By Mike Huckabee
February 6, 2023
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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 which includes my morning and evening editions.
With gratitude,
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
10 Be still, and know that I am God
Psalm 46:10
Here we go: GOP-led congressional hearings start this week
This week, Republican-led congressional oversight committees begin their hearings into a variety of issues, such as the Bidens’ handling of classified documents, with the White House reportedly getting ready to brief them.
Miranda Devine at the NEW YORK POST has a delightful preview of what is scheduled.
As you know, the DOJ and other government agencies have been stonewalling Congress. It doesn’t matter to the Executive Branch that the Legislative Branch has demonstrated legitimate legislative purposes for their fact-finding. It doesn’t matter that Congress has legitimate oversight responsibilities under the Constitution. The ‘Justice’ Department says that giving information to these committees will jeopardize their own ongoing investigations, so, no dice. The Treasury Department says the same about turning over bank records of Hunter Biden’s suspicious transactions.
“What do we do,” Mark Levin asks on Sunday’s LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN, “about a situation in which a President of the United States, his appointed attorney general, the director of the FBI, the U.S. attorney (also appointed by the President of the United States), and the special counsel (appointed by the attorney general of the United States) --- what do we do as a country if they stonewall the House of Representatives, the majority of whom are Republicans? What do we do if the National Archives, also a part of the Executive Branch, is also stonewalling these Republicans? In other words, what do we do if separation of powers is being violated by the Executive Branch, and the Executive Branch is the only body, we think, that can enforce the law?”
This is the situation we’re in, and, of course, it didn’t happen until the GOP gained control of Congress. (For example, the Democrats’ J6 Kangaroo Kommittee did whatever it pleased.) For the GOP, the rules changed. Levin goes on to talk about how dangerous the FBI is today, more dangerous than ever before in its history (and that’s saying a lot, considering J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI). Beyond that, “We have the most dangerous Department of Justice since it was founded by Ulysses S Grant in 1870. We have the most dangerous attorney general since...well, since Grant founded the DOJ. None of these government entities is in the Constitution; they were all created later. Yet they can wield power over Congress. Or at least they think they can.
Levin says they actually can’t. But “the House of Representatives, the Republicans, need to preserve their authority under the Constitution,” he says. “It’s called self-preservation.” To preserve our system, they have to preserve the separation of powers. The Executive Branch is corrupt, abusing the law against its political opponents, so the Legislative Branch has to act, to reclaim the power they’re supposed to have.
Congress has the inherent power to hold individuals or entities in contempt; this has been upheld by the Supreme Court as recently as the 1930s. The Democrat Congress has done it over and over. And when they’ve done this, it’s been enforced, even to the extreme (too extreme) point of making a President turn over his tax returns. But the GOP Congress is left to twist in the wind. “If [Congress] cannot enforce that power, then it has no power,” Levin says.
Congress wants to look at misconduct such as selective prosecution and abuse of power by the FBI. Accordingly, “the FBI is not free to just blow off our elected representatives,” Levin says. “And neither is the Attorney General of the United States, who has targeted parents...pro-lifers...
So, what must Congress do in such a dangerous situation? The relevant committee has to hold an individual or agency in contempt. The House votes it up or down. (This is where the GOP has got to be unified.) If it passes Congress, it goes to the U.S. attorney’s office --- where it will likely be stopped. As Levin points out, it’s what happened to the House with their “Fast and Furious” investigation when Eric Holder was AG. This isn’t new.
So, then what? Congress has the power TO SEND THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS TO SECURE THAT INDIVIDUAL --- to arrest and even jail the person. “The Executive Branch plays no role,” according to Levin. The person isn’t being charged with a crime, just being held in contempt of the House of Representatives. He’ll have an open hearing before the Judiciary Committee, he can answer or not, and they can either release him or hold him over.
This is a stressful, unpleasant process, but if it comes to that, they’ll need to do it. If the DOJ won’t enforce congressional subpoenas, they’ll have to do it themselves. There will be vicious criticism from the media and academia, but, heck, the GOP gets that, anyway. Don’t even bother trying to win their approval. (In fact, I’d say that if you make them scream in rage, it means you’re on the right track.)
Levin cites the courage as a leader shown by Netanyahu and his new majority government in a similar power fight. The returning prime minister is trying to reform the judiciary in Israel at a time when it constantly undermines the other branches of government. It’s like that here.
As the committees start their hearings this week, it will be interesting to see how far Congress gets in its quest for facts. It seems likely that the roadblocks will go up immediately, and they’ll have to grow a spine and enforce their own subpoenas. It’ll be messy, but they’ll have to break a few eggs to make an eggs-ample of our corrupt ‘Justice’ Department.
Here’s Levin’s monologue, followed by an interview with the great Victor Davis Hanson that fills out the rest of the show. For when you have time, don’t miss!
https://www.foxnews.com/video/
Here’s Hanson’s recent article at AMERICAN GREATNESS about the extent of the far left’s control. This is a wake-up call in the form of a bucket of ice water. He doesn’t really get into solutions here, but we’d say it has to start with Congress taking back its power, NOW. If they don’t have that, we’re done.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/
In the wake of his warnings, you’ll be chilled even more by this report on the dramatically expanded FBI and their planned new headquarters. This is something else the GOP could stop, with their power of the purse. They don’t have to fund this monster.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/
One thing Congress will be looking into is what the Penn Biden Center was doing with classified documents. What was (is?) “the Penn Biden Center for Global Diplomacy & Global Engagement,” PERIOD? As with many of those so-called “think tanks,” it’s hard to say. But they sure rake in a lot of money. The PBC website seems to be mostly a tribute to Joe Biden. But what does it DO?
We still haven’t had an answer for what Biden’s attorneys were doing rifling through documents at the Penn Biden Center. I think we all have the same suspicion, but William Jacobson from LEGAL INSURRECTION voices it well. This was almost certainly a “cleansing operation” by the lawyers ahead of the upcoming congressional oversight hearings. Then suddenly it was, “Holy (bleep)! There are classified documents here!”
Judging from their behavior, he thinks they’re hiding “something massive.” (If you listen to the show, the part about this starts at 10:30.)
RELATED READING: Towards the end of last week, there was so much in-depth news to cover that a few choice Margot Cleveland columns had to wait. Scroll down on her page at THE FEDERALIST to February 1 and work back up, and you’ll find informative pieces on Hamilton 68 and its role in the Russia Hoax, the attack on former AG Bill Barr and Special Counsel John Durham in anticipation of the Durham Report, and the intimidation strategy being used on Hunter Biden’s behalf by attorney Abbe Lowell, which appears to be backfiring. All great columns.
By the way, if you wonder why it’s backfiring, this might have something to do with it.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
Let’s wrap up with some good news: Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government is ending its “Technology and Social Change Project,” about dealing with so-called “misinformation.” They say it’s because Joan Donovan, who has led this project since 2019, is not a full professor or full-time faculty member, but it SHOULD be because Donovan couldn’t tell real from fake. She was skeptical that Hunter’s laptop was real, calling it a “straw man.” Also, she wrote a book that broke down “how far-right operatives wage wars against mainstream America” online. So, she has no business teaching university students about “misinformation.” And now she’s not!
If she’s sending out resumes, she might try Facebook or Google.
Harvard To Disband Online Misinformation Project After Director Ousted
Pray for Turkey and Syria
Our prayers today for the people of Turkey and Syria, which were rocked yesterday by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake about 20 miles from the southern Turkish city of Gaiantep, about 60 miles from the Syrian border. It could be felt as far away as Cairo, Egypt, and the aftershocks reached as high as 6.7. At this writing, the death toll is over 1500 in Turkey and Syria, and it’s been rising quickly. Thousands more are injured, and over 2800 buildings have collapsed so far. The images look something like the bombed cities in Ukraine. It’s the worst disaster to strike Turkey since the Erzincan earthquake of 1939.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
This is a developing story with more news coming in all the time, so keep an eye out for the latest bulletins, and please keep the victims in your prayers.
The Chinese "Weather Balloon" Story Pops
The Chinese “weather” balloon that was allowed to cover the entire US, drifting over various sensitive military and nuclear defense sites, was finally shot down off the coast of Florida. Watch the video of the immensely satisfying explosion here:
Aside from the fact that the balloon was actually allowed to cover the entire US before President Biden had it shot down, the other jaw-dropping aspect of this is China’s threatening tone about “reserving the right to respond” for shooting down their balloon. As this article makes clear, the US was well within its rights under international law.
https://www.upi.com/Voices/
And China is notorious for defending its own airspace, even to the point of once forcing a US military jet to land when it got too close to China’s shoreline. I can’t help thinking that they wouldn’t be acting so belligerent if they didn’t just get a strong sign from Biden that they can get away with it. And I’m hardly the only one who suspects that.
https://news.yahoo.com/rubio-
Experts say China’s claim about the balloon drifting in the wind is dubious, since it had navigation abilities and drifted over sensitive areas that it would not have reached via wind currents. We might be able to find out, since it fell into the ocean largely intact, so we should be able to analyze and even reverse-engineer any technology it might have been carrying. Of course, that wouldn’t do anything about the data it might have already sent back to China, unless the new technology is a time machine.
Democrats were quick to seize on Biden’s order to shoot down the balloon, hailing him as a strong and decisive commander-in-chief who just had to wait until it was in a spot where the debris could fall safely. But that narrative quickly started to unravel after we learned that the government had been tracking the balloon for a week, well before it arrived over US territory, and was being watched as it floated over vast areas of uninhabited terrain.
Also, Biden had already claimed that he ordered it shot down the instant he was briefed on it last week, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark MIlley overruled him. You’re not really the “commander-in-chief” if your subordinates can overrule your orders. All these attempts to rewrite Biden’s humiliating weakness in the face of China remind me of a guy who runs away from a fight, then spends the next month thinking up justifications and brave, snappy things he would’ve said if he’d only thought of them at the time.
Former President Trump said he would have shot the balloon down immediately, but China never would have tried this under his watch.
But an anonymous claim appeared that at least three such balloons got to America under Trump’s watch, and he didn’t shoot them down, either. Leftists and Biden media sycophants gleefully dived on that, but at least eight former top military and intelligence officials, some of whom aren’t even on good terms with Trump, came forward to say they never heard such a thing and that it never happened and is “blatantly untrue” and “100% lies.”
Even though China’s pretty balloon has been popped, that’s hardly the end of it. As Roger Simon of the Epoch Times noted, it will be drifting over Biden’s State of the Union Address tomorrow night.
On the Lighter (Than A Chinese Spy Balloon) Side
I believe we may be the first media outlet to have exclusive video footage of the balloon first being spotted above Montana:
Okay, that might be a clip from the ‘60s sitcom “F-Troop.” But the way this White House is run, “F-Troop” references suddenly seem topical again.
And just to prove that Americans can find the humor in anything…
Finally, the Best Balloon Quote: Rep.Thomas Massie tweeted that if Biden shoots down that balloon, it will be the first thing he’s ever done to combat inflation.
Just what we needed
Just what we needed: one more devastating consequence of President Biden’s open Southern border. It’s not just allowing unfettered illegal immigration, crime, gangs and drugs to enter the US, but now we have to worry about it causing an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that could decimate our livestock industry, including cattle, pigs and sheep. Two New Mexico ranchers told Fox News that they fear it’s only a matter of time before the disease is tracked into the US on the bottom of someone’s boots.
Trump might have occasionally suffered from “foot-in-mouth” disease, but I’d happily take that and a secure border over what we have now and what might be coming if we don’t close it.
Encouraging sign
In an encouraging sign that society might be shaking off its woke self-hypnosis and that women are fed up with being erased from their own sports by the trans bully cancel culture mob, pro surfer Bethany Hamilton has taken a public stand against the World Surf League’s new rules allowing “trans women” to compete. Hamilton said the only way for competition to be fair for everyone is for the WSL to create a new division for trans surfers, and until they change this rule, she will not participate in any WSL events. This is how all women athletes should have reacted from day one, rather than being bullied into pretending that “Lia Thomas” is a stunning and brave woman despite “her” obvious muscular male physique and genitalia packed into a women’s swimsuit.
Saying such a thing used to get you stoned like a heretic on social media, but instead, Hamilton is garnering widespread support, including from prominent athletes who are also sick of seeing women’s hard-fought sports gains taken away by men on estrogen.
It’s about time we started seeing some backlash against the push by a very tiny but very vocal minority to bully everyone into pretending that basic biology isn’t a fact. You know the woke left has pushed their “remaking humanity and denying reality” jihad beyond the breaking point when even liberal atheist Bill Maher puts out a commentary that went viral, comparing them to the dangerous, deluded fanatics of Chairman Mao’s communist revolution (warning, some bad language – hey, I told you it was Bill Maher.)
Related: Just in case you thought we’d reached peak woke insanity, it’s not time to relax yet. A 36-year-old man who identifies as a woman is serving time in prison in Scotland after strangling “her” roommate to death with some shoelaces. But apparently, being a man-who-identifies-as-a-woman in prison has become so faddish that it doesn’t get the attention it used to (this inmate is described by prison insiders as “attention-seeking” and “manipulative.” What a surprise.)
So now, “she” claims to identify as an infant and is demanding that guards supply her with diapers, puree her food and hold her hand when she leaves her cell. And astoundingly, they’re going along with this.
The Daily Mirror reports that they’ve already supplied her with a dummy, which is the UK term for a pacifier. To be honest, I’d probably want to stick one of those things in her mouth, too, just to shut her up.
"The Proud Family"
Remember that animation executive producer at Disney who was caught on video boasting about the “not-so-secret gay agenda” and all the “queerness” that her team was packing into Disney’s shows for children? Well, she seems to have found a new crusade, but it’s not exactly an improvement.
Take a look at all the critical race theory, anti-American historical revisionism and divisive racist propaganda she’s managed to shoehorn into a reboot of the 20-year-old Disney kids’ series, “The Proud Family.”
Let your kids watch this, and depending on their race, they’ll either come out feeling like oppressors who are ashamed of their skin color or as resentful, paranoid, racist revolutionaries. Either way, it’s nothing to be proud of creating. Say, you know who’s making good animated films for families these days? Universal.
The Grammy Awards
I’m assuming that most of my readers found something to do last night other than watch the Grammy Awards. In the age when music sales are down, kids prefer social media to music, and streaming is bankrupting musicians, the music industry gets one shot each year at a three-hour, televised free commercial for music. And what do they do with it? They shove all the genres that millions of people love (jazz, classical, blues, bluegrass, Americana, New Age, etc.) off to an untelevised afternoon ceremony so they can fill that time with leftist virtue signaling, in-your-face offensive lyrical content and sex-drenched “songs” that mostly appeal to 15-year-olds on Tik-Tok.
The fact that a good song called “Just Like That” by Bonnie Raitt that was inspired by John Prine won Song Of The Year (Bonnie seemed as shocked as the audience that she won) should be a signal to the Grammy producers that the actual musicians doing the award voting are not happy with the direction they’ve taken, but it will be ignored.
On the plus side, if they really hate more than half of America so much that they don't want them not to watch, I can’t think of a better way to accomplish it than to start off with host Trevor Noah taking a shot at Trump, going directly to having Brandi Carlisle’s wife introduce her with their two kids just to make an irrelevant and ham-handed point that she’s in a same-sex marriage. If that didn’t get millions of remotes changing the channel, the show later went all-out Satanist with “non-binary” singer Sam Smith and trans singer Kim Petras doing a BDSM-themed production number of a “song” called “Unholy” complete with red suits, writhing bodies, flames and devil horns.
It’s as if someone said, “What is the most over-the-top stereotype of hedonistic, sacrilegious, bound-for-Hell pop stars that a mid-Western Christian might imagine? Let’s put that on stage!”
As someone who loves music and thinks music education is extremely important, let me assure you that there is still a lot of great music being made today, in all sorts of genres. And the more music education kids get, the less likely they are to mistake that garbage for good music. Unfortunately, the people producing the Grammy Awards are giving Satan a run for his money in the “Father of Lies” department when they claim that show represents “the year’s best in music.”
RIP Melinda Dillon
By “Huckabee” pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)
We’re sad to have to report that actress Melinda Dillon died last month at 83.
https://variety.com/2023/film/
Dillon earned a Golden Globe nomination for her debut in “Bound for Glory” (1976), and Oscar noms for best supporting actress in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Absence of Malice.” She also appeared in many other films from “Harry and the Hendersons” to “Magnolia,” was a Tony-nominated stage actress, and played parts in TV shows from “Bonanza” to “Law & Order: SVU.”
But there’s no question that the role moviegoers will always remember her best for is as Ralphie’s mother in “A Christmas Story.” While that classic movie is told from a kid’s viewpoint, the mother has some of the most memorable moments, from tasting the soap she puts in her kid’s mouth to encouraging her younger son to eat by letting him play piggy, to keeping Ralphie’s fight with a bully their little secret from his dad to the immortal line, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” She reminded many of us of our own mothers and created one of the greatest, most loveable, loving and long-suffering maternal characters in film history.
By the way, I was surprised to learn that like Gov. Huckabee, she was born in Hope, Arkansas, but she grew up in Alabama. I did ask him if he knew her, but he did not. He remembers some Dillons who lived there, but we don’t know if they’re related. Still, I think we can assume that she, and they, were all good people.
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