrow set of educated and generally affluent American professionals…A note to our progressive friends: This is your version of Q-Anon — falling for obvious, ridiculous lies because you want to believe the worst about people you hate.”

Mike Huckabee

We interrupt this newsletter, of necessity focused recently on the international threat created by Biden’s tragically inept pull-out from Afghanistan, to bring you some long-awaited 2020 election news.

It’s been ages since we’ve heard anything about the audit that’s been taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona. That’s the Phoenix area, one of the largest counties in the United States. (Keep in mind that Biden “won” the ENTIRE STATE of Arizona with only a 10,457-vote margin.) We’re still waiting for results of the official audit –- as we’ve reported, the auditors have run into snags in getting material they say they need to complete their work –- but canvassing efforts by a separate group have apparently been completed and what they reveal is stunning.

Of course, few news outlets will report this at all; we’ve gone to Joe Hoft at THE GATEWAY PUNDIT for his story. The headline from Wednesday says ‘ELECTION STEAL IS NOW CONFIRMED.” Let me make it clear, that’s their headline, not ours, but we are eager to take a look at what the results of this canvass tell us, and then we can all make up our own minds.

Again, this is not the official Maricopa County audit report, which is still going on and has no hard-and-fast deadline. It’s an independent effort conducted by Liz Harris and a group of volunteers, a “separate exercise” sponsored by the Arizona State Senate Republicans. That alone will give the Democrats the excuse they desperately need to dismiss this canvassing as partisan. But the methodology is transparent; volunteers went door to door, verifying the registration and voting information of thousands of voters, who make up a large statistical sample. And Democrats who scream “Partisanship!” need to understand something: this, I’m sure, is documented right down the line and can be verified for you, every bit of it. (You, on the other hand, still work tirelessly to avoid election transparency.) So read it and weep

Liz Harris tweeted this morning, “For all of those who knew the election was stolen, those who were ridiculed or labeled conspiracy theorists, you have been vindicated.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/breaking-huge-results-canvassing-arizona-released-election-steal-now-confirmed/

First, let’s look at “lost votes.” These are votes that were discarded and never counted even though people actually cast them. They were cast, primarily by mail, by American citizens living in Maricopa County, and yet there is no record of them at all. This canvass brought to light 173,104 lost votes.

Then, there are “ghost votes.” These are votes cast by someone other than the voter who was assigned that ballot. The example everyone knows is a vote cast for someone who is dead and should have been dropped off the voter rolls. Someone else had to cast that vote, but who? The number of ghost votes uncovered in this canvas was 96,389.

There were other irregularities as well, though not as many, including votes cast from addresses that turned out to be vacant lots and votes recorded from people who it turned out hadn’t actually voted. And when they went door to door to gather data on 2,897 mail-in voters, 98 of those people said they’d actually voted in person.

According to their Election Summary, “Two primary categories of ineligible ballots and election mishandling, encompassing hundreds of thousands of votes, render the 2020 General Election in Maricopa County UNCERTIFIABLE.”

The report talked as well about smaller, local elections that would have been impacted by this sort of inaccuracy. Ironically, those include the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (which oversees elections, haha), which, in District 1, was decided by a mere 403 votes. Their election for U.S. Senate was decided by 78,886 votes, still well within the margin here.

The Election Summary proposes a solution with which we wholeheartedly agree: BAN VOTE-BY-MAIL. “The U.S. Mail is not meant to be a secure transactional system,” they say. This is why we don’t send cash through the mail. How much is your vote worth to you? With that in mind, do you really want to send it through the mail, knowing all the things that can happen to it? They mention that “most first-world democracies, such as Germany, either ban Vote-by-Mail outright or place very heavy restrictions on its use.”

They also provide some historical perspective: “Until the late 1800s, all votes in all states were public information.” Our country went to secret ballot to stop a tremendous problem with voter fraud. (Before then, many people had been paid to vote a certain way, and it could be checked.) History is repeating itself now with mail-in balloting, “and again we have ridiculous and frivolous arguments being put forth against common-sense legislation to secure the rights of honest American citizens to vote and have their vote count.”

For more details on why and how this canvass was conducted, be sure and go to the link provided above and read “Canvass Overview.” All the issues they uncovered impacted an estimated 5.18 percent of mail-in votes, or about 88,215.

In a presidential election where statewide, the margin of “victory” was only a little over 10,000, it’s clear that reforms are necessary if we’re ever going to trust our system again. (In such a close race, with these discrepancies, I don’t think I need to tell you what the real outcome in Arizona likely was.) But, when Texas addresses the same issues with solid legislation, the bill is condemned by the left as racist and “anti-democracy.” It is nothing of the sort. (I would say that “anti-democracy” should apply to any policy that makes cheating easier or less detectable, because cheating causes real disenfranchisement.) Here's what is really in the new Texas law, just signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott…

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-election-law-what-is-in-it

This is all totally common sense, to make the voting process easier to monitor.

Of course, the new law will face legal challenges, but it should be looking pretty good when it gets to the Supreme Court. Let’s hope more states follow Texas’ lead and adopt election integrity legislation, not be bullied out of it.

Mike Huckabee

The leaves must already be falling because last week, the establishment media and their coterie of biased “factcheckers” stepped on a whole yard full of rakes.

I already told you about the so-called ““factchecker”” (I think in this case, he deserves double quotation marks) who set out to “debunk” the claim that President Biden checked his watch during the body transfer ceremony for the troops killed by his incompetence in Kabul (fact-check that all you like.) He was taken to the woodshed after it turned out he got the story wrong, and in FACT, Biden checked his watch multiple times.

But that was nothing compared to the Sideshow Bob-level rake face-pounding that many, many media liberals took over the great Ivermectin hoax. After podcaster Joe Rogan said he’d successfully treated his COVID with a combination of drugs that included Ivermectin, the media went nuts trying to smear Ivermectin as a horse deworming drug. This despite the fact that the drug, in different formulations, is approved for use for both livestock and humans, and is even recommended by the CDC to rid Afghan refugees of parasites. That doesn’t mean it has any proven effectiveness against COVID, but painting it as nothing but a horse dewormer is total “DISINFORMATION.”

But wait, it gets much worse. Oklahoma TV station KFOR quoted local doctor Jason McElyea as saying that rural folks familiar with Ivermectin were buying it in feed stores, overdosing and backing up ERs. This was picked up by Rolling Stone (notorious for being sued over its fact-free reporting) and presented as the local hospital being so filled with Ivermectin OD’s that they were turning away people with gunshot wounds. That story was credulously tweeted worldwide by such avatars of journalism as Rachel Maddow, to illustrate what pig-ignorant morons those rural Trump voters are.

https://www.westernjournal.com/rolling-stone-offers-pathetic-update-ivermectin-overdose-story-got-totally-wrong-bury-1-fact-killed/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Yeah, here’s the thing: there’s not a word of truth to any of that. The local hospital had to put out word that they aren’t overwhelmed, they’re not turning away anybody, they’d treated no patients for problems with Ivermectin, overdoses or otherwise, and that doctor hadn’t worked there in two months. In an “update” (but not a “correction”), Rolling Stone admitted there had been only 459 Ivermectin overdoses in the entire US in August, so it’s hardly likely they are straining any hospital’s ER.

And another rake in the face: the A.P. reported that 70% of calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center were from people who’d self-medicated with Ivermectin. Actually, only 2% of calls involved Ivermectin, and 70% of those (or only 1.4% of total calls) involved veterinary Ivermectin.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/09/06/another-hysterical-ivermectin-claim-bites-the-dust-and-garners-an-incredible-correction-n438626

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has a rundown of some of the Twitter Bluechecks (Maddow, The Hill newspaper, the Guardian, etc.) who trumpeted this fake story that a couple of phone calls could’ve easily disproved.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/where_are_the_apologies_for_spreading_harmful_misinformation_about_fake_ivermectin_overdoses_in_oklahoma_hospital.html

They’ve now given the American people even more reason to doubt what they read in the media about COVID treatments, so thanks for that. And note that not one of them has had a “Disinformation” label slapped on their false tweets or been banned by Twitter for promoting dangerous “disinformation,” the way any conservative would who simply tweeted a controversial opinion or unapproved fact. Glenn Greenwald has more to say about these people’s hypocrisy and shattered credibility, and about the new disinformation industry that’s trying to silence all of us for allegedly spreading disinformation.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/09/06/rolling-stone-pushed-fake-news-on-ivermectin-but-what-happened-next-was-even-worse-n438666

In conclusion, I notice that my newsletter/website has recently run afoul of more of these self-proclaimed “fact-checkers,” even though I seldom think they have a legitimate reason for it. Usually, it’s something like, “your story lacks context,” which generally means that we included the opposing view, but didn’t make it the dominant/only view or present their particular version of that view. I take these “factchecks” as a compliment; proof that they know more people are reading and trusting us, so they have to attack us. It reminds me of a great quote from Joe Bob Briggs: “People complain, ‘You may be right, but you’re not very nice. Remember when it was enough just to be right?”

Well, we try to be nice, too, but we also strive to be right. When we do make a mistake, unlike Rolling Stone, we own up to it and clearly correct it. But let me just point out that this is the first time we’ve even mentioned the yarn about the tidal wave of Ivermectin overdoses. We did point out last week that the idea that it was only for horses and other livestock was false, but we never fell for the fake story all those liberal outlets did. That’s because those of us with rural backgrounds can recognize horse droppings when we smell them.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we brought you the story of Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who went on FOX NEWS’ SPECIAL REPORT in an interview with Bret Baier to talk about the effort he was involved in to help Americans still trapped in Afghanistan. Trapped, stranded, held hostage, use whatever words you prefer.

If you missed the original interview, here it is. Check out some of the recent comments, too, some of which will renew your faith in the American spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKbWUxXTxlA

If you don’t know the story, people had started calling the congressman wanting help getting out, he said, or getting out their loved ones or people who had helped them in Afghanistan as interpreters, etc. There were 20 who needed evacuation, but after he made some phone calls, he found out they needed some government entity, such as the State Department, to sponsor their flight. That’s the only way a plane could get in. But no such entity, he said, would sponsor them.

But then he was told a member of Congress can sponsor a flight. For example, if the State Department wanted to stay out of it, knowing not to touch it, this would give them cover. (Remember that useful old phrase, “plausible deniability”?)

Rep. Mullin explained that he was asked to go along when the “Tier One” operators –- Special Forces people experienced in this sort of thing –- were repeatedly denied a flight in. They felt he, as a congressman, could be an asset. He had no military background himself, he said, and “wasn’t trying to be a cowboy.”

When they got to the airport, all they could do was circle, for an hour, and he thinks this was the doing of the State Department, “100 percent.” Five requests to land were denied. And during this time, they lost contact with one American citizen, her father and her two-year-old son, who had been slated for rescue along with her father and two-year-old son.

But now that you’re caught up, here’s something that’s been escaping attention in the American press but that looks to us to be potentially quite significant. During this interview, Rep. Mullin happened to mention, seemingly in passing, that he’d been told of a “very sensitive” upcoming visit on September 5 by both “Putin and the Chinese government.” Wait a minute --- China, Russia and the Taliban all getting together? What was that about?

We found no news reports specifically about a meeting on September 5, but several reports in the foreign press do describe an upcoming “celebration” for the Taliban’s new government. We found little in the American press on this, but according to a story in THE GATEWAY PUNDIT --- taking information that first appeared in AL-JAZEERA and Russia’s TASS NEWS –- the Taliban have just announced that they invited Turkey, China, Pakistan, Iran, Russia and Qatar to participate in a ceremony announcing their new government in Afghanistan.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/taliban-invites-russia-china-pakistan-iran-turkey-qatar-ceremony-announcing-new-government-afghanistan/

Apparently a representative for the Taliban gave the story to AL-JAZEERA on Monday, bragging that the Taliban would create “a regime that will be accepted by the global community and the Afghan people.” I suppose if the alternative is to be beheaded, you'll accept it, all right.

According to plan, the big international party to ring in the new official interim Taliban government will reportedly take place on...(drum roll, please)...September 11. (When else?) And if that weren’t in-your-face enough, four new ministers in this new government happen to be former Gitmo detainees who were traded for captured U.S. service member Bowe Bergdahl. The whole list of terrorists --- I mean government ministers and other officials --- is listed here.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/09/07/four-gitmo-detainees-released-in-berghdahl-swap-are-now-taliban-ministers-for-afghan-government-interim-government-will-be-officially-introduced-on-sept-11th/

Their statement reads, “The Islamic Emirate [NOTE: I think that’s what we’re supposed to call Afghanistan now if we want our Americans back] will take serious and effective steps towards protecting human rights, the rights of minorities as well as the rights of underprivileged groups within the framework of the demands of the sacred religion of Islam.” Never mind that the “framework” nullifies the entire first part of that sentence.

Here’s a write-up of the new government “inauguration” in ONE INDIA.

https://www.oneindia.com/international/taliban-finalises-new-govt-formation-in-afghanistan-invites-china-pakistan-russia-3307758.html?story=1

(Incidentally, we learned something while perusing ONE INDIA. We’ve all been hearing a lot from the administration lately about how the Taliban is not the same as the “real” terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network, but don’t believe it. They’re all the same.)

https://www.oneindia.com/india/ties-of-blood-why-there-is-no-separating-the-taliban-al-qaeda-and-haqqani-network-3308576.html?ref_medium=Desktop&ref_source=OI-EN&ref_campaign=Auto-Deep-Links&story=2

But back to our main story. This big celebratory “do” isn’t the only international meeting going on concerning Afghanistan. Here’s the write-up from Japanese news service ANI on the upcoming G7 foreign ministers’ meeting to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan, particularly as pertaining to human rights, although we can see from the above statement that the Taliban have that covered. Over 20 nations are expected to take part, including Russia and China, though they are not members of the G7. The extent of America’s participation in this meeting isn’t clear, although Secretary of State Tony Blinken said he would be traveling to Germany to co-host with the German foreign minister. Other foreign ministers will be joining online.

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/g7-foreign-ministers-meeting-on-afghanistan-expected-next-week20210905112540/

For what it’s worth, Russia is denying participation in the G7 meeting, according this report in REUTERS.

https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-denies-it-has-discussed-participation-g7-meeting-ifax-2021-09-05/

As there’s so little media coverage, my research staff and I are just feeling our way here. Putting the puzzle pieces together to get an idea of what’s really going on as alliances are forged in that part of the world, it's easy to feel like the blind men trying to describe an elephant. What we get in the media is just one tiny part. And the American press is strangely quiet about all this –- they want to move on and talk about vaccines and climate change, just as Biden does –- and we certainly can’t trust the administration to tell us, as we know they’ve been lying.

In fact, in an update to the Rep. Mullin rescue story, we’ve now learned that the White House actually blocked private rescue flights out of Afghanistan that would have landed in third countries. According to FOX NEWS, “the State Department explicitly stated that charter flights, even those containing American citizens, would not be allowed to land at Defense Department (DOD) airbases.” And as for who will be allowed to depart, including Americans, the Taliban are calling the shots.

Mullin isn’t the only one who’s been finding out about this.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/state-department-afghanistan-private-rescue-flights-leaked-email

Rep. Mullin returned for a must-see follow-up interview Tuesday evening on FOX NEWS PRIMETIME. He told host Rachel Campos-Duffy that embassies in that part of the world had been instructed by Washington DC not to assist his rescue party “in any way.” He said that the State Department’s assertion that the Taliban had been working with them to get people out is a lie.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6271373883001#sp=show-clips

He lays this all at the feet of President Biden, saying he never would have considered going over there if Biden hadn’t failed so spectacularly.

Right now, of course, there’s still one immediate concern, and it’s getting Americans evacuated. Six planes chartered by Glenn Beck’s charity, are still sitting on the tarmac in Mazar-i-Sharif. There are other planes as well, also grounded.

https://www.newsweek.com/taliban-holds-glenn-beck-groups-planes-least-100-americans-among-passengers-1626294

https://www.theblaze.com/news/glenn-beck-taliban-hostage-planes

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

It’s been challenging, to say the least, to find out what’s really going on in Afghanistan concerning the evacuation of Americans and our friends.

Unlike President Trump, who used to enjoy hanging out on the White House lawn and speaking off the cuff to answer reporters’ questions --- not that he got the credit he deserved for that --- President Biden’s White House prefers to “put a lid” on their commentary. If Biden doesn’t have it on a teleprompter to read, he simply shuffles off, stage left, if he can remember which way is left.

When that happens, it’s up to the Pentagon and the State Department to speak for him. But they’ve abdicated their responsibility as well. As Kyle Becker reported on Sunday, the White House has implemented a virtual news blackout. Good luck finding out anything from them.

https://beckernews.com/zero-chatter-from-the-white-house-on-u-s-hostage-crisis-as-bidens-media-blackout-continues-41340/

“There is zero chatter in the White House about getting American citizens out of Afghanistan,” tweeted Jack Posobiec, senior editor at HUMAN EVENTS. A White House official told him that “they’re acting like they’re not even there.”

Why would that be? Multiple Pentagon sources independently confirm that “the White House counsel (through the National Security Council’s legal department) told multiple federal agencies and departments NOT to respond to Afghanistan correspondence, with more guidance to follow.” In other words, “ghost” any media outlet seeking information.

Of course, the mainstream media are showing no curiosity. When White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain appeared Sunday on CNN, he was never asked one question about the planes on the ground, not even if Americans were among those being held on airplanes at Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport. He did say that “about 100” Americans remain in Afghanistan and the administration is working on getting them out.

On FOX NEWS SUNDAY, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul surprised host Chris Wallace by revealing that six planes, loaded with Americans and Afghan interpreters and other helpers, had been sitting for at least a couple of days on the tarmac at that airport, prevented by the Taliban from taking off. He said the Taliban wanted “something in exchange.”

Here’s the story from THE DAILY CALLER.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/09/05/michael-mccaul-taliban-hostage-mazar-i-sharif/

And here's the full interview with Rep. McCaul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqiXgaZnuKg

“The airplanes are there,” Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson had said Friday on NEWSMAX. “Everything is ready to go, They can’t get out...because the Taliban won’t release the flight until September 9 because they want to be recognized as an official government.” McCaul said it was guaranteed these hostages would be held until the U.S. recognized the Taliban as a government.

As for Ron Klain’s assertion that “about 100” Americans are being held, California Rep. Darrell Issa says it’s a vast understatement. He told the AP it’s likely that “about 500 Americans” remain stranded (yes, Jen Psaki, STRANDED) in Afghanistan. That’s not including their family members, which would bring the number up to as high as 1,000. By not including the families, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said, “they’re lowballing the numbers.”

Jack Phillips of THE EPOCH TIMES reports that according to Mike Jason, who runs a rescue operation called Allied Airlift 21, the figure quoted could be far higher.

Alex Plitsas, an Iraq War veteran and former intel officer who is part of a rescue mission called Digital Dunkirk, said that in just one day, he’d received six calls from Americans who weren’t registered with the U.S.Embassy (which is abandoned now, I might add). “Those names are starting to trickle out now,” he said. “I expect that number to rise significantly.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/congressman-at-least-500-americans-stranded-in-afghanistan-contradicting-white-house-estimates_3984209.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-09-06-3&mktids=6437ae131d64f5f45607d429407c959b&est=8Z%2BL4DN5rtUC3Hu7ZGygoVv1vQ4jeawJOdkGCTkFoyrCl0M07t1kFIMQ%2Bde%2BrakkdToAGw%3D%3D

Be sure and read Rebecca Downs’ account in TOWNHALL of Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin’s attempt to help Americans who were still trapped there, as told to FOX NEWS’ Bret Baier on Friday.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/09/06/congressman-helping-americans-in-afghanistan-biden-administrations-claims-are-100-n2595369

“A congressman can sponsor a flight going in,” Mullin explained, “and it gives one of these other departments cover because it’s kind of, no one wants to touch it because I personally believe it was because they knew it was a hot mess.”

Even though they had obtained a humanitarian flight plan from the FAA, he said, they had to keep circling the Kabul airport because requests to land were repeatedly denied. Mullin believes this was “100 percent directed from the State Department.”

As he would be coming in with a large amount of money, Mullin had sought help from the U.S. ambassador, who told him he’d have to go through 16 Afghan checkpoints and at each one “would be charged to get through.” (Good thinking to bring cash!) Tellingly, the ambassador also told him that he’d been instructed not to help.

Mullin said that when President Biden, the State Department and others said they’d get everyone out of there who wanted out, it was “a boldfaced, 100 percent lie.”

“...We’re not handling our mess,” he said. “...It’s our mess. The United States created this vacuum to allow the Taliban to come in. President Biden and his horrific withdrawal has caused this to happen.” He said that even if we got more Americans out, others would die “because of the failure of President Biden.” He said Biden would have blood on his hands.

Indeed, this so bad that some are speculating it was done on purpose to divert attention from something even worse. “What could be worse than this?” one might wonder. Tucker Carlson, on his show TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT, and guest Glenn Greenwald speculated about that on Friday.

https://royalpatriot.com/tucker-carlson-says-afghanistan-screwup-may-have-been-planned/

Carlson said he didn’t want to enter “the realm of conspiracy” but thought it was “at least worth wondering.” Could it be that someone wants to maintain future engagement in Afghanistan, or might someone have some other reason? I have to say, that idea DOES sound a little out-there, but it tells us HOW BAD the situation in Afghanistan really is: bad enough to take our minds to some crazy possible explanations.

Even though Greenwald has seen no evidence of such a conspiracy, he said, it is “fully within the character of the deep state operatives” to deliberately engineer something like this. Sadly, he is correct. Certainly I’m not saying they did this, but who can trust them not to?

Another question: did the Taliban necessarily have to overrun Afghanistan at all? According to retired U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Anthony Tata, the answer is NO. Details here.

https://conservativebrief.com/just-shameful-50608/

“We have utterly abandoned this country,” he said. “We have abandoned Americans within this country. It is just shameful what has happened...They chose to let it happen, they facilitated it happening, and now what you’ve got is a terror superstore there in Afghanistan.”

Finally, Piers Morgan wrote searingly about the “bitter shame and humiliation” America is experiencing as we near the 20th anniversary of 9/11 “thanks to Biden’s appalling mishandling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and abject surrender to the very people who helped commit the attacks by harbouring the terrorists who carried them out.”

“America’s defeat to just 75,000 murderous medieval thugs is thus complete,” he wrote. He went on to talk about what is most certainly a hostage situation. Read it all, and get angry. Angry enough to reject whatever this government tells you. The turn we've taken is so bad --- and so unnecessary --- that it’s easy to speculate along with Glenn Greenwald that something even larger is afoot.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9962605/PIERS-MORGAN-9-11-approaches-Bidens-Afghanistan-disaster-cost-presidency.html

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

For six decades, Labor Day meant an American tradition: the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. MDA ended its association with Lewis in 2010, and the telethon kept getting shorter until its final broadcast in 2014. But the association of Labor Day with the MDA continues. Some local areas still host telethons, and firefighters across America are out this weekend at intersections, collecting cash for their “Fill the Boot” drive. If you see them, I hope you’ll dig into your pocket and give generously.

MDA leaders say that a 21-hour telethon no longer fits into today’s short attention span world. But they’re adapting to changing times by turning to Internet fundraising, with online gaming competitions and entertainment by comedian Kevin Hart (stepping into Jerry’s old hosting role) and other celebrities, all streaming on major social media platforms. You can learn more about that or keep up your Labor Day tradition of donating at https://www.mda.org/telethon.

Although Jerry Lewis passed away a few years ago at 91, active right up until the end, I’m sure that he would want you to continue giving generously and remember that it’s about helping the kids. In fact, while Jerry made the telethon the success that it became, he wasn’t the one who started it all rolling. He gave credit for sparking his six-decade mission to wipe out muscular dystrophy to another man -- a man you’ve probably never heard of. Jerry kept the story secret for many years, until the publication of his memoir, “Jerry Lewis in Person.”

Jerry recalled that it was in 1948. He was 22, and he and Dean Martin were the hottest comedy team in show business. His good friend and press agent, Jack Keller, had helped make them stars, but never requested a single thing for himself -- until one day, he came to Jerry and begged a favor. He had a friend who was in trouble and asked if Jerry would talk to him. His name was Paul Cohen. He’d had MD since childhood, and he’d started a group called the Muscular Dystrophy Association to fight it. They had a few patients, their parents and nothing much else.

By chance, Jerry knew someone whose nephew had had MD. He said he’d watched helplessly as that child had withered like a leaf in the winter, and the effect of seeing that would never leave his mind until a cure was found. So he agreed to meet with the handful of doctors who knew anything about MD at the time. They weren’t encouraging. They warned him that research was in the Dark Ages. Nobody even knew what caused MD, and no known medicines helped. It was like fighting an invisible killer. But that just made Jerry more determined to take it on.

He and Dean began hosting live fundraisers…until one night at the end of their TV show, Jerry jokingly ad-libbed that viewers should each send in two dollars. He was stunned when over $2,000 arrived in the mail. And that’s when it hit him: the power of television to raise money for charity. So in 1951, Jack Keller put together a special hosted by Dean and Jerry. It aired on just one station and raised $68,000 (over $714,000 in today’s dollars), and the MDA telethon was off and running.

Over the next six decades, Jerry Lewis’ tireless work on his Labor Day telethons helped raised well over a billion dollars to fight neuromuscular diseases and help the victims and their families. He also inspired millions of Americans to join in the effort. That’s why so many Americans will always associate him and the MDA with Labor Day.

But let’s also salute an unsung hero. If you think one person can’t make a difference, remember that the Labor Day tradition that raised over a billion dollars to help children with MD started because a man you’d never heard of, Jack Keller…for the first time in his life…asked someone for a favor. And as Jerry observed, it was no surprise to him that the favor was a request to help somebody else.

So when you see a firefighter out collecting for MDA, doing his or her bit to help the kids, please do your bit and toss something into the boot. You'd be amazed how all those little individual efforts add up.

Mike Huckabee

We hear a lot of talk from politicians about values…but do we truly value work and the people who do it?

Companies should pay employees as generously as they can, because good workers have worth. This is why you should always be skeptical of any politician who claims to “care” about workers, but also wants to raise taxes, both on workers and businesses. When taxes are high, it’s a sign that the government disrespects the worker by believing that what it will do with their salary is better than what the person who earned it will do. When we see employees as having worth, we see their work as valuable. That’s the value of work. I believe YOU are valuable and therefore what you DO has value.

I think a lot of politicians don’t understand that a job is more than just a way to put bread on the table. From man’s beginnings as recorded in the book of Genesis, we were hard-wired for labor. God told us to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. It’s natural for us to want to prove our value by producing.

From the time we are children, we imitate our parents in their work. It’s part of our DNA to want to be grown up, and one sure way to feel grown up is to work. That’s why the loss of a job is far, far more than an economic setback. It’s de-humanizing to want to be productive and not be able. There is pride and dignity in sitting down to a meal that your work provided.

The CDC studied suicide rates since 1928 and found that they mirrored the economy. Suicides took a big uptick during the Great Depression. They plunged during World War II, and spiked again in the recessions of the mid-70’s and early 80’s. Suicides dropped to their lowest levels ever in the year 2000, when the tech boom dropped unemployment to just 4 percent. But after the dot-com bubble burst, America's suicide rate began steadily climbing. Recently, because of the endless shutdowns forcing people to stop working, we saw a new spike in suicides.

It’s a stark reminder that employment is more than an economic issue. Good jobs and rewarding labor save lives by making us feel that we're valued and needed. A government handout might provide bare sustenance, but it doesn’t feed the soul. It only demoralizes us.

Mike Huckabee

Today is Labor Day, which is sometimes jokingly described as the day when Americans honor work by taking the day off work. I hope you enjoy the holiday with your family, and enjoy this special Labor Day edition of my newsletter.

These days, it’s easy for free market conservatives to distrust labor unions because of their corrupt leaders or one-sided politics (more on that later.) But Labor Day reminds us of that era in history when unions were more interested in protecting workers than in protecting the jobs of union bosses and Democrat politicians. Labor Day observances unofficially began around the turn of the 20th century as a celebration of the union movement, which was fighting truly dangerous and exploitative working conditions, not to mention violent strike-busting tactics. Those kinds of conditions are not beneficial to labor or management.

Workers who get good pay, reasonable hours and a safe workplace are motivated to work harder and make their employers profitable. America’s prosperity and world leader status were the result of shared benefits between labor and management. Recruiting good employees, treating them well, and giving them a stake in the outcome is good business. When labor and management are partners, everyone wins: stockholders, management, workers, and most importantly, consumers.

Before the Chinese unleashed a virus that knocked the wind out of our economy, President Trump wasn't just helping to bring back jobs, but the strong job market and record low unemployment meant companies had to offer higher pay and more benefits to attract good workers. That's how getting government out of the way of job creation benefits everyone. Currently, businesses are offering higher wages and benefits to attract employees only because the government is paying them more not to work than to work, but that’s unsustainable, as our $28.7 trillion national debt proves.

Unfortunately, we are living through a dangerous period in which both the White House and Congress are in the hands of a party that doesn’t understand how businesses work and is mostly interested in using government to exercise raw power. One of the major reasons they are in power is because of the support, monetary and otherwise, of powerful union leaders. These leaders are supposed to be looking out for workers, but does anyone believe that the people they’ve helped install into power are making life better for workers?

A union is supposed to act as the voice of its workers, but too many unions today prioritize advancing the Democrats over that. For instance, many energy and pipeline industry workers supported Trump, but their bosses worked to elect Biden…who, upon taking office, promptly picked up his executive order pen and stabbed them in the back with it, killing the Keystone XL Pipeline project, going to war on domestic energy production, and destroying many good-paying union jobs. Likewise, his open border policy that’s flooding the nation with illegal immigrants will lower job opportunities and drive down wages for low-skilled American workers. This is particularly hard on minority workers, who were finally seeing real wage increases for the first time in decades under Trump.

I also hear these days from a lot of teachers who are horrified at the leftist indoctrination and racist “Critical Race Theory” their unions expect them to teach, but they’re terrified to speak up about it. Is that how today’s unions “give the workers a voice,” by making them afraid to speak up?

Maybe the union bosses think it’s worth it if the Democrats can shove through their PRO Act bill that would essentially unionize the entire economy. Union leaders and Democrats claim that the bill would empower workers and protect their rights, but it would actually force Americans to hand over billions of dollars in union dues to union bosses, along with much of their freedom. It would repeal all state right-to-work laws and destroy the modern freelance/gig/contract worker economy that many workers prefer.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/dems-re-introduce-bill-to-kill-millions-of-jobs-and-destroy-the-gig-economy/

It’s no wonder that when given a choice, many workers stop paying union dues because they believe their unions aren’t doing enough to deserve them and are actively working against their interests and personal beliefs.

I have nothing against unions in theory, and they did a lot of good in the early 20th century to give workers a voice, to protect their safety and to assure fair wages and reasonable working conditions. But like most things embroiled with Democrat politics, they forgot their original mission and became corrupt.

That’s why on Labor Day, we can reflect on the good that unions did a century ago, but mostly, I prefer to think of it as a day to celebrate American workers: the people who put in a hard day’s work, sweating through their clothes on farms and in factories…those who don cop and firefighter uniforms and rush toward danger when the rest of us are running away from it…and the ones who kept working through the pandemic, from the doctors and nurses to the truckers and grocery shelf stackers, to keep the rest of us supplied with the necessities of life. These are the people who deserve a holiday in their honor. So this Labor Day's for you!

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

News you can trust...

Mike Huckabee

There are some teachers who think their job is not to educate but to indoctrinate children into the leftist hivemind. Fortunately, though, the public is catching on, partly because of the pandemic exposing parents to what’s happening in classrooms. But also because, as with Harvey Weinstein, years of doing it in secret and getting away with it made them arrogantly think they were untouchable, so they got sloppy about exposing themselves. That was a bad idea. Today’s cases in point:

The Natomas, California, school district has fired an Inderkum High School social studies teacher after Project Veritas released an undercover video of him allegedly revealing how he works to radicalize his students “farther and farther left.” He said, “I have 180 days to turn them into revolutionaries.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-antifa-california-teacher-to-be-fired

The school found Antifa and Mao Zedong posters in his classroom, and stickers of communist dictators such as Stalin and Castro that he used to mark papers. He gave students extra credit for attending protests and described Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” in China that killed up to 20 million people as “fixing a problem.” When a student said that the teacher's Antifa flag made him uncomfortable, he replied, "Well, this is meant to make fascists feel uncomfortable, so if you feel uncomfortable, I don’t really know what to tell you.”

Ooh! Ooh! I know, teacher! What I’d tell the student is this:

“Antifa follows in a long tradition of duplicitous radical left groups that use misleading terms to trick you into supporting terrible ideas. Antifa claims it’s fighting fascism by using violence and intimidation to silence political opponents, which is a hallmark of fascism. So if their flag makes you uncomfortable, it means you can spot dangerous, lying fascists when you see them. You’re smarter than your teacher, so you get an A.”

Meanwhile, an Orange County, California, teacher who bragged on TikTok that she removed the American flag from her classroom because it made her “uncomfortable,” and suggested kids say the Pledge of Allegiance to her LGBTQ Pride flag instead, has been removed and placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-teacher-pledge-allegiance-pride-flag-removed-from-classroom

A group of parents rallied in protest outside her school, and a school district spokesperson said, “While we do not discuss employee related matters, we can tell you that showing respect and honor for our nation’s flag is a value that we instill in our students and an expectation of our employees. We take matters like this seriously and will be taking action to address it."

I’m very relieved to hear that. I’d be more relieved if it didn’t require exposure on social media and public parental protests just to get teachers to teach instead of indoctrinate.

September 22, 2021

Mike Huckabee

September 22, 2021

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September 21, 2021

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September 21, 2021

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September 21, 2021

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September 21, 2021

Kenneth Allard

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September 21, 2021

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September 21, 2021

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September 21, 2021

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September 20, 2021

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Larry Gatlin

September 20, 2021

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September 20, 2021

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September 19, 2021

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September 19, 2021

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

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Mike Huckabee

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Mike Huckabee

September 17, 2021

Laura Ainsworth, Staff writer