By Mike Huckabee
July 14, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Thank you for subscribing!
Sincerely,
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
Unthinkable
In a story that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago in the pre-Dylan Mulvaney epoch, Bud Light appears poised to disappear from the shelves of Costco. Shoppers across America are sharing photos of Costco price cards for Bud Light that have an asterisk in the upper right corner. That’s a signal that the product is being sold off and will no longer be restocked. That’s why it’s known as the “Death Star.”
Liberals who scoffed that the outrage and revulsion over Bud Light’s association with the “trans” Internet celebrity would soon blow over never anticipated that it would last so long and be so bad that it could threaten the very existence of what was America’s #1 beer brand. But it has, and here are some other signs of that.
According to a new YouGov survey, Bud Light has dropped out of Americans' top 10 favorite beers, down to #14...
https://www.foxnews.com/media/bud-light-no-longer-ranks-among-americas-top-10-beers
The toxicity is also harming sales of other Anheuser Busch brands…
But Stephen Green at PJ Media argues that the potential impending loss of shelf space at Costco is even worse than it seems and could signal a death spiral for the brand. He also makes the intriguing point that the average Costco shopper is nothing like the media stereotype of a dumb, knuckle-dragging, transphobic MAGA Republican (but then, neither is the average MAGA Republican). The average Costco member is “a 39-year-old college-educated Asian-American woman who earns more than $125,000 per year.”
If those shoppers are also turned off enough by Dylan Mulvaney to avoid Bud Light, I’d say it shows that not only is the boycott deeper and more widespread than the media would have us believe, but support for the radical transgender movement in general might also exist only inside cast iron liberal echo chambers.
Joe Manchin Update
Moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (a designation that makes him about as rare as a dodo bird these days) was very popular in West Virginia until he got snookered into supporting the Democrats' “Inflation Reduction Act” that spent a ton of money and increased both inflation and the deficit, then fellow Democrats broke the promises they made to him to secure his vote. Now, his seat is considered a virtual sure-fire GOP pickup in 2024. So what will Manchin do?
Well, since everyone other than me seems to be running for President these days, how about launching a third party run for the White House?
https://www.westernjournal.com/joe-manchin-enact-revenge-dems-third-party-presidential-run-imminent/
This is hardly a sure thing, and Manchin would definitely be the longest of long shots. But just the idea that he could draw enough moderate Democrat votes to help Trump (or any Republican) beat Biden is sending Democrats into apoplectic rages. That alone is worth floating the idea, and somehow, I can’t help suspecting that Joe Manchin would agree.
Democrats are wreaking havoc
State governments have been described as the laboratories where ideas are tested to see if they work before taking them to the federal level. The problem today is that some of these states have turned into mad scientist laboratories, concocting Frankenstein-like laws that wreak havoc, but the Democrats want to institute them on the federal level anyway. Why else would anyone seriously consider California Gov. Gavin Newsom as presidential material?
But you already know how the policies of California have turned the once-Golden State into an overtaxed, crime-ridden, drug-infested homeless shelter/illegal immigrant sanctuary/abortion clinic/transgender butcher shop that people are fleeing in historic numbers. What about the other blue states? Well, it appears that some of them are looking at California and saying, “Hold muh Bud Light!”
Like Rhode Island, which just passed a law deemed a “test run” for other blue states, imposing costly fees and paperwork on every freelancer and independent contractor from handymen to Uber drivers.
Or Illinois, which will begin a new law next year stripping the rights of landlords and barring them from even inquiring about whether the people they’re renting their property to are illegal aliens, which forces them to be accessories to people breaking US immigration laws.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-will-no-longer-allow-landlords-consider-immigration-status
Note that the Fox News report links to a related story from June about the Supreme Court rejecting a challenge to a law that makes it a crime to “encourage or induce” illegal immigration.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-law-barring-encouraging-illegal-immigration
Would it be possible to cite that law to arrest the Illinois legislature and Governor?
Related: Even some California Democrats, including Gov. Newsom, were shocked when a bipartisan bill to make child sex trafficking a serious felony in California reportedly died in committee due to technicalities cited by Democrats.
Surprisingly, the objections to the bill were not that it would decimate the movie and TV industry, or that according to Rolling Stone, child sex trafficking is a QAnon conspiracy theory.
But hold on: the Republicans are trying to force the bill out of committee for a floor vote. Let’s hope it’s a rare win for them.
Speaking of fighting child sex predators, the fact-based movie “Sound of Freedom” is closing in on a $50 million gross and has returned to the #1 spot at the box office, ahead of “Insidious” and the Indiana Jones movie, despite being in hundreds of fewer theaters.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/
Not funny
It might be funny to hear someone with zero natural intelligence trying to explain what artificial intelligence is, if that person weren’t a heartbeat away from the presidency and the heartbeat weren’t Joe Biden’s.
The hypocrisy of so-called “climate warriors”
A video went viral that sums up the hypocrisy of so-called “climate warriors” even better than John Kerry’s private jet flight logs.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/07/13/spanish-minister-climate-conference-n2625606
In it, Spain’s Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera (a member of the Socialist Workers Party, naturally) is shown arriving by bicycle at a climate summit on eliminating cars in Valladolid, Spain – accompanied by two armored cars for security. As if that weren’t hypocritical enough, people began asking how she could have bicycled from her office in Madrid, 120 miles away.
One source claimed she took a military jet, but her office claimed she took a hybrid car, both of which emit more CO2 than a bicycle. Either way, she reportedly took a limo to the anti-car summit (causing a traffic snarl that wasted gas and caused more pollution), then got on the bike about 100 meters from the conference and pedaled the rest of the way in front of photographers.
If that’s all it takes, then count me in! I will gladly volunteer to bicycle 100 meters’ worth of any trip I take by jet and limo if it will save the planet! No, don't call me a hero. I'm just doing my part.
America the Beautiful
God's creation is all around us. We are blessed with his bounty. Take a moment to enjoy it.
Hilarious
A leftwing reporter tried to slam Florida and ended up creating a hilarious Emily Litella-style “Never mind!” moment…
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Unbelievable story
Rick Moran of PJ Media reports on an Ohio school district (yes, good old, Middle American Ohio) that spent $24,000 of the taxpayers’ money on a two-day seminar for teachers and staff on “Queer and Trans Inclusion.” It included lessons on how to “affirm” students’ “gender identity” issues and hide them from their parents, even by creating “a private place in the student records.” Those of you familiar with the practices of embezzlers will recognize this tactic as “keeping two sets of books,” and yes, it’s just as honest and above-board as that sounds.
Higher standards
After it was reported that former US Olympic Gymnastics doctor and convicted sexual predator Larry Nasser had been stabbed repeatedly by another inmate in prison (he’s in stable condition and expected to survive), I surmised that it was further proof that even convicted felons have more disdain for pedophiles and sexual predators than do, apparently Rolling Stone and the Washington Post. Of course, that was just an assumption; I didn’t know what might have incited the attack.
But now, it’s being reported that – surprise – Nasser was attacked by the other inmate after making a lewd comment about wanting to see girls playing at Wimbledon.
So I was right: convicted violent felons do have higher moral standards about sexual misconduct than liberal media outlets, even if they don’t have acceptable ways of expressing their disapproval.
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Biden sends new troops to Europe
President Biden has done an awful lot of things to the detriment of America, and it sometimes seems as if he did them solely because it was the opposite of what Trump would have done. Things like destroying our border security. I think Biden’s latest move would definitely qualify as something Trump never would have done.
Biden just issued a surprise executive order to deploy up to 3,000 US military reservists to Europe as part of America’s support for NATO during the Russia-Ukraine war.
This is being downplayed as routine support for our NATO allies, but many critics of Biden’s unfettered support for Ukraine are concerned that it’s another step closer to pulling our troops into this conflict and bringing us into World War III.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-accused-wanting-world-war-3-after-calling-reserve-troops-1812924
We are being assured that these troops will not be sent to Ukraine, and that “units deployed are not to exceed more than 3,000 total members at one time,” but some of us are old enough to remember when we were told that fewer than a thousand “military advisors” would be sent to Vietnam. Eventually, 2.7 million Americans ended up serving there, and over 58,000 never came home alive. This despite Lyndon Johnson admitting at the outset that “I don’t think the people of the country know much about Vietnam and I think they care a hell of a lot less.”
This is not to say that Ukraine is another Vietnam. But we should be very cautious about risking going down the same path in hopes that it won’t lead to the same destination.
Biden cancels some student debt
Just two weeks after having his student loan bailout scheme slapped down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional overreach, President Biden announced that he’s canceling $39 billion in student loan debt for over 800,000 borrowers. CNBC has the details:
Speaking of loading up the federal cannons with other people's money, a new report by the Inspector General’s office of the Small Business Administration estimates that about 17% of the $1.2 trillion Congress spent on COVID relief via the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDLP) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was lost to fraud. That’s around $200 billion.
These sneaky recipients of Uncle Sugar’s largesse spent the “emergency relief” funds on everything from a $318,000 Lamborghini to a beachfront home in Nantucket. One listed on his expense register two $15,000 payments labeled only as “Mom.” That must’ve been some Mother’s Day for her. The SBA says there have been dozens of prosecutions, and they have about 90,000 more “actionable leads.”
Experts say Congress made it incredibly easy to create a fake business and defraud the taxpayers, because “all of the information was self-reported and none of it was verified or checked.”
Congress should either never do that again, or else make it standard policy for IRS tax forms.
Proof America dodged a bullet in 2004
In 2004, Americans wisely chose to dodge a bullet by not electing John Kerry President. Yet today, he has assumed the virtual powers of the Presidency in an unelected position as Biden’s “climate czar.” He jets around the world, attending “climate crisis” conferences in five-star resorts and making deals to hinder America’s economy and make Americans’ lives more difficult and expensive in the name of saving the planet, while giving a pass to far worse polluters such as China and India. So far, he’s done this in typically arrogant, high-handed fashion by dismissing his critics and keeping his staff cordoned off in their own VIP area of the State Department, free from any oversight. (FYI: he also allegedly conducted foreign policy in contradiction of the legitimate Trump Administration, a clear violation of the Logan Act.)
Kerry's refusal to talk to the serfs finally came to an end Thursday when he was grilled by Republicans on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. You could tell that Kerry did not like having his actions questioned or his hypocrisy pointed out. Some of his creative denials may have even crossed the line into perjury.
When pressed on whether he had come there via private jet, Kerry called it “pretty stupid” to suggest he’d come over from the State Department by jet. That obviously wasn’t what was implied, so the Congress members pressed him on whether he flies around the world on private jets to lecture the rest of us to limit our CO2 emissions. First he said, “We don’t own a private jet. I don’t own a private jet. I’ve never personally owned a private jet.” Pressed further, he corrected, “My family owned a plane.” Pressed further still, he admitted, “My wife owned a plane.”
While being repeatedly reminded that he was under oath, he claimed he’d flown on a private jet “possibly once” since taking this position. Fox News obtained data from FlightAware.com showing that since Biden took office, Kerry’s family jet has taken 48 trips totaling over 60 hours in the air and emitting 325 metric tons of CO2.
To be fair, though, I think that might be less hot gas than he emitted during this hearing. Like when he praised China for being so far ahead of us in renewable energy (slave labor doesn’t count), admitted that holding China to the same strict limits he wants to apply to America isn’t going to happen, and refused to call Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator,” instead dubbing him a “major decider.”
Since nobody knows a politician like the people from his home state, I’ll refer you to Howie Carr’s brutal but hilarious write-up in the Boston Herald.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/14/howie-carr-john-kerry-on-the-grill-very-rare-treat
I love Carr's description of these climate conferences at lavish resorts as “sunny places for shady people.” As I’ve said for years, I will believe these people seriously believe that there’s a climate crisis that can be cured by reducing CO2 when they start holding their meetings via Zoom calls.
Surprise twist to Ray Epps story
The mysterious story of Ray Epps just took another surprise twist with the claim in his defamation lawsuit against Fox News that the Biden DOJ is about to charge him criminally over his actions at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
https://www.westernjournal.com/ray-epps-criminally-charged-doj-blames-tucker-carlson/
Just as the fact that he wasn’t charged fueled suspicions he was working with the feds, this claim is raising questions about why he’s allegedly, finally being charged after three long years. The lawsuit doesn’t say what the charges are, and as of Thursday, there were reportedly no records of any charges in DC courts.
The lawsuit blames Fox News and Tucker Carlson’s coverage of him for creating “political pressure” that led to these alleged charges. I’m not an attorney, so maybe I’m missing something. But I don’t understand how it’s Fox News’ fault (or defamation) if they report on questions about a figure in a major news event who wasn’t charged despite his actions being caught on camera (which is not Tucker Carlson’s fault), while many other people who seemingly did far less were ridiculously overcharged. Even Congress members were demanding answers to those questions from FBI officials.
That seems like news, and isn’t it the job of the media to cover the news (I don’t mean MSNBC or CNN, who don’t cover anything that questions the current Administration’s narratives; but I mean actual news outlets like Fox)?
Speaking of Democrat mouth organs posing as news outlets, have you noticed that ever since Epps filed his lawsuit against Fox News, liberal media outlets feel they have to support him, so they’ve suddenly started referring to January 6th as “rallies,” a “protest” and a “demonstration” instead of a “riot” or an “insurrection?”
Edward Lang
In a somewhat related story, Rick Moran at PJ Media reports that the Supreme Court might end up hearing a case that could free a lot of the people locked up for years over January 6th . The case involves Edward Lang, who is facing up to 20 years in prison after being hit with 11 federal charges. He pleaded not guilty to all of them, and the judge threw out the charges related to “obstruction of an official proceeding” and two others.
An appeals court reinstated the charges, but Lang’s attorneys are arguing that the Biden DOJ is doing essentially the same thing Biden did when he tried to use the very limited Heroes Act to pay off everybody’s student loans. They claim the feds are misusing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was passed after the Worldcom and Enron bankruptcies to crack down on financial malfeasance. They say it has nothing to do with the Capitol violence, and the feds are stretching it beyond what Congress intended, so they can use it as a “blatant political instrument to crush dissent.”
We’ve just seen that this SCOTUS takes a dim view of the executive branch “interpreting” laws to mean whatever they’d like them to mean. If they rule in Lang’s favor, it could mean appeals or early releases for many January 6th defendants and a much-needed reining-in of the rogue Biden DOJ. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this case.
“You don’t have to be Columbo” to solve White House cocaine case
“You don’t have to be Columbo to figure out who was there.”
Those are the words of one ex-federal investigator who talked with the NEW YORK POST on Thursday. And he’s not the only one crying foul over the White House announcement that the Secret Service investigation of how cocaine got into the White House is closing with no physical evidence found and no suspects. The End.
The BABYLON BEE predicted something very similar a week ago...
As we mentioned yesterday, Dan Bongino, who worked for over a decade in the Secret Service, isn’t buying it. “They have suspects,” he said. “I just don’t think they want to tell you who the suspects are.”
The story the White House is sticking with now is that the cocaine was discovered by an agent on July 2 in locker #50, one of 182 in in the foyer of the West Wing’s basement entrance, one floor below the Oval Office and very near the Situation Room. These “cubbies” lock with keys, and the key to locker #50 is apparently missing. This has the look of a drug drop. If that’s the case, we have a supplier and a recipient, and one of them likely has the key.
Since Hunter can’t exactly go out on Pennsylvania Avenue and score his own drugs, that’s one possible scenario. But there’s one question we haven’t heard asked: if the lockers have keys, and keys are turned in somewhere, this locker would have been assigned, would it not?
“This is a cover-up,” the POST’s source told them. “How can they say they have no leads?” They keep a log book, he said, wondering aloud if they’d have the same answer if it had been anthrax. It was a small amount, less than a gram of powder, the White House says (if anyone cares to believe them), but that makes no difference. If someone can bring in cocaine undetected, surely, they can bring in any toxin.
Multiple sources also aren’t buying that no physical evidence, such as fingerprints and/or DNA, could be gathered by forensic testing.
This is an area that conveniently has no cameras, because of the sensitive nature of materials that might pass through (such as classified papers?). So the White House says they needed physical evidence to identify the culprit out of hundreds of people who’d been in and out of there.
It’s absurd to think that with the advanced technology that was used to track down over a thousand Trump supporters who’d been in the vicinity of the Capitol building on January 6, they would have no way (and little inclination) to solve a security mystery that involved an area so close to the Oval Office and Situation Room. (Comedian Joe DeVito observed on “Gutfeld” that if someone had left a red MAGA cap at the White House, you can bet they would have tracked down its owner by now.) As another former investigator put it, “We have a tale of two countries. They identified hundreds of people who were in the Capitol building on January 6 after an extensive investigation, but they don’t know who left something in an 8x10 room in the White House?”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy certainly doesn’t buy it. “You can’t tell me in the White House, with 24/7 surveillance, in a cubby hole near the Situation Room that they don’t know who delivered it there,” he told FOX NEWS. We should get an answer to the question. It just seems to me that in America today, anything involving ‘Biden Inc.’ gets treated differently than anything else, and that shouldn’t be the case.”
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace expressed similar disbelief that “some of the best law enforcement officers in the world” can’t solve this mystery in “one of the most secure locations in the world.”
Probably the only reason we heard about this at all is that the white powder had to be considered a dangerous substance until identified, meaning they had to evacuate the building while a DC Fire and EMS hazmat team came in to do testing. An initial test showed cocaine, and the FBI lab later confirmed that.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/13/former-federal-investigators-cry-foul-on-wh-cocaine-this-is-a-coverup
I would love for those ex-investigators who talked with the POST to comment on what Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida had to say to Piers Morgan Thursday night on FOX NEWS. Moskowitz very surprisingly said that in their Secret Service briefing, members of Congress were told not to worry --- that there ARE measures in place to protect against toxic substances such as anthrax and ricin, but NOT drugs like cocaine. What??
“As far as anthrax or ricin,” he said, “I can’t go into the details, because some of that obviously was done in the briefing that’s classified, but there are protocols in place, and there is also technology in place, to catch anthrax and to catch ricin.” They’re set up to find those poisons, and also explosive devices, but “are not set up to find drugs,” he said.
Being someone with a brain, Morgan was understandably skeptical. “I’m staggered,” he said, “...that you would never think about people bringing drugs to the White House?”
Moskowitz obviously was doing the interview to try to distance the Biden family from what happened. The area where the coke was found, he said, was a place for “guests” to leave belongings before being escorted on a tour of the West Wing. “It is not for people who work there on a regular basis. It’s not for anyone related to the family --- the Trump family or the Biden family.” (See how deftly he worked “Trump” in there?) Piers said he found that for the White House, this is “a pretty lame excuse.”
We have a question, too: if the area isn’t for people who work there, why DON’T they have cameras? What “sensitive” materials are being brought in by guests being taken on tours? This makes no sense.
Anyway, the interview, which also included Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, ended on a fun note, after Moskowitz tried to say the Secret Service had destroyed the “Hunter’s coke” narrative. Piers responded, “To be fair, no one’s denying it was Hunter. The White House was asked to and chose not to. No one’s denied it. And let’s be honest, Hunter Biden has an extensive record of drug abuse. So why wouldn’t he be a suspect?”
Moskowitz, with no comeback, sat awkwardly with a sour look on his face, knowing he’d been bested, as Piers thanked both guests and moved on. Priceless. Here’s the full segment…
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6331150045112
According to Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, who with other members of Congress attended an FBI briefing, this is actually the third time since last year that drugs have been found in the White House, but the other two times involved not a potentially lethal white powder but marijuana.
“This is the third time that drugs have been found on the White House property since 2022,” she said, “and we did not even hear about the marijuana...So everything they do is to move along to the next story. They know there will be another Biden crime crisis.”
It occurs to us that this growing crisis is so significant that perhaps they need to appoint a Biden Crime Crisis Czar. Of course, they know not to appoint Kamala Harris this time because the job involves a lot of serious work. On second thought, the attorney general and FBI director have been functioning in this role for quite some time. Call them co-czars.
RELATED: There’s a public congressional hearing coming up next week that might actually be productive: the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, led by Kentucky Rep. James Comer, is bringing in two FBI whistleblowers to detail their allegations of influence peddling by the Biden family. This is scheduled for next Wednesday, July 19, starting at 1 PM Eastern, and will be livestreamed.
You know the name of one, Gary Shapley. But the other investigator has so far maintained anonymity, and that’s about to change. Both investigators, who worked extensively on the Hunter case, have previously testified to the House Ways & Means Committee, as they had to present their evidence there first since it’s the “gatekeeper” for any personal tax information that might need to be revealed. In that testimony, they alleged that Biden-appointed officials had improperly interfered in the investigation into Hunter’s finances. The apparent goal, they said, was to keep the charges as light as possible and to delay the case until after the election season.
The Oversight Committee has already gone through thousands of financial records and knows the Biden family set up over 20 shell companies as part of what Comer calls an “intentionally complicated” scheme to hide their transactions with foreign adversaries. But it’s no thanks to the FBI. These whistleblowers have testified that when they repeatedly addressed their concerns about the handling of the case, they were ignored.
So, this hearing is one to watch. It’ll be especially interesting to learn the identity of Whistleblower #2. We owe much gratitude to both these individuals, who gave up a lot to come forward.
WRAY TESTIMONY FOLLOW-UP: Law professor Jonathan Turley has an excellent column on FBI Director Christopher Wray’s dreadful shortcomings and describes Matt Taibbi’s new release from the “Twitter Files” that shows Wray’s testimony from Wednesday to be false.
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