Mike Huckabee

There is nothing in living memory that compares with this.

On January 20, Inauguration Day 2025, Biden signed two waves of blanket pardons for those who might later be connected to federal criminal offenses. (He’d already pardoned son Hunter, in advance of his sentencing.) These included Anthony Fauci (!); retired Gen. Mark Milley; all nine members of the “Select” J6 committee who “investigated” Trump’s alleged role in the January 6 riot and are accused of destroying evidence and collaborating with witnesses; and some members of the Capitol and DC Metro Police who testified before that committee. Biden used the pretext that Trump might exact “revenge” on these people (translation: Trump might dare to impose the rule of law on people who have broken it).

https://www.theblaze.com/news/biden-issues-last-minute-pardons-for-fauci-gen-milley-j6-committee-and-cops

Mike Huckabee

by HUCKABEE writer/researcher Laura Ainsworth

“President Trump is a felon without a punishment.”

That was the 11AM Friday top-of-the-hour lead radio news headline on WBAP Radio in Dallas, the same station that runs conservative programming such as Dan Bongino and Mark Levin.

If Attorney General Merrick Garland and “Special Counsel” Jack Smith (and, come to think of it, presiding Judge Juan Merchan, who also acted as a de facto prosecutor) were listening to this, they must have thought, “Mission accomplished.”

Famed civil rights Attorney Alan Dershowitz will remember this as perhaps the low point for both our “justice” system and our media.  As we discussed last week, he said he would forever refuse to call President Trump a “convicted felon,” noting that the President’s constitutional rights were thoroughly trashed and also that he is simply not guilty.  Trump didn’t DO anything criminal.

And Dershowitz is joined by millions of other Americans who are horrified at what the legal system can do to an individual of their choosing.  If they can do this to a billionaire President of the United States, we know they can destroy us.  They can treat anyone in America as callously and even hatefully as they have treated Rudy Giuliani.  Even if such a case is eventually reversed on appeal, as we expect Trump’s to be, “the process” is something they can turn on you to ruin your life.  This is reminiscent of what Sen. Chuck Schumer famously said about the intel community, that they have “six ways from Sunday” for getting back at you.  (The IRS does, too --- a story for another day.)

But in doing this to the incoming President of the United States, the weaponized legal system has shown itself utterly for what it is.  “This convicted felon strategy is going to blow up in their faces, Wile. E. Coyote-style,” Bongino’s guest host “Producer Jim” said on Friday’s show about 15 minutes after the startling WBAP bulletin.

Judge Merchan said something almost beyond belief during Trump’s “sentencing” hearing last week, admitting that the case was “unique and remarkable” but that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”

Oh, really?  As Jonathan Turley said in his most recent column, “If so, that is a chilling indictment of the entire New York court system.”

Turley once described this case as “based on a ridiculous legal theory,” “more inflated than the Goodyear blimp” and also a “legal Frankenstein,” meaning that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and “combining parts from both state and federal codes,” brought it back to life.  And Merchan allowed a jury to convict without even having to agree on what had occurred in the case.  (We’ll never know what their reasoning was on the “underlying crime.”) 

As we discussed last week, civil rights attorney Alan Dershowitz has slammed the case and said he’d never call Trump “a convicted felon,” as he did nothing wrong.  It is the New York legal system that is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. 

“While heralded in court by Bragg’s office as the triumph of legal process, it is in fact the rawest and most grotesque form of lawfare,” Turley wrote.  “Many will be blamed as the creators of this monster but few will escape that blame, including Merchan himself.”

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/11/merchans-monster-judges-attempt-to-calm-townspeople-fails-in-trump-trial/

And yet the Supreme Court let Judge Merchan go forward with the sentencing (actually the non-sentencing).  One might be tempted to think this isn’t so bad, as it does allow Trump to go forward with his appeal.  But there were major issues overlooked, as Mark Levin pointed out in his monologue Sunday night, such as who has jurisdiction in cases like this, the federal government or the state?

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6367008851112

The guest who followed, UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, concurred with Levin’s keen disappointment in the Supreme Court, saying, “You have a state here, attacking someone who’s the President-elect...The Supremacy Clause is supposed to stop states from interfering with the valid operations of the federal government.  It’s almost as if Lincoln, after he was elected, tried to get to Washington DC, and Maryland decided to arrest him on his way to the Capitol.”

“...You’ve [also] got a state trying to take over the federal government’s authority to enforce the election laws,” he said.  At the federal level, the DOJ and Federal Election Commission both looked at this case and decided not to prosecute.  (Our thought:  So, why didn’t the Biden DOJ tell Bragg, “Hey, this is our beat!  Your state shouldn’t be hijacking it!”  Instead, it was more of a collaboration, as a member of Biden’s DOJ actually took what in effect was a career demotion to infiltrate the state-level prosecution of Trump in New York.)

Yoo, who clerked for Justice Thomas, also wondered how future Presidents might think about their time in office, “knowing that there might be a Juan Merchan out there, an Alvin Bragg out there, going to twist state laws, try to attack them both before they’re in office and then, as they’ve been saying openly, once Donald Trump leaves office…”

Yoo pointed to the Court’s inconsistency, as they previously said the President had immunity for acts he takes as part of his official duties, even criticizing at length the prosecution’s use of information pertaining to these acts --- “privileged” information --- in their case against him.  But then, months later, they let the sentencing go forward anyway.

Yoo’s concerned that the left has no plans to give up on lawfare; he sees this in Merchan’s behavior at the end of his case and also Jack Smith’s insistence on releasing a final report, even though his cases were dismissed.  “What’s gonna stop, every four years, some DA, some state attorney general, from launching similar investigations of all the major Republican political candidates?”  They’ve “crossed the constitutional Rubicon” and have seen the Supreme Court isn’t likely to intervene.

In a related point, Yoo suggested that the new DOJ, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, launch a civil rights investigation “into what’s going on in New York State, and...New York City,” referring to the prosecution of heroes such as Daniel Penny while “giving a pass to hundreds if not thousands of violent felons.”  They might even consider cutting off funds, if that’s what it takes to fix the problem.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6366937149

Four treasured originalists on the Court --- Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch --- see the need to take a look at the case because it’s an infringement on federal jurisdiction.  (Heck, the whole case was taken on to interfere with a federal election.)  The other justices seem to be missing this.

A video clip from back in May featuring Kash Patel --- now Trump’s nominee for FBI director --- has gone newly viral, as he’s discussing the highly conflicted Judge Merchan and his politically-connected daughter.  In this brief clip with FOX NEWS’ Trace Gallagher, which also happens to include Trump’s AG nominee Pam Bondi, Patel calls for subpoenas to be issued to Merchan’s daughter and others at her company, “who made $15+ million from the illicit information pouring out of her father’s courtroom” during Trump’s trial.  He wants to see bank records, “because money doesn’t lie.”  No, it’s about the only thing that doesn’t lie in DC.  We can’t wait to see some truth.

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2025/01/12/only-the-beginning-kash-patel-announces-first-move-on-holding-people-accountable-for-lawfare-merchan-n2184253

Moving on to “Special Counsel” Jack Smith, of course you know he’s been planning to resign and return to the International Criminal Court --- “The Hague” --- in The Netherlands.  And, yes, according to a footnote in a filing by Judge Aileen Cannon Saturday, he did resign on Friday, after concluding his investigations of Trump and turning in Volumes 1 and 2 of his “final report” to the DOJ on Tuesday.

Aside:  Speaking of The Hague, did you know that’s the same rogue international criminal court that indicted and issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes?  Any ICC-member country --- which we are NOT, of course --- is obligated to pick up Netanyahu if he travels there and jail him, pending trial.  Not kidding --- this could happen to Netanyahu if he travels to Britain or France.

According to Ben Shapiro, this court (ridiculously) claims jurisdiction even over countries that are not signatories.  Jack Smith surely fits right in at the ICC.

More discussion, with Mark Levin, here.  (It might seem as though we’re oversampling Levin today, but it all fits our discussion to a “T.”)

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6367009658112

So, the public release of Volume 1 of the report, the one about the Mar-A-Lago “classified documents” case, has been delayed indefinitely by the DOJ, as Trump’s co-defendants are still in litigation.  Judge Cannon had already put a three-day delay on releasing either volume, so Sunday would have been the first permissible day to see Smith’s J6 volume.  But as of this writing early Monday, the J6 volume has not been released.

When it is, keep in mind that Smith can and will say ANYTHING HE WANTS in this report, and he’ll leave out anything he wants, too.  The idea is to be as unflattering as possible to President Trump.  And since such attempts in the past have still not deprived Trump of a second term in the White House, this one might be the nastiest yet.

https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/11/special-counsel-jack-smith-resigns-trump-investigations/

As investigative reporter Julie Kelly writes, Trump’s attorneys learned of Smith’s final report only through stories in the media.  When they were finally allowed to read the document, they immediately sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland outlining their objections to its release.

There now appear to be some complications even with releasing the “J6” volume, as it also makes reference to the “classified documents” case.  As Kelly says, oops.  Our guess is that this is why the “J6” volume didn’t come out on Sunday.

https://www.declassified.live/p/jack-smiths-final-stunt   

The catastrophic wildfires are continuing to cause historic destruction in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. So far, more than 27,000 acres and over a thousand homes and businesses have burned, and at least five people are known dead. Please pray for the residents and firefighters, and for a break in the high Santa Ana winds that are swiftly spreading the uncontained fire.

This is such a fast-moving story that we can’t possibly give you an up-to-the-minute report here. But it’s being covered 24/7 by all the electronic media outlets, and you can find the latest live updates at these links from Fox and Breitbart News:

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/southern-california-wildfires-los-angeles-county-destroy-homes-prompt-evacuations

https://www.breitbart.com/weather/2025/01/09/live-updates-day-3-of-catastrophic-los-angeles-wildfires/

We can, however, fill you in one some of the stories so far. One aspect of the fire is that many very expensive homes, including those of celebrities such as James Woods and Billy Crystal, have been destroyed. It was heartbreaking to hear Woods talk about losing his home and his beloved neighborhood.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2025/01/08/james-woods-breaks-down-in-tears-on-cnn-after-losing-home-in-l-a/

Yesterday, we urged readers not to feel any satisfaction over harm coming to liberal Hollywood celebrities because some things transcend politics and are just basic human decency. We were actually reluctant to say that because we assume that our readers are good people with solid moral values who already know such things.

But sadly, we were reminded that there are people who would actually wish for a person to lose his home just because they don’t like his tweets. Such a person must have a moral code that was fished out of a sewer, and one of them was once in charge of molding young minds at the University of Missouri. Thank God, she’s not anymore.

https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2025/01/08/they-have-no-soul-missouri-professor-cheers-on-wildfires-if-they-destroy-homes-of-her-enemies-n2406315

It’s been observed that the billions of dollars in devastation to Los Angeles is like something that an America-hating terrorist would be proud to have caused. Yet many people are finally waking up to the fact that it’s the inevitable culmination of years of misguided and incompetent “progressive” Democrat “leadership.” Indeed, of all the ingredients it took to result in this catastrophe, the only one that wasn’t caused by them was the wind, not that they haven't generated plenty of that, too. For instance...

How do such fires start? We don’t know for sure about these, but it can’t help that they let weeds grow high in fields where they let homeless drug addicts live and start campfires.

Why is there so much kindling to spread the fires? Because they put unqualified eco-radicals in charge of overseeing state resources, and they refuse to allow the clearing of brush and fallen limbs, or the building of roads in the woods to allow firetrucks in.

Why is there no water to fight the fires (one Republican said the perfect illustration of California’s incompetent government was when brave firefighters aimed their hoses at burning homes and no water came out of the hydrants)? Just eight months ago, there were heavy rains and unusually high snowpack that melted off. Where did all that water go? It flowed into the ocean because geniuses like Gov. Gavin Newsom were placating the green radicals by destroying dams and reservoirs to save some fish.

Here's a video of Newsom patting himself on the back for launching the biggest dam removal project ever with the cooperation of the tribal nations, allowing his kids and grandkids to see something “that’s been here since time immemorial.”

https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1877042693311738309

Do you know what California had since time immemorial, until the eeeevil white man came in and started building dams? It had overgrown wilderness where a lightning strike could start a fire that might burn across the entire state before it finally ran out of fuel or a rainstorm stopped it. The greens want to return the state to the pristine days before it was befouled by humans and their infernal meddling with Mother Nature by putting out those fires. And so they have.

(President Trump also weighed in on Newsom’s prioritizing of fish over people):

https://www.westernjournal.com/trump-says-gavin-newsoms-attempt-protect-essentially-worthless-fish-caused-fire-disaster/

Why are the fire departments complaining that they don’t have enough staff and equipment? Maybe because Mayor Karen Bass cut the LAFD budget by $17 million as California cities donated millions of dollars’ worth of firefighting equipment to Ukraine. She also boasted of hiring a lesbian fire chief who announced that her focus would be “diversity, equity and inclusion” and recruiting more women, gays and minorities, not on superfluous things like making sure they have enough firefighters, equipment and water.

There’s more: People were asked to leave their homes unlocked so that firefighters could get inside. What happened? Predictably, they were looted, because local authorities tolerate crime. There was also heavy gridlock of traffic when people tried to evacuate, and not enough cops to direct the traffic (remember “defund the police?” Another brilliant leftist idea.) And what about Newsom and his ilk mandating that everyone drive electric cars? At least that hasn't happened yet. Imagine that huge traffic jam with people fleeing a fast-moving fire and all their highly flammable lithium batteries going dead.

The stupidity gets worse. Many of the people who’ve lost their homes don’t even have fire insurance. Why not? Because so many insurance companies stopped doing business in California. Insurance was already unaffordable because of the inflated property values due to all the regulations making it nearly impossible to build more affordable housing. And when insurers tried to raise rates after previous fires to stay in business, the state government blocked it (price controls are SUCH a good idea.) Oddly enough, when you mandate that businesses lose money, they tend to go away.

Two years ago, Los Angeles voters had the chance to elect as mayor wealthy businessman Rick Caruso, who promised to actually clean up the many problems that had plagued the city with crime, violence and filth. Instead, they elected Karen Bass, a career far-left politician, who when her city was burning down with inadequate fire protection and no water, was in Africa attending the inauguration of the President of Ghana.

Upon her return, a reporter for Australia’s Sky News asked Bass, “Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent whilst their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department's budget?” She had no answer and just stood there in silence for 45 seconds before fleeing.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/08/watch-la-mayor-karen-bass-silent-when-questioned-on-wildfire-incompetence/

Incidentally, you might recall that Bass was high on Joe Biden’s short list of black, female potential running mates in 2020. Yes, she was actually deemed less competent than Kamala Harris.

We list all these things not because we seek to point fingers of blame during a crisis, or “pounce,” as the media always call it when Republicans point out the Democrat incompetence and criminality that they refuse to cover. In fact, we’ve been writing about these issues for YEARS, and sounding the alarm that they were creating a disaster that was waiting to happen. Now it’s happening.

Is it possible that this might finally convince even Hollywood’s leftist liberal celebrities to vote these incompetent morons out of office? Some are actually saying things that suggest the blinders have at last been burned off of their eyes.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/palisades-fire-sarah-michelle-gellar-leads-stars-blasting-la-mayor-gridlock-cripples-evacuations

As for California’s leftist politicians, they’re reacting as expected: by denying responsibility and blaming Trump and climate change and other bogeymen. Newsom shifted the blame to “the local folks.”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/01/09/gavin-newsom-just-put-his-2028-presidential-campaign-on-life-support-with-insane-wildfire-statement-n2184132

We suspect that their biggest concern will be rebuilding the polls by November of next year so they can all get reelected. Let's hope their dream burns down, too.

Mike Huckabee

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any lower than for allegedly-still-President Joe Biden to give Liz Cheney the Presidential Citizens Medal, the staffers who make his decisions shouted, “Hold muh Chardonnay” and found a way to dig the cesspit even deeper. Saturday, Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, formerly the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Russiagate hoax mastermind Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and – you might want to sit down for this one – socialist billionaire George Soros.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-grants-highest-civilian-honor-george-soros-hillary-clinton-final-days-office/

Soros was described by the White House as a “philanthropist” who has “focused on global initiatives that strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice.” He’s also a huge funder of the Democrat Party, anti-American and anti-Israel radicals, and far-left initiatives like electing DAs who refuse to jail criminals but prosecute people who defend themselves from them.

This medal is supposed to go to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States,” but judging from the way Hillary was responsible for the Benghazi massacre and turning Libya into a bloody hellscape; Soros has bankrolled an epidemic of rape, robbery and murder in America’s blue cities; and Planned Parenthood – well, you know what they do for profit – maybe it’s now based on who’s racked up the highest body count. We hope they didn’t give them real Presidential Medals of Freedom, but bitter chocolate ones covered in foil. Otherwise, we can now consider this Medal to be as tarnished and debased as everything else this blighted Administration has touched.

To be honest, our first thought on hearing that Soros was getting that honor was disbelief, followed by asking, “What, were Stalin, Ernst Blofeld and Satan not available?” It’s good to see that VP-elect J.D. Vance had a very similar reaction.

https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/01/05/jd-vance-pol-pot-bidens-medals-n2406145

Rabbi Michael Barclay also has some excellent comments on how the awards are yet another attack on religion by Biden, who claims to be a devout Catholic but has run the most radically pro-abortion Administration in history. As for Soros, he notes that Farley Weiss, the former President of the National Council of Young Israel, wrote, “No one has financed more destructive attacks on Israel and the American Jewish community than Soros.”

https://pjmedia.com/rabbi-michael-barclay/2025/01/04/in-his-last-presidential-act-biden-again-attacks-religion-n4935668

Mike Huckabee

In a particularly in-your-face story, the White House announced on Thursday that President Biden would be awarding Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, co-chairs of the House “Select” Committee on January 6, the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest award that’s given to civilians.  And that’s what he did, in a White House ceremony that very day.

Cheney and Thompson were among a group of 20 whom Biden said had “performed exemplary deeds of service” (right, for him!) and are bonded by “their common decency and commitment to serving others.”

“The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

In reference to Cheney, Biden said, “Throughout two decades in public service, including as a Congresswoman from Wyoming and Vice Chair of the Committee on the January 6 attack, she has raised her voice --- and reached across the aisle --- to defend our Nation and the ideals we stand for:  Freedom.  Dignity.  And decency.  Her integrity and intrepidness remind us all what is possible if we work together.”

(We’ll pause while you fall to the floor and roll around laughing helplessly. Biden uses the word “decency” a lot, but we do not think he knows what it means.)

Of course, Cheney didn’t just reach across the aisle; she sailed all the way across, and that’s what she was being rewarded for.  President Trump has made much more fitting comments about Cheney --- for example, when he said last month on “Meet the Press” that she and Thompson deserve to go to jail for their work on that committee but that he would not direct his AG or FBI director to go after them.  By all appearances, they tampered with at least one witness (fabulist Cassidy Hutchinson), suppressed exculpatory evidence, and deliberately destroyed records that they were required to turn over to congressional Republicans.  The J6 Committee was a sham, and they were the ones in charge.

Fortunately, the fed-up voters of Wyoming had the final say about Cheney, who couldn’t even win her primary this time around, losing in a landslide to challenger Harriet Hageman.  So Liz can take her award and stuff it...well, into a drawer back home, mercifully far from Washington, DC.

https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/02/joe-biden-january-6-sixth-committee-leaders-presidential-citizens-medal-liz-cheney-bennie-thompson-trump-response/

Yet the DC crowd reveres her for throwing the rules out the window to go after Trump and paint him as an “insurrectionist.”  Oh, yes, she’s in very good standing with them.  In fact, during Thursday’s awards ceremony in the East Room, they gave her a standing ovation.  If you just can’t bring yourself to believe that something this preposterous actually happened, here’s the video; fast-forward to 9:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhv9QGV6as0

The uproarious applause and standing O for Cheney were sparked when the announcer said she was being honored for “putting the American people over party.”  Sorry, should have warned you to have your barf bags handy.  This recognition of Cheney and Thompson marks the least deserved awards since President Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize for being born.

Soon after this spectacle, Thompson was also singled out for his own standing O, after being acknowledged for “his lifelong dedication to safeguarding the Constitution.”  Again, not kidding.  He’s the one who, before his committee’s public hearings, said he’d be holding them because “the public needs to know what to think.”

When asked by CNN last month if he would accept a pre-emptive pardon from President Biden, Thompson said, “It’s his prerogative.  If he offers it to me or other members of the committee…I would accept it, but it’s his choice.”

Heck, Biden has commuted the death sentences of vicious murderers, so why not this?  According to sources for NBC NEWS, Biden and his senior aides have discussed issuing pre-emptive pardons “for those who could become targets of Trump in his next administration.”  See, Biden HAS to pardon them!  It’s Trump’s fault, for daring to seek retribution! Or as many other Americans would call it, “justice.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-presidential-citizens-medal-jan-6-liz-cheney-bennie-thompson-rcna186004

Brit Hume has it right, in a post on X: “This is repulsive.  That investigation was done by a committee all of whose members were chosen by Nancy Pelosi, and was produced like a TV show.  There was no cross examination of witnesses.  The media fell for it, but it was utterly one-sided.  A show trial.”

By the way, as Guy Benson posted on X, Bennie Thompson refused to certify George W. Bush’s win in 2004.  Isn’t that an act of insurrection?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/01/02/did-anyone-catch-what-was-odd-about-liz-cheney-getting-a-presidential-medal-n2649898

Recall that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in violation of the rules establishing the committee,  personally chose the two Republicans on it, Cheney and then-Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whose work on the committee was so unpopular that he retired ahead of the 2022 election.

Tyler Durden at LIBERTY DAILY offers a good refresher on the allegations of witness tampering against Cheney, as reported by Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House subcommittee looking into the J6 Committee.  Loudermilk says he’s concluded that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney” and called for an investigation by the FBI.

As Durden notes, if Trump’s DOJ pursues Cheney, she’ll undoubtedly invoke immunity under the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, which protects lawmakers from criminal liability related to their legislative duties.  We shall see how that goes.  It’s probable that she won’t need to, though, as Biden’s likely going to preemptively pardon her, anyway. He might as well, having already debased the pardon power just as he’s debased the honor of receiving this medal.

https://thelibertydaily.com/traitor-joe-award-bennie-thompson-liz-cheney-second/

Of Cheney’s selection for the award, Miranda Devine of the NEW YORK POST said on X, “She should have had enough self-respect to refuse it.”  Well, she doesn’t, though she did look kind of uncomfortable up there.

https://x.com/mirandadevine/status/1874955594559590550

As reported at REDSTATE, the J6 Committee has been accused by congressional colleagues of failing to preserve a massive number of documents --- 1.5 to 2 terabytes’ worth of information --- and deleting over 100 encrypted files, despite then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanding they preserve all records.  Fortunately, they were later recovered by a forensics team.

President Biden politicized last year’s awards, too, holding them on January 6 and giving awards to several Capitol Police officers, including a posthumous award for Officer Brian Sicknick, whom the administration falsely maintained had died as a result of injuries that day.  Biden actually said that Sicknick, along with officer William Evans, were killed by insurrectionists.  (As you know, Sicknick died of a stroke, after the riot, and his death was ruled by natural causes.  Evans was killed months later by a follower of the Nation of Islam.)

https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2025/01/02/biden-to-bestow-j6-committee-circus-clowns-liz-cheney-bennie-thompson-with-second-highest-civilian-award-n2183844

Well, that’s about all we can stomach about Liz Cheney for one day.  But in case you missed it in Thursday’s newsletter, here’s a very intriguing prediction she made in December 2020, before Trump’s January 6 rally and the vote certification:  that the joint session of Congress that day was likely to be disrupted by a bomb threat and possible evacuation.

Sure enough, on January 6, two pipe bombs were “discovered” very close to the Capitol.  So, where did Liz get her crystal ball?  What did she know back then that we didn’t know?  For when you have time, if you didn’t see it, there’s much more detail here...

https://www.declassified.live/p/liz-cheney-predicted-the-jan-6-bomb

Speaking of the J6 pipe bombs, the committee headed by Barry Loudermilk and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has released its report on the events of January 6 and the work of the J6 “Select” Committee, and it’s quite damning about the search for the so-called pipe bomber. 

As Julie Kelly reports, “...the failure to locate the J6 pipe bomber doesn’t add up considering the extensive investigative tools still being used by the FBI to track down and arrest j6 protesters, a caseload now approaching 1,600 individuals.”  If they can find all those people, why can’t they find this person?  Sure seems as though they don’t want to find him.  With so many questions remaining, Kelly’s report is a must-read…

https://www.declassified.live/p/house-report-discloses-new-information

According to THE GATEWAY PUNDIT, the FBI has stopped cooperating with congressional investigators on the pipe bomber case.  For when you have time, theirs is an excellent write-up…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/breaking-bombshell-house-report-reveals-new-information-fbis/

Finally, as David Spunt reported Thursday night on FOX NEWS “Special Report” --- in a segment tellingly called “Whatever happened to…?” --- the FBI has just released “new footage” (huh?) of the hooded pipe bomber suspect.  He’s shown at “approximately 7:54 PM” on January 5, 2021, sitting on the bench outside the DNC headquarters, the location where one of two pipe bombs was “discovered” on January 6, just about the time the vote certification was scheduled to start.

Spunt said that “agents know now the person’s height --- 5-foot-7.”  Are they telling us it’s taken four years to figure out his HEIGHT??

The FBI says it’s assessed over 600 tips, reviewed about 39,000 video files and conducted over 1,000 interviews during the past four years.  They’ve even produced an illustration of the suspect’s Nike shoe, the Air Max Speed Turf.  This seems to be all they’ve got on the mystery guy after FOUR YEARS.  But, hey, the $500,000 reward still stands (and will continue to).

The fact that the FBI is releasing new video now is just bizarre.  Did they time this to distract from Loudermilk’s J6 report?  Here’s the FOX story, but we can’t wait to see what Julie Kelly has to say about it.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-releases-video-showing-january-2021-pipe-bomb-suspect-planting-device-outside-dnc-rnc-offices-dc

Mike Huckabee

Speaking of things that Democrats have allowed to happen, in Queens, New York, on New Years’ Eve, ten people were injured by men who sprayed bullets into a crowd outside a nightclub. But the NYPD said it was not a terrorist attack. We assume it was just a typical night in Alvin Bragg's New York.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nypd-says-not-terrorist-attack-after-10-shot-outside-nyc-event-space-new-years-day

During our break, New York was also the site of another horrific attack when a man on a subway killed a woman by setting her on fire. He turned out to be a Guatemalan illegal alien who was deported under Trump, came back under Biden, was released into the interior of the US, and was living in a “migrant shelter” at taxpayer expense.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/woman-burned-death-horrific-subway-attack-identified-police

What do all of these horrifying and tragic attacks have in common, whether they are by violent criminals, illegal aliens, foreign terrorists or American citizens radicalized by America’s enemies? They all happened because the people who are entrusted with keeping America safe failed to do their jobs. They let the wrong people in, they let the wrong people out, and they targeted the wrong people for surveillance while ignoring the obvious threats.

A perfect example: Just hours after the New Orleans terrorist attack, pro-Palestinian protesters blocked Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, chanting for “intifada” – i.e., they’re pro-terrorism. But obviously, these people aren’t a threat. The real terrorist threat comes from concerned parents, traditional Catholics, pro-life activists, Trump voters and anyone who came within 300 yards of the Capitol on January 6^th, 2021.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/01/hundreds-march-for-intifada-in-nyc-hours-after-terror-attacks-in-new-orleans-las-vegas/

Here’s how bad our federal agencies have gotten at their jobs: The New York Post arrived at the New Orleans terrorist’s home before the FBI did:

https://instapundit.com/693743/

Let’s hope this insanity and incompetence come to a screeching halt on January 20^th, and let’s all pray that there are no more deaths or injuries due to America’s enemies taking advantage of the remaining days of our vacuum of leadership.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

We hope you had a fun, safe and happy Christmas or Hanukkah vacation and avoided drunk drivers and hangovers on New Year’s Eve.

We’ll hit the new year running tomorrow when we recap the major stories of the past week and dive back into covering the daily news (and don't worry: despite some changes afoot, the Huckabee Newsletter will continue as always, bringing you the latest reliable news and common sense commentary with a humorous twist.) But on this final holiday of the season, we wanted to offer you a special New Year's message in between all the parades and football games.

It’s become standard rhetoric to call each New Year a time for hope and new beginnings, but in this case, that’s never seemed so true for so many people. There’s a palpable feeling of optimism in the air that America’s, and the world’s, long nightmare may finally be over. For the past few years, it seemed that leftism, anti-Americanism and cultural divisions (and those who profit off them) were on an irreversible ascendance. Those in power were doing everything they could, constitutional or otherwise, to cement that power and crush any opposition.

But then, a funny thing happened. The people decided enough was enough. They refused to be cowed and silenced and shamed any longer. They stood up, fought back, and took their country back. The election results were a stunning rebuke to the arrogant elitists, who still can’t figure out how they could possibly have been rejected by voters. In their cast-iron bubbles, this is a terrible, frightening period of existential dread. To normal people, it’s a combination of a great New Year’s Eve party and Morning In America, part two.

A new Fox News poll found that 57% of Americans are hopeful about Trump’s presidency. When was the last time you heard of a majority of people feeling hopeful about anything? One cable news guest said even his Democrat friends told him that even though they didn't vote for Trump, they were secretly kind of glad he won.

In many ways, it’s really not 2025 yet. The true “new year” won’t arrive until January 20^th, Inauguration Day. Until then, we’ll undoubtedly have to suffer through many more attempts to undermine Trump (and the will of the people), whether by Deep State bureaucrats, Joe Biden himself or his staffers who’ve actually been running the White House for the past four years. Who knows what horrors will be signed between now and the 20^th with them moving Biden’s hand while he holds the pen? Fortunately, it appears that this time around, Trump is onto them and ready to counter their sabotage attempts.

But at least the end is finally in sight. Trump has a lot of work to do, and it won’t be easy. He has four years’ worth of massive destruction to fix, and he’ll have to do it while coping with Republican in-fighting in Congress (he may need you to periodically remind your legislators just whom they work for), Democrat obstructionism (they refuse to admit their failures, even when they’re as obvious as a mountain of garbage), and a renewed anti-Trump media onslaught.

You’d think the media would learn its lesson, having gotten virtually every major story since 2016 wrong and watching their approval and audience ratings collapse like an inflatable Santa when the air pump is unplugged. But egomaniacs never learn from mistakes they refuse to acknowledge. For instance, the Media Research Center found that before the election, 98% of late-night comics’ political jokes were at Trump’s expense. They failed miserably to harm him, and their ratings are swirling down the toilet. Do you think they’ll start being more even-handed now? That’s about as likely as Jimmy Kimmel saying something that’s actually funny.

But there are positive signs that the public’s message is finally starting to sink in, from some major liberal newspapers firing far-left editorial boards to corporations ending DEI programs to movie and TV studios axing plans for more woke bombs. You can only burn so much money before you start to feel the heat.

We are very hopeful that 2025 will be a historic year, the year that Americans of all races and backgrounds come together to take their country back and restore patriotism, national security, the Constitution, meritocracy, common sense and the rule of law. It will take time (to use a sports term, this is a “rebuilding year”), but it’s said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But it also has to be a step in the right direction.

We hope and pray that 2025 will be the year when we finally take those first steps in the right direction, on the journey back to rebuilding the America we love.

Mike Huckabee

Melvin from Oregon wrote to share memories of a couple of Christmases that were made very special, thanks to a grandfather who never forgot what it was like to be a kid at Christmas.

“Christmas 1944: I am four years old and my dad is still overseas, so mom and I are staying with my grandparents. Christmas eve, it's time for me to hang up my sock. I'm just getting ready to hang it on the mantle when grandpa comes in. He has a giant sock and a big metal wash tub. I ask him what he is doing, and this is what he tells me:

‘I'm going to hang this big old sock up.’ He hangs his sock up then he puts the wash tub under the sock. He shows me that there is a hole in the toe of the sock, and it has a tennis ball in the hole. He then tells me that ‘when Santa comes tonight, he will start putting good stuff in his big old sock, and the tennis ball will fall out.’ Santa will keep stuffing his sock and the presents will fall into the wash tub, and he will get way more stuff than I will in my little old sock.

Well, I'm only four years old, but I know this ain't right. I go running to grandma and tell her that grandpa is going to cheat Santa. Grandma says, ‘Don't worry, because I know that Santa is much smarter than your grandpa is.’ So I go off to bed, but I am not happy.

Christmas morning comes. I run downstairs and see that my grandpa has a sour look on his face. I see my sock has all kinds of good stuff in it. I look at grandpa’s sock, and the wash tub is full. It has an old rubber boot with a big hole in it, a big half-rotten squash, some chunks of coal, an old broken shovel etc., etc. I guess grandma was right after all. Santa is smarter than grandpa.”

The next year, Melvin’s grandpa was still putting creativity into Christmas…

“Christmas 1945.  I am five years old, and we are still staying with my grandparents…My father was in Japan in the Second World War, his two brothers were in the European theater.  All three came home OK. I thank God for that and for all of the men that have gone before.

We are trimming the Christmas tree. Grandpa comes in, and he has all of these walnuts that he has painted silver and put a yarn loop on to hang them with. I think they’re neat, but that’s about it.

Christmas morning, I come down and start opening my presents. Grandpa says, ‘Why don't you open one of those walnuts?’ I say ‘Naw, I got to open my presents’… Well grandpa keeps after me. Finally, I say, ‘Okay!’  So I crack a walnut open, and a penny falls out. Well, NOW I'm opening walnuts!  There's dimes, nickels, and pennies.  When I get done, I have about a dollar fifty, and that’s big money in 1945.

…My grandfather thought enough of me to take the time to cut the walnuts open and take out the meat for grandma to cook with. Then he put a coin in and glued each one back together, just to make a little five-year-old boy happy on Christmas morning.

Sixty-five years later, I don't remember anything else I got that Christmas.  But I remember the walnuts and the love that went into making them. That might be something for young parents to think about... It really is the little things that count the most.” 

Thanks, Melvin, for giving us all something important to remember before we go frantically hunting for whatever the latest “hot” gift is. It’s not so much the gift that we remember years later, but the person who loved us enough to give it to us that matters.    

Mike Huckabee

This story reminds us that no matter how bad off we think we are, there are others in greater need. And nothing reflects the spirit of Christmas more than someone who gives to others even when they have very little themselves. Dorothy from North Carolina wrote:

“It's been a few years ago now that through an unusual set of circumstances I met a dear Christian lady named Hilda N-----. Hilda had endured many hardships in life…Now, in her later years… she lived in abject poverty with…crippling arthritis. It was Christmas and I had a gift for Hilda. Mark and I were dating at the time and I asked him to go with me to Hilda's humble home… But it wasn't my gift that I've remembered all these years...it was HER gift, given liberally out of her poverty, that I will never forget.

She and I had exchanged gifts, her gift to me a small ceramic bell with a cross at the top from the dollar store. And then came the moment I cherish yet today. She looked at Mark apologetically and reached down into the cushion of the chair…fumbling until she finally retrieved a small, zippered change purse. Her gnarled, misshapen fingers (terribly twisted from the arthritis) moving slowly and with painful effort, she managed to open the purse… Finally, she turned to Mark and, pulling out a folded, crumpled $1.00 bill, she held it out to him.

Her soft, quiet voice and loving manner gave eloquence to the gesture. ‘I didn't know YOU were coming so I didn't have a gift for you. Here’, she handed him the dollar bill, ‘Merry Christmas.’

Tears sprang to my eyes as I knew what a sacrifice was represented in the giving of the dollar bill. Her heart of love and her desire to share the little she had gave her gift more meaning than a purse full of gold.”

Thank you, Dorothy, and Hilda, for reminding us that Christmas isn’t about what we get, it’s about what we give.

Phillis from Arkansas experienced a tough Christmas that truly made her appreciate why it’s more blessed to give than to receive:

“In 1989, my youngest daughter was in the hospital with a ruptured appendix. She was there for 28 days, and the doctor did not expect her to live. I was student teaching, and we were living on my husband's teaching salary of under $20000, and we had two other children. To say the least, money was tight, but we were praising the Lord that He had performed a miracle and our little girl was alive.

I had already told the children that Christmas was going to be very little, because of this money situation. Our church got together and had a money tree for us. They said people gave who never had given to any money tree. They collected over $400 to give to us...

This really humbled us. We had always been the ones to give to money trees, and it was very hard to be given to. It brought to mind that ‘it is more blessed to give than receive.’ We thanked God and the people for all they did to make my kids’ Christmas, but also my prayer was that I never had to be in the position where I had to receive rather than give. God has answered that prayer, and we feel blessed to be able to continue to give to the Lord's work.

That is such a memorable Christmas, because it shows how God's people came together to help their brothers and sister in Christ when there was a need. It continues to touch my heart to remember how much Christ and his people love each other.”

Reed from Texas also recalled a childhood Christmas when someone went above and beyond to make sure the kids had Christmas gifts. Or maybe that was just the real Santa:

“Our Christmas in the 1950's started at around the 10th of December. My mom would send all of us boys, four in all, out to the fields when we lived in the Kentucky countryside to find that perfect Christmas tree. It would be about four-to-five-feet tall. Dragging it back we could feel the magicial season excitement already stirring in our hearts.

With so little at the house all year, the thought of new toys and candy were enough to set the minds of our young souls on fire for the next 15 days and even after Christmas day. That Christmas Eve, after opening our traditional presents to each other (simple gifts, of course), the front door flew open and in walked Santa Claus with his big bag of presents.

Yelling out his best ‘HO HO HO,’ he asked us if we all had been good all year and of course we all answered yes, we had. He then opened his big bag and handed out each a nice toy and then closed his bag and headed to the door, but turned around and said for us to get to bed early and he will return for some more goodies for us to open in the morning on Christmas day. Waving goodbye, he shouted Merry Christmas to us all.

My mom told us for years later that she had no idea who that was and no neighbor would confess it was any of them!! Who was it, well, it was, of course, Santa Claus. Only he would have a key to our front door, right...??”

Finally, speaking of playing Santa, Jeff from Florida shared a hilarious story about both the joys and dangers of playing Santa’s helper:

“Dad had been the Mall Santa enough years that he earned the privilege to be the official Santa for the arrival to mark the beginning of the Holiday season. The Mall wanted to add extra special characters to add to the excitement. Dad asked if a friend and I would be interested, so Frosty and Rudolph were added to the arrival festivities. I was to be Frosty.

Shortly before Santa’s arrival, the three of us, in costume, were held in a secluded location waiting for the arrival signal. I have to admit I was excited and a bit nervous regarding the prospects of playing the part for the children anxiously waiting. When the signal was given, Santa, Frosty and Rudolph entered a large area at the center of the Mall.

In the middle of this area was a large waterfall and pool area near Santa’s chair. A crowd of several hundred children and parents were assembled. Santa was to make his way to his chair at Santa’s Workshop. Frosty and Rudolph were to mingle among the children and assist in forming a line to visit Santa.

The Frosty suit involved a large round fiberglass middle and head, Frosty’s mouth was a black screen through which I was to see and navigate through the crowd. As I maneuvered through the children, they were very excited to see Frosty (and) shake his hand, along with countless hugs. At this time, I had lost sight of Santa and had no idea where Rudolph was. Due to my excitement and the encounters with all the children, I began to lose my sense of direction, adding to my nervousness.

My vision makes it necessary that I wear glasses. Slowly, the heat being generated inside Frosty’s head caused condensation to fog my glasses. It was about this time that I remembered the waterfall and pool. Visions of Frosty falling into the water filled my head, adding to the anxiety and fogging my glasses even more. Since my face was completely encased inside Frosty’s head, I was unable to get to my glasses. I soon learned that if I took a deep breath and blow out of Frosty’s mouth, it would help lessen the fog on my glasses.

However, after taking several breaths and with great effort to exhale out of Frosty’s mouth, I began to get a little lightheaded. And all this time I could feel all the little hands touching and hearing how much they loved Frosty as I blindly wandered among the children. Trying very hard to remain in character and not ruin such a happy time, I realized I had to regain control.

Just then, I realized that I could rub my face against the inside of Frosty’s head and knock my glasses off. This, of course, improved my sense of direction, though still not very clear. I was able to continue Frosty’s journey through the throngs of children without incident and especially avoid falling into the waterfall pool.

Beginning the Holiday season with Santa’s arrival taught me many things that day, most importantly, the joyful rewards of seeing the Christmas spirit in children’s eyes as they got to see the wonder of Santa Claus and hug Frosty the Snowman with his magic hat and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

Thanks, Jeff. I hope it also taught you that you’re going to keep playing Frosty, you’d better get contact lenses!

Mike Huckabee

One thing everyone loves about the holidays is all the great foods we indulge in only once a year. Every family has its special dishes that simply must be on the table, from oyster dressing to yams with tiny marshmallows. But sometimes, they don’t make for a great combination, on the plate or in your stomach.

Kevin from Maryland wrote me that he grew up in a Norwegian family that always served the notorious fish dish, lutefisk, which he jokingly called, “the piece of Cod that passes all understanding." (The recipe involves soaking a piece of cod fish in lye for three days. Seriously.)

Kevin recalled:

“My mother, a fine teetotaling Christian who prided herself on never having alcohol in the house, was appalled the day my uncle brought a six-pack of beer as his contribution to the Christmas meal. To my mother’s horror, my father graciously accepted the libation. And so, in sullen silence, the family dinner was served...the traditional lutefisk and Godless beer.

I remember the smirk on my uncle's face as he began to eat the fish dish and wash it down with beer. My father, at the other end of the table shared in the merriment, while my poor grim-faced mother tried to remain polite...though sitting next to her, I was certain that she was asking God to strike her kin with righteous retribution.”

Now, at this point, Kevin went into some clinical details about the chemical reactions of the digestive system that I won’t relay here. Suffice to say that about half an hour into the meal, his dad and uncle suddenly excused themselves and bolted from the table. They both spent a miserable night of gastric distress, much to his mom’s quiet satisfaction.

Kevin said that was the Christmas he learned that mixing fish cured in lye with beer creates a volcanic reaction in the stomach similar to mixing vinegar and baking soda. He said it was also the year he learned that God answers prayers (his mother’s, at least.) And He's not above using science in working His will.

I want to thank Kevin for that unique story. While most of my listeners’ stories touched the heart or the funny bone, his was the only one that touched the digestive system.

Mike Huckabee

Dale from Illinois shared a memory of when his family asked for no gifts, but got the best gift ever:

“My most memorable Christmas was the one that I asked for no gifts. We didn't decorate or even put up a tree. Seven weeks earlier, we had a new grandson. He was born with heart problems and was airlifted to a hospital in Peoria, Illinois, where they did heart surgery on newborns. He spent the first five weeks of his life in Intensive Care after two open heart surgeries.

My wife and I were so grateful to God for our grandson that we accepted him as our gift. There was nothing that could compete with God's gift of healing. Our grandson made a wonderful Christmas.”

You’ve heard the term, a “hard candy Christmas”? Well, Kathy from Kentucky recalled a Christmas when hard candy would’ve seemed like a luxury. And “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse” was more than could be hoped for. But somehow, it can end up as a happy memory if you can just keep your sense of humor:

“To start with, it was a Christmas I will never forget. I had married at age fourteen, partly to escape the hand of life I was dealt, with parents neither of (whom) seemed to want me or my siblings. We were shuffled from here to there, staying with family or staying alone many nights by ourselves by the time I was 11 years old.

I had married so young trying to escape and have some kind of normal family. At least that’s what I felt at the time. I was much more mature at age 14 than most 25-year-olds today. It was our second Christmas together and we didn't have very much money, but I was 16 by this time and was expecting our first of four children I would eventually have. I so much wanted to have a Christmas tree and decorate it.

Well, with my meager budget, I felt the old-fashioned way might be my best bet. My tree had a few hand-me-down ornaments that were scratched and tattered. I also managed to buy a pack of the old-fashioned icicles that looked like shredded aluminum foil shavings. In 1973, we didn't have all the new shimmering decorations.

I also took a bag of cranberries and some popcorn and strung it to make a stream of garland. I thought our little hand-cut cedar tree was beautiful. It had taken me all day to string the cranberries and popcorn. I strung them around the tree trying to cut corners so they would cover more area. Finally, the tree was decorated.

That night, I went to bed with a few little presents and a beautiful tree. At the time, we lived in an old house we rented, and there were cracks big enough that you could throw a cat through around the windows. I was used to cold houses and not-so-fine furnishings. At 16, I was doing pretty good, I thought. I just couldn't wait to show my Christmas tree and what a fine job I had done.

I woke up the next morning and walked into our simple little living room to see my tree. My heart sank, I just couldn't believe it. The mice had eaten all my popcorn and several of the cranberries! I was devastated, but after the shock wore off, my husband and I just laughed and laughed 

Even after that, I still put popcorn strings on our tree. Later, my four kids would help. The happiest Christmases I remember were ones when we had very little materially but had generosity in our hearts. 

I have since gone to college with those four kids and am now a retired teacher. The one thing I always tried to teach my kids as well as my students is that it's not how much money you spend, it is about how much love and generosity is in your heart. Money does not make you happy, love does.”

Beth from Texas offered a story whose moral is that anything can become a cherished memory if it’s associated with the joy of Christmas, and I do mean ANYTHING!...

“For many years, my sister (who teaches Kindergarten) and I would deliver any gifts from the Angel tree at K-Mart that had not been picked up by Christmas Eve. Many of the names were ones familiar to my sister, and we loaded up the car and put on our Santa hats and went delivering in everything from snow to rain...this to us was the true meaning of Christmas.

One place we would always stop about half-way through our deliveries was the Beasley Memorial Funeral Home - it had a drive-up viewing window in front!

The first Christmas after K-Mart closed, my sister and I were both at loose ends on Christmas Eve. I drove us over to sit in the driveway of the funeral home so it felt more like Christmas Eve. Happy to say some of our best Christmas Eves were spent sitting in that driveway! Merry Christmas to you!”

Speaking of trees, sometimes the tree itself can be your best Christmas memory. One thing we all learned from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is that it’s not how fancy your tree is that matters, it’s the love it represents.  Vicky from California sent a beautiful story that illustrated that as well as Charles M. Schulz did.

Vicky recalled a time years before, when her young family was desperately poor and struggling to provide Christmas for their three small children.  Her husband brought home a tree, but was so exhausted after working 14 hours, he hadn't noticed it was dead and brown on one side. 

A neighbor tried to help by giving them a little 18-inch, lighted tabletop tree.  Vickie thought it was so small and ugly, she began to cry at the thought that this shrunken thing would be their family's tree.  Just then, her little daughter began to cry, too, and hugged her. But she was crying for a very different reason.

The little girl said in awe, “That is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen. Do we really get to have that as our tree this year?" 

Vicki wrote, “I had a permanent attitude change.  That night, I couldn't stop thanking our Heavenly Father enough for His blessings.”  

Thank you, Vicki. That story puts a new spin on “a little child shall lead them.” 

Finally, Andrea from Texas has a story of a Christmas tree that made Charlie Brown’s sad little tree look good. But just as in the classic “Peanuts” special, all it took was a little love to make it beautiful – and it wasn’t even technically a tree: 

“During the time Carter was president, my mother was working two jobs. We still couldn't afford a Christmas tree. Living in Yuma, Arizona made it hard to find one to cut and use, obviously 

One day my brother and I decided to surprise her before she came home. We found a tumbleweed of good size and made a stand for it. We made a star for the top out of the ‘tree’ out of cardboard, wrapping it in aluminum foil. Having some school glue and some glitter, we took little trinkets and decorated them, attached string and hung (them) on the tumbleweed.

When she came home, she couldn't believe her eyes. That was the prettiest Christmas (weed) tree. Although we didn't have any gifts and not much of anything else, it was one of the happiest Christmases we ever had. We told jokes, and Christmas cheer in our little home was abundant. I was only 13, but ‘til this day, that is one of the most memorable Christmases ever. God Bless and Merry Christmas to All!”

Merry Christmas to you, too, Andrea, and we hope you and your family are still tumbling along!

Mike Huckabee

This time of year, one of the many great holiday songs we always hear is the late, great Glen Campbell’s “Christmas Is For Children.” That sentiment was also on the minds of many of my radio listeners whose most treasured memories of Christmas were tied to childhood – either their kids’ childhoods or their own.

Some were of the “Kids Say The Darnedest Things” variety. For instance, Joe from Georgia recalled when his son was 7, their church had a pancake breakfast with a “Happy Birthday Jesus” cake for the kids, and the Lord’s Supper for adults during the Christmas Eve service. His son tugged his sleeve and asked, “Dad, why am I allowed to eat the Lord’s Breakfast but not His supper?”

An eternal theological question, my son!

There's something about the excitement of Christmas that makes children even more hilariously discombobulated. Cleve from New Mexico wrote, "At our house, we always opened our presents on Christmas morning. I remember the first year my daughters were really, really, really looking forward to Christmas. On Christmas Eve morning, they jumped out of bed, ran into the kitchen, and hollered, 'Today's the night we get up in the morning!!'"

Well, they were right: it was!

Dolores from Texas recalled that during the Depression, her parents gave her and her sister Betsy Wetsy dolls, and made a little suitcase and a whole wardrobe for them. Dolores said it was the “best Christmas ever!” The girls were so excited, they didn’t even realize until years later that those were actually their old dolls, all cleaned up. The moral: To a child, a gift doesn’t have to be new…just new to THEM.

Claudine from North Dakota shared this:

“When my kids were little, the church was getting together some toys, gifts and food items for a poor family who had just moved to our area at Christmas time. While looking in the pantry to see what we might have extras of, I asked my children what they would like to give. My daughter - then six years old - went to her room and brought down her Barbie doll complete with Barbie outfits, that she loved to play with. It was her only one. When I said, ‘Oh, honey, you don't have to give your favorite doll’, she said to me, ‘Mommy, if you just give what you don't want, it's not really giving, is it?’”

When you “give till it hurts,” as some people put it, it can actually feel pretty good. Thank you, Claudine, for reminding us that sometimes, parents can learn from children.

BettyJean from California had a favorite childhood Christmas memory that reminds us not to look a gift horse in the mouth. She wrote:

"I was born in 1928 in a small town in Montana. My mother died in 1929... (and) we were very poor...One Christmas my friend, Rex, whose parents had a restaurant in town, gave me a beautifully wrapped present. I was SOOOO EXCITED! Christmas Eve, my brother and I unwrapped our two presents. My brother watched me unwrap mine: a box of candy. And I can still hear him, 70 years later...yelling out, "DAAAAAD! THERE'S A PIECE GONE!!!!!"

I guess that proves little boys haven't really changed much in all these years!

Of course, Christmas is also a time when many of us former children experience the sadness of memories of parents who are no longer with us. I received many stories from people who were rocked by a flood of emotions at something as simple as coming across an old family decoration that their dad made, or the smell of a favorite family dish that mama used to cook. You never know what unlikely things might trigger overwhelming emotions.

For example, Linda from Texas recalled that her grandfather’s last Christmas gift to her dad just before he died was a shirt. He never wore that shirt. But he kept it hanging in his closet for the rest of his life, carefully preserved as a reminder of his dad.

Ellen from Oregon would understand that feeling. Her mother died of a brain tumor that had scrambled her thinking and sometimes made her a little exasperating. Just before Christmas, she made a big production of being driven to the post office to buy Christmas ornament postage stamps. She debated at great length before settling on the design, which she insisted on calling the “Jingle Bell stamps.” The postal clerk put three sheets of stamps in an onionskin envelope for her. Her mom proudly took them home, wrote “Christmas stamps” on the envelope, and displayed them on the windowsill for all to see. It seemed a little silly to Ellen at the time.

One month later, as she and her sisters were cleaning out their late mother’s house, Ellen came across her mom’s beloved Jingle Bells stamps in the onionskin envelope with her handwriting on it. She wrote, “I took them into the bathroom and cried.” She took the envelope with the remaining stamps home with her. Long afterward, when her husband needed a stamp, she opened the stamp drawer, saw them again, and cried again.

She began calling them the “Jingle Bell stamps,” too. There are only three stamps left, and there always will be. Ellen said she could never use them. She wrote:

“It’s almost as if when those stamps are gone, one more thread will be cut…But somehow, I know I will never give up that little onion skin envelope. Whenever I buy stamps, it will always be in sheets, and I will always tuck them into that little onion skin envelope.”

Thank you for sharing that, Ellen. And please know that you are not alone. Many of us treasure things that might seem silly to others, but they hold value beyond gold to us. There’s no reason to be embarrassed about having a reminder of your mom in the stamp drawer. But it’s even better to know that we’ll always have memories of our loved ones who’ve left us tucked safely away in our hearts.

Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we dared to question the pardoning authority of a President who is clearly not playing with a full deck.  The undercover video recently obtained by James O’Keefe makes it clear that those working with Biden have known how serious his condition was and just kept it quiet (at least until they went out on first dates).

Here’s PJ MEDIA on that video, in case you didn’t see our story, and even if you did…

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2024/12/17/okeefes-latest-sting-nsc-officer-says-joe-biden-is-like-dead-n4935190

Biden hasn’t been functioning well for a long time, but only in recent months has this been widely acknowledged, though his party declined to invoke the 25^th Amendment.  Not only has the sitting President pardoned close to 1,500 of his closest friends, but many more are reportedly anticipating blanket pardons along the order of what Hunter Biden received, covering them for whatever they might have done during a set period of time.  This turns the whole pardon authority on its head.

“...Joe is only getting started,” said FOX NEWS’ Sean Hannity Tuesday night.  “How many other Bidens will be pardoned by the time this is all said and done?  Will Joe pardon himself, [with one of] these ‘pre-emptive’ pardons?”  Hannity went on to cite a few confounding examples of Biden’s inexplicable clemency, such as the doctor found guilty of diluting chemotherapy drugs being given to cancer patients (!!!).  Using presidential authority to let this person walk free after what she did is unconscionable.

Just wondering:  How would Joe Biden have liked it if his son Beau’s doctor had done the same thing to Beau during his treatment for brain cancer?  Would that have deserved clemency?

At the time this doctor was sentenced, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III said, “It’s a very small thing to send this woman to jail for the next 20 years when you compare it to the damage she has done.”  But for some reason, whoever put that piece of paper in front of President Biden for him to sign thought differently, and so this (former?) doctor has a get-out-of-jail-free card.  We’d love to know what Judge Jordan thinks about this.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-clemency-doc-chemotherapy-fraud-scheme-contrasts-longtime-cancer-moonshot-advocacy

Biden also commuted the sentences of two Chinese spies convicted of espionage (WHAT??), as well as the relative of a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party convicted of possessing over 47,000 images of child porn on his computer.  This was reportedly part of a prisoner swap, an exchange for three Americans who were being held there.

At the time of the sentencing of one of the spies, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Today’s sentencing demonstrates the seriousness of those crimes and the Justice Department’s determination to investigate and prosecute efforts by the Chinese government, or any foreign power, to threaten our economic and national security.”

Well, so much for that!

The NEW YORK POST story is a must-read.  (The POST has uncovered a wealth of CCP spying in New York City.)

https://nypost.com/2024/12/13/world-news/biden-pardons-high-ranking-chinese-spies/

Even the “fact”-checkers at NEWSWEEK have confirmed that the story on Biden giving clemency to these three Chinese criminals, two of them spies, is TRUE.  This may or may not be part of a prisoner swap, they say.

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-joe-biden-pardon-chinese-spies-2000732

Of this transition period, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, “When you look at the vote of the American people, and you look at how clear the issues were, and some of what’s gone on, it’s not technically treason, but it is certainly a deliberate and willful undermining of the American people --- not undermining Donald Trump; he’s undermining the American people.”

These are the American people who want a border wall built and a tougher relationship with China, he said.  “And I’m watching what I think is a deliberate, and I think malicious and despicable, undermining of the American people.”

“...The Congress right now should be demanding records on every single commutation and pardon,” he continued, “’cause you have some really sick people who Joe Biden released.  I have no idea how they got on the list, and we ought to be able to track down every memo, every single example.  Why would these people, some of whom are pretty sick --- child pornographers, people who are totally corrupt, people who bankrupted small towns --- [have made that list]?  What the American people deserve is the truth, and we ought to be committed to giving [them] the facts.”

Incidentally, Gov. Huckabee appeared on Hannity’s show Tuesday night, along with former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, to talk about the transition and the strategies Biden is using to leave a gigantic mess behind.  Here’s that segment…

 Huckabee: They're underestimating what's coming under Trump - Read Mike's News Analysis - Mike Huckabee

“I think [Biden] underestimates what Donald Trump is gonna do when he gets into office,” the Gov. said.  “...That’s gonna be the beginning on January 20.  And I can’t wait.  It’s just not gonna get here quick enough.”

But that’s precisely the problem right now.  Biden and his puppeteers still have about five weeks in which to do their dirty work.  Much more clemency is likely, because why the heck not?  As for short-circuiting this by invoking the 25^th Amendment, that simply won’t happen when Cabinet members are in as much denial as the current ones are.  A startling new report from REDSTATE reveals that even members of Biden’s own Cabinet, when polled recently by FOX BUSINESS NEWS Digital, continued to stand by statements they have made concerning Biden’s absolute fitness to serve.

https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2024/12/17/biden-cabinet-officials-asked-if-biden-was-fit-to-serve-bizarro-world-ensues-n2183335

This poll was taken even after First Lady Jill Biden, in September, was actually put in charge of a Cabinet meeting.  And you’re aware of the President’s current state if you saw the undercover video obtained by James O’Keefe, in which someone who’s worked with Biden for over a year (probably longer) says everyone at the office knows the President is non-functional.  Staffers and Cabinet members might admit it to each other, but they obviously are NOT going on the record.

Here’s an example of a statement made in September by one of Biden’s Cabinet members, HHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: 

"As I’ve said before, I come fully prepared for my meetings with President Biden, knowing his questions will be detail-oriented, probing, and exacting. In our exchanges, the President always draws upon our prior conversations and past events in analyzing the issues and reaching his conclusions."  Mayorkas said he had “full confidence” in Biden’s ability.  And on Monday, DHS stated that Mayorkas stands by his comments.

Good grief; they actually expect us to believe this.

“It’s a level of gaslighting rarely seen even in Washington,” says Becky Noble at REDSTATE.  “Once Joe Biden is gone, will anyone finally speak up because they think it’s ‘safe’?”

Yesterday, when we first began to tackle the issue of Biden’s incapacity as he (or someone) commits presidential pardon abuse, we looked for input from an attorney whom we respected.  Today, we have some, from Jonathan Turley.  And he’s very concerned that this idea of “pre-emptive pardons” is going to fundamentally change the nature of presidential power.  Turley --- perhaps because he grew up in the Democrat Party --- has strong insight into what they’re up to now and the damage they could wreak.

Such wholesale pardoning, he says, “will give Presidents cover to wipe away any threat of prosecution for friends, donors and associates.  This can include self-pardons issued as implied condemnations of their political opponents.  It could easily become the final act of every President to pardon himself and all of the members of his administration.  We would then have an effective immunity rule for outgoing parties in American politics. 

“...No President has seen fit to go as far as where Biden appears to be heading,” he says.  It’s uncharted territory.

The Democrats have touted a Trump “enemies list” but can’t prove there really is one, Turley says, so they’re introducing a Biden pardon list in anticipation of Trump’s supposed revenge (which Trump says he’s not doing).  “After years of lying to Americans about the influence peddling scandal and promising not to consider a pardon for his son,” Turley says, “Biden would end his legacy with the ultimate dishonesty: converting pardons into virtual party favors.”

“Joe Biden has become the President that Richard Nixon only imagined.  He would establish with utter clarity that this power is not presidential, but personal and political...and many in the Beltway are waiting to give him a standing ovation.”

Unfortunately, Turley does not get into Biden’s cognitive issues here, the fact of his mental decline.  Is there any way to legally address the validity of these many pardons and commutations --- and the precedent they set for future Presidents --- considering they’ve been signed by, as one investigator kindly put it, “an elderly man with a poor memory”?  And what if it can be determined that most of these came from donors, lobbyists and even global adversaries, set quickly before a vacant-eyed old codger in need of a nap, as a pen is placed in his hand? After all, he has been officially declared by a DOJ special counsel to be too old and incompetent to stand trial on his handling of classified documents, so how is he legally competent to sign pardons that don’t even fit the legal definition of a pardon but of blanket “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards?

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/12/17/the-danger-of-white-knight-pardons-biden-could-fundamentally-change-presidential-power/

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Not since all the empty talk about Kamala Harris’ many paths to victory have cable news outlets expended more time on a subject they know nothing about than on the mysterious drone sightings. Most talked about it all weekend, and we still know no more than we did on Friday. We have the same vague White House reassurances that the drones aren’t foreign spies or invaders or dangerous, while simultaneously claiming that the government doesn’t know what they are.

And of course, we have the not-at-all reassuring claims that there’s nothing the government can do about them, which nobody in his right mind believes. Well, considering the way Biden let Chinese spy balloons float all the way across the country before shooting them down, maybe this Administration really is that incompetent. But it’s not likely to go on past next month, since Trump posted this on Truth Social Friday:

“Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!”

It seems reasonable to assume that they must be US government aircraft or they’d be gone by now…

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nj-drone-sightings-could-classified-exercise-former-cia-officer

We’re not going to fill the newsletter with pointless speculation about what these drones are, but we will give you some useful information. First, you might read this article by Brandan Smith. Please note that we make no endorsement of his theory about this being a false flag operation by the US government for nefarious purposes. That’s speculation, and nobody knows yet what they are. But this article has a lot of information about laws, regulations and technical specs of drones that may help us deduce what they are NOT.

https://americafirstreport.com/unidentified-drones-in-americas-skies-smells-like-a-false-flag/

There are also conspiracy theories being floated about what they are, from a false flag operation to simulate an attack by a foreign power and lure us into World War III, to an attempt to panic the public into demanding more government protection and thwart Trump’s agenda. to them being radiation detectors looking for a dirty bomb. Again, these are all unconfirmed speculation, but unlike the government, we think people should be informed of all claims and opinions so they can sort them out for themselves rather than having the government censor the ones it doesn’t like.

That brings us to a theory that’s spreading online that this is something called Project Blue Beam. That’s a conspiracy theory dating back to the 1990s that global elites plan to use high technology and drone lights in the sky to simulate an alien invasion or theological event to undermine religious beliefs and fool people into accepting a fake global religion and one-world government.

https://www.newsweek.com/what-project-blue-beam-conspiracy-theory-erupts-over-drones-2001051

If that’s the plan, they’re launching it a bit late. By this point, we’ve all seen amazing synchronized drone light shows in Fourth of July fireworks displays. Our reaction wouldn’t be “Martians are invading!” it would be more like, “What are those drones doing up there?”

And that’s exactly the question we all have. We’ll write about this again when we actually get an answer to it.

“My big issue is that I’m really, really sick and tired of every time I turn around, finding something else that the Democrats have lied about or downplayed or misrepresented along the way.”

That was podcaster Stephen A. Smith, speaking about the latest revelations about January 6.  He had a message to the Democrat Party, saying he was sick of the fact that when the likes of Megyn Kelly and Sean Hannity (and we’d be in that category) had anything to say “about something pertaining to y’all, THEY SEEM RIGHT.”

Well, we ARE right.  We’ve been right over and over and over again.

“They’ve actually made Donald Trump look like HE was right,” Smith said.  Well, yes.  That’s because he was.

https://rumble.com/v5zlzft-stephen-a.-smith-may-finally-be-fully-red-pilled-following-j6-revelation.html

We learned from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s J6 report last week that dozens of FBI informants (but only three “employees” per se) were at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.  The media have been trying to soften this story as much as they can.  One example:  A headline from THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, quite a Democrat propaganda rag in a predominantly red state, said, “Review finds FBI missteps,” with the subhead, “...Report debunks theory of bureau’s involvement, participation.”

Um, did they READ the report?  But that’s the DMN for you.  (And they ran the AP story; same deal.)  This is why your humble writers choose to use its pages to line their parrots’ cages.

Anyway, back when Mike Lee was asking questions of FBI Director Christopher Wray about FBI involvement in January 6, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney called him a “nutball conspiracy theorist.”  But the report shows he was right to ask.  Long before it came out, but after she posted some J6 video, he responded, “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times.  You made sure we saw that --- and nothing else.  It’s the other stuff --- which you deliberately hid from us --- that we find so upsetting.  Nice try.  PS.  How many of these guys are feds?  (As if you’d ever tell us).”

Well, now we know.

https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/12/15/mike-lee-liz-cheney-n2405223

Word is getting around that one of the FBI confidential human sources (informants) who entered the Capitol on January 6 --- an action for which many people are currently serving jail time --- not only was not prosecuted but also got his travel expenses reimbursed.  He later attended the inauguration, also with his bill footed by Uncle Sam.

As we quoted Michael Stenger, U.S. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms during January 6 (now deceased), “Investigations should be considered as to funding and travel of what appears to be professional agitators.”  You can see him here…

https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/12/12/fbi-connection-to-j6-gets-even-more-damning-n2405097

What, professional agitators working with the FBI?  How shocking!

And, of course, Wray hasn’t left yet.  The WASHINGTON TIMES ran a story about his plan to promote senior employees and somehow delay presumed incoming FBI Director Kash Patel by “three to four months.”

“If Wray succeeds,” the INDEPENDENT SENTINEL reports, “Patel will likely have trouble running the FBI effectively, as Wray’s deep state goons constantly leak and defy orders without repercussions.  This would be great news for dangerous criminals and awful news for law-abiding Americans.”

Patel had better have a plan for dealing with this.  But we have a feeling that, given his experience with these people, he does.  It needs to involve firing a lot of people, even those who just got promoted.  Especially them.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/wrays-insidious-plan-to-damage-kash-patel-from-day-1/

When the J6 report came out, one aspect of it was glaringly missing:  the pipe bomber story.  As Victoria Taft reports in PJ MEDIA, “The radio silence on what we’ve been assured are ‘viable’ pipe bombs planted outside the DNC and near the RNC on J6 continued in the Inspector General’s report when he offered only a few treacly paragraphs on the issue.”  The bombs were quickly dispensed with in just one mention on page 49.

This is looking more and more like a planned diversion (by...who?) to stop the counting of Electoral College votes when it was known Republican senators might be prepared to offer evidence of questionable ballot counting, perhaps even calling for an audit of the election.  Both bombs were “discovered” a very short while before the certification was scheduled to start.

Taft describes how she thinks this plan would have gone:  “All available cops would be sent to the bomb reports, the count would stop, Kamala Harris, the nation’s first woman of color who ascended to the nation’s second most powerful position and could have been killed by a ‘viable’ pipe bomb, would be feted as a woke heroine and survivor.  Joe Biden would officially be declared the winner.  Game over.”

We’ve never learned why VP-elect Kamala Harris --- there’s a name you won’t be hearing very often from now on, except in this context --- left the Capitol building to go to DNC headquarters that day.  Was she ever asked about this (or anything else) for the IG report?  NO.

Turned out, the Democrats didn’t need their pipe bomb story, because they got their riot.

Taft reminds us that all the Secret Service communications from both January 5 and 6 were destroyed in a very conveniently timed cell phone swap.  This happened in spite of four congressional committees ordering them to keep the data.  And even the “geofencing” that was used --- and continues to be used --- to track down J6 rallygoers was “corrupted” in the case of the so-called bomb planter.

Taft concludes that we were promised answers by the IG and got none, certainly about the pipe bombs, which were all but ignored.  Having called the pipe bomb story “the smoking gun” of January 6, investigative reporter Darren Beattie entreats Kash Patel: “As uncomfortable as it is, we will need soon-to-be FBI Director Kash Patel to take the sham pipe bomb story to its final conclusion.  I can hand it to him on a silver platter.”  And he can.

Just a thought:  this is one reason Chris Wray might want to delay Patel’s assumption of the directorship at the FBI. 

https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/12/13/the-deafening-silence-over-the-j6-pipe-bombs-n4935107

Taft made the case over the weekend that “FBI agents were everywhere” that day.  She includes an excerpt from the IG report featuring a description of “SWAT teams” responding to the pipe bomb discoveries.  “Are SWAT members for the FBI not AGENTS?” she asks rhetorically.

“So, if we take the IG’s conclusion at face value,” Taft says, “if there were no FBI UNDERCOVER AGENTS there, how come there were so many FBI AGENTS there?  And does the lack of a uniform determine whether entrapment has taken place?”  The IG report seems to have just muddied the water.

https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/12/13/the-deafening-silence-over-the-j6-pipe-bombs-n4935107

As outlined in a new report, Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6 (and was recently promoted to captain), was recommended for termination in 2001 for abandoning his post and lying about it to Internal Affairs.  A source told BLAZE MEDIA investigators that this was one of three disciplinary cases “for which records could not be found when a House oversight subcommittee [this must be Barry Loudermilk’s committee] requested them in early 2024.”

For when you have time, there’s much more here about Byrd’s dicey history with the Capitol Police.  Even after killing an unarmed person, Byrd was helped financially and continued to fail up.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/exclusive-officer-who-killed-ashli-babbitt-abandoned-us-capitol-post-for-card-game-lied-to-investigators-about-it-source-says

Bonchie at REDSTATE takes an even harsher tone. 

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/12/13/new-shocking-disgusting-revelations-about-the-uscp-officer-who-shot-and-killed-ashli-babbitt

In this highly recommended piece, John Solomon has more about the favoritism and financial benefits directed towards Byrd, much more than what other officers have received.  Why?

https://justthenews.com/accountability/hldofficer-who-shot-j6-protestor-shown-favoritism-capitol-police-under-political

Last week, the sentencing of one J6 defendant (on the same nonviolent charges that most J6 defendants have pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of), Philip Grillo, got pretty wild, as he and presiding Judge Royce Lamberth exchanged words.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Lamberth said, “I will do my job as I’m bound by oath to do, and the President will do his.  It’s as simple as that.”  He said the administration of justice is necessary “no matter what the political winds of the day.”  (Not that the political winds had anything to do with this case being in his courtroom in the first place.  For someone who says he doesn’t care about the political winds, he has done his share of politicizing.)

Then Lamberth, true to Julie Kelly’s depiction of him as “one of the cruelest judges,” sentenced Grillo to a year in prison --- to begin IMMEDIATELY --- followed by one year of supervised release. 

But Grillo had the final word.  As he stood there, with the U.S. Marshal taking off his tie and belt and placing him in handcuffs to transport him to prison, he yelled at Lamberth, who was exiting the room, “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways!” 

https://redstate.com/brutalbrittany/2024/12/13/january-6-defendant-to-notorious-judge-trumps-gonna-pardon-me-anyways-n2183158

And we’re counting the minutes till that.  In the meantime, Jonathan Turley is asking why the FBI informants whom we now know were at the Capitol walked free when nearly 1500 American citizens faced charges, some for just wandering through the Capitol building like tourists.  FOX NEWS’ Martha MacCallum talks with him here; you can also see Tucker Carlson’s revealing interview with former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund, if you missed that. 

https://revolver.news/2024/12/jonathan-turley-asks-the-million-dollar-question-about-all-those-j6-fbi-informants/

To end on a positive note, President Trump has just named Devin Nunes, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and current CEO of Truth Social, to lead the Intelligence Advisory Board.  (He will stay on in his position with Truth Social.)  This board, made up of non-government people, “exists to provide an independent source of advice on the effectiveness of the intelligence community’s data and its data acquisition.”

Nunes is up there with Kash Patel as a great choice to help oversee reform of the intel community.  You know the IC can’t stand it, which is a good sign

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/devin-nunes-donald-trump-intelligence-advisory-board/2024

With unidentified drones hovering over New Jersey (or as that would be known in Texas, “target practice”) and Secret Service documents on the attempted golf course shooting of President Trump still being withheld, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley says it’s time for the acting Secret Service director to hit the road.

Hawley didn’t mention the catch, but we all know: Trump can’t fire acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe until he takes office on January 20. And the whole agency needs an overhaul. In the meantime, every day between now and Inauguration Day (and after), Trump’s life is at incredible risk.

As reported Tuesday by FOX NEWS, the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, which investigated both attempts on Trump’s life, confirms the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security has failed yet again, this time to produce documents related to the apparent wannabe Trump assassin who set up camp with an AK-47-style rifle in September on the perimeter of Trump International Golf Course in Florida. The man’s presence there in the bushes was given away only by a flash of light on the muzzle of his gun.

“How is it possible that you have no urgency when you have drones the size of a dining room table flying all over the state of New Jersey and nobody seems to care?” Sean Hannity asked Sen. Hawley on Tuesday night.

Hawley accused the Secret Service of not wanting to cooperate. “They don’t want us to know the facts,” he said. “They’ve stonewalled, they refuse to testify, they refuse to turn over documents…”

He is convinced that Rob Rowe, who was promoted from deputy director after former Director Kim Cheatle’s departure, has got to be relieved from duty.

“I mean, he is not doing his job,” Hawley said. “He endangered the life of the President with his poor response. And for them to stonewall the American people, this many months after not one but two assassination attempts, just like the FBI and the rest are stonewalling us now on these drones over New Jersey --- and who knows where else...that they’re not telling us about? --- it’s time for some accountability at these agencies. It’s time to clean house.”

As for the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, Hawley said they had “whistleblower after whistleblower” come forward to say the Secret Service had failed to secure the buildings, and their claims are confirmed in the House report. It was the same at the golf course, where agents reportedly ignored the protocol of doing a sweep of the perimeter.

“I mean, it’s a miracle Trump is alive,” Sen. Hawley said.

Hannity suggested bringing in Special Forces “to reinforce the good agents that do work for the Secret Service.”

As for the large drones flying over New Jersey, Sen. Hawley said just what we would think, which is to say, “You can’t tell me that they don’t know what that is. I just think they’re not being honest with us. If we don’t know --- if our government really has no idea --- then they’re even more incompetent than I thought.”

“...They need to level with the American people about what’s going on. It’s crazy.”

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6365833152112

The 180-page Task Force report is calling for specific changes to the Secret Service, including possibly moving it from the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, where it has been since DHS was created after 9/11. Before then, it was part of the U.S. Treasury Department, and it still divides its efforts to continue investigating fraud and financial crimes. It also protects foreign dignitaries while they’re in the U.S., with the number of people it’s been tasked with protecting “greatly expanded” in recent years. The Task Force recommends that its array of responsibilities be reviewed so that the agency --- especially during campaign season --- “can prioritize the protection of U.S. leaders and candidates running for office.” Their mission there has to be one of “zero fail.”

One big problem, they say, is that the U.S. General Assembly meets in New York City every September. “The Secret Service’s protective mission is at the core of the agency’s purpose,” they say in their report. “Anything that distracts or diverts resources from the agency’s zero fail mission must be reconsidered.” This year, as it does every four years, the Assembly fell at the height of a presidential election campaign season. (Certainly, this is a factor. We would mention, though, that the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting, which was a total Secret Service disaster and abject humiliation, took place on July 13.)

“Congress, DHS and the USSS [U.S. Secret Service] should jointly consider the protective role the USSS plays for foreign leaders and consider whether such duties can be transferred or abrogated in order to focus on the USSS’s primary duty: to protect the President and other critical U.S. leaders,” the report says.

If you’d like a deep dive, here’s the full, 180-page report.

https://taskforce.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/july13taskforce.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/12-5-2024-Final-Report-Redacted.pdf

Fortunately, once Trump gets back to the White House, he can fire anyone he wants to, and if Biden doesn’t like it, he’ll have no one to blame but himself. You see, Democrats’ way of using the most expedient, right-now strategy to get what they want sometimes comes back to bite them, and that happened after former White House press spokesman Sean Spicer was fired from his position on the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy, even though he had a three-year term. When he challenged his firing in court and lost, that decision gave the incoming President legal backing to fire any of Biden’s over 4,000 appointments, immediately. Ha ha.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/3254409/trump-can-fire-anybody-he-wants-thanks-to-sean-spicer/

RELATED TRANSITION NEWS: In quite a stunning development, Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, confirms that he was one of over three dozen staffers and two members of Congress whose communications were improperly swept up by the DOJ during the so-called “Russia” investigation in 2017. The DOJ obtained phone records without notifying the courts that the search involved members of Congress or congressional staffers. They were also trying to get their hands on emails from reporters at CNN, the WASHINGTON POST, and THE NEW YORK TIMES. This has just come out in a report from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

Also, there is this: “Another former staffer, Jason Foster, previously told JUST THE NEWS that he confirmed that the government successfully asked a federal court to hide its spying on Congress for five consecutive years.” At the time Foster was being spied on, he was chief investigative counsel for Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We find this story quite ironic considering that Patel, in early 2018 as chief investigator for then-House Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, was the one who discovered the improper surveillance of Carter Page. There was a whole lotta spyin’ goin’ on, and probably still is. That’s one thing Patel is going there to fix.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/12/10/justice-department-spied-on-incoming-fbi-director-kash-patel-n4934996

As Nunes told FOX NEWS Digital, “The feds spied on Kash during the probe and ran information warfare against him, but Kash helped expose them anyway.”

A new piece from Brooke Singman mentions this revelation and also offers a history lesson on Kash Patel as Trump’s perfect pick to head the FBI. It’s not surprising that there’s panic in the swamp over Patel’s installation there in just a little over a month. They’ll try anything to derail his nomination.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-fbi-pick-kash-patel-instrumental-unraveling-russia-collusion-hoax-former-chairman-says

RELATED: There’s something else that just needs to end, but it won’t at least for now. That’s the state-level lawfare brought by State Attorney General Letitia James in New York and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia. James says she will not drop the civil fraud case against Trump, the one in which no one doing business with Trump had any problem at all. She’s just sent a letter to Trump’s attorneys to that effect.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-york-ag-letitia-james-says-she-wont-drop-civil-fraud-case-against-trump

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/new-york-ag-james-wont-drop-454-million-civil-fraud-case-against-trump-office-says-5773877

And Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is reportedly “laying out alternatives” to dismissing the case against Trump on falsifying business records for payments on a non-disclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5032679-bragg-trump-hush-money-conviction/

To wrap this up, here’s an amusing postscript to our commentary from yesterday on the need for accountability for members of the Biden administration who broke laws. It’s a brief video montage of new California Sen. Adam Schiff (we feel for you, sane Californians who didn’t vote for him) speaking about whether outgoing officials should be indicted. The comments are from 2018, 2019 and now 2024.

Note that consistency is not his strong suit.

https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1866613145957175468

During the season when we hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” twice an hour, let’s take a moment to wish a happy 80^th birthday to “Little Miss Dynamite,” Brenda Lee. Brenda’s powerful voice propelled a number of songs to the charts in various genres from country to pop to rockabilly. She’s sold over 100 million records worldwide, and her 1960 hit “I’m Sorry” made her only the second woman to top the Billboard Hot 100 after Connie Francis. Last year, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” hit #1 again, making her the oldest artist ever to top the Billboard charts.

And now, something you won’t find anywhere else. Newsletter reader "opaobie" shares this personal anecdote about Brenda Lee. When his Oklahoma-born wife was a teenager, she saw Brenda at the Grand Ole Opry early in her career and it left a lasting impression:

“They were in the ladies’ restroom, and Brenda Lee accidentally left a (big diamond) ring on the sink after she washed her hands and walked out. My wife picked it up and went out and found her and returned it before she went backstage.

Brenda gave a shout out from the stage as she started her performance to the honest girl who found and returned her ring, proving that all the good things she had heard about ‘Okies’ (were) true...What a thrill for a young teenage girl.”

Just one of many thrills Brenda Lee has given us over the years. Happy Birthday!e

Some liberals have smugly assured the media that Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Defense Secretary is doomed, with one saying he’s like Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense” (SPOILER ALERT!): “He’s dead but just doesn’t know it yet.”

Someone forgot to tell that to Hegseth, or to Trump and J.D. Vance, who are doubling down on their support for Hegseth. And after having a second meeting with him – plus getting an earful from constituents – Republican Sen. Joni Ernst now seems to be leaning toward confirming him.

https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/12/09/new-ernst-signals-hegseth-vote-following-second-meeting-n2182994

There are a lot of ways in which Trump 2.0 is unlike the Trump who came to DC in 2016 with no experience at dealing with the eels and snakes inhabiting the swamp. He’s wise to their games now, and Democrats need to learn that decades-old sleazy accusations by anonymous sources are no longer a lethal political weapon.

Mike Huckabee

Much of the current news coverage is dominated by details about the alleged murderer of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. We’re being inundated with information about the suspect’s life, mental state, education, social media posts and potential motives (like this theory by a retired FBI agent that he might have been “triggered” to murder an insurance executive because he was 26, the age when people are kicked off their parents’ insurance under Obamacare.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/obamacare-provision-among-ivy-league-murder-suspects-possible-triggers-ret-fbi-agent

Let’s not forget that 26 was chosen because that was the latest possible age that liberals could pick to designate someone as an “adult,” despite the fact that for generations, 18 has been considered legal adulthood for marrying, joining the military and signing contracts – like buying your own insurance.

If that’s what “triggered” him to commit murder, then it’s just proof that he’s either mentally unstable or a perfect example of an emotion-driven, infantilized, 21^st century leftist, which is not grounds for an insanity defense, although maybe it should be.

Frankly, we don’t care what might have “triggered” him to commit a cold-blooded, execution-style murder. If he’s guilty, he should pay the price. What matters is that an innocent human being is dead, (allegedly) because of his violent, selfish actions. That should be the focus of the news coverage. That and the horrifying reactions from leftists who are trying to rationalize, justify and even celebrate this shocking murder.

From killing “inconvenient” babies in the womb to making the Boston Marathon bomber look like a rock star on the cover of Rolling Stone to cheering for the assassination of Donald Trump to celebrating this pathetic sicko, the left in America is demonstrating that it has lost all regard for the sanctity of human life as well as any basic human decency. “The Daily Show’s” studio audience even booed a mention of his arrest, and they didn’t seem to be booing him.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/12/11/watch-jon-stewarts-daily-show-audience-boos-unitedhealthcare-shooting-suspects-capture/

Even some Democratic Senators don’t seem to have grasped the idea that no matter what you’re upset about, murder is ALWAYS unjustifiable.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/12/10/warren-on-unitedhealth-ceo-slaying-violence-is-wrong-but-you-can-only-push-people-so-far/

They fail to see the irony in denouncing Trump as an “authoritarian” while cheering for the murder of anyone they disagree with, one of the most common actions of the worst authoritarian regimes in history.

So if you’re driven to know every detail about this suspect’s life, like whether he was so angry because his parents didn’t pat him on the head when they tucked in to bed at the age of 25, look elsewhere. We’ll cover the trial, honor the victim and shine a spotlight on the horrifying reactions because that’s where the real news is.

RELATED: Some more recent and historical commentary about the left’s “sick hypocrisy” in claiming to be tolerant and non-violent while celebrating the killing of its opponents.

https://instapundit.com/689466/

ALSO RELATED: More evidence of the pro-violence/anti-Semitic leftist stain on American universities:

https://www.thecollegefix.com/outrageous-columbia-student-group-launches-paper-glorifying-violence-against-israel/

While many media outlets were celebrating the overthrow of the Assad dictatorship in Syria, we warned that as good as that news was, the new bosses may be just as bad or worse, since they’re a collection of radical Islamic militants led by a former al-Qaeda leader. Well, it’s only been a few days, and the world is fast learning some hard truths. The rebels are reportedly already executing their opponents, kidnapping women, imposing Sharia law and threatening non-Muslim populations, such as the Kurds.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/10/report-syrian-rebels-execute-opponents-impose-sharia-threaten-kurds/

Meanwhile, the Taliban terrorist government of Afghanistan (thanks, Joe) congratulated the rebels and said, “We express hope that the remaining phases of the revolution will be managed in a way that secures a peaceful, unified, and stable system.” Feel free to shudder at that thought.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2024/12/10/taliban-congratulates-syria-jihadists-hopes-for-peaceful-unified-and-stable-system/

As that article reports, the Syrian terrorist leader is doing a full-court propaganda press to the Western media, assuring them that they won’t oppress the Syrian people, and outlets like CNN appear to be falling for it. As Beege Welborn at Hotair.com reports in entertainingly brutal style, our incompetent Secretary of State Antony Blinken also seems to be falling for it.

https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2024/12/10/clueless-joe-co-has-winken-blinken-actually-met-the-new-boss-n3797748

All this while Israel is again being criticized for taking advantage of the chaos to wipe out Assad’s war-making facilities before they fall into the rebels’ hands. And the Biden White House does deserve credit for reiterating our support for Israel in defending itself. A word of warning: If Israel doesn’t destroy Assad’s chemical weapons, someone will have to do it, and we doubt it will be the terrorists some media outlets are fawning over.

Here’s video of Gov. Huckabee with more on this story from News Nation:

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=A754564E-7B61-4A96-8BC7-A3BC5C89EEC0

Just a few days ago, NATIONAL REVIEW ran an unfortunate column by legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy advising the new Trump 47 administration against using “retributive” lawfare against those who spent years abusing the legal system and violating his rights to damage him politically.  (We linked to his piece, and then to the Julie Kelly commentary that magnificently dismantled it).  But yesterday, NR redeemed itself by posting a related story from James Lynch that shows just how far the FBI went to interfere with the 2020 election by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story.  We’re not attorneys, but if McCarthy believes these people should be given the kid-glove treatment now, he is just wrong.  They all need the book thrown at them.

As Lynch tells it, we know now that the FBI spent “the better part of a year” working with social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to censor the Hunter laptop story as “Russian disinformation,” withholding information from them that would have told them the laptop was authentic.  As you know, the FBI had been aware of its authenticity ever since they took possession of it in November 2019.  According to FBI whistleblower Gary Shapley, they authenticated its content soon after, obtaining a warrant and retrieving the data from the laptop’s archive.

But they worked harder on misleading social media than we’d even known.  This is the stunning new part, from NR’s story on a bombshell House Judiciary Committee report:

“After authenticating the device, the FBI team on the Hunter Biden (case) briefed the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) multiple times because of the case’s connection to Ukraine. Months before the laptop story broke, the FITF was aware that the FBI possessed Biden’s laptop, multiple FITF officials testified to the Judiciary Committee, according to the report.”

Many months ago, we reported on the media workshop held before the 2020 election by our intel community for media and social media platforms at the Alpine Institute.  But as Lynch says, the Judiciary investigation found this was just part of the government’s influence, as the FITF met with them over 30 times (!), beginning in early 2020, to “pre-bunk” allegations that the Biden family had peddled influence to profit from the Biden name.    

The FBI declined to comment for NATIONAL REVIEW.  Wouldn’t you know.

According to the report, the FITF gave social media a heads-up about potential “hack-and-leak” operations, in the context of election security and potential foreign influence operations.  In effect, they primed them to accept that the Hunter laptop story, when it came out, would be fake.

“In response,” the report reads, “some platforms even adopted new content moderation policies designed to address hacked materials.”  FBI officials were popping champagne corks. 

According to the Judiciary report, the warnings got quite specific, with the FBI warning “multiple times that a ‘hack-and-leak’ story involving Burisma and Hunter Biden was set to drop in October 2020,” Lynch writes. 

To cite just one example of how social media staffers interpreted this, one from Facebook “predicted” in September 2020 that “We are likely to have in the next few weeks a leak or series of leaks about Biden’s supposed link to Burisma, where we won’t be able to prove they were ‘hacked,’ but where we will have responsible USG [U.S. government] players publicly saying this is part of a foreign influence operation.”

So when Miranda Devine came out with her NEW YORK POST story about the laptop, what were FB and Twitter employees supposed to think of it?  They thought just what the administration wanted them to think, as they’d already been vaccinated against the truth.  Just in case, the FITF had even scheduled meetings with both Facebook and Twitter on October 14, the day Devine’s story broke.

(We would add that the FBI surely had been spying on both Devine and her source Rudy Giuliani.  How else would they have known the exclusive story was going to break?)

Most of the rest of this, you already know.  As the report reads, “The FBI refused to acknowledge that it possessed and had authenticated the laptop.”  It was a big con, which later allowed then-candidate Joe Biden to further con American voters when he denied the laptop was real.  (Of course, the fake “classic earmarks” letter signed by 51 former intel officials also helped him carry off his lie.)

Interestingly, while FB and Twitter reflexively cracked down on the laptop story, Google left it alone, as their own in-house threat analysis found no evidence the laptop was the product of a hack.  Can’t believe we’re saying this, but Google actually deserves a little credit here.

Still, this report from the Judiciary Committee offers even more on the extent to which the FBI tried to interfere in the 2020 election by suppressing real news.  Later on, after Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into “X,” he fired the two executives responsible for censoring the Hunter laptop story.  As reported by NATIONAL REVIEW, Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde expressed remorse during testimony last year about their decision to suppress the NY POST’s reporting.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-spent-a-year-preparing-platforms-to-censor-biden-story-withheld-info-on-laptops-authenticity/

For when you have time, here’s the full report from the House Judiciary Committee on how the CIA was involved in discrediting the Hunter laptop story.  As you know, former deputy CIA Director Mike Morell (who was still under contract to the CIA at the time) coordinated the “classic earmarks” letter.

The committee’s pithy conclusion: “The infamous Hunter Biden statement had all the hallmarks of an intelligence community influence operation.”  How sad that an agency that is supposed to work against our adversaries on foreign soil was turned against American voters.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-spent-a-year-preparing-platforms-to-censor-biden-story-withheld-info-on-laptops-authenticity/

If the Hunter Biden laptop had been totally buried, we would’ve been none the wiser about the Biden family “business,” casting our ballots in blissful ignorance, just as the left wanted us to.  Yes, Hunter’s dirty mess came out, but President Biden has made sure his son won’t have to pay, at the same time trying to minimize the damage to the rest of the family, including himself.

(Side note: To those urging Trump not to take any action against the Deep State spooks responsible for this, recall that polls showed that if voters had known the laptop was real, Biden would have lost the 2020 election by a wide margin. Therefore, they are directly responsible not only for election interference and all the damage caused by Biden-Harris, but for handing Biden the power to cover up the biggest influence peddling scandal in American history, plus any other crimes his son might have committed over an 11-year period. Still want to let all these accomplices off scot-free?)

On Day 1 of Biden’s presidency, spokesperson Jen Psaki promised his administration would “bring transparency and truth back to the administration.”  Honestly, this makes us think Karine Jean-Pierre gets a bad rap, because that statement from Psaki is just as ludicrous as anything ever uttered by KJP.  The DAILY CALLER’s Katelynn Richardson has a good report on what Protect the Public Trust has to say about this administration’s lack of transparency and disregard of its own ethical promises.

She gives example after example…

https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/03/hunter-biden-pardon-is-just-another-example-of-biden-admins-failure-to-bring-promised-transparency-to-government/

In more backlash from President Biden’s all-inclusive pardon of his son, California Judge Mark Scarsi joins Special Counsel David Weiss and Delaware U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika in less-than-heartfelt acceptance of this move.  Like them, he simply “terminated” the case under his review without actually dismissing it.

This piece at REDSTATE is a must-read, as it includes Judge Scarsi’s scathing comments.  Reading between the lines, he seems disgusted by the President’s complaints about Hunter being treated differently.  The President might be granted the authority to issue a pardon, he says, but, “Nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”  That, and more, here…

https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/12/03/a-press-release-is-not-a-pardon-ca-judge-terminates-hunters-tax-case-eviscerates-joes-rationale-n2182776

The Hunter pardon has generated an avalanche of stories and opinions, so let’s run through a few...

John Nolte at BREITBART tells how the swampy media are trying to spin the real story.  For example, the laughable NEW YORK TIMES tries to make you believe that Biden wasn’t lying; he just changed his mind.  Nolte’s piece on this should be used in journalism classes, but it won’t be.

(Note:  we see that more commentators are picking up on the fact that Hunter, now that he’s been pardoned, can no longer hide behind the Fifth Amendment.)

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/12/03/nolte-biden-white-house-conspired-for-months-to-mislead-public-about-hunter-pardon/

Joe Manchin has an idea about who Biden should pardon next, and it’s Donald Trump.  Manchin says it would “balance the scales of justice.”  That’s precisely why it won’t happen.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2024/12/03/joe-manchin-has-a-wild-idea-about-who-biden-should-pardon-next-n2182758

HOT AIR has more examples of leftists twisting their tiny brains into mini-pretzels trying to praise Biden for pardoning his son after praising him for NOT pardoning his son.

https://hotair.com/generalissimo/2024/12/02/joe-biden-just-razed-the-democrats-moral-high-ground-n3797515

Okay, now let’s contrast the leniency shown to Hunter with the atrocious treatment of the January 6 protesters, most of whom did nothing more than walk peacefully (“parade”) through the Capitol building (or not even that).

Victims of the weaponized justice system are speaking out, as reported by Catherine Salgado at PJ MEDIA, who quotes our friend Brandon Straka of #WalkAway: “I’m still serving a sentence for standing outside the Capitol for eight minutes.  Meanwhile, Hunter Biden could have murdered someone over the past decade, and nothing’s gonna happen.”

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/12/03/victims-of-weaponized-lawfare-condemn-hunter-pardon-n4934802

Here’s a compelling, must-read rationale for Trump pardoning ALL January 6 defendants, especially in light of the Hunter pardon.  (Scott Adams, in his Tuesday podcast, happened to say this very thing.  Perhaps he had read this.)  We’re talking a blanket pardon for everyone, no matter what they allegedly did, because of the inherent political bias of the prosecutions.  Defendants simply could not get a fair trial when they were labeled “domestic terrorists,” “Insurrectionists” and “enemies of the state.”  Much more, some of it hilarious, at REDSTATE…

https://redstate.com/brutalbrittany/2024/12/02/opinion-why-all-the-january-6-defendants-deserve-a-pardon-n2182592

RELATED:  Speaking of the weaponized “justice” system, let’s get in our Way-Back Machine and take a quick look at Trump’s first sham impeachment.  It’s just been found that a ‘journalistic entity” called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP, formed in 2008), which helped shape the impeachment narrative against President Trump, is primarily funded by...drum roll, please!...U.S. government agencies.

Though we had never heard of it, this is apparently an extremely influential group, operating in over 60 countries and employing over 200 reporters.  They partner with the WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE GUARDIAN.  The head of the OCCRP says the government never exerted editorial control, but they did “veto top personnel hires, including editorial hires.”  (Why, that would NEVER affect editorial content!)  This report is an eye-opener.

https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/just-in-outlet-linked-to-trump-impeachment-is-majority-funded-by-u-s-bombshell-reveals-mace/

ALSO RELATED:  If you know anyone who thinks Kash Patel is somehow wrong for the job of FBI director, please tell them to listen to John Solomon’s interview with retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Danik, in which Danik enthusiastically endorses Patel and explains why.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/influential-retired-fbi-leader-says-agents-back-kash-patel-next?_nlid=MzqRCunfD6&_nhids=55d4h3q3

On Saturday, President-elect Trump confirmed it: his choice for the new FBI director is none other than the brilliant and eminently qualified Kash Patel, who has made it clear that he would work to dismantle the bureaucracy, saying, “I’d shut down the Hoover FBI Building on Day 1 and reopen it as a museum of the Deep State.”

https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1863007459788628379

Of course, this also confirms that current Director Christopher Wray is being given the boot. There’s no need at this point to expound on why that resounding kick out the door and down the steps is so richly deserved on his part.

(To those without a clue who’ve actually said, “But Wray is a Republican who was appointed by Trump,” we’d simply reply that he’s made it clear through his actions and his total lack of transparency that he’s a “Republican” only in the sense that Liz Cheney or his own predecessor James Comey is one. Keep in mind, Wray got that job because he was recommended to DC-neophyte President Trump by Chris Christie, who should forever hang his head in shame for such a lousy suggestion. As time passed and Biden took the White House, Wray just happened to fit right in with the Biden administration’s goals, fulfilling Attorney General Merrick Garland’s dictums as diligently and opaquely as any Democrat might have done.)

If you’d like a refresher on Wray, here’s a scathing reminder from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who’s in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Senate term, to our good fortune...

https://archive.ph/IQW8I

But enough about Wray. Does someone as perfect for the job as Patel have any hope of actually being confirmed by the new Senate? Texas Sen. Ted Cruz predicts he will be, along with Trump’s other nominees. He quickly runs through Patel’s outstanding qualifications.

“I gotta say,” Cruz continues, “all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI.”

The clip is just a little over a minute long. News analysts at CBS’s FACE THE NATION must have loved hearing this from Sen. Cruz...

https://rumble.com/v5uy55q-ted-cruz-believes-kash-patel-and-everyone-else-will-get-confirmed-by-the-se.html

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty concurs that Patel “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI.” Here he is on NBC’s MEET THE PRESS, whose host was probably every bit as thrilled to hear this as the folks at CBS were, meaning not. (Read her solemn expression at the end to see how she likely felt.) Mainstream “journalists” must be profoundly dismayed at the prospect of losing their leaky FBI “anonymous sources.” Again, just a brief, must-see clip...

https://rumble.com/v5ux8xq-senator-bil-hagerty-schools-meet-the-press-on-why-kash-patel-is-perfect-to-.html

Kash Patel is SO highly qualified for the job of FBI director that anyone who criticizes him on this score is really saying, in the words of commentator J. D. Rucker, “Holy c**p! Kash Patel’s gonna catch us all!”

https://rumble.com/v5uv7c5-what-theyre-really-saying-when-they-attack-kash-patels-qualifications.html

Rucker also posted in more detail on X that this is why they’re going to come after him “with all they’ve got.” It’s a must-read. Surely both President Trump and Patel himself are aware of what’s ahead for the confirmation process. Those desperate enough, with enough to lose, will try anything and everything, just as they have with President Trump. (Oh, no, are we all going to be subjected again to the Democrats “trotting out the women”?)

https://x.com/JDRucker/status/1863247098969546850

Patel’s name had previously been floated as the possible nominee for DEPUTY director, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation. But Trump apparently is feeling confident that Patel will get through, as he should. Pam Bondi, as U.S. Attorney General, will be his boss.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/11/30/donald-trump-kash-patel-fbi-director/

We hope that together, Bondi and Patel can rid the “justice” system of politicized actions such as this…

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/opinion/the-fbi-and-dojs-politically-motivated-persecution-of-a-former-informant-all-to-protect-the-bidens

At this point, you’ve seen plenty from Patel’s stellar resume. But some are noting that former Attorney General Bill Barr said this about Patel in his 2022 book:

“I categorically opposed making Patel deputy FBI director. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body.’ In the first place, all the leadership positions in the bureau, except the director, have always been FBI agents. They've all gone through the same agent training and have had broad experience in the field and at headquarters. Someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau. Furthermore, Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”

Bonchie at REDSTATE wryly comments: “I can’t think of a better endorsement for Patel to serve as FBI director than that.”

He also notes David Frum’s post on X: “We are headed toward a US constitutional crisis vastly bigger than Watergate.” (What, by appointing people who are not career bureaucrats? Seems as though that would make the framers of the Constitution very happy!) As Bonchie points out, “No, we are not heading for a ‘constitutional crisis,’ because the FBI is not a constitutional agency. It is a bloated, corrupt bureaucracy under the direct leadership of the President and one in desperate need of a house cleaning.” Thomas Jefferson, in his day, would likely have been so fed up that he’d call for much more drastic action than what Trump is taking, which is simply to follow the authority given him under the Constitution to make his own appointments, subject to Senate approval.

But, anyway, get ready for a lot more hysterical nonsense like that.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/12/01/bill-barr-inadvertantly-makes-the-case-for-kash-patel-as-fbi-director-while-left-wingers-go-into-shock-n2182660

Here’s REDSTATE’s Nick Arama, commenting on the screams coming from former deputy FBI Director (and current MSNBC contributor) Andrew McCabe’s corner. Delightful to behold!

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/11/30/delicious-andrew-mccabe-loses-it-on-cnn-over-nomination-of-kash-patel-n2182656

Becca Lower at REDSTATE points out two more whose jaws are sore from all the teeth-gnashing: former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton and Biden National Security Advisor (and Russia hoaxer) Jake Sullivan. Be sure to read her piece for the quote from Sen. Hagerty about how Biden appointees such as Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who organized the now-infamous “classic earmarks” letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop, “qualified” for their jobs and security clearances

Susie Moore, also at REDSTATE, points out that while former top officials are having a fit, former FBI agents seem quite pleased and even ecstatic about Patel…

https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/12/01/fbi-statement-re-trumps-patel-pick-drowned-out-by-chorus-of-whoops-from-several-former-agents-n2182665

In more from REDSTATE, Streiff notes that Bolton actually compared Patel to Lavrenty Beria, a Stalin loyalist who became head of the secret police. According to Streiff at REDSTATE, Beria “carried out the purges of the 30s, ran the gulag system, and kept the Red Army in the field during the trying 1940-1942 period through the use of political commissars, blocking units and summary executions.” Streiff calls Bolton’s statement “mind-bogglingly stupid” and considers it to be quite a solid endorsement of Patel.

https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/12/01/john-boltons-slam-of-kash-patel-proves-that-president-trump-picked-the-right-man-to-lead-the-fbi-n2182666

FBI agent-turned-whistleblower Steve Friend has some recommendations for the new FBI director. “Director Patel should immediately dissolve the FBI case quota system and Intelligence Branch,” he told PJ MEDIA’S Catherine Salgado. “These protocols have contributed to the bureau’s devolution into a politicized secret police force.”

In the “case quota system,” as explained by Friend, offices and agents are supposed to log a specific number of cases in specific categories, and their promotions rest in their ability to fulfill these. (Think January 6.) Did you even know they had this? On its face, this is a terrible system. It induces agents to create crimes that don’t even exist, and to ignore other types of crimes that aren’t at the top of the priority list, in order to reach arbitrary statistical goals. Patel should retire this system on Day 1.

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/12/01/exclusive-fbi-whistleblowers-priorities-for-kash-patel-n4934749

Over the weekend (before the Patel nomination was announced), legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy wrote an unfortunate piece for NATIONAL REVIEW called “Trump Needs to End Lawfare,” in which he lamented the thought of Trump using the legal system to go after what he admits were “bad prosecutions.” He found it disturbing that Trump would echo Steve Bannon’s “battle cry for lawfare.” Read it if you’d like…

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/11/trump-needs-to-end-lawfare/

...but what really is a must-read is Julie Kelly’s response, in which she absolutely takes his argument apart. She’s THE preeminent January 6 expert, and her piece is so masterful, we’ll just give her the floor and encourage you to offer her your undivided attention.

Declassified with Julie Kelly

Not Lawfare. Justice.

After enduring nearly a decade of torment at the hands of hyperpartisan, unaccountable prosecutors and judges, President-elect Donald Trump appears poised to make good on his promise to hold government officials responsible for destroying public trust in the country’s once-revered legal and judicial system. Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail…

Read more

3 days ago · 589 likes · 98 comments · Julie Kelly

Mike Huckabee

President-elect Trump is nominating officials to fill his Administration at a breakneck pace, with a flurry of new posts filled just since Friday. We don’t want to turn the newsletter into a long list of names and resumes, so we’ll first point you to this page from Fox News that provides an ongoing tally and background info, then focus on a few appointments of special interest.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/from-cdc-labor-secretary-see-trumps-top-picks-cabinet-roles

Trump supporters were likely pleased that Trump chose Scott Bessant as Treasury Secretary. A longtime Trump economic adviser and founder of Key Square Group, Bessant is a major investment expert and supporter of low taxes, deregulation, government spending restraint and using tariffs as a trade negotiation tool.

Trump also named Russ Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget, a role he previously filled in Trump’s first term.

Scott Turner, an NFL veteran and former head of Trump’s White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, was named to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which could certainly use some revitalization. Democrats on the federal, state and local levels have spent billions if not trillions on housing, yet affordable housing seems to get scarcer and scarcer in blue states.

(Latest example: California Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to build 1200 tiny homes in Sacramento to house the homeless. A year later, not a single tiny home has opened. Maybe they're waiting for Kamala to have that government Internet access up and running.)

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/05/24/report-none-of-gavin-newsoms-1200-tiny-homes-has-opened-a-year-later/

Some of Trump’s most headline-grabbing appointments include Dr. Marty Makary, an outspoken critic of the government’s COVID response, as commissioner of the FDA…Former White House adviser and Fox News contributor Dr. Sebastian Gorka as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism…And Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary and Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as Surgeon General. As you can read at the links below, those last two nominations raised some strenuous objections, and not from Democrats for a change, but from Trump supporters.

https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2024/11/24/trump-really-screwed-the-pooch-with-his-surgeon-general-nomination-n4934584

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2024/11/23/his-honeymoon-is-over-for-me-trumps-pick-for-labor-secretary-is-a-teachers-union-fave-n4934572

It’s been quite some time since we wrote in detail about the “long, proud history of the FBI” when it comes to spying and other wrongdoing.  For a refresher --- very timely as the prospect of reforming our intel agencies actually seems within grasp --- Mark Levin’s must-see Sunday monologue runs through the highlights of our government’s repeated Constitution-trampling.

To those political enemies who would criticize President-elect Trump and anticipate him abusing his power, Levin points out that he was one of the most well-behaved and that real presidential misconduct started very early in our nation’s history, with second President John Adams, a brilliant but flawed human being.  It was soon after our nation was formed, in 1798, that Adams signed the now-infamous Sedition Act, which effectively criminalized criticism of, well, John Adams.  This was tough stuff: “If any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or procure...or knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States...with intent to defame the said government...shall be punished by fine not exceeding $2,000 and by imprisonment not exceeding 2 years.”  Conspirators in such activity could be imprisoned by up to five years!

Americans could even be prosecuted under the Sedition Act for criticizing the Sedition Act.

Adams’ political enemy, Thomas Jefferson (who could legally be criticized all the live-long day) was OF COURSE opposed to this law, and once he was President allowed it to lapse.  But before that, 17 indictments and 10 convictions went through, “many upon charges so flimsy as to be comical,” according to Peter McNamara of the Free Speech Center.  So the beginning of our great nation was tainted by this affront to free political speech.  Just ten years after the Constitution was ratified, we were already violating it to the extreme.

Then there was Abraham Lincoln, who in 1861 suspended habeas corpus from Washington DC to Philadelphia, meaning he could jail people without charging them with a crime.  In 1862, in defiance of a federal appellate court ruling, he expanded this to cover the entire nation.  Under the authority of the military, thousands of Americans, including political opponents, were imprisoned.  Over 300 opposition newspapers were closed.  Yes, it was wartime, but this was still unconstitutional political warfare.

In 1917 and 1918, respectively, Democrat Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act and Sedition Act, which, according to Levin, “would come to be known as the most egregious assaults on free speech in our history.”  Thousands were prosecuted under these laws, most notably Wilson’s own political opponent Eugene Debs, whose sentence was later commuted by Wilson’s successor, Republican Warren G. Harding.

Wilson implemented the most extensive censorship regime of any President, according to Levin.  And the Espionage Act of 1917 lives on.  We would add that “Special Counsel” Jack Smith used it to charge President Trump with “willful retention of sensitive national defense information.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pleads-not-guilty-to-37-federal-felony-charges-out-of-classified-records-probe

Then there’s the IRS.  Documents prove that Franklin Roosevelt and his administration used it to destroy the careers of their political enemies, such as former Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, a Republican whom they knew was innocent.  FDR’s IRS also targeted newspaper publishers, among them William Randolph Hearst and Frank Gannett, who expressed opposition to the New Deal.  This is just scratching the surface.

JFK’s IRS provided him with the supposedly private tax information on individuals, businesses and groups.  Conservative groups were audited under “the Ideological Organizations Audit Program” (so, Lois Lerner wasn’t the first to do this).  JFK used the FBI to spy on Martin Luther King, Jr., tapping his phones, bugging his house and monitoring his every move.  Lyndon Johnson went further, using the FBI, IRS and CIA to spy on opponent Barry Goldwater, wiretapping his campaign headquarters.

According to Levin, they found out that one of Barry Goldwater’s staffers was gay, which Goldwater had known, and were threatening to use that. Goldwater called a senior member of LBJ’s campaign and said, “Please do not ruin this man’s life.”  Ultimately, they chose not to.

Being paranoid about Robert Kennedy, LBJ sent FBI spies to the 1964 Democratic Convention, where they also continued monitoring Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders.  In ‘68, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated, LBJ had the FBI tap his phones as well, to check his loyalty about the Vietnam War.  Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg, or spies-berg.

Levin skips over the Nixon administration, perhaps because their most famous spying is so well-known (but note how Democrats at the time pretended to be shocked by it.) He fast-forwards to President Obama and his AG Eric Holder, of whom even CNN’s Jake Tapper said, “The Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers who leaked to journalists...more than all previous administrations combined…”  That would be seven times.

Recall that in 2013, the “Justice” Department seized, with no notice or justification, phone records for 20 telephone lines to AP offices and journalists’ home lines, affecting more than 100 journalists.  Just a week later, the DOJ named FOX NEWS journalist James Rosen a criminal co-conspirator in a leak case, tracking his movements, seizing his email logs and even spying on his parents.  Obama’s spying gets much, much worse; check out this story from 2016…

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/311026-obamas-legacy-will-be-one-of-secrecy-and-hostility/

As for Obama-Biden and the Deep State’s actions against Trump, you know all about those horrendous abuses of power:  the unrelenting lawfare against Trump and his associates; the spying on his campaign and White House; massive leaking (including Trump’s tax returns); the Russia Hoax; two sham impeachments; the raid on his home; and the agencies’ role in January 6 and the spying, tracking, raiding, arrests and convictions that followed.  Not to mention the government’s online censorship activities.

So the good ol’ USA has a long history of abuse of power by its leaders.  But not by Trump --- he was the victim of it.  How ironic that the very one who’s actually trying to change this, to make this country the kind of open, honest place we’d like to think it is, is the one being hounded and feared and called a dictator. They accuse him of “destroying norms,” but if the norm he plans to destroy is government spying on American citizens and abusing its power for political reasons, then bring on the wrecking ball.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6365141316112

Speaking of January 6 abuses, BLAZE MEDIA has an update on their journalist Steve Baker, who recently chose to plead guilty to four misdemeanor charges (such as “milling” and “parading”) rather than endure a trial.  As it happens, his pre-trial hearing was the day after the election, and he says the judge “really showed his intolerance.”

This judge, no doubt ticked off at the election outcome, wouldn’t even allow discovery.  “He showed that he was going to be completely inflexible in the trial.” Baker says.  “He dismissed all our motions...and the most important motion that we had is, we were requesting from the government discovery on the other 80 to 100 journalists that went through the building and weren’t charged with anything.”  According to Baker, his judge is “best friends with Merrick Garland.”

This, combined with the prospect of a Washington DC jury pool, is what led him to change his plea to guilty.

After that, Baker says, the judge “made a serious unforced error” in chastising him.  “He criticized none of the [alleged] behavior...but what he did criticize me [for]...[was] my remarks in my journalism about weaponized Department of Justice and the bias of the court.”

So, not his actions, but his words, critical of the government.  (Ah, we come full circle to John Adams’ Sedition Act.)  Steve Baker needs to be at the top of the list of those J6 political prisoners Trump pardons immediately after his inauguration.  Watch this five-minute clip of his interview with Pat Gray here, highly recommended, in which he says the government is still at this, as it just SWAT-teamed and arrested an Austin man (a cancer patient) who had nonviolently entered the Capitol that day.  This was done last week, AFTER the election.

https://www.theblaze.com/shows/pat-gray-unleashed/steve-baker-felon

When you have time, here’s investigative reporter Julie Kelly interviewing 22-year Marine Corps. Veteran, Purple Heart recipient and J6 political prisoner Christopher Kuehne.

https://blubrry.com/happyhourjulieliz/138738195/ep-173-julie-and-liz-talk-to-christopher-kuehne-decorated-combat-veteran-purple-heart-recipient-and-j6-political-prisoner/

Tristan Justice at THE FEDERALIST has an exclusive report on the evidence that shows the Pentagon deliberately delayed the deployment of the National Guard on January 6.  Recall our recent story about the Inspector General “knowingly concealing” the extent of the delay and Rep. Barry Loudermilk’s letter to IG Robert P. Storch about this, insisting he correct his report.

Kash Patel, who was then chief of staff for the Defense Department, is quoted here from a FEDERALIST story back in March, insisting that President Trump authorized those 10,000 National Guard.  It’s now crystal clear that Trump did just that and has told the truth about it all along.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/11/21/exclusive-dod-intentionally-delayed-national-guard-deployment-to-the-capitol-on-jan-6/

Speaking of Kash Patel, he appeared Sunday on FOX NEWS with Maria Bartiromo to explain how he as FBI Director would restore public trust in the Bureau.  Exposure of the corruption is a must, he said.  “Put out the documents.  Put out the evidence.  We only have gotten halfway down the Russiagate hole.”

In other words, it’s far worse than we know after almost four years.  Watch Patel’s interview at THE GATEWAY PUNDIT, which also features a rundown of the transgressions (that we know of) by current FBI Director Chris Wray.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/kash-patel-displays-why-he-is-best-pick/