By Mike Huckabee
January 17, 2024
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Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Today, if you have a moment, leave me a comment about something you read. Comments help me fine tune what I am writing, and they show that we have an active community of readers.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
P.S. Just a reminder: The Morning Edition, delivers Monday-Saturday
Daily Bible Verse
12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12 KJV
Newsletter Notes
14 stories
3,353 words
Reading time: About 16 minutes
Aftermath
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s historic record victory in the Iowa Caucuses (add another stat: he won 98 of 99 counties, losing the 99th by only one vote), the DeSantis and Haley campaigns are trudging on to New Hampshire, but they’re reminding me more and more of the movie, “Dead Man Walking.” Vivek Ramaswamy already dropped out and endorsed Trump. And as of Tuesday, Asa Hutchinson is officially out of the race.
Ironically, one of the other big stories out of Iowa is the huge meltdown by media and Hollywood leftists over Trump’s win, and the shameful and hypocritical refusal to air his victory speech by fake news purveyors CNN and MSNBC. I guess they think they can spend from now until November claiming they’re protecting “the truth” by suppressing one of the two major candidates, the same way they suppressed the truth about Hunter’s laptop in 2020. Between the media refusing to air anything Trump says and playing along with the White House hiding Joe Biden in the basement, this could be the quietest presidential campaign in history!
Personally, I thought Trump gave an excellent speech. It was gracious, unifying and forward-looking. In fact, as I explained to Sean Hannity last night on Fox News, I believe that’s the real reason these DNC flunkies like Rachel Maddow and Jake Tapper are terrified of letting their viewers hear Trump: They’re not scared of their viewers being swayed by a crazy, ranting, racist, Nazi dictator. They’re scared to death that they’ll realize he’s nothing like that and they’ve been bamboozled.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6345019096112
They’re afraid Americans will see Trump is a lot like them: he loves America, he likes working people and people of faith that they disdain and look down on, and he wants to fix the endless messes Biden and his ilk have created and “Make America Great Again.”
I also think the reason the media and the Democrats keep saying “Maga” as if it’s an obscene word instead of using the phrase it stands for is that it’s hard to scare people by telling them someone is too extreme about wanting to make America great again. Especially when we all now know that the alternative is to vote for Biden and the Democrats, the MASA extremists: “Make America Suck Already.”
Vivek’s Recommendation
Having dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy called on DeSantis and Haley to do the same. He said that at this point, they would “do this country and this party a service by stepping aside to make sure that we’re focused on not only nominating Donald Trump but getting this country back and reviving those founding revolutionary ideals."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vivek-ramaswamy-urges-desantis-haley-drop-race
He added, "Especially Ron DeSantis, of the two of them, will have an important role to play in the future of this country and leading this nation. I believe that." I’ll let you interpret that how you will.
Biden reminds us Trump was right
So now Biden is building the wall, asking Mexico to keep migrants on their side of the border, and redesignating the Houthis as terrorists.
https://justthenews.com/government/security/biden-admin-plans-redesignate-houthis-terrorists-report
Also, his DOJ finally, at long last, admitted that Hunter Biden’s laptop was real.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/16/department-of-justice-doj-hunter-biden-laptop-verified/
Apparently, their argument for reelecting Joe instead of Trump will be that after three years, he’s finally realized that Trump was right about everything.
Reminder: Know who falsely told us for years that Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” that Trump colluded with Russia, that Joe Biden knew nothing about his son’s business deals, that there was an ethics agreement preventing Hunter from knowing who was buying his “art,” etc. etc. etc.? The same media outlets that are so obsessed with airing only “The TRUTH” that they refuse to show Trump’s speeches: CNN and MSNBC.
Get the feeling that there’s about as much truth in their alleged “news” reporting as there is actual cheese in a spray can of pasteurized, processed, cheez-food product?
Hostage Update
Hamas released their threatened follow-up to video of three hostages, this time allegedly showing the dead bodies of two of the hostages, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38.
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/hostages/2024/01/15/id/1149654/
The video also included footage of university student Noa Argamani, 26, being forced to read a script blaming their deaths on Israeli air strikes.
An IDF spokesman said that at least one of them, Svirsky, was definitely not killed in an Israeli strike. He said, “That is a Hamas lie. The building in which they were held was not a target and it was not attacked by our forces. We don't attack a place if we know there may be hostages inside."
Hamas wants very much for the story to be “Israel is killing innocent people with their strikes on Hamas.” The real story is that after 100 days, Hamas is still holding hostages under intolerably dangerous conditions and trying to use them to avoid surrendering. The truth hasn’t changed since day one: if they really wanted the firing to cease, they would release their hostages unharmed and surrender. Until then, everything they say should be universally scorned.
Desperation sets in
The attacks on Trump are getting so desperate, they’re hysterical. Watch a heckler accuse a pro-Trump speaker in Iowa of supporting racism. The speaker was black Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt.
A terrible law that Joe Biden wants to take nationwide
I wrote about this last week, but it’s an urgent enough threat and hasn’t gotten enough attention that I’ll link to this article about it as well.
It’s about the new Labor Department rule set to take effect in March that will obliterate contract and gig workers, likely costing millions of people their jobs. It’s based on California’s horrible AB5 law that has decimated gig workers in that state. No surprise: the architect of AB5, Julie Su, was put into the DOL as acting Labor Secretary by Biden to do just this, in yet another example of Democrats never being held accountable and always failing upward.
Su claims it will protect contract and gig workers (“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you!”), but it will actually destroy their jobs, especially harming small businesses, entrepreneurs and people who need flexible hours, including single moms, younger workers and the disabled. Who will it help? The labor unions who own the Democratic Party, who will get more members when some workers are forced to become employees, and the many more who are left unemployed will be eliminated as competition.
The article is a must-read not only for what it tells you about this looming new threat, but how to take action to stop it. You’ll also be interested to learn that for all the propaganda about how its opponents are greedy rightwingers who hate the workers, there are a number of quotes from leftwing sources, including Andrew Cuomo, the Daily Kos, Willie Brown and the California NAACP, all denouncing the original AB5 law as terrible, asinine, shameful, a disaster and a catastrophe. So of course, Joe Biden wants to take it nationwide.
Related: Here’s more on how the Democrats’ alleged attempts to “help” the workers, like the AB5 law and steep increases in the minimum wage, are hastening the move toward automation and robotics replacing human workers. “Congratulations, you got a raise! The bad news: you’re fired. No need to thank us!”
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2024/01/16/careful-what-you-wish-for-democrats-n2633659
Homeschool here we come!
It’s good to know that some high schools are still teaching students about the Declaration of Independence. But at one Maine public high school, that means assigning students to write their own “declaration of independence” from their parents, government, systemic racism, inequity, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc.
This is why parents should declare independence from public schools.
Democrats are stuck between a rock and a hard place:
Wishing that Joe Biden would decide not to run, but dreading having to find a replacement. They know the natural choice would be VP Kamala Harris, but she’s truly awful at the job and even more unpopular than Biden (although that might not currently be true, since his approval rating just hit a subterranean 33%.) Yet if they dump her, they’d be accused of passing over a minority female and insulting the all-powerful gods of DEI. This is why she’s sometimes called “Joe Biden’s best insurance policy.”
If you want to know just how deep a hole they’re in with Harris, check out the quotes from a new book about her, from members of her 2020 presidential campaign staff, Even the people whose job was to get her elected admit that they realized, “This person should not be President of the United States.”
https://www.westernjournal.com/ex-harris-staffers-give-assessments-kamala-new-book-not-good-vp/
Houthi and the Blowhards update
Here’s more from Todd Starnes about the pro-Hamas/pro-Houthi riot/insurrection Saturday outside the White House. At least, that’s what the Democrats in Washington call things like that, if the participants are wearing red caps instead of waving Palestinian flags. Starnes confirms my immediate suspicions: “No arrests were made.”
https://www.toddstarnes.com/crime/angry-anti-israel-mob-tries-to-breach-white-house-fences/
Batteries freeze
I’ve devoted quite a bit of space recently to cataloguing the many, many problems with electric vehicles that the Biden Administration is trying to force down our throats. But here’s one that came as an unwelcome surprise this week to EV owners in the path of the big Arctic chill. Turns out when it’s cold, batteries go dead. And when it’s really, really cold, you can’t even recharge them. Good luck!
To quote the owner of one of many dead Teslas in Chicago, "This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously."
Yes, I know. If you read my newsletter, you would’ve known that before you bought it. You also would have known that those same words would apply to everything Joe Biden would do as President.
Congratulations
Big congratulations to Madison March, who just became the first active duty Air Force officer to win the title of Miss America.
She represented Colorado, and she’s a pilot select who just graduated the Air Force Academy. She said, "I'm very excited to be able to represent women who can break stereotypes in both fields,” and “You can achieve anything. The sky is not the limit, and the only person that’s stopping you is you.”
I toss her a big salute for her accomplishments, and for finally letting me write a story about someone in the military who wears an evening gown and is not a man.
Huck’s Hero Hulk News!
Sunday night in Tampa, a 17-year-old girl was in a car crash, and her vehicle flipped, pinning her inside. Luckily, the driver right behind her stopped and came to her rescue, pulling her out of the car. That driver: wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan!
https://twitchy.com/laura-w/2024/01/15/hulk-hogan-real-life-hero-n2391788
I wonder if she thought she bumped her head and was hallucinating?
Also a hero: Hulk’s passenger, U.S. Marine Jake Rask, who joined in the rescue. A big salute to them both.
White House lies again; President Biden personally visited with Hunter’s “art” dealer
What the White House has maintained publicly about Hunter Biden’s “art” sales is very different from the real story, according to gallerist and art dealer Georges Berges’ transcribed interview before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees last week. I know this is going to shock you, but --- are you sitting down? --- it appears the White House lied about this.
John Solomon at JUST THE NEWS has the update, but here’s what we already knew:
There apparently was no “ethics agreement” that Berges ever saw, no system to make sure Hunter and the first family never knew who his high-dollar buyers were, as White House spokesperson Jen Psaki had maintained there was.
According to Berges, Hunter knew who the buyers were for 70 percent of his “art.”
Hunter netted about $900,000 from the sales, in a period spanning more than two years.
The buyers were mostly Democrat donors, one of whom, Elizabeth Naftali, received a prestigious commission appointment. She has said she bought one painting before her appointment and the other one after. The most high-volume buyer of all was “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, whom Hunter had met not long before at a donor event. In addition to being a wealthy Hollywood attorney and producer with millions to spend on Hunter, he also happened to be an art collector --- who knew?
Morris had an unusual agreement with the dealer in which he personally paid Berges’ 40 percent commission on the sales. As we’ve previously noted, that should have been the tip-off to Berges that something wasn’t quite kosher.
All that was bad enough, but now that Solomon has seen the full transcript of Berges’ interview, there’s more to this story:
Berges told the congressional committees that President Biden both called and met him at the White House during the time he was representing Hunter’s “art” to potential buyers. Also, Hunter requested that he be informed of who the buyers were, negating even the idea of an ethics agreement.
“I believe in the first contract, he [Hunter] was able to know who the buyers were,” he told them. That was in 2020. “I don’t know how it was phrased or --- but I remember that there --- that that was the difference.” When asked if that was the normal kind of agreement, he said, “That part was different. Normally, the gallerist does not let the artist know who the collectors are.” In fact, when asked how many of the other artists he represents now (totaling 15) wanted to know the identity of purchasers, Berges said none of them. About a year later, Berges said, in a subsequent deal, they did change the agreement to say that Hunter was not to be told.
But the most interesting part is that President Biden himself was making contact with Berges.
When asked by a House investigator if he’d had contact with the President, he said he had.
“Okay. And was that in person or on the phone or both?” the investigator asked.
“Both,” Berges answered.
When asked when and where the in-person meeting was, Berges said, “At the White House, during Hunter’s --- Hunter’s daughter getting married.”
The phone call was placed by the President to Berges, ostensibly to (yes, we know this sounds strange) congratulate Berges’ daughter for finishing camp.
The President has repeatedly denied having contact with any of Hunter’s business associates, though testimony from former business partner Devon Archer wildly contradicts those denials. Obviously, Joe Biden spoke with Berges on at least those two occasions. Yet according to Berges, the subject of the “ethics” agreement never came up in conversation, with Joe or anyone else at the White House. From Berges’ interview transcript:
Investigator: “When you’re seeing in the press that the White House is putting in certain safeguards regarding an ethics agreement but you’ve had no conversations with the White House, I mean, did you ever say to Hunter Biden, ‘Hey, where’s this coming from?”
Berges: “I might have. I probably did, yeah.”
I: “And do you remember what he said to you?”
B: “I don’t --- I do remember being surprised.”
I: “Why were you surprised?”
B: Because I hadn’t had any communication with the White House about an agreement.”
Oh, and one other detail. If you were wondering how Hunter made the connection with Berges to represent his “art” in the first place, that was made through Lanette Phillips, who is (surprise) a Joe Biden fundraiser. Hunter made his first sale in December 2020, shortly before his father would take office.
In related news, Berges also told the committees that he’s decided not to renew his contract with Hunter, despite making $1.5 million in sales of Hunter’s “art” to 10 people.
Working with Hunter “hasn’t been the best decision for me,” he said. “I never expected the whole security issue or the death threats and people assuming political affiliation, which was completely wrong. It was a little bit more than I could chew...obviously, I kind of wanted my life back. So I haven’t agreed to renew that contract now.”
It’s sad to see that some on the political fringes may have dealt unfairly with Mr. Berges and even threatened violence against him. It seems he understandably regrets getting involved with the Bidens and would like to stay as far away from politics as he can. Let’s wish him the best in that endeavor.
https://www.newsmax.com/us/hunter-biden-art-george-berges/2024/01/16/id/1149763/
Hunter’s felony gun case just got more serious as well, with the breaking news that his lie about drug use on an official gun purchase form is backed up not just by what he wrote in his book BEAUTIFUL THINGS but by actual cocaine residue on the brown leather pouch in which he kept the gun. That gun has been held as evidence since 2018, and the white powder, according to a court filing, could still clearly be seen when the gun was examined again in 2023, when the residue was finally tested. So the feds have had this evidence for five years, and we’re just now hearing about it.
It came out in court yesterday because Hunter, in his allegation of selective prosecution (not kidding), tried to say there was no proof he’d actually had a drug problem. Surprise!
Here are the amusing details. It’ll be interesting to see if Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell re-thinks his aggressive courtroom strategy, as it doesn’t seem to be working well with this client.
FOX NEWS has more on the indictment itself.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-bidens-gun-pouch-had-cocaine-residue-prosecutors-claim
Finally, in a quick update on the still-possible contempt of Congress charge --- though Hunter says he’ll comply after all, given a new subpoena --- the House Rules Committee has paused consideration of that charge while a new closed-door deposition date is negotiated.
As House Oversight Chairman James Comer said on Tuesday’s HANNITY, “I think what’s happened over the last few days is, Abbe Lowell has realized that we have won. We are in a position to win in court...We have done everything by the book...So now, Abbe Lowell’s come back, basically begging, and offering for Hunter Biden to be deposed without any condition.”
“...This is about Joe Biden,” he continued. “Hunter Biden’s a key witness in the investigation. We believe that at the end of the day, if we make every effort to bring Hunter Biden in, that will help solidify the final report that we’re gonna issue to the American people.” And if the interview falls through, Hunter WILL be held in contempt.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/hunter-biden-impeachmen-tinquiry-joe-biden/2024/01/16
Hunter Epilogue: If you’re (understandably) suffering from Hunter News Overload, at least read this headline. Then fall to the floor, laughing helplessly.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/16/department-of-justice-doj-hunter-biden-laptop-verified/
More Whoppers from Fani
Another day, another lie told by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who’s now spouting her self-serving whoppers in church. While doing that on Sunday, she blamed criticism of her and her Trump special prosecutor/alleged boyfriend Nathan Wade on racism, claiming that they were criticized because they’re black while the two white prosecutors who were paid the same weren’t criticized.
Problem: Not only were those prosecutors not involved in an alleged illicit relationship that enriched them at taxpayer expense, they also weren’t paid anywhere near as much as Wade. The Daily Caller has the details:
https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/16/fani-willis-nathan-wade-lover-trump-payment
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