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I started this newsletter back in the fall of 2016 just ahead of President Trump's election over Hillary Clinton.  Since then, I have chronicled his presidency, a nation grappling with COVID, woke ideology, elections, more elections, Congress and finally Joe Biden's presidency.

My team and I like to say that we read the news, so you don't have to. We spend late nights and early mornings, finding news we think is important for you to read, and then we add our two cents and sometimes three cents to help frame things.

It's hard work and time consuming, but we love to do it, and I hope you like to read it enough to pay for a subscription!

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

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“Huckabee” Preview

Join me tonight for a brand-new episode of “Huckabee” on TBN, on our set that’s all done up for Christmas! I’ll talk to Tennessee Rep. David Kustoff about the situation in Israel and more. You’ll learn about an amazing charity called Mercy Ships that’s saving lives all over the world. Coach Joe Kennedy will give us an update since winning his landmark Supreme Court victory for religious freedom rights. We’ll also visit an especially Christmasy “Our Kind of Town,” and laugh with comedian and cartoonist Earl Musick. Then we’ll top it all off with a country Christmas song from two of my favorite guests, Kelly Lang and T.G. Sheppard.

So brighten up your bleak midwinter tonight at 9 EST/8 CST on TBN. To find out how to watch TBN, from local cable and broadcast channels to streaming, visit https://www.huckabee.tv and click on “Channel Finder” on the top menu. You can stream previous episodes, highlights and online-only “Digital Exclusives,” including extended interviews, “In Case You Missed It” and “Facts of the Matter” segments, plus extra performances by our great musical and comedy guests and links to all their sites, at https://www.huckabee.tv. You can also find past shows, highlights and digital exclusives on YouTube and my Facebook page.

Here’s today’s link to continually-updated news on the war in Israel from Fox News…

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/december-9-israel-hamas-war

The latest: The US used its veto power to block a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, which would give Hamas terrorists time to regroup, rearm and attack again. To give you an idea of the kind of honorable humans Hamas members are, the IDF reported finding weapons and ammunition hidden in school classrooms in Gaza, including in bags marked “UNRWA” (the UN organization for Palestinian refugees) and a sniper rifle and bullets hidden inside a teddy bear.  

You’ll also find a report at that link about how the surge of violent anti-Semitic rhetoric online has “renewed debate over what role, if any, the government should have in policing online speech.” Which is interesting considering the governments wanted to censor conservative speech, and now we find the real violent, bigoted speech is coming from the left.

There seemed to be a problem yesterday with the link to this story about an old Palestinian woman telling a reporter about Hamas stealing humanitarian aid, so let's try again:

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/12/07/watch-this-old-gaza-woman-fact-check-a-biased-reporter-n4924557

Former Miss Israel and Miss World Linor Abargil, who is a rape survivor, expressed outrage over international women's groups refusing to outright condemn Hamas' brutal sexual violence against Israeli women. Why, it’s almost as if they care more about advancing leftist political agendas than protecting women’s rights or safety. I wonder if some other recent issue might have given us a clue as to their true priorities are (keep scrolling down...)

Chicago cyclist defends Trans finishers

The female cyclist who came in third against two men who “identify” as women in a Chicago bike race fired back at those who say the top two finishers are cheaters. In an open letter, she said she and the Chicago female racing community are “steadfast in their support” of the two, adding, “We refuse to be falsely presented as victims in a manufactured controversy driven to further alienate and marginalize those most vulnerable within our community, in service of rampant and harmful anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. We speak for ourselves: inclusion makes our sport and community stronger. Everyone is welcome here. Trans women are women.”

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2023/12/08/female-cyclist-who-lost-men-claims-trans-competitors-make-sports-stronger/

And women’s sports are on their way to extinction, thanks to female athletes like her prioritizing woke political virtue signaling over defending women’s safety and their right to their own sports. Oh well, I guess she figures that what does not kill them makes them stronger. Let’s just hope all the men going into women’s contact sports don’t kill them. For the record, when you’re six-foot-four and weigh 250 pounds and you’re fighting five-foot-two, 120-pound women, THEY are the “vulnerable” ones.

And in related news, here’s the least surprising story of the day:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023

Congratulations

Big congratulations to Brenda Lee, who at 78 just became the oldest artist ever to hit #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with her 65-year-old holiday classic, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” She broke the record set by Louis Armstrong with “Hello, Dolly!” when he was 62 in 1964, as well as several other records.

https://www.westernjournal.com/mariah-carey-dethroned-billboard-charts-top-spot-sends-flowers-new-queen-christmas/

And kudos to Mariah Carey for being so gracious about passing her Christmas hit queen crown on to the inspiring Brenda Lee.

Ryan O’Neal RIP

By “Huckabee” pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)

We’re sad to have to report that actor Ryan O’Neal has died at 82, following long battles with chronic leukemia and prostate cancer.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/ryan-oneal-dead-love-story-paper-moon-1235831519/

O’Neal first came to fame on TV’s “Peyton Place,” then rose to become one of the top leading men of the 1970s in such films as “Love Story” (not the Al Gore story), “What’s Up, Doc” (so good, I actually like Barbra Steisand), “Paper Moon” (with his daughter Tatum and Madeline Kahn stealing the show), “The Main Event,” “Barry Lyndon” and more. At one time in the mid-‘70s, he was the second biggest box office draw, behind only Clint Eastwood. Paramount even wanted him to play the unlikely role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” but Francis Ford Coppola insisted on Al Pacino. In retrospect, he was probably right.

As O’Neal’s career cooled, he became known for his personal family life, including problems with his kids and his three-decade relationship with Farah Fawcett (they later got back together and he stayed by her side until her death from cancer.) But he remained active on TV, appearing regularly on such shows as “Bones” and “Desperate Housewives.” He apparently didn’t need to act, as he once said he’d made “a tremendous amount of money on real estate.”

If you’d like to watch a movie in his memory, I think the best are “Paper Moon” and “What’s Up, Doc.” But as a huge silent movie buff, I’ve always had a soft spot for “Nickelodeon,” with Ryan and Tatum O’Neal and Burt Reynolds as early movie pioneers. It’s considered one of his worst films, but if you love that era as I do, you’ll get it better than most people. Director Peter Bogdanovich released a director’s cut DVD in 2009 that turned it to black and white. He believed that color, like O’Neal’s famous blue eyes, distracted viewers from the comedy, which was better when it looked like the silent movie comics it was meant to celebrate.

Border update: A secret camp

The Daily Mail reported Thursday that for more than six months, the city of San Antonio has been operating a “top secret migrant camp,” housing up to 400 illegal immigrants every day at taxpayer expense in an empty hangar at the airport. Some stay less than 24 hours, some stay longer. They’re there to wait for their planes to take them wherever they’re going next. City officials who had been kept in the dark about it were furious.

Of course, the Biden Administration has been quietly reimbursing the costs out of our pockets to keep the flow of illegal aliens coming, all while claiming the border is secure. There’s more at the link, but take your blood pressure medicine first.

https://www.westernjournal.com/top-secret-migrant-camp-caught-operating-empty-aircraft-hanger-texas/

Related: The Biden White House is attacking Congressional Republicans for demanding that Biden secure our own border before giving more money to defend Ukraine’s border. Biden declared that history will “judge them harshly.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-admin-furious-gop-wants-put-america-first-secure-border-history-will-remember-harshly/

Well, at least none of them will ever be known as the worst President in history. I think Joe’s got that title nailed down.

Hunter blames GOP’s “Nazi”-“Putin” tactics for his woes, says they want to kill him

As investigative journalist John Solomon promised on Thursday, he’s broken news that even more closely ties President Biden to his son’s influence-peddling scheme.

After investigating the First Family’s finances and uncovering “dozens and dozens and dozens” of suspicious banking transactions (SARS, or Suspicious Activity Reports) over several years totaling $12 million, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson took his findings to Solomon.  As Solomon now reports in JUST THE NEWS, “banks filed at least six reports concerning Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings that flagged President Joe Biden's home address in [Wilmington,] Delaware and raised concerns about possible criminal activity involving money laundering or human trafficking, according to a U.S. Senator [Johnson] who investigated the first family's finances for years.”

Recall that we’d already learned about a couple of these transactions specifying Joe’s address.  In September, news broke that two wire transfers from 2019 originating from China, one for $250,000 and the other for $10,000, listed then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s home address as the beneficiary.

Could records of these transactions have been coming to Biden’s home without his knowing it?  It occurs to us that even though he was running for President at the time, he was doing it mostly from his basement at home.  He wasn’t doing much traveling at all, especially when the pandemic set in.  According to Sen. Johnson, “There’d be so much activity coming into his address, in this case, Hunter Biden’s businesses, that he obviously would have been aware.  So, again, I would use the word ‘obvious.’  It has been obvious for so long that Biden Inc. is a corrupt enterprise.  And that this President is corrupt, that he is compromised.”  Joe Biden and his family “fully benefited” from this, Johnson said.  Apparently, Hunter was living in California, not Delaware, during this time.

As Solomon reports, Johnson spent two years working with Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley investigating the Biden family and concluded in 2020 that “Joe Biden's family collected millions in foreign monies from countries adversarial to the United States that left the first family compromised from a national security perspective.”

The reports from the Treasury Department on Hunter were intended to “raise awareness to prompt further investigation,” Johnson said, adding that he didn’t think they’d done an honest job of that.

So, how did the IRS even come to investigate Hunter Biden?  We’ve learned from IRS witnesses that their probe started with concerns about a foreign human trafficking operation.  Hunter was paying big money for prostitutes and was allegedly taking them across state lines, which violates the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting across state lines “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.”    According to the U.K. DAILY MAIL, Wells Fargo identified 25 individuals linked to a foreign prostitution ring and about $7 million in suspicious transactions, including checks from Hunter Biden that “may have been falsified to hide his payments to hookers from his business account.”

Here’s Solomon’s full update and video interview with Sen. Johnson.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/least-6-suspicious-activity-reports-linked-joe-bidens-address-ron

If you’ve thought of Hunter Biden, now in his 50s, as a sort-of sympathetic figure, the victim of a greedy and manipulative father, your opinion might change after seeing his response to the indictment.  Friday, he went on left-wing musician Moby’s podcast to say he’s been investigated for five years for “these conspiracy theories and things.”   Moby is a friend he made while both were in an addiction recovery program.

Hunter claimed Republicans are trying to “kill” him (!!) to destroy his father’s presidency --- as if his father weren’t doing a good enough job of that all by himself --- and that the corruption allegations against him “may not, in every aspect, be a Russian disinformation campaign, but [they] literally have every earmark of what the Russians did.”

Note:  Hunter might want to avoid use of the word “earmark,” especially in combination with a reference to Russian disinformation, as we can’t help but associate both of these with that bogus letter about his laptop signed by 51 former intel officials.

And never mind that Hunter’s lucky to be facing only the charges relating to tax fraud.  As reported in AMERICAN GREATNESS, “Weiss has thus far steered clear of charging Hunter with anything related to the Biden family’s influence-peddling operation that could implicate Joe Biden, including bribery, money laundering and registered foreign agent (FARA) violations.”

“None of this is necessarily about me,” Hunter said to Moby.  “They are trying to destroy a presidency...So, in their base way, what they’re trying to do is, they’re trying to kill me, knowing it will be a pain far greater than my father could be able to handle.”  Now, that’s a new one --- perhaps planted in Hunter’s mind by attorney Abbe Lowell.

Of those political enemies, he said he realized that “these people are just sad, very sick people that have most likely just faced traumas in their lives that they’ve decided that they are going to turn into an evil that they decide that they’re going to inflict on the rest of the world.”

That’s right, we’re the ones with the problem.  He also accused Republicans of using “eliminationist” rhetoric against him.  “Eliminationist” rhetoric was something that the Nazis came up with as a tool to undermine their political rivals, and then Putin fine-tuned it, Hunter said, explaining that because Putin couldn’t win arguments about “economic policy, democracy and the freedom to vote,” he labeled his political rivals “pedophiles and planted child pornography on their laptops.”  That would help make the populace believe other bad things about them.  

So, Hunter managed not only to deflect blame from himself but to link Republicans with the Nazis AND Putin.  He attacked Elon Musk, too, calling him a “very damaged human being” who “doesn’t care about anybody but himself.”  As long as we’re going to play armchair psychiatrist, might I introduce the term “projection”?

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/08/hunter-biden-says-hes-a-victim-of-conspiracy-theories-russian-disinfo-gop-trying-to-kill-him

Hunter might want to try getting a little more realistic about this situation and his own responsibility.  Law professor Jonathan Turley says his indictment “shatters years of denials” about the Biden family’s business dealings that the media helped maintain.

We said yesterday that the timing of this indictment was interesting, as it came just as Hunter was trying to fight a congressional subpoena.  Turley agrees:  Now that Hunter’s under indictment, his behind-closed-doors appearance before Congress “may be effectively scuttled.”  Turley says that “Hunter might be able to use this to plead the Fifth, to refuse to answer questions.”  On the other hand, “This indictment might make it easier for Hunter not to speak, but it may make it more difficult for President Biden to avoid [the impeachment] inquiry.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/07/jonathan-turley-hunter-indictment-shatters-years-of-denials-biden-business-dealings

Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman told FOX NEWS host Jesse Watters on Thursday that Hunter would plead the Fifth.  He also said the prosecution has “complete control over what will happen to Hunter Biden.”  Even If they draw a judge who doesn’t fall into line, his father will pardon him.  But Hunter now “has every reason not to appear before Congress” for that long deposition.  So it’s as we thought:  the timing of this indictment was not to impart justice but to help hide misconduct that might involve the President.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/12/07/hes-going-to-plead-the-fifth-ex-us-attorney-says-hunter-biden-indictment-could-sink-deposition-protect-joe-biden

Miranda Devine called it “too late and, really, too little.”  See her interview with FOX NEWS’ Will Cain here…

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6342625679112

Finally, the media are still lying about the “lack of evidence” implicating Joe.  Here’s Tulsi Gabbard’s response to that…

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6342634218112

 I JUST WANTED TO SAY: 

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