|
BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee staff!
Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter.
With gratitude,
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:58 KJV
Help us achieve tech independence: Important Message From Mike
Since you're already a reader of my free newsletters, I wanted to ask you to make the switch to the paid Substack version before the end of April. Censorship, blocking and demonetization are all ways Big Tech is trying prevent conservatives like me from commenting on politics. We receive daily messages from readers who say their messages have moved from their inbox to their trash, because their email provider flagged our content as SPAM or dangerous and deragatory as Google often describes what I write.
Please help me counter their bias and suppression of free speech. Sign up here: https://govmikehuckabee.substack.com/subscribe.
Join the thousands of subscribers who have signed on to pay $5 monthly or $36 annually. Help keep my newsletter running!
A little good news
Thanks to Instapundit for pointing out these encouraging stories about Cornell University rejecting demands from snowflake students for “trigger warnings” on class lectures that might potentially give them the vapors…And for a leak of a document given to new hires at the top law firm Paul Hastings, outlining the rigorous, non-negotiable demands of the job that they are required to meet or they’re gone. Welcome to the real world, kids…
https://instapundit.com/579084/
Bombshell Report
This morning, the Washington Post ran a bombshell report based on an interview with an alleged unnamed teenage friend of the person who has been leaking highly sensitive and damaging classified US military and foreign policy documents onto the Internet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/
The source calls the leaker “OG” and claims he is the leader of their online gun enthusiast group and that he brought the documents home from his job on a military base. He apparently started sharing these secrets with his tight online circle of friends during the pandemic to “keep them in the loop” about world affairs and secret government operations. The source says the leaker is not Russian or a Russian partisan, or an Edward Snowden-style whistleblower, nor is he trying to harm America’s interests, although the leaks certainly have. Here are some of the biggest revelations so far:
Naturally, this has given rise to many questions, like how did this person gain access to so many damaging, top secret documents, take them home, and post them on the Internet for months without being detected and arrested? If WaPo was able to find someone who knows him, why haven’t all our high-powered intelligence agencies been able to identify and stop him? Have they been too distracted with trying to jail Donald Trump, January 6th protesters, pro-life activists and concerned parents to do their real job of protecting America from actual threats?
Another thing worth pointing out: experts say the release of classified documents that can reveal confidential sources in foreign nations can get people killed. Yes, that’s why it was such a big deal when Hillary Clinton handled them in such a cavalier fashion, but our intelligence agencies didn’t seem to care about that, either. They only seem to worry about classified documents getting out when they're under lock and key at Mar-A-Lago.
It appears that the biggest government secret that’s been revealed is just how politicized and incompetent our intelligence and security agencies have become, and how far they’re gone off track from their real mission. It reminds me of what was reportedly one of John Kennedy’s favorite jokes:
Did you hear about the Russian who got 30 years in prison for standing outside the Kremlin and yelling, “Khrushchev is an idiot!”? He got 10 years for insulting Khrushchev and 20 years for revealing state secrets.
Keep the Newsletter Going: Buy Mike Huckabee’s Book: A Simple Government
Mike Huckabee has continued to be the voice of common sense conservatism, through his television talk show, his radio commentaries, and his lectures around the country. Now he's written a book that sums up the twelve things we really need from Washington to get the country back on the right track. These twelve essential truths will have you nodding in agreement, whether you're a Republican, an Independent, or even an open-minded Democrat. They can help us put aside our differences, tone down the partisan rancor, and return to the simple principles of the Founding Fathers: liberty, justice, personal freedom, and civic virtue. Originally published in 2010, Mike's solutions can help us tackle even the most seemingly complicated of today's problems.
---
To purchase this book, go to A Simple Government - Mike Huckabee
Ridiculous
In the seemingly never-ending crusade to charge Donald Trump with 10 crimes before breakfast, the Washington Post reports that “people with knowledge of" federal agents who are STILL investigating January 6th and who “spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation” (translation: “illegal leakers poisoning the political well”) claim that Trump is being investigated for alleged wire fraud. You might want to sit down because when I tell you why, you might fall over laughing.
They’ve reportedly subpoenaed many people in Trump’s fundraising operation in hopes of making the case that it was a federal crime for Trump to send fundraising emails making “false claims of election fraud,” because it is “illegal to make false representations over email to swindle people out of money.”
As anyone who regularly receives political fundraising emails can tell you, “making false representations to swindle people out of money” is a good description of a large percentage of them. When I was running for office, fundraising was always the part I hated most, and I especially have no respect for people who knowingly lie and fear-monger to raise money.
In Trump’s case, however, they’d have to prove that he doesn’t really believe the 2020 election was crooked, and good luck with that. On the other hand, how many millions of Democrat fundraising emails have been sent that claim Republicans want to slash Social Security and Medicare, bar black people from voting, kill “trans youth,” and bring back slavery (why would we want to bring back a Democratic institution that our guy Lincoln fought a war to end?) Privately, they have to know that all of that is outrageous hooey, but it separates the suckers from their money. Incidentally, they also love to claim that any election they lost was rigged. How much money did Stacey Abrams raise off of that lie?
So if we’re going to start charging political fundraisers with wire fraud, then let’s apply that law equally. But we might have to build a lot more federal prisons to hold all the dishonest leftwing con artists.
If you think I’m exaggerating, visit Townhall.com for columnist Derek Hunter’s archives. He subscribes to all the leftwing fundraising email lists (as I say on “In Case You Missed It,” he reads that stuff so you won’t have to) and writes regular round-ups of the latest hysterical attempts to bilk or guilt people into donating. A typical title for one of his columns was “Democrats Hunt the Wallets of Dumb People.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter
Unfortunately, a lot of those are subscriber-only, but if you're not a VIP member, he’s got lots of fun stuff you can read for free (no donations necessary!), like this one just posted today, and it’s also about shameless political money-grubbing:
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2023/04/13/political-prostitutes-n2621864
Making headlines
President Biden is in Ireland and making headlines for all the wrong reasons, as you can see here:
(I love his attempt to quote Pope John Paul II: “We keep the faith…I’m not talking about religion, per se.” Yes, I guessed that from his stance on abortion.)
It’s unsettling to think that America’s leader would need the help of Hunter Biden in any way, much less to answer a question from a child. But putting aside the questions about his mental acuity, some of which strike me as overblown (like the “capital/Capitol” confusion or mistaking a rugby team for a British paramilitary group – who, outside of the UK, wouldn’t?), there was one Biden comment that deserves more attention.
While it took him awhile to figure out how to answer the child’s question about what’s the key to success, he finally came up with an answer, and it was this:
“The key to success is, whenever you disagree with someone, it’s OK to question their judgment, whether they’re right or wrong. But it’s never OK to question their motive.”
Finally, something we can agree on! But on the other hand, if you do constantly question your political opponents’ motives, and assume they disagree with you not because they think your policies are wrongheaded and destructive but because they’re racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful semi-fascists, domestic terrorists and enemies of democracy, you could become President, and that’s a pretty high level of success.
White House stenographer implicates Biden criminally in Hunter’s business
“Joe Biden is lying. Joe Biden is a criminal. That’s the bottom line.”
Those are the words of former White House stenographer Mike McCormick, who offers a firsthand eyewitness account of then-Vice President Biden’s knowledge of, and activities on behalf of, son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. The U.K. DAILY MAIL picked up his story from his writings on Substack, and McCormick appeared Wednesday evening on Jesse Watters’ FOX NEWS show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
By now we’ve all seen the timeline that showed Hunter joining the board of corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma --- the biggest natural gas conglomerate in Ukraine --- and the events surrounding that. We knew Hunter had been paid up to $1 million a year from 2014 through 2019 to serve on Burisma’s board, despite having no experience in the oil and gas industry. What’s different now is that we have a former White House staff member who was there and apparently can corroborate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business.
Of course, we did have another whistleblower with a firsthand account, former Hunter business partner Tony Bobulinksi. Now there’s another one for the mainstream media to ignore.
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, GOP chair of the House Oversight Committee is on record: “The fact that then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed natural gas production in Ukraine days after his son was appointed to the board of Burisma reeks of corruption.”
It was on April 18, 2014, that Hunter signed on to the Burisma board of directors. On April 16, according to Hunter’s daily schedule posted on his laptop, Hunter had met with partner and fellow board member Devon Archer and Devon’s son Lucas “at the WH at 11.” Of course, “WH” refers to the White House, and the cover story was that this White House meeting was a nice thing for the VP to do for young Lucas’ book report. According to McCormick, though, this was actually a “planning meeting” for a kickback scheme with Burisma. And there had already been a lot of planning.
During his interview with Watters, McCormick said he’d been in touch with the FBI through an online tip submission form but hadn’t heard back. He also hadn’t heard anything from David Weiss, the prosecutor in Delaware who’s supposedly looking into Hunter’s taxes and finances. This is reminiscent of the frustration computer repair expert John Paul Mac Isaac experienced when trying to get the FBI’s attention about the laptop.
But perhaps now that this whistleblower has gone public, he’ll finally get some response from the government. “I mean, right now the FBI’s had this laptop for three years --- I’ve had it for one-and-a-half years --- I’m out-investigating the FBI,” he said. That’s not something they should be proud of.”
Jake Sullivan, currently Biden’s national security adviser and known liar about the fake Alfa Bank scandal used to damage Trump in 2016, was at that time a Biden aide and accompanied the Vice President and stenographer McCormick on Air Force Two on a flight to Ukraine on April 21, 2014, a mere three days after Hunter had (wink, wink) joined the Burisma board. McCormick was flying in the back of the plane, he said, in the press cabin, when Sullivan came back to give them a briefing on “how the world’s wealthiest country would [through technical assistance from the United States] help the deeply corrupt post-Soviet country build its gas industry.” As Sullivan explained, Biden was there to push for fracking (!), as a way to “unleash Ukraine’s natural gas reserves.”
At the time, he told Watters, he didn’t see anything wrong with this. But years later, while writing on Substack an account of what was on Hunter’s laptop, he found his old transcript of Jake Sullivan’s briefing about fracking in Ukraine, realized Hunter had just joined Burisma’s board, and put two and two together.
“...I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. Joe Biden knew Hunter Biden was already on the board on April 18...He directed Sullivan to go back and talk to the press’ --- this is a conspiracy. This is a crime. This is public corruption. That’s what the FBI’s supposed to investigate.”
Hunter’s role on the Burisma board was not made public for another month, with a May 12, 2014, press release from Burisma and a story in BUZZFEED.
We know now from the messages on Hunter’s laptop that Burisma paymaster Vladim Pozharskyi emailed Devon Archer four days before Sullivan briefed reporters about Biden’s being on the board, saying he recognized Hunter was both an asset and a liability. (Boy, that’s for sure.) “In some sense we cannot ‘hide’ our directors,” Pozharskyi wrote. They discussed how to minimize the story.
Later, in December, Congress approved $50 million to support Ukraine’s energy sector, including natural gas.
McCormick wants to go before the grand jury in Delaware, saying he has relevant information about Hunter and the Bidens that the FBI ignored. (Yes, he is a Trump supporter, but that’s irrelevant if he has information that is relevant and correct.) “Right now, they are three years into an investigation doing nothing, and it seems like they’re stonewalling,” he told the POST. “I’ll go under oath for anyone who needs to hear the truth about Joe Biden’s criminal activities.”
Knowing what he knows, McCormick also suspects the presence of classified documents at President Biden’s Wilmington home might have something to do with his foreign business involvements. If so, he says, “that puts Joe in the middle of handing off these documents to his son for illegal use.” Recall that one very detailed email about Ukraine sent to Archer by Hunter six days before he joined the Burisma board seemed like something that would have been lifted straight out of a classified State Department document.
McCormick says he has the evidence of criminal wrongdoing on Joe Biden’s part. “If they put me in front of the grand jury,” he told Jesse Watters, “that’s right now seated in Wilmington, with Special Prosecutor David Weiss, my testimony becomes the evidence that will put him in jail or will lead to his impeachment. Probably lead to his impeachment, first.”
Here’s the original story in the U.K. DAILY MAIL...
And a good summary in POWERLINE BLOG…
Here is “citizen journalist” McCormick on Substack, reporting that Burisma made about $400 million off Biden’s push for fracking in their country. He notes that the $50 million paid to Ukraine by the U.S. was to “renovate their infrastructure and their pipeline systems.” Now Putin is in the process of taking it over.
We note with interest that McCormick praises the British press as being more trustworthy in reporting stories from the U.S. than our own press generally is, and (with exceptions, of course) we tend to agree.
https://mmccormick.substack.
……………...
In other political corruption news, the DNC and powerhouse Democrat attorney Marc Elias have announced they’re parting ways. (All together now: “Awwww!!”) Now, why would the DNC be separating from Elias, considering he only recently started his own firm, the Elias Law Group, for the express purpose of electing more “progressive” Democrats to office? That’s what most people would call a shared goal.
Recall that Elias is a former partner at DNC- and Hillary-affiliated Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS with campaign funds for the notoriously fake Steele “dossier” on Trump in 2016. (Note: nobody prosecuted her for logging that clearly campaign-related payment as “legal expenses.”) No doubt there are still people who believe President Trump is an agent of Russia because of that stupid piece of dreck
The EPOCH TIMES relates a story first reported by PUNCHBOWL, saying that according to “multiple sources familiar with internal deliberations,” the DNC and Elias were parting ways over “a number of strategic disagreements.” He’s represented them since 2009. Oh, don’t worry, he’ll still continue to work for the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee), DAGA (Democratic Attorneys General Association), and DLCC (Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee).
Elias has remained committed to ending any possible way to verify election results in battleground states around the country. We’re sure he’ll continue to work diligently on that. But perhaps the DNC has become aware that they need to put a little distance between themselves and him this time around, just for appearance’s sake. He’s the poster child for election manipulation.
Finally, this is a big week for litigation, and the subpoenas are flying. Trump is suing Michael Cohen (good!)…
(By the way, did you know Cohen’s lawyer is longtime Clinton crony Lanny Davis?)
Also, Florida Rep. Marco Rubio is calling for an investigation into ActBlue, after a new James O’Keefe video suggesting widespread money laundering of foreign donations into Democrat campaign coffers…
https://freebeacon.com/
More: New York Attorney General Letitia James, who should be disbarred, is forcing President Trump to come to New York to be deposed in a $250 million civil lawsuit that she instigated after she couldn’t find a crime to prosecute. Recall that she, like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who should also be disbarred, campaigned on a promise to get Trump, and she’s harassed him and his family since 2018. Refresh yourself on the details of this case and you’ll see how bogus it is...
https://www.
The BABYLON BEE is suing the attorney general of California over a clearly unconstitutional censorship law, asking a federal district court to block its enforcement. And they are not kidding.
https://sethdillon.substack.
Alex Berenson has just filed suit in federal court against President Biden, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and “other people who believed the mRNA jabs were more important than the First Amendment.”
About a year ago, a judge ruled that Berenson’s suit against Twitter could proceed, forcing Twitter to settle with him and reverse its ban on him for what he’d said about COVID vaccines. That suit had given him access to critical information about how the White House and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb had pressured Twitter to censor him. It’s that information that has led to this new lawsuit, and we wish him well…
https://alexberenson.substack.
Side note: A look at media coverage of Berenson from the earlier days of the pandemic is pretty hilarious now. Here, a typically longwinded article at THE ATLANTIC by Derek Thompson chastises him for actually believing, among other things, that cloth masks don’t work! Imagine! In “The World’s Wrongest Man,” Thompson feels compelled to be “exquisitely clear about WHAT IS TRUE,” namely, that “the vaccines work.”
“The authorized vaccines are marvels,” this True Believer gushes, “and the case against them relies on half-truths, untruths and obfuscations.” Really?? He’s very concerned about overcoming vaccine hesitancy “particularly in right-wing circles” and debunking vaccine skepticism “as a matter of life and death.” Of course, Twitter would never have banned someone for linking to this.
The article came out on April 1, 2021. April Fool’s Day.
https://www.theatlantic.com/
Related: The UK Health Security Agency examined 4,371 studies, searching for data on whether high-quality masks protect particularly vulnerable people from catching COVID-19. They couldn’t find a single study that contained any usable data to confirm that.
Again, good luck to Alex Berenson with that lawsuit.
Update
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg hit a setback in his attempts to keep from testifying to the House Judiciary Committee about his indictment of former President Trump when a federal judge summarily rejected his request for a temporary restraining order blocking the subpoena.
The judge noted that Bragg didn’t even provide the court with the documents he should have to support his request, including copies of the subpoenas. Wait, is she saying that ALVIN BRAGG launched a sloppy, poorly-written legal action that lacked corroborating evidence? Well, knock me over with a feather!
The judge gave Committee Chairman Jim Jordan until April 17th to respond to Bragg’s lawsuit to try to weasel out of testifying (I feel confident Jordan will respond more professionally than Bragg would, but I’d say the same about my dogs), and then the court will consider the matter on April 19th. Stay tuned.
Incidentally, in light of former President Trump’s $500 million lawsuit against Michael Cohen, I can’t help wondering why he hasn’t yet returned fire in this legal warfare by suing Alvin Bragg. He has the financial resources to sue him for something every day, and in a land where we have so many laws and lawyers, I’m sure he could come up with no end of reasons to sue, frivolous or otherwise. Bragg has brought it on himself by bragging about how he’s sued Trump and his companies over 100 times.
Trump could easily return the favor. Handing Bragg a subpoena every time he shows his face in public would be the ultimate “turnabout is fair play” answer to the Democrats’ strategy of targeting their political opponents with endless lawfare. Even if Trump lost all the suits, the legal fees would be pocket change to him, but he’d be utilizing the left’s strategy of “the process is the punishment,” with his targets losing their jobs, reputations, life savings and even homes defending themselves long before they’re finally vindicated in court. It could get very ugly indeed, and nobody should underestimate Trump’s readiness to fight back hard.
This is why wiser people in wiser times refrained from unleashing such legal hell. But liberals like Bragg insist on dynamiting all the accepted norms. They’re not going to like the new norms that will arise out of the civilizational rubble they’re creating.
Is Twitter worth it?
I linked yesterday to a great exchange between Elon Musk and a BBC reporter. The guy from the BBC repeated the fatuous leftist talking point that allowing free speech on Twitter has led to a rise in “hate speech,” but Musk demanded that he cite even one example. When he couldn’t, Musk made the observation that he didn’t know what he was talking about. It was epic.
However, there are rising complaints that Twitter is not the free speech platform Musk promised, and that the censorship is starting to creep back.
Odd as it is to say about the richest man in the world, I do feel a little sorry for Musk at times. I think his intentions are good, and I’m glad there’s at least one multibillionaire in the world who cares about individual rights and isn’t using his money to try to destroy the United States and bring about one-world government with himself at the controls, like a Bond villain.
But I can’t help thinking that a man who gave us PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX must have more productive things to do with his time than try to balance the demands of free speech against all the complaints about free speech on a fundamentally shallow social media site that’s given way more importance than it deserves. I’m very grateful that he did take over Twitter and clean out the rats, but now, it’s starting to feel as if he’s just wasting his extremely valuable time trying to herd about a billion cats.
Culture War Update
The American Library Association is trying to use the First Amendment and the old cries of “book bans” to stop a school board in Maine from removing some truly vile, pornographic and not-appropriate-for-young-eyes books from the middle- and high-school library. Wonder if they’d fight that hard against banning the Bible from public schools? (Warning: the link includes unsettling descriptions of the disgusting contents of these books, which a couple of school officials in Maine had apparently been using as how-go guides.)
And in an unprecedented ruling, an Obama-appointed judge ordered two Missouri teachers to pay over $300,000 in legal fees after they sued their school board for First Amendment violations for forcing them to mouth racist and anti-American rhetoric as part of a CRT training program. The plaintiffs had been seeking nothing but $1 in damages and a ruling that the CCCP-style struggle session was unconstitutional.
Fortunately, they are represented by the Southeastern Legal Foundation, which sees this outrageous ruling for what it is – an attempt to chill free speech by making people too scared to protest when their rights are violated and they are compelled to mouth speech that clashes with their values. So it will be appealed, and hopefully thrown onto the ash heap…no, make that the dung heap…of history, where it belongs.
Senator Feinstein
Sen. Diane Feinstein is 89, and she’s missed 60 Senate votes while battling shingles for weeks. She’s also now battling calls from fellow Democrats to resign so they can get someone into her seat who’s healthy enough to bang a rubber stamp and install more leftist judges and pass more America-destroying legislation (my words, not theirs.)
The pressure’s gotten so great that Feinstein is trying the unique ploy of asking Chuck Schumer to ask the Senate to pass a resolution allowing for a “temporary replacement” for her on the Judiciary Committee.
I have to agree with Nick Arama at Redstate.com, who is skeptical about how “temporary” that replacement would be. Anyone who believes that her replacement would willingly hand that power back to her has never seen “King Lear.”
Interestingly, one of the arguments for Feinstein is that if John Fetterman is allowed to miss two months of Senate sessions, why isn’t she? But that raises the question, “Why was John Fetterman allowed to miss two months of Senate sessions?” It’s not as if the voters weren’t warned that he was not healthy enough to serve. We’re now being told he’s about to return to work, but we learned from his doctors that he’s still incapable of understanding spoken speech.
Maybe we could prevent all of this turmoil by just electing people who are actually healthy enough to do the job. Nah, that’s crazy talk!
Political Musical Chairs
Just days after Justin Pearson was expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives for helping to lead a mob of insurrectionists (hey, I'm just using the Democrats' own terminology), the Shelby County Commission voted unanimously to reappoint him. His fellow insurrection leader, Justin Jons, was already reappointed on Monday. So that’s how much Democrats really care about insurrections, at least when it’s their own leading one.
But here’s something that will get you thrown out of a legislature for good: a bipartisan two-thirds majority of the Arizona House voted to expel Rep. Liz Harris for “bringing disrepute and embarrassment to the House of Representatives.” Harris had invited Jacqueline Breger to speak. She was the insurance agent who alleged that there was widespread corruption in the Arizona government funded by a Mexican cartel and involving money laundering of drug money via fake real estate deals and scholarships.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/12/arizona-legislature-expel-liz-harris/
There was a lot of outrage and claims that there was no evidence of the wild and shocking accusations. But that’s not quite the same as actually disproving them, and you might be wondering if anyone bothered to do that. This report from Lead Stories is about the closest I’ve been able to find.
So if you’re keeping score: Leading an insurrection does NOT bring a legislature into disrepute or warrant expulsion. Allowing someone to suggest the legislature is corrupt and request an investigation DOES bring a legislature into dispute and warrant expulsion.
I’m sure these two stories will end all the suspicions and conspiracy theories and restore the public’s faith in the unquestionable integrity of our politicians.
UPDATE
While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott works on getting a pardon for Daniel Perry, the military veteran convicted of murder in Austin for shooting a BLM protester who pointed a gun at him, his attorneys have filed a motion for a retrial. They allege prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence from the jury and that one juror unlawfully did “personal research” and brought it back to the court. Good luck to them. They'll need it in Austin.
Russia-Ukraine Round-up
The Instapundit blog has a round-up of news on the Russia-Ukraine war, focusing on how expensive it is (Russia just posted a first quarter $29 billion deficit) and a leaked claim that Ukraine’s air defenses could run out of ammunition this week.
https://instapundit.com/578690/
But even more intriguing is this rueful “what-if,” taken from the reader comments:
“Just think, it is very likely that had Donald Trump been reelected in 2020, our petroleum producers would have driven Russia bankrupt without sanctions or any other horse (BLEEP) like them, but simply by out competing Putin. It would (have) been glorious for the US economy and citizens, and could have conceivably prevented Putin from invading Ukraine due to lack of funds. All that money and war machinery we are (BLEEP)ing down a rat hole in Ukraine could be doing something more productive and useful.”
If Trump had been reelected in 2020, I think a lot of people would also be doing something more productive and useful, and that includes the DOJ and the FBI.
RIP MAD Magazine’s Al Jaffe
By “Huckabee” pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)
As one of the millions of kids (and thousands of comedy writers) who grew up having my sense of humor formed and my world view warped by MAD Magazine, I’m very sad to have to report that writer/cartoonist Al Jaffee has died at 102. As he would probably add, "of undisclosed causes."
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/al-jaffe-dead-mad-magazine-1235370593/
While Jaffee did many articles for MAD, as well as creating entire paperback books, he was best known for “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” (something we desperately need now, although the people getting the snappy answers would probably cry that they’d been triggered) and the Fold-In’s on the back covers of MAD, which debuted in 1964.
Jaffee was never on MAD’s staff (he said he worked “from freelance check to freelance check”), but he holds a Guinness World Record for the longest career as a cartoonist, and he had the longest run of any MAD contributor. His work appeared in MAD from 1955 until he retired at 99 in 2020 due to no longer being able to hold a pen. He lasted as long as MAD iteself did.
Jaffee once said the idea for “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” came to him when he was up on the roof fixing his TV antenna, and his son climbed up the ladder to ask him, “Where’s Mom?” He said, “Up on the roof, how the hell would I know where Mom was?” So he replied, “I killed her, and I’m stuffing her down this chimney.”
When asked once for a snappy answer to how he will be remembered, he replied, “Is space available on Mount Rushmore?” If there’s a Mount Rushmore for cartoonists, they should definitely make space for Al Jaffee.
At this link, blogger, comic book writer and historian, and friend of Jaffee, Mark Evanier, has some personal remembrances and examples of Jaffee’s work. RIP.
https://www.newsfromme.com/2023/04/10/al/
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2023/4/huckabee-post-bombshell-report
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.