By Mike Huckabee
October 12, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team!
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Romans 11:36
Personal note from Mike
I wrote last month about an investigation into all the liberal groups that fund and feed “information” to the A.P., and how that helps to explain why so many “news stories” on subjects like “climate change” read like activist group press releases. From those stories, you’d think there is no other viewpoint other than turned-up-to-11 hysteria.
Unfortunately, if I summarize the stories for you, it would possibly result in my newsletter being demonetized or blocked or having our ads removed by certain Internet “gatekeepers” who have decided that their views are the only objective truths allowed to be aired in public. This is why, if you’d like to help pay my staffers so that we can keep bringing you the real stories every American needs to know, you should subscribe to the Substack version. Just click here:
https://govmikehuckabee.
You’ll find subscription plans as low as $3 a month for the full newsletter with exclusive subscriber-only content, no gatekeeper censorship, and no ads. Plus, you get a 20% discount on “Huckabee” merchandise, so unlike an electric car, it really does pay for itself! But sorry, no government subsidies.
I email daily and my politics newsletters usually take 10-15 minutes to read. I cover the news of the day and the liberal media. I write about the upcoming elections and dive deep on the Biden scandals. I will also share my opinion of the Trump indictments. I don’t think you will regret supporting a reporting of the facts, not the liberal bias the mainstream media gives you these days!
With gratitude,
Mike Huckabee
How did we (and Israel) not know? Part III
Today we have an update on the fate of the monster who goes by the name “Mohammed Deif,” the one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed bomb maker-turned-terrorist-leader reportedly responsible for the planning of Saturday’s grisly massacre in Israel. He’s been one of the Israeli military’s “Most Wanted” since 1995. We heard a tentative report earlier Wednesday that he might have been killed along with some accomplices, but it appears now that he is still out of reach. Here’s more about him…
As Brian Killmeade reported on Jesse Watters’ FOX NEWS show Wednesday night, the military has caught up with some of his family members. Retired Marine Corps. Col. Chris Douglas, whose background includes investigating the explosion in Afghanistan that killed 13 Americans, appeared on the show to discuss the current manhunt.
He said it’s challenging to find this terrorist because the population in that region obviously isn’t turning him in. This could mean either that they uniformly support him or that they are too afraid of him to make a move. He’ll be “very tough to find,” as he’s “just hiding among the populace.” There’s also an extensive tunnel network, he said, but one would think Israeli intelligence would’ve had that figured out.
When Kilmeade asked Col. Douglas if our abandonment of $4 billion worth of fighting equipment in Afghanistan might be related to this, he answered, “I mean, it’s hard to say that it isn’t.”
“The Middle East is the most complicated region in the world,” he said. “And although security wasn’t perfect in Afghanistan, it was more secure than it is now, with the Taliban in charge and all of the weaponry that we left behind and the manner in which we left. That said, the allies and partners within the region and around the globe definitely weren’t convinced that we were the force of choice in the future for incidents such as this.”
He put that about as delicately as it can be stated. Suggested translation: it made us look pathetically weak around the world. Tragically, in many circles --- Harvard University comes to mind --- Hamas is being seen as strong and heroic right now, and even justified in what they have done (as if anything could ever justify THAT). So, what has to happen to change that twisted perception?
“Speed, surprise, and violence in action” is what they [the Israelis] need now, Col. Douglas said. “They’ve got to respond swiftly, violently, and then, what’s gonna have to follow after that, though, is once they’ve defeated Hamas, any remaining need to be held to account. And they need to rapidly establish some sort of assistance package to Gaza; that’s gonna be the next. Because otherwise, it’s gonna be just this continuing problem, without providing some sort of stability.”
And what about the security of our own border? Kilmeade brought up the 6,000-plus “alien apprehensions” of Afghanis crossing into the U.S.; the 164 from Lebanon; the 659 from Iran; the 30,000 from Turkey (and of course these are just the apprehended ones), and asked, “Should we think that all these people want to be part of the American Dream?”
With an uncomfortable chuckle, Col. Douglas said, “You’d be naive to think that. The manner in which this happened in Israel should be a call to our elected officials, our President, to establish some sort of border security and to determine who here at home may wish us harm.”
That obviously makes too much sense for our current leadership to do.
………..
One Democrat talking point the past few days has been that “this isn’t the time to talk about the security failures. We’ll work on that later.” Certainly, they don’t want to dwell on a topic that brings up our own border security, but that consideration in the coming months is one huge reason why we have to determine the cause of this intelligence failure NOW and make sure it doesn’t happen here.
Bonchie at REDSTATE was right out of the gate with at least a preliminary look at how this could happen. “Clearly, intelligence resources were involved,” he said on Sunday of the attack, “and the multitude of weaponry, including thousands of rockets, was not produced by the Palestinians.”
“At this point, anyone denying Iran’s involvement might as well proclaim that the sky is not blue,” he said. “Iran’s own Supreme Leader came out and praised Hamas’ attack as it was occurring. Now, we have further confirmation, including from Hezbollah, Iran’s chief anti-Israel terror militia, that Iran was directly behind planning and pulling the trigger on the invasion.”
He pointed out that Biden’s Iran policy saved them when their economy --- and possibly their Islamist regime --- was on the verge of collapse, with renewed oil sales and unfrozen assets that are enriching them by tens of billions of dollars. We would add that the Biden administration has dispersed other questionable funds, more than $730 million to a UN agency that the State Department said in 2021 has assisted Hamas. (Unbelievably, the UN doesn’t categorize Hamas as a terrorist group.)
Hamas and Hezbollah are also reportedly rolling in cryptocurrency, and Iran funds Hamas to the tune of about $100 million a year.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/
Bonchie also noted that this approach to Iran policy dates back to Obama and that many of the players today are his holdovers. Jake Sullivan is one of those, a chief architect of Obama’s all-important “Iran deal.” (We were saying in those days that Obama seemed more like the president of Iran than of the United States. His administration was all about that deal, remember?) And recall our recent story about this official, Ariane Tabatabai, in light of what just transpired with Iran’s help. This is a must-read now in case you didn’t see it the first time...
https://www.frontpagemag.com/
Tabatabai, an Iranian immigrant working in the Obama administration, recommended sharing intelligence with Iran in 2016, among other suggestions (the article has startling details) for working with them --- as an ally. In 2021, after Biden’s State Department brought her in as a senior adviser, a congressional letter suggested her security clearance be pulled because she obviously had a “relationship” with Iran. The letter said that Tabatabai “has echoed Iranian regime talking points and has made excuses for Iran’s oppressive government.”
But that congressional letter was taken about as seriously as most other congressional letters are these days. State Department spokesman Ned Price defended Tabatabai, saying that any security-related concerns about her were “baseless and illegitimate.” He called expressions of these concerns “smears and slander.” And today, Tabatabai is still in the Biden administration, with the impressive title of Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.
This is true even though Iran envoy Robert Malley --- now under investigation for mishandling classified documents and suspected of being part of a spy ring for Iran --- personally brought her onto his team of negotiators. “Even in the face of serious evidence that the State Department and the Department of Defense are employing an enemy government agent, the Biden administration is not backing down,” Daniel Greenfield writes for FRONT PAGE Magazine. “The speed with which Tabatabai...has been able to fully penetrate the highest echelons of our national defense in a little over a decade is a testament to the national security collapse within a disloyal bureaucracy.”
There are other stunning examples as well, as guest Brooke Goldstein, CEO of The Lawfare Project, laid out on Wednesday’s HANNITY. (See full show, about 15 minutes in; the interview isn’t broken out as a clip. This requires a cable subscription; the show should be free on YouTube in a day or so.)
https://www.foxnews.com/video/
We still don’t know exactly what contributed to this stunning security failure, both here and in Israel. But after reading about such pro-Iranian people in our own government, it starts to seem possible that our government MIGHT have, um, “missed” an operation largely planned by Iran. If anyone in our State Department or Pentagon had any hint of this impending vicious attack and Israel was not warned, that would make our government complicit in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
New Israel developments
Here is Fox News’ link to continually-updated news on the ongoing war in Israel against Hamas.
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/hamas-attack-israel-war
Some of the major developments of the past 24 hours: At least 25 Americans are among the known dead. At least 2400 people have been killed, including 1200 in Israel. They include 222 Israeli soldiers. According to Israeli news reports, around 1,500 Hamas terrorists were killed in Israel and it’s estimated that hundreds of militants are among the dead in Gaza.
Israeli airstrikes have destroyed a number of Hamas operational centers, and in one attack, they reportedly killed Muhammad Abu Shamla, a senior Hamas naval operative.
It was reported earlier that Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned trip to the Middle East had been postponed, but he flew to Israel on Wednesday to appear beside Prime Minister Netanyahu in a show of solidity. He tweeted, "I’m in Israel today to make one thing clear: The United States stands with Israel and its people, and we will always stand — resolutely — against terrorism.”
Breitbart.com also has a good round-up of news from Israel that covers more stories, including Israel’s shut down of water, power and fuel to Gaza. Authorities say they will not restore these basic supplies until the hostages being held are released. To those demanding they give humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel’s energy minister said they will provide humanitarianism when they see humanitarianism from Gaza.
Breitbart also reports that an ISIS flag was found on a Hamas militant who participated in the mass murders at a kibbutz in Israel, lending evidence to the claim that Hamas is part of ISIS.
And one more note for the “It can’t happen here” crowd: The Federalist reminds us that last month, the DHS admitted that thanks to the ongoing open border crisis created by Joe Biden, “individuals with potential terrorism connections” are actively attempting to enter the US amid the huge throng of unvetted illegal entrants.
Funds for Iran
We’re getting a lot of excuses and doubletalk from the White House in response to bipartisan demands that the $6 billion in “unfrozen” Iranian funds be refrozen. We’ve been told that “not a dollar” of it has been spent yet (irrelevant: just knowing it was coming freed up Iranian money for other things, like funding terrorists.) We’re also hearing that Qatar controls it, not us. And that it can only be spent on humanitarian expenses like food and medicine (Iran already made it clear that they’ll spend it any way they want.)
I hate to be obtuse, but I need to ask a clarification question: If the Biden White House doesn’t have control over those funds and can’t refreeze them, then what power did they ever have to force Iran to spend them only on humanitarian expenses? Or was that just a lot of hot gas? I’ll be waiting for an answer…
Speaker Scalise?
Wednesday, House Republicans voted in a secret ballot for a new Speaker. Steve Scalise won the nomination over Jim Jordan by 113-99. Next comes the floor vote, and you’d think Scalise would easily become Speaker, but hold the phone. Some who backed Jordan now say they refuse to change their votes.
https://www.westernjournal.com/jim-jordan-loses-speaker-nomination-closely-contested-vote/
With the world on fire all around us, the House needs a Speaker, and I suspect these grandstanding tactics are wearing thin with the public. Both Jordan and Scalise are good conservatives and would make fine Speakers, but Jordan lost the initial round by 14 votes. That means that to put Jordan over the top, they’d need to pick up a lot of Democrat votes for Jordan, which isn’t going to happen. They would press for a more liberal compromise candidate or a lot of unpalatable concessions. Do Republicans who back Jim Jordan really think Steve Scalise isn’t pure enough, so they’ll make a deal with the devil? Talk about letting the perfect be the enemy of the near-perfect.
I hate having to say this to fellow Republicans, but stop the gamesmanship, grow up and get on with doing your jobs!
And as Benny Johnson tweeted, take pride in knowing you’re marking an important milestone for “representation” by electing history's first House Speaker who survived an assassination attempt by an anti-Trump Bernie Sanders supporter.
Inflation is up again
The Labor Department reported Wednesday that wholesale inflation rose 2.2% in September from a year prior. Despite 18 months of interest rate hikes to reduce inflation, that’s still the highest rate of increase since April. That’s on top of a 2% hike from August to September.
The only scrap of positive news in this is that the government will use this week’s inflation numbers to assess next year’s cost of living adjustment for Social Security. So it might help seniors get a few bucks more per month. They’re going to need them.
Not like it used to be
When liberal media outlets like the New York Times want to quote the thinking of Evangelicals, they reflexively turn to Christianity Today magazine, which was founded by Billy Graham in 1956. But ask any actual Evangelical who reads it, and they’ll likely tell you that it no longer bears much resemblance to its Biblical origins and often takes a decidedly liberal stance on issues like gun control and LGBTQ activism. In an exclusive report, the Daily Wire may have found the reason for that.
They discovered that between 2015 and 2022, nine top Christianity Today staffers made 73 political donations, and 100% of them went to Democrats. President and CEO Timothy Dalrymple donated to a failed Georgia Senate candidate who described herself as a “staunch LGBTQ ally” and a defender of abortion “without exception.” One news editor made eight donations to five pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ candidates, including Elizabeth Warren. Daily Wire also found that FEC records show no donations by CT executives to Republicans since 1991.
The link has much more detail, and examples of how this internal political bias has affected the magazine’s news coverage, such as questioning the sincerity of Trump’s religious faith while praising Biden’s oddly pro-abortion Catholicism. A Trump campaign spokeswoman replied, “I would like to know if Christianity Today is pleased with the policies of the Biden Administration, [like] advocating for birth-day abortions, erasing women, silence on Israel, and using his Department of Justice to target concerned parents, pro-life dads, and Latin Catholic Churches.”
This might finally explain why so many Christians who used to read that magazine have asked themselves, “What would Jesus do?” and arrived at the answer: “Unsubscribe.”
The Internet is forever
I mentioned yesterday that the Chicago chapter of BLM tried to cover their tracks after sparking outrage by deleting a graphic celebrating the Hamas terrorists paragliding into Israel to slaughter innocent men, women and children. Well, as I said then, the Internet is forever. That graphic was captured, and here’s their disgusting initial reaction that they’re trying to hide.
I caught Brit Hume on Fox News yesterday, making the observation that watching the revolting cheering of the anti-Semitic carnage in Israel has been clarifying, like turning over a rock and discovering all kinds of disgusting moral equivalencies. He said we’re learning that some people we thought just had slightly unusual or “exotic” views actually have quite astonishing views.
That’s a good point, except the insane and violent extremism of the modern left wasn’t a shock to some of us, who’ve been warning about it for years.
For people who haven’t been raised right, who have been failed by the education system and don’t know what morality is, here’s a clue: There is no “moral equivalency” between terrorists who murder, torture and rape innocent people and their victims.
Related: Some of our current generation of mutton-headed liberal college students seem convinced that Israel “had it coming,” a notion that can only be born from the combination of leftist political indoctrination and refusal to teach critical thinking that’s characteristic of today’s “higher education.” Not that they’ll pay any attention to people who actually know what they’re talking about, but former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weighed in on the ridiculous assertion that the attack was due to Israel oppressing Palestinians in Gaza and refusing to give up anything.
Here’s what she said to Townhall.com’s Guy Benson:
“[Former Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon, by the way, who was no powderpuff when it came to the defense of Israel, believed that (giving up Israeli settlements in Gaza) was the right thing to do. I don't think they wanted to govern Gaza any longer. It was in Israel's interest to get out. And they not only gave up Gaza, they gave up four settlements around Gaza at the time...That shows what the Israelis went through to actually evacuate Gaza. And you're right, what they got in return was Hamas, which continued its terrorist activities...And so, the idea that the Israelis didn't want to achieve peace -- and you're going to hear a lot of that this next week, that this is Israel's fault, that the Israelis never really tried for peace. The Israelis tried for peace...the Israelis tried everything."
I would hope that’s clear enough even for a Harvard student to understand, but then, I also mistakenly thought they could understand that mass murder was bad.
Murder suspect is identified
A suspect has been identified in the murder of Philadelphia gay leftist reporter Josh Kruger, who eerily mocked “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams for tweeting, “If Biden is elected, there’s a good chance you will be dead within the year.”
I’ll let you read the details, but it appears that Kruger didn’t merely know his alleged killer, but had a sexual relationship with him starting when he was 15 that also involved drugs and blackmail, and…well, let’s just say that Kruger’s murder may have been easier to predict than he let on.
Overboard in California
Warning: Both the subject matter and the photo illustrating this story might be offensive to some readers:
But I think it’s important to share it because it’s such a perfect example of how leftists like the current “leaders” (more like misleaders) of California can see a law that might need a little tweak and stupidly go so far overboard that they make matters 100 times worse. (Previous example: statistics show racial disparities in arrests. Their response: Defund the police, empty the jails and stop enforcing any laws!)
It's like having a government run by hyperactive two-years-olds on a sugar high.
More Huck’s Heroes
Today’s Huck’s Heroes include a Congress member, so this is a rare occasion indeed. Before he became a first-term Republican Representative from Florida, Rep. Cory Mills was a Bronze Star recipient and a wounded veteran of the Army 82nd Airborne. When he heard that Americans were stranded in Israel with commercial flights grounded, he flew to Israel on Wednesday and helped evacuate 32 of them himself on a private plane. He says he’s going back for more and won’t stop until he becomes an impediment or just can’t get any more out.
https://www.westernjournal.com/republican-evacuates-americans-israel-flying-war-torn-zone/
And another big Huck’s Hero salute to 22-year-old Noah Nierenberg of Long Island, New York. After graduating high school, he became an Israeli citizen and served in the IDF for a year and a half. He was back in New York studying Talmud at Yeshiva University when the Hamas attack came. Days later, he was at JFK Airport, bidding his family goodbye as he cut his studies short to fly back to Israel to help the fight in any way he can.
Noah said, “That’s the Jewish idea…God gave us the gift of Israel, and we have the ability to be part of it and protect it.” He has my prayers for his safety and success. I also pray that he will soon return safely to the US and become the new president of Harvard University.
Interesting article about the fight to ban “high-capacity magazines”
This is an interesting article on the latest legal wrangling over California’s attempt to ban so-called “high-capacity magazines,” which are actually standard for many firearms now. As this makes clear, the law will have to get all the way to the Supreme Court, which will likely throw it out as unconstitutional, but until then, Californians have to keep dealing with the consequences of their bad electoral decisions.
What makes this especially interesting is that it’s not just about the legal arguments, but it’s written by a Marine combat veteran who, I assume unlike the liberals who wrote this law, actually knows about guns and what it’s like to be in a firefight where your life's on the line and there’s no 20/20 hindsight or pauses to stop and think things over.
Kurt Schlichter on why some leftists want to see the same kind of massacre happen in America that happened in Israel.
Must-Read:
High school students’ scores on the ACT college entrance test have fallen to their lowest level in 30 years, and the media rushed to blame it on the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Mike Miller at Redstate.com notes, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with schools deemphasizing “white supremacist” subjects like math, science and English to focus on LGBTQ and CRT propaganda while lowering standards and cutting advanced classes to promote “equity.”
As rough as the needless COVID school shutdowns and Zoom classes were on parents, I’d argue that they were a good thing overall. They let parents see what their kids were actually being “taught” in school, and that set off a concerned parents’ revolution.
Besides, if having to stay home from school lowers ACT scores, how come homeschooled kids get such high ACT scores?
Related: Real Clear Investigations looked into how politicians and teachers’ unions are trying to block parents from sending their kids to charter schools to get decent educations.
My faith has been shaken
I must admit, my faith has been shaken. I was assured by the “best and brightest” in the Biden Administration that the future of energy was windmills...
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-offshore-wind-boondoggle
The actual Columbus Day
Today is actual Columbus Day, the date when Christopher Columbus first made landfall in what is now the Bahamas in 1492. The Columbus Day celebrated on Monday was so that a lot of federal workers, many of them Democrats who badmouth Columbus, could take a day off work in his honor. I’m convinced many liberals backed creating “Indigenous Peoples Day” on Columbus Day just so they could still take a day off without admitting they owed it to Columbus.
This wouldn’t be the only hypocritical thing they do related to this subject. How many meetings and college events have you seen start with a pious acknowledgement that they are on “land stolen from Native Americans”? Now, how many of them have ever signed the deeds to that land over to the local tribe?
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