By Mike Huckabee
September 25, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team!
Mike Huckabee
Certain Internet “gatekeepers” have decided my newsletter's fate...
I wrote recently 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. But that’s not at all true, as this story shows.
Unfortunately, if I summarize that story for you, it would possibly result in this 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
https://govmikehuckabee.
Menendez press conference
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez will hold his first press conference today after being charged Friday by the FBI with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, etc. He’s expected to announce that he’s running for reelection.
I have a suggested campaign slogan: “Menendez: The gold standard of Senators.”
In other news, Menendez has hired Hunter Biden’s attorneys to represent him. That might be the most predictable news of the day.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
Unprecedented move
In an unprecedented move for a sitting President, Joe Biden will go to Michigan Tuesday and walk in the picket line of striking UAW auto workers. If you’re looking for the union label, you’ll find it tattooed on Joe’s backside, and it reads, “Property of the UAW.”
https://nypost.com/2023/09/22/
For the record, I think the striking workers have legitimate beefs. I also think that the union bosses are making ridiculous demands, like a 40% raise and a 32-hour work week at a time when new cars already cost more than houses used to and most Americans can’t afford one. Both sides need to compromise, and it doesn't help to have the President of the United States taking sides in the name of political theater.
That linked story includes reaction from the Trump campaign, which claims Biden is only coming there because Trump plans to visit the striking workers on Wednesday, and Democrats are terrified that union workers will realize Biden’s push to force everyone into EVs is costing them jobs. Oh, I'd be surprised if they didn't know that already.
Trump poll gains, cause Biden White House to panic, Part II
I always urge people not to put stock in early polls, which can change on a dime. But this one might explain why Democrats are suddenly looking as panicky about Joe Biden being their 2024 presidential candidate as they would be about him being their Uber driver.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll (so not a rightwing outfit) shows that despite years of constant media attacks and all those unprecedented indictments, Donald Trump now has a 10-point lead over Biden. Trump leads 52-42%, and by 13 points among Independents. Other polls show the race much closer, so this is an outlier, but for a party that seems to care about nothing but retaining power (see John Fetterman), it must be setting off alarms at DNC headquarters.
Beyond the Trump lead, which some might be skeptical of, the poll also shows Biden’s approval/disapproval number at 37/56% and his ratings for handling the economy and immigration at all-time lows. Over 70% say the economy is poor or not-so-good, 87% say the same about gas and energy prices, and 91% say the same about food prices. Asked to assess how Trump did the job of President, 48% approved. That sounds low, but it’s 10 points higher than when he left office, and higher than at any point during his presidency, when the media relentlessly bashed everything he said and did while pushing fake anti-Trump news like Russian collusion.
It all goes to prove what I always say: Nothing makes Republicans look good like just a few years of Democrats being in charge.
But while Biden may be in the dog house, neither party is free of that wet dog smell as far as voters are concerned. Another new poll by the Pew Research Center found that Americans are fed up with both parties and like their government about as much as they’d like a sleazy used car salesman selling them a Yugo filled with cockroaches that are carrying COVID.
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/
Just 16% trust the government “at least most of the time,” which is near a 70-year low. The top two words they think of to describe politics are “divisive” and “corrupt.” Four times as many Americans have unfavorable views of both parties as in 2002, an all-time high, and that includes 37% of 18- to 29-year-olds. 87% of Republicans and 85% of Democrats believe both parties are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems. 87% support term limits and 79% want age limits on politicians. And when asked to describe the biggest problem with politics, 37% said “politicians.” I’m surprised it was that low.
This may be the first poll where “Pew!” is both the name of the poll taker and the reaction of most of the respondents.
As a further reminder not to take these polls too seriously, here’s a piece by Jon Gabriel of Richochet.com, reminding us that political conditions can change in a day, the race might not be between Trump and Biden at all, and the vast majority of Americans don’t even start thinking about politics until after Labor Day of the election year, if they can possibly help it.
Backing away
It’s interesting to see how quickly Democrat politicians in New York City and State are backing away from being “sanctuaries” and passing “right to shelter” laws, once the illegal immigrants Biden is letting in by the millions actually started showing up and expecting shelter.
https://headlineusa.com/nyc-
Seems they forgot to explain this before, but the “right to shelter” is only a temporary right, good for 60 days at most. I thought rights were God-given, but apparently, with this right, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Fact-Check Fails
Memo to Ukrainian President Zelinskyy and Canada’s Parliament and Prime Minister: If you don’t want people thinking you’re anti-Semites, do a background check to make sure you’re not giving a standing ovation to a former Nazi soldier.
https://www.westernjournal.
Also, memo to CNN: Before you accuse Rep. Matt Gaetz of twice voting against a defense appropriations bill during a live TV interview, you might want to check twice...or even once..to make sure that’s true. It isn’t.
https://www.westernjournal.
Joe Biden gaffe of the day (but the day is young yet)…
Nothing but the facts for Rev. Al
In calling for more gun bans, Al Sharpton declared on MSNBC that he’s shocked by people who won’t give up their AR-15 rifles, saying, “People cannot do mass killings unless they have mass instruments.”
Breitbart.com fact-checked that claim and ruled it false. In fact, mass killers are almost twice as likely to use handguns as long guns of any kind, a category that includes shotguns and all rifles. They also noted that mass killers don’t even require a gun of any kind, like Darryl Brooks Jr., who ran down multiple people and killed six with a car during a parade in Milwaukee; the terrorist in France who killed 86 people with a truck; and the September 11th terrorists, who killed nearly 3,000 people with airplanes.
To be fair, people who watch MSNBC might not be aware of those stories since they’ve been 24/7 anti-Trump news since 2015.
Life In A Blue City:
In Houston, Texas, prosecutors released a man accused of drugging, raping and impregnating a 16-year-old girl on $1 bail because they missed the deadline for indicting him by two days.
A tentative deal is reached
After a 146-day strike, the longest since 1988, the Hollywood writers’ union WGA reached a tentative deal with producers for a three-year contract extension. The bad news: writers will soon be back to ruining entertainment with wokeism, leftist political pandering, anti-Americanism, and racial and LGBTQ+++ propaganda. The good news: The actors are still on strike, so at least nobody will be producing it for a while. Also, there are still plenty of great old TV shows and movies to stream from the era when Hollywood hired writers who knew how to write and actors who only played politicians when the script called for it.
Inside the mind of AOC...scary place
Take a scary peek inside the mind of AOC, where Marco Rubio is responsible for all the illegal immigrants from Venezuela and COVID is the reason she’s still driving that Tesla she swore she’d get rid of when Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Idea
Wayne Allyn Root suggests a “giveaway” program that Trump could promise that would win the election for him and the GOP in a landslide. The best part is that it’s not really a giveaway program at all. It’s a reversal of an unconscionable policy that never should have been passed in the first place and that members of both parties should be opposing. It punishes some of the most vulnerable Americans by taxing away their money that’s already been taxed.
https://www.wnd.com/2023/09/
Fake News Alert:
No, Sen. Rand Paul didn’t come to work in his bathrobe. That was just a joke meme created with AI. But under the new John Fetterman Senate dress code, he could have.
One by one, Shapley’s team come forward to allege DOJ roadblocks
First, there was Gary Shapley, the lead IRS investigator in the Hunter Biden tax/finance case, who testified in April before the House Ways and Means Committee about political interference in the Hunter Biden case. He was followed by someone who at first chose to remain anonymous but was later identified as Joseph Ziegler, his top assistant (with absolutely no question about his non-partisanship). Next, there was IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf, who told the House Ways and Means Committee this month that the DOJ’s Tax Division opposed charging Hunter Biden. And now, Darrell Waldon, the former IRS agent in charge of the agency’s Washington Field Office (above Shapley in command), has gone before the committee in a closed-door interview to confirm that both the DC and Central California federal prosecutors blocked David Weiss from charging Hunter in their jurisdictions. He was a more recent addition to the team, on it for two years.
How many agents have to blow the whistle on the handling of this case before the noise finally wakes some people up? Maybe we’ll end up seeing the entire team of investigators who were removed from the case coming forward to confirm what we already should acknowledge: that our corrupt ‘Justice’ Department is hiding the financial misconduct of the corrupt Biden family. Would that be enough?
(Aside: Someone blow some steam whistles in the direction of South Carolina Democrat Rep. James Clyburn, who claimed on “Meet the Press” Sunday that Republicans want to impeach Joe Biden for “being a father to his son.”)
“Mr. Weiss went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office --- I can’t recall the dates --- and they did not agree to prosecute the case in DC,” Waldon told the committee. “I’m aware that it was presented to the District of Columbia and, at some point, the Central District of California, I believe.”
So, instead of filing charges in DC or California, Weiss and Hunter’s defense team came to that “sweetheart” plea deal that, thanks to sharp-eyed Judge Maryellen Noreika, ended up being discarded, though Hunter’s attorneys ridiculously continue to claim it’s still in force.
Recall that in his testimony last Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland played word games in speaking of this, saying that the district prosecutors couldn’t block Weiss from charging Hunter. No, no, they weren’t “turning him down.” Rather, they were “refusing to partner with him.” Garland tried to insist that these were “not the same under a well-known Justice Department practice,” when the result, in actual practice, is EXACTLY the same.
And certainly, Shapley saw no such distinction. In an email to Waldon, Shapley said, “Weiss stated he is not the deciding person of whether charges are filed. I believe this is a huge problem --- inconsistent with DOJ public position and Merrick Garland testimony.”
Waldon attended that same October meeting in which Shapley said a “red line” was crossed, although his recollection was somewhat different. He didn’t remember Weiss talking about requesting to be made special counsel. Also, he didn’t agree that the meeting was “contentious,” as Shapley had said. Waldon just saw it as the airing of differing points of view.
He testified that Shapley had come to him with his concerns --- steps in the investigation that the ‘Justice’ Department or certain prosecutors had prevented him from taking, such as asking witnesses about other members of the Biden family (there’s that cover-up) and executing at least one search warrant.
Shapley had wanted to blame these roadblocks on political bias. Waldon had told him that allegation was “unsubstantiated.” Considering he has since come forward, I wonder what he says about that now.
But Waldon did believe at that time in the strength of the case that would’ve gone to the Central District of California. “Generally, speaking, if at that time, the case went [there], I would’ve agreed with it.”
These other U.S. attorneys putting up roadblocks, Michael Graves in DC and E. Martin Estrada in California, were both appointed by President Biden himself.
Ironically, Waldon was actually the one who suggested that Shapley be dropped from the investigative team. Shapley and Weiss were at odds, and, Waldon testified, “the U.S. Attorney’s Office was no longer working or talking with Mr. Shapley.” In the interest of the investigation, to keep it moving forward, he thought it best. The third whistleblower, Batdorf, who was Waldon’s supervisor, agreed at the time.
Yet both Batdorf and Ziegler testified glowingly of Shapley, saying he was a “top-performing” investigator and a “fantastic agent.”
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
According to the WASHINGTON EXAMINER, “Both said Weiss’s tensions with Shapley reached a boiling point after [Weiss’s office] demanded all of the emails and records written by the IRS investigative team that could be relevant in court.” As Shapley told Congress, he thought this was a fishing expedition to uncover complaints about the case that he had been documenting.
Last week, a reader asked about the tax implications for Hunter of “sugar brother”/friend Kevin Morris’s generosity in paying off his huge tax bill. Wouldn’t Hunter owe taxes on the gift from this politically-connected lawyer? Well, John Solomon reports that the IRS and FBI were looking into that very issue, not just about taxes on the gift but about possible “campaign finance criminal violations,” considering this clean-up was happening while Joe Biden was running for President. Agents wanted to investigate this but were, they said, blocked by federal prosecutors from further action.
The evidence includes a memo written by Shapley about interference by Lesley Wolf, top prosecutor in David Weiss’s office. This must have been one of the complaints Shapley was documenting, as reported in the EXAMINER article above.
“This investigation has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling,” Shapley wrote in the memo and read to the House Ways and Means Committee in his testimony. “Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations.” Whistleblower Ziegler testified a similar concern to the Ways and Means Committee, adding that anything related to the campaign was “off limits.”
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio told Solomon last week that the campaign finance inquiry is “a newer matter under investigation.” So we’ll be hearing more about this. “We’re just getting into this issue and the concerns,” he said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were told to stand down because, remember, this investigation over a five-year time frame was slow-walked.”
In an update, Solomon reported that Jason Smith of Missouri, who chairs House Ways and Means, plans to make public new testimony that corroborates the first two IRS whistleblowers’ testimony. He presumably was referring to the testimony of Batdorf and Waldon.
A committee panel has to vote on the release of these materials; that vote could come as early as Wednesday, which would allow the evidence to be made public before House Republicans hold their first hearing in the Biden impeachment inquiry. Chairman Smith sees that first hearing primarily as a “primer” on what is now known of the Biden family’s foreign business dealings and the alleged cover-up.
“I don’t think any reasonable person, when they look at these facts, they don’t see that there’s a huge issue,” he said. “...And just based on the testimony of Devon Archer, it shows that Joe Biden was the critical player, that critical person considered to be the brand.”
He also said he won’t let Hunter’s attorneys, who have sued the IRS for releasing his private records, intimidate the IRS whistleblowers, saying their evidence was made public by a vote of his committee, in compliance with the law.
We wouldn’t want this additional reporting from John Solomon to get lost amidst all the rest. Remember those 51 signatories of that bogus letter claiming Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”? Solomon has found that some of them got “plum jobs” after doing that, including with the federal government. (We reported on two of these last week: John Brennan and James Clapper, who got appointed to that special new “Experts Board.” A third who is also on the board is former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe.)
More details here…
The DAILY CALLER has more on Michael Batdorf’s testimony before Ways and Means. He told them that Hunter Biden’s defense team met with DOJ Tax Division attorneys an “unusually high” number of times. Shapley and Ziegler have testified that they were kept out of those meetings.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
Maria Bartiromo on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES has an update on the case with investigators Miranda Devine and Peter Schweizer…
https://www.foxnews.com/video/
RELATED READING: Here’s a curious tie-in between Hunter’s firm and just-indicted Congressman Bob Menendez. We’re not sure of the significance at this point, but it does make interesting reading, just to see the sort of “work” (?) Hunter did. (It appears to be mostly Eric Schwerin who worked.)
https://dailycaller.com/2023/
Also related: Some Republican lawmakers are predicting that the “Biden family business” might have taken in over $50 million, or $30 million more is show by bank records uncovered thus far.
I JUST WANTED TO SAY:
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