By Mike Huckabee
September 20, 2021
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Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!
Today's newsletter includes:
- Bible Verse of the Day - John 1:3
- Durham playing the short game --- and long game
- Are the media barricades crumbling?
- New Podcast Episode
- Remnants of an Army By Larry Gatlin
- Jane Powell, RIP
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
John 1:3
Durham playing the short game --- and long game
By Mike Huckabee
Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted attorney Michael Sussmann, a partner in the Clinton-connected law firm Perkins Coie, on one count of providing false information to the FBI. If you didn’t see our story on Friday, here it is…
https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=E86B8ADD-E9A9-44C4-AE53-B7C1EA509F74
In this case, “providing false information” is a euphemism for “lying his fool head off,” which is the way I'd want to write up the charge. Special counsel John Durham’s full description of events makes it clear that nothing about his actions was inadvertent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clinton-campaign-attorney-michael-sussmann-pleads-not-guilty-fbi
Sussmann met with James A. Baker, at that time general counsel for the FBI, to plant the fabricated “Russia Hoax” story about computer servers in Trump Tower and the Russia-connected Alfa Bank “pinging” back and forth. (He planted the same story with THE NEW YORK TIMES soon afterwards.) When asked if he was talking to the FBI on behalf of any legal client, he did not disclose that he was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Billing records for Perkins Coie obtained by the special counsel show that he was.
The Alfa Bank story was debunked as of September 2017, but that doesn’t mean the story didn’t keep turning up in the news and on social media, adding fuel to the completely fictional narrative that Trump had “colluded” with Putin to become President. Alfa Bank sued British ex-spy Christopher Steele for libel in a London court –- tell me, who does President Trump sue? –- and Steele’s deposition in that case probably helped Durham immeasurably. Steele testified he didn’t know much about Alfa Bank –- that’s believable; in fact, he had repeatedly misspelled it as “Alpha” Bank in his phony dossier –- but that what he did know had come from...(drum roll please)...Michael Sussmann.
Anyway, when the indictment became public, we wondered something: Why did Durham choose to tell so much of the story here? The indictment runs 27 pages, when it required just a few sentences. As it turns out, one of our go-to legal experts, Andrew C. McCarthy, noticed the same thing.
McCarthy divides the significance of the indictment into aspects: the short game and the long game. In brief, the special counsel alleges that Sussmann, on September 19, 2016, made a false statement to FBI Special Counsel Baker at the FBI. That’s it.
But you’ll notice that September 19, 2016, is just barely within the statute of limitations of 5 years. That --- not the timetable for the investigation as a whole --- is what determined the date of Sussmann’s indictment. For Durham to be able to try Sussmann on the false statements charge, he could not have delayed past Sunday. Successful prosecution of that case is the immediate concern.
But then there’s the long game, and thankfully, Durham has chosen to tell us a lot about it. He's communicating that he’s put the puzzle together. He KNOWS. In McCarthy’s words, “The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was essentially a fabrication of the Clinton campaign that was peddled to the FBI (among other government agencies) and to the media by agents of the Clinton campaign --- particularly, its lawyers at Perkins Coie --- who concealed the fact that they were quite intentionally working on the campaign’s behalf, and that they did not actually believe there was much, if anything, to the collusion narrative.”
Sussmann was also apparently working on behalf of a cyber expert and powerful executive identified in the indictment as “Tech Executive—1.” That is someone whose identity we eagerly anticipate. For more details on that person's role, here’s what McCarthy wrote for NATIONAL REVIEW.
Back when Steele was testifying in the Alfa Bank lawsuit filed against him, Chuck Ross at the DAILY CALLER was following that trial. Ross reported in April of 2020 that Steele, in his “investigation” of Trump, met with two Democratic National Committee lawyers, Sussmann and Marc Elias. He met with Elias in September of 2016, just a week after writing the fictional memo accusing Alfa Bank of “illicit” ties with Vladimir Putin.
I’ll bet he got a BIG pat on the back for that.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/27/christopher-steele-dossier-alfa-bank-perkins-coie/
By the way, Steele lost in court and was ordered to pay damages to Alfa Bank. One would think the bank could have had quite a case agains Perkins Coie as well, as they were apparently the ones who fed the phony-baloney “pinging servers” story to Steele.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/08/christopher-steele-alfa-dossier-lawsuit-aven-fridman/
In fact, Steele mentioned that in his own defense. Jerry Dunleavy of the WASHINGTON EXAMINER reported in April 2020 that “Christopher Steele claims Clinton lawyers fed him debunked claim about Russian collusion in 2016.” Guess that didn't help him.
One frustration is that this is information we’ve had for over a year, some of it much longer than that, and it’s just now “formally” coming out. Even now, most of the media will give it short shrift. The very fact that it’s so long in coming gives the press an excuse not to cover it. Why? It’s old news!
But we did learn quite a lot about this story a couple of years ago from Andrew McCarthy’s magnificent book, BALL OF COLLUSION, published in 2019. In Chapter 8, “The Brennan Clearinghouse,” under the subhead “The Mythical Alfa Bank Backchannel,” McCarthy outlined the whole story of Alfa Bank and the rush by “journalists” to cover that story a week before Election Day. This is highly recommended reading, along with anything else he comes out with about it, as he and this story go way back.
Eric Trump, who serves as executive VP of the Trump Organization, was on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES with Maria Bartiromo, and he said he “remembered this story like it was yesterday.” On September 29, 2016, he said, he got an email from THE NEW YORK TIMES telling him of their fable about the Trump Organization having servers connected with those of the Putin-funded Alfa Bank. Eric replied that they did not. They said, “Yes you do.” They told him they had a tip that was “very, very credible.”
Eric told Bartiromo that until Durham’s indictment of Michael Sussmann came down a few days ago, he "did not know the whole thing was actually done by the Clinton campaign.” They’d had no idea where it came from, he said. He said they and all their IT vendors had been working with the FBI for “a year, year and a half.”
The Clinton campaign was after one thing, he said. That was the big headline, “Trump Organization under investigation by the FBI for ties with Russia.” Eric pointed out that Pulitzer Prizes were won for perpetuating the lie of Trump/Russia collusion. (Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t think they should have to give those awards back?) “We all know now that it was funded by Hillary Clinton," he said. "It’s an absolute disgrace. It makes our country look like a banana republic. It just shouldn’t have happened.”
You bet it shouldn't have.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6273267659001?playlist_id=3386055101001#sp=show-clips
LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM!
Are the media barricades crumbling?
By Mike Huckabee
Are the media barricades against admitting the efficacy of natural immunity from COVID finally starting to crumble? There are some positive indications, like the growing coverage of the recent large-scale Israeli study, and now this shocking twist: the “fact-checking” site Politifact actually admitted that a politician’s statement that people who have recovered from COVID-19 have “very strong immunity” to the virus is “Mostly true.”
And what’s even more shocking: it was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis whom they admitted was right!
PJ Media has the full story, but it’s behind a paywall.
If you’re not a subscriber, here’s why they said it was only “mostly true.” Politifact says the Israeli study did find that natural immunity gives longer-lasting and stronger protection than the Pfizer vaccine. However, “the same study said natural immunity plus a single vaccine dose gave the best protection.” But, fact-checking the “fact-checkers,” PJ Media’s Stacey Lennon adds the “missing context” that the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated recovered patients was so small, it was ruled “statistically insignificant.”
Still, as far as earth-shattering news goes, Politifact admitting that Gov. DeSantis was correct is right up there with “Man Bites Dog, and Gives It COVID.”
LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM!
New Podcast Episode
Democrat pollster Doug Schoen has a warning for his party on this week’s episode of The People’s Podcast: Barring major changes, Democrats are likely doomed come 2022. He explains why that is and much more.
Remnants of an Army
By Larry Gatlin
NOTE FROM MIKE: Grammy winner and Country Music legend Larry Gatlin who is also a very well-educated and articulate scholar of history, wrote this great guest column for my newsletter which I hope you will read and comment on:
PROLOGUE
On a cold January day in 1842, a half-starved soldier – slumping across the neck of a dying horse - appeared at the gates of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The horse and rider had survived a 10 day, 90-mile “retreat” over and through the Spin Ghar Range that sprawls between Kabul through Jalalabad to the Khyber Pass. Behind them lay the frozen, mangled bodies of General Sir William Elphinstone and more than 4,500 soldiers of The British and East India Expeditionary Force. The General had been promised a safe withdrawal to India by Muhammad Akbar Khan, the leader of the Afghan tribesmen who had revolted against British rule; but after evacuating Kabul, the British force was attacked by Khan’s tribesman army at Gandamak, where the British Force made a valiant but futile last stand. When Dr. William Brydon, the lone survivor of that first Battle of Kabul was asked where the rest of the army was, he simply answered, “I am the army.” In 1879, Dr. Brydon and his horse were immortalized on canvas by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. Her painting, “Remnants of an Army,” ranks with Picasso’s “Guernica,” Goya’s “The Third of May,” Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” William Bass’ “The Battle of Bosworth Field,” Paul Phillipoteaux’s “The Battle of Gettysburg” and God knows too many more paintings depicting the horrors of war.
CHAPTER ONE
On a hot August day in 2021, I was reminded of Lady Butler’s painting as I watched another “remnant of an army,” General Chris Donahue, retreat from this most recent Battle of Kabul, a retreat which I’m guessing was against the General’s will and better military judgment. General Donahue, Commander of the vaunted 82nd Airborne, was “captured on film” by a night vision camera as he solemnly trudged up the gangway of a C-17 to leave Afghanistan and GOD only knows how many American citizens behind.
Over the last “fortnight” as the Brits would say, I have searched my heart, soul and mind, trying to get my brain wrapped around the events of the last two weeks. President Biden’s shameful, cowardly, militarily indefensible, politically-motivated decision to surrender the most powerful military force on the planet to a rabble of 7th century Neanderthals - murderers, terrorists, and rapists - the Taliban. I confess that I am so damned mad at the “Surrenderor-in-Chief that any clear-eyed assessment of the situation on my part is difficult if not impossible. What I really want to say cannot be printed “in these pages” and if it could be printed, would probably prompt a visit to my house by “employees” of one or more security agencies of the United States government. At the very least, I would be cancelled from Facebook and Twitter (I don’t “do” either one, BTW.)
CHAPTER TWO
In order to try to accomplish that probably impossible task, I decided to try to get some historical perspective regarding wars - the victories, defeats, surrenders and retreats - the cowards and the heroes from the past. I went back and re-read some of the classical writers on warfare: Herodotus, Thucydides, Gibbon and more recent writers, Stephen Crane, Eric Maria Remarque, and finally my contemporary literary hero, Ernest Hemingway, because I remembered what he had said when asked how he started a new novel, “I just sit down at my typewriter and bleed.” So this morning over coffee, I re-read for the umpteenth time, parts of Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” on the chance that it might help me understand this latest chapter (THE BIDEN BLUNDER) of what Captain Arthur Conolly and Rudyard Kipling long ago dubbed “The Great Game,” the fight for Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Since I don’t own a typewriter, and since my iPad is a cold, black piece of metal and composite poly something or other and has no soul, I sat down at my writing table, the surface of which are my two priceless 1798 Imperial Editions of Charles Knightly’s “The Plays of William Shakespeare;” took my Palomino Blackwing 602 Pencil in hand; and let it “bleed” onto a piece of unlined white paper.
It bled:
1) I am not a warrior.
2) I have never REALLY been shot at. (Once in Somalia...a few rounds fired over my head...different story for another time)
3) I have never shot at anything that didn’t have 4 legs or 2 wings.
4) I have never been in that “hell” that General Sheridan called war.
5) I’ve never seen another human being blown apart in front of my eyes.
6) I’ve never heard the dogs of war howling all around me, or felt the earth shake from exploding ordinance on a killing field where life seemed to be so cheap and so costly at the same time, so how can I possibly write anything that matters?
The answer is, maybe I can’t; but this morning I watched and listened as a “30-something preppy-looking buttoned-down Ivy League-looking” robot was trotted out by the Pentagon to try convince me and my fellow Americans that we need not worry about the $90,000,000 worth of state-of-the-art military equipment that was left behind in this latest retreat from Afghanistan and that it poses no threat to us. I respectfully offer that those who believe that are either heartlessly indifferent, woefully naive, ignorant of history, just plain stupid or all of the above; and I will state emphatically that there is a danger looming in those remote mountains that has been, for almost 300 years, and still is one of the most strategically important places in the world - the Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan and our “friends and “allies” to whom we have given almost $80,000,000 since 1948. And our “friends” have nukes…a lot of nukes…and they have friends called the Taliban...and the Taliban has poppy fields…a lot of poppy fields…which means money...a lot of money…which means weapons...a lot of weapons...which means dead bodies...a lot of dead bodies...because the Khyber Pass is still right there where it has been since the beginning of time - at the crossroads between England, through Europe, through the Straits of Bosporus to Central Asia, India, Arabia and Russia to Africa, intersecting the Silk Road from China to Africa and the Mediterranean. And whoever controls it, to a large extent, controls half of the world.
[SEE: Tom Clancy’s “Sum of All Fears,” wherein the bad guys obtain fissile material from an unexplored Israeli nuke and make a “ dirty bomb” that they explode at The Super Bowl in D.C.] The scariest thing of all is that Joe Biden and “all the usual suspects,” his lemmings/handlers/sycophants, are still in charge of keeping America safe and protecting America’s interests, including the above-mentioned Khyber Pass....and…
THEY JUST DONT GET IT...HELP US!! So Clueless Joe Biden surrendered...again, GOD HELP US!!
Dr. Brydon and his fellow British soldiers were fighting to keep the Khyber Pass open because it was the gateway for trade, for “goods and services” back and forth between England and India, the Jewel of The British Empire. The passing of “goods and services” is no longer the reason to secure “THE KHYBER,” unless by “goods and services” you mean nukes or fissile material, and I’m afraid that there will be nothing “good” passing through The Khyber any time soon.
EPILOGUE
George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would offer that Clueless Joe can’t remember what he had for breakfast, and he is repeating the same old mistakes.
And finally, Plato wrote that “Argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are some one cannot instruct.” Clueless Joe has proven that being knowledgeable is not one of his strong suits, and that he cannot be instructed unless by “instructed” you mean, “I was instructed to call on Kelly O’Donnell,” etc. etc.”
I would offer that there are some whom one cannot even shame, which is, in fact, a shame.
Charlie Wilson said, “Three things happened. They were glorious. They changed the world. Then we f’d up the end game.”
I would offer that because we “f’d up” the end game back in ‘88, we had to go back to Afghanistan, and that’s what precipitated this latest tragic episode - Clueless Joe Biden’s disastrous surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
GOD HELP US...Dr. William Brydon must be rolling over in his grave.
LEAVE LARRY A COMMENT HERE, I KNOW HE WILL APPRECIATE IT!
Jane Powell, RIP
By Pat Reeder, "Huckabee" Pop Culture Guru
Sad news for fans of classic film musicals: One of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era, Jane Powell, passed away Thursday of natural causes at 92. Powell had a very long career in movies, stage and TV, but is most famous for the classic MGM musicals “Royal Wedding” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Some of her other notable films include “Hit The Deck,” “Small Town Girl” and “A Date With Judy.”
https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/jane-powell-dead-dies-royal-wedding-1235066697/
Powell became a star at a time when operatic sopranos such as Jeannette McDonald, Deanna Durbin and Kathryn Grayson could actually become movie stars. She never learned to read music, but despite being only 5-foot-1, she had a powerful coloratura voice. I assume she must’ve had to stand on a pretty tall box to do love scenes with Howard Keel. I had the honor of meeting him once. I’m 6-1, and I had to look up at his face as I shook his hand.
Younger readers might know Powell for her many TV appearances, including a recurring role as Alan Thicke’s mother on “Growing Pains.” Powell’s career spanned 67 years, from her first movie, “Song of the Open Road,” in 1944 to her final guest-hosting stint on Turner Classic Movies in 2011. She even performed in concert with the hot lounge group Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010.
Fun Fact: even though she was so famous as the sunny “girl next door” that her autobiography was called “The Girl Next Door and How She Grew,” she was married five times. I guess she lived next door to a lot of people at one time or another.
If you’d like to check out Jane Powell at her best, stream “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” a fantastic musical with a wonderfully politically-incorrect plot. Or pick up a copy of “Royal Wedding” (the movie in which Fred Astaire dances up the wall and across the ceiling.) It’s out of copyright, so you can find very cheap DVDs. Just make sure you get a good transfer since some of them look like you’re watching it at the drive-in through a dirty windshield
REMEMBER JANE POWELL? LEAVE PAT A COMMENT HERE, HE READS THEM!
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