By Mike Huckabee
December 19, 2021
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By Mike Huckabee
Good morning! Here are the top stories from this week that I think you will want to read. Topics include:
- Reeder: RIP Mike Nesmith
- Biden's Poll Numbers Are Cratering
- Schiff doctored "evidence" for 'Special Committee,' should be disbarred
- Moving Stories
THE LATEST
1. Reeder: RIP Mike Nesmith:
Of all the celebrity obituaries I’ve been called on to write, this may hit the hardest yet. Mike Nesmith, former Monkee and musical visionary, died peacefully today of natural causes at 78.
His career was so long, varied, revolutionary and legendary that I won’t even attempt to summarize it. I strongly urge you to read both of these write-ups, since they each contain different interesting facts about his life and career, pre-, post- and during the Monkees. Examples: In 1966, “The Monkees” won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and in 1967, their records outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined. And the Monkees was a flop with test audiences until they edited in the unscripted audition footage of Nesmith and Davy Jones ad-libbing, which should tell you why it really became a phenomenon.
https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-nesmith-dead-monkees-1235130849/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/michael-nesmith-dead-monkees-1235060806/
I am a big Monkees fan, but a HUGE Mike Nesmith fan. I have two autographed First National Band albums that are among my treasured possessions. I can sing (badly) songs from memory off of albums most people have never heard of, like “Loose Salute” and “Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.” I saw him live with the Monkees in 2012 and solo a few years ago at the Kessler Theater in Dallas, where he’s always been a hometown hero. I was thrilled just to be in the same room with him at the Texas Musicians' Museum.
And I was, and still am, furious at a local concert venue that failed to tell us, after waiting through two years of COVID delays, that we had to bring COVID papers to get into his final tour with Mickey Dolenz two months ago. We (and a lot of other furious people, some of whom had driven over 200 miles) were barred from entering and missed our last chance ever to see him.
Since he was the son of a secretary who struck it rich by inventing Liquid Paper, it’s no surprise that Nesmith was incredibly creative. The songs he wrote for the Monkees were always my favorites (I can attest that “Sweet Young Thing” is the most fun to play with a garage band.) He also invented the concepts of MTV with his show “Popclips” and home video with the cassette “Elephant Parts,” was playing country rock before it was a thing, presaged the “unplugged” era with “And the Hits Just Keep On Comin’,” and pioneered many new entertainment, video and concert concepts through his company Pacific Arts. He even produced, scored and co-wrote the cult film “Time Rider.” And you could argue that he invented the rock video by making this:
But he and the Monkees still aren't in the Rock Hall of Fame, while Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys are.
The dirty hippies in the ‘60s, with their misplaced self-righteousness, attacked the Monkees as fakes because they didn’t play their own instruments on their records, unlike all the REAL bands they idolized that also didn’t play their own instruments. Many learned only recently that the same session musicians, the Wrecking Crew, who played for the Monkees also played on nearly all of those albums they thought were “authentic, man!”
That really burned Nesmith, who was a real musician and songwriter with pre-Monkees success under the name Michael Blessing and who had written “Different Drum,” which became one of Linda Ronstadt’s first hits, two years before “The Monkees” debuted. He famously put his fist through a wall in an angry confrontation with a music executive, telling him that wall could’ve been his face, and forced the studio to give the band creative control and let them play (Peter Tork was also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist.) The pop hits might’ve dropped off, but the music got a lot more interesting.
Rest in peace, Papa Nez. You are now truly an Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see your last show, but considering the massive legacy you left behind, and the huge impact you had on the music industry, in your own quiet, brilliant, quirky and visionary way, we should all follow your laidback example and just be grateful for everything we got and not resent the stuff we didn’t get.
This tribute was written by "Huckabee" writer Pat Reeder.
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DAILY BIBLE VERSE
This verse was recommended by Vicki C.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.Isaiah 9:6 KJV
MORE NEWS
2. Biden's poll numbers are cratering:
President Biden’s poll numbers continue to roll downhill faster than a marble on Mount Everest. Latest numbers:
Despite a blizzard of anti-Trump propaganda blaming him for every COVID death, Rasmussen reports that Americans now believe Biden has done a worse job of handling COVID than Trump did by a 49-39% margin.
But the poll that’s giving Democrats more nightmares than Freddy Kruger is the new Wall Street Journal poll. This poll is more extensive and has a far larger polling sample than previous polls, and the results look even worse for the Democrats.
Biden’s approval rating is 41%, with disapproval at 57%. Among Independent voters, it’s a staggering 30%-66%. When asked to name the most important issue to them, voters chose immigration, the economy and inflation as the top three, and Republicans have huge leads over Democrats in which party can handle all three better. And on the 2022 Congressional generic ballot, Republicans are preferred by 44-41%. That sounds close, but generic ballot polls usually undercount Republicans, so that even a tie can mean a red wave is coming.
And if Democrats think hammering away on abortion rights is going to turn things around: only 1% of respondents chose that as their #1 issue.
This is where I have to mention that the election is still nearly a year away, things can change, don’t get complacent, keep working and volunteering and donating to take back and save America. And if I had to give any sage advice to a Democrat, it might be these two words: “Switch parties.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-mexico-lawmaker-democrat-affiliation
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3. Schiff doctored "evidence" for 'Special Committee,' should be disbarred:
Yesterday, we reported new developments about Nancy Pelosi’s ‘Special Committee’ to make the case that Liz Cheney is “the new Adam Schiff.
I regret to inform you, however, that the old Adam Schiff is still practicing his usual dark magic in Congress to make lies seem true. Consider what he did Monday night during a meeting of the committee.
Remember when Schiff claimed to have proof of “collusion” between Trump and Russia to help Trump win in 2016? Remember when it turned out he had nothing? And how that's just one of his claims that have turned out to be lies? Well, he’s at it again. Monday night, he said he had proof that a member of Congress (whose name he didn't specify, but it was Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan) texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to tell him to instruct Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
As Sean Davis at The Federalist reported Wednesday, not only did Schiff twist “the substance of the message and its source,” but he also doctored original text messages. The Federalist provided for comparison the original, complete text messages and included the video of Schiff doing this.
In the video, Schiff puts up a text and reads it out loud: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”
“You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr. Meadows about,” Schiff says. But according to Davis, Schiff “erased significant portions of the text and added punctuation where there was none to give the impression that Jordan himself was tersely directing Meadows to give orders to Pence on how to handle the electoral vote certification.”
The original text, though, was not from Jordan, but from Washington attorney and former Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, who had also attached a four-page “discussion draft” of a document detailing Schmitz’s legal reasoning for suggesting Pence had the authority to object to certification in “a handful of states.” Not the same thing as what Schiff was claiming at all.
Schiff had sliced-and-diced a three-paragraph summary of the document that Schmitz had sent to Jordan and then wrongly attributed it to Jordan.
Specifically, the graphic quoted above was achieved by deleting the last part of the original first sentence, which would have read, “ --- in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence.” One can see how Schiff might not have wanted that part of the sentence in there, so “poof!” the inconvenient phrase was gone.
There was more that Schiff had left out: Schmitz quoted Hamilton citing case law (Hubbard v. Lowe) and used that to support the argument that “an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally elected statute, is no elector at all.”
Schiff had erased the final two paragraphs and the final clause of the first paragraph before substituting his own punctuation to make it look as if that was all there was to the quote. Russell Dye, spokesman for Rep. Jordan, asked, “Is anyone surprised that Adam Schiff is again rifling through private text messages and cherry-picking information to fit his partisan narrative and sow misinformation?”
According to Davis’ sources, Schiff never approached Jordan to discuss the text message before taking it upon himself to change it. If he had, Jordan could have made it clear to him that he had just been passing along an attorney’s summarized legal argument. In fact, Jordan is known for NOT texting much more than “yes” or “no,” certainly not detailed legal arguments, so a text like this from him wouldn’t have been believable to people who knew him. Schiff didn’t care.
Significantly, one source said this: “...You have to remember what was going on at the time. People were sending around these law review articles and debates left and right because we had an interest in learning the facts and getting them right. And if it’s somehow seditious in this country to debate or share a law review article on Alexander Hamilton’s view on things, that’s not really a country I want to be a part of anymore.”
Davis’ report goes into Schiff’s long history of doctoring “evidence” and misrepresenting facts, and I highly recommend it. Laura Ingraham’s Wednesday show does this as well, with guest Mollie Hemingway, who also reviews what we’ve said about why the committee is not legitimate. Recall that Schiff has been caught in lies multiple times; one major example: denying he knew the identity of the mysterious impeachment “whistleblower,” who turned out to be a scammer named Eric Ciaramella who had contacted Schiff’s office before even submitting his bogus complaint.
If you have a premium subscription to The Epoch Times, check out this story by Jack Phillips, who reports that the committee has had to admit the doctoring, with a spokesperson claiming a period was placed at the end “inadvertently.” Right. “The Select Committee is responsible for and regrets the error,” they said dryly, after they got caught.
Of course, they still voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress, as planned all along.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/hold-vote-mark-meadows-held-criminal-contempt-congress
Mark Levin, on Wednesday with Sean Hannity, suggested doing something about “this whining, unethical hack.” “Lawyers are not free to doctor evidence,” he said, noting that Schiff is trying with this to railroad (my word) Meadows into prison. It’s time to file a serious ethics complaint against Schiff, with the ethics arm of the Supreme Court of California, Levin said. A private citizen can do this, but he’s suggesting that Republicans in Congress do it. Agreed –- it’s time for Schiff to lose his law license.
Levin added, “If you want to see what the old Soviet Union was like,” look at this committee. Of course, we’ve been making that case, pointing out that they’ve violated virtually the entire Bill Of Rights, as well as the separation of powers. Also, Congress does not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations. No one should take seriously anything that comes out of this fake committee.
Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted, “Expect a lot more of this. Schiff and the contemptible Jan6 committee will twist and smear the narrative every chance they get.” And Rep. Dan Bishop sounded a lot like me when he tweeted, “Adam Schiff is the Jussie Smollett of Congress.”
By the way, about “the NEW Adam Schiff” (Liz Cheney; see yesterday’s commentary), she’s facing at least one impressive primary challenge in '22, by actual Republican Harriet Hageman. Calling all Republicans in Wyoming: One Adam Schiff is more than enough; we sure don’t need another one infesting Congress, especially on our side of the aisle. Here’s Harriet on the issues.
https://www.hagemanforwyoming.com/issues
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4. Moving Stories:
Here are a couple of moving stories, and I don’t mean emotionally, unless you get choked up at how badly leftists are destroying once-great states and cities and forcing people to move out.
First, we knew a lot of people had been fleeing California, but researchers from California Police Lab were surprised to discover just how many. From the end of March 2020 to the end of September 2021, they found a 12% increase in residents moving out of California and a 38% decrease in people moving in. While this was a statewide phenomenon, the worst gap was in the most liberal city in California, San Francisco, where there was a 12% increase in residents leaving for other states and a 45% drop in people moving there.
I’m sure all the leftists running California will find something other than themselves to blame, like earthquakes or wildfires. In fact, between earthquakes, wildfires and leftist governance, earthquakes are the state’s only natural disaster that isn’t directly related to Californians voting for leftists.
Maybe in San Francisco, they can claim that so many people are moving out because now that they all have a full set of stolen Louis Vuitton luggage, they want to use it.
Our other moving story gives new meaning to the phrase, “Let the buyer beware,” especially if you’re thinking of buying a house.
The major real estate websites Redfin and Realtor.com announced that they will stop including neighborhood crime data in their listings because for some inexplicable reason, that’s apparently racist now.
Realtor.com’s CEO issued a statement “explaining” this change. After some PC boilerplate about how some people may be blocked from buying homes in their preferred neighborhoods due to their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion (which is illegal, by the way, so anyone actually experiencing that would have grounds for a lawsuit), it goes on to claim that “Reported crimes may not accurately reflect actual crimes,” and that “crime statistics risk including racial bias…There’s real variety in how people define and evaluate safety, and…it doesn’t line up very well with purely crime-based data…People are interested in safety, not crime.”
So to help potential buyers, including law-abiding minority members, evaluate whether a neighborhood is safe or not, they’re not to tell them what the crime rate is? I’m used to liberals making no logical sense, but this sounds like someone has actually stolen their brains.
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