By Mike Huckabee
October 31, 2022
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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.
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16
Report: Suicide rate among veterans is undercounted
According to a disturbing report by the America’s Warrior Partnership nonprofit, the rate of suicide among veterans is undercounted, for instance counting suicides as accidental overdoses.
If the suicide rate from their five-year study of eight states holds nationwide, it could be as many as 44 per day, or 2.4 times the VA’s estimate. They also found that the less time someone spends in the military, the more likely they are to commit suicide.
This study needs to be incorporated into a full investigation of veteran suicides by the next Congress, and some serious action to help deal with it. Veterans who put their lives on the line for us deserve all the help we can give them when their lives are at risk.
Why does FBI want Seth Rich records sealed for 66 years?
At one time, the FBI insisted they possessed no records relating to Seth Rich's murder. Now they’re asking a federal court for an order to seal the records that they said they didn’t have –- they have them, all right –- for 66 years.
Recall that Seth Rich was the young staffer for the Democratic National Committee who was murdered on a Washington DC street as he walked home in the early AM on July 10, 2016, in what was said to be a botched robbery. Rich was shot in the back twice and apparently left for dead; his wallet, phone and other valuables were not taken; and, as far as has been made public, there were no witnesses to the shooting. He died at the hospital.
After the homicide, there was, as described by the news outlet SLAY, “a vacuum of information” that continues to this day, along with an active suppression of reporting on Rich’s case. Since his shooting occurred soon after then-DNC chair John Podesta’s emails --- quite damaging to the DNC and Hillary --- were leaked to WikiLeaks, there was speculation that Rich, reportedly a Bernie Sanders supporter, might’ve been the real source of those leaks. Gee, it might not have been a Russian hack at all; we certainly have never seen proof that it was. Didn't matter; the “Russian DNC hack” narrative was the wellspring for the whole Russia Hoax. Take away the "Russian hack," and it all falls apart.
If the DOJ wants to stop such a “crazy conspiracy theory” in its tracks, all they have to do is release what they have on Seth Rich. It should be easy to set the record straight if this is indeed nothing more than a botched robbery. Perhaps Rick’s death really was just one of those random, senseless murders. After all, robberies and shootings happen frequently in DC, and the “cold case” files are full of them.
But that’s not the way the FBI is reacting to requests for information. They want a court to reverse an order to comply or, failing that, to have the information sealed for 66 years. The FBI made this latest filing in response to a court order made September 29 by U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant for the Eastern District of Texas that it “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop” in response to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Mazzant gave them 14 days; that deadline passed on October 13.
Apparently that’s not all the FBI is withholding. They’ve got three reports from CrowdStrike dating from 2016 regarding the alleged “Russian hack” on the DNC servers. Recall that Crowdstrike never turned over copies of the DNC hard drives to the FBI and that, amazingly, the Bureau did not press them for these, opting simply to go with the CrowdStrike report.
https://slaynews.com/news/fbi-
As reported in a “premium” story by THE EPOCH TIMES, “The FBI’s assertion that the privacy interest Rich’s family members hold outweighed the public interest was rejected by Mazzant, who noted the Bureau cited no relevant case law supporting the argument.”
Previous rulings in other cases have found that loved ones of dead people have a substantial privacy interest in preventing the disclosures of autopsies, death scene photographs, and other materials from a person’s final moments, but those considerations don’t apply in this case, Judge Mazzant said.
A dead person has no right to privacy, but isn’t it thoughtful of the FBI to be so concerned with the privacy of Seth Rich’s family after all this time? Those people at the Bureau are so nice! One thing we have to give the FBI --- they are nothing if not considerate.
Recall that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the “Russian government” was responsible for publicly releasing the DNC emails online and that “Seth Rich played no role in this scheme.” He decided this even though an executive for CrowdStrike, in a sworn deposition, said they had no evidence of Russian hacking, only an opinion.
Here’s Judge Mazzant’s 53-page order, which in its first few pages offers some background on the case as well --- very interesting reading.
https://www.documentcloud.org/
When plaintiff Brian Huddleston, through attorney Ty Clenenger, first requested information from the FBI, they told him they didn’t have any. But emails disclosed in a separate case told a different story, and in 2020 the FBI had to admit they possessed thousands of documents. The Bureau then identified about 20,000 files that were potentially responsive to the request, later narrowing that down to 1,563 pages. To date, they have produced...75 pages.
The FBI argued that they had no way of knowing if the information they have that purportedly was “extracted from Seth Rich’s personal laptop” and provided to them by “a source” was real, but Clevenger and Huddleston countered that their cyber expert can determine that. The “source” apparently gave them a compact disc with information contained on Seth's laptop. “The FBI did not open an investigation into the murder of Seth Rich,” they said, “nor did it provide investigative or technical assistance to any investigation into the murder of Seth Rich. As a result, the FBI has never extracted the data from the compact disc and never processed the information contained on the disc.” Well, then, how do they know it needs to be squirreled away for 66 years?
Oh, they have an answer to that! To produce the information, the FBI would have to convert the information on the disc into pages and then review the pages to redact information “per FOIA.” They request time to do this at 500 pages a month, which adds up to almost 67 years. Attorney Ty Clevenger told THE EPOCH TIMES, “After dealing with the FBI for five years, I now assume that the FBI is lying to me unless and until it proves otherwise. The FBI is desperately trying to hide records about Seth Rich, and that begs the question of why.”
TechnoFog, on Substack, says the FBI is claiming documents must be withheld on “national security grounds” because “disclosure of the information would threaten intelligence-gathering efforts.” Some of the information they have on the case, they say, was “provided by foreign government agencies under an implied assurance of confidentiality.” It may –- or may not –- include whether the FBI used a “code name” associated with Seth Rich. (Now, why would they do that?) They say their information includes “details of intelligence activities, sources, and methods relating to national security.” Ah, the intel community’s ever-reliable “sources and methods” line. But it worked –- the order from Mazzant, an Obama appointee, still does not require the production of any of that.
https://technofog.substack.
Sorry to have to say it, but the FBI’s own arguments are building the case for a “conspiracy theory.” And that seems odd, when with a little transparency and cooperation they could so easily put it to rest, right? If they were using a code, they can redact it. If they were using confidential sources, they can redact those names. The more they try to withhold thousands of pages information, especially with “national security” arguments such as this, the less Rich’s death sounds like a random homicide.
The revelation of who really leaked those emails --- which might just thaw out the cold case into Seth Rich’s death --- will likely have to be answered by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. But even though he long ago offered $20,000 for information leading to Rich’s killer, he has so far lived up to his promise to NEVER reveals a source. I wish he’d make an exception this one time. More to come.
Democrats and the media reset as Abrams and Warnock struggle
The Democrats appear to have written off Stacey Abrams’ chances of getting elected Georgia’s Governor (maybe I should say, “again.”) Axios is already trying to paint her loss as part of a brilliant “long game” plan to become a top national political influencer.
I can see that she’s made losing elections and whining about it into a very lucrative business model, but why would anyone who hopes to win office want to be influenced by her? She’s getting worse at it with every attempt. The Axios spin sounds like people on YouTube videos who take big face plants then jump up and say, “I meant to do that.”
Meanwhile, they’re so desperate to hang on to Raphael Warnock’s Senate seat that they brought in Barack Obama to do what he does best: condescendingly mock people who disagree with him. This time, he used the baffling analogy that if you were getting onto a plane, you wouldn’t want Herschel Walker piloting it because he has no experience.
No, but I also wouldn’t want to be on a plane piloted by Warnock or Obama or anyone else in the Senate either. The “no experience” argument is a head-scratcher, since Warnock had no experience in the Senate and still has less than two years’ worth, all of it spent being a rubber stamp for Biden and Chuck Schumer. Obama himself became President with no executive, management, military, private sector or foreign policy experience, and ran just two years into his first term as a junior Senator (maybe he should’ve said, “You don’t want someone with no experience; just look at my presidency!”)
On the other hand, Joe Biden was sold to us as the most experienced, and hence most qualified, presidential candidate ever. When he first started warming a chair in the Senate in 1973, the Vietnam War was still going on and George Lucas was about to start writing a movie treatment called “The Star Wars.” All those decades of “experience,” and he’s been an utter disaster.
Of course, all that those years of experience got him was a reputation for being wrong on every foreign policy issue since 1973. But since becoming President, he has managed to expand that to domestic issues, as well.
The Founders intended us to have a Congress of citizen legislators who were not insulated from the effects of their government actions. Has having an overpaid class of lifetime career, elitist politicians improved governance? I’d say it’s the best argument for term limits.
Herschel Walker had his own response to this attack, and frankly, I think it’s a lot better than the career politician Obama’s glib but illogical oratory.
Widespread Panic: Democrats turn their attention to the economy and crime
It’s a week and a day until midterm elections, millions of early votes have already been cast, and the Democrats and the media (pardon my redundancy) are looking at polls and early turnout and realizing to their horror that they bet on the wrong horse. Still, do NOT let polls lull you into not voting. This is a “crawl over broken glass in shorts if you have to” election.
“Progressive” Democrats actually thought that in a time of record high inflation and gas prices, open borders and skyrocketing crime, what voters would be most concerned about was a three-hour riot from nearly two years ago, the right to abort their children right up until birth, and the claim that democracy will die if Americans are allowed to vote for anyone other than them.
Because that’s the stuff they actually believe is important, they thought everyone else believed it, too, except a handful of “MAGA extremists.” This is what living in a bubble and never talking to anyone outside it does to your brain.
Why, it’s almost as if they care more about illegal immigrants than they do about Americans. And Americans, not being morons, have noticed.
So now, with the election barreling toward them like a freight train with no baby formula on it, panicky Democrats are trying a last minute pivot to crime and the economy. They’re insisting that only they can keep us safe from the violent criminals and economic disasters that they deliberately unleashed on us. I don’t think it will work on most voters, again because of that “not being morons” thing.
But you know they’re desperate because some of them are actually resorting to their old stand-by tactic of trying to scare seniors by claiming that Republicans want to slash or abolish Social Security. Will that still work in an era when many seniors have 401K’s, or did until Biden came along?
Social Security is set to get one of the biggest cost of living increases in history next year, ironically thanks to all the Bidenflation. The biggest danger to Social Security is liberals spending all of the money the government needs to fund it.
For the record: I have been hearing Democrats warn that Republicans were going to take away grandma’s Social Security ever since I was a kid. I’m now eligible for Social Security myself, and they’re still saying it! Yet in all those years, payments have only increased. How many times do they think they can cry wolf before voters finally tune them out like a malfunctioning car alarm that just won’t shut off?
Sad news for Dolly Parton fans
This will be sad news for Dolly Parton’s fans, of whom I am one of many millions. She’s not retiring (I can’t imagine her ever doing that), but she announced that she’s decided not to tour anymore.
She says she might do the occasional festival or special appearance, but she wants to stay home and spend more time with her husband Carl now that they’re getting older. Fortunately, she will continue to write songs and record new music. I wonder if they might consider getting a second home in Las Vegas so Dolly could perform regularly and just let her fans come to her? I know they would!
Whatever she decides to do, I wish the very best to one of the kindest, warmest, most talented and most generous women in show business or any other industry. Here’s just one example. Her Imagination Library charity just gave away its 130 millionth book to children.
https://www.charlotteobserver.
She said, “If I’m remembered 100 years from now, I hope it will be not for looks but for books.” I don’t think Dolly has to worry about being remembered 100 years from now, and for a lot of things.
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