Iran Attacks Israel
Saturday evening, Iran finally made good on its years of threats and launched a direct attack on Israel, sending 185 drones and 110 missiles.
Photo credit: Fox News
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Mike Huckabee
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Daily Bible Verse
4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’[b]”
Luke 4:1-4
Iran Attacks Israel
Saturday evening, Iran finally made good on its years of threats and launched a direct attack on Israel, sending 185 drones and 110 missiles. Fortunately, the drones were slow-moving and between Israel’s defenses and the aid of US and UK forces, they were all shot down. There was only one casualty, a seven-year-old Arab Bedouin Muslim girl who was struck on the head with shrapnel in Arad. I want it known that I am as sick and furious about that innocent little girl’s senseless death as I am about the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Iran-funded terrorists.
I’ve spent the weekend following this news very closely and praying for the safety of Israel and its people, as I hope you are, too. It has gone through a number of twists and turns, and the reports are coming so fast that it’s impossible to know what to believe or what might happen next. What I will write reflects what we’ve heard as of early Monday morning, but this is a link to Fox News’ continually-updated coverage.
https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/israel
Here’s where we stand as of this writing: Iran is ludicrously calling the attack more successful than expected (that could only mean it helped deplete Israel’s anti-missile rockets.) They claim it was in retaliation for Israel killing an Iranian military official whom they celebrated as the chief architect of the October 7th attack, making him a legitimate target. Iran also claims they consider this as having settled the score and are warning Israel and other nations not to retaliate against them. Ooh, I'm scared!
Meanwhile, our President is publicly professing ironclad support for Israel while privately telling them the US won’t help if they retaliate.
This even as stories are circulating that Biden may have known Iran was planning the attack and okayed it “within certain limits.” While I would hate to think that’s true, this is the same strategic genius who sent the exact same message to Putin about invading Ukraine.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/04/14/joe-biden-approved-of-irans-assault-on-israel-n4928167
This story set off justifiable outrage among Congressional Republicans, with swift moves on bills to provide aid to Israel and with Sen. John Kennedy offering some sage advice to Biden: “Go to Amazon and buy a spine.”
The White House may have offered the stupidest defense imaginable. They tried to deflect the outrage by blaming the Iranian attack on Trump. Sorry if I made you spit coffee on your monitor. But no, seriously, they actually did that.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/john-kirby-blames-trump-after-iran-attacks-israel/
Reminder: When Trump left office, Iran was on its knees and nearly bankrupt. By lifting sanctions on oil sales and other boneheaded moves, Biden has given the mullahs tens of billions of dollars to use to fund terrorism. Oh, but don’t worry: they pinky-promised it would be used only for humanitarian purposes.
Here’s a reminder of how Biden slammed Trump’s Iran policies when he was running for President and claimed he was going to be so much better and smarter. How’s that working out? As one popular meme puts it, Middle East peace is the latest Trump policy that Biden has reversed.
Another reminder: The oppressed people of Iran came close to getting rid of the mullahs during the Green Revolution, but Obama left them twisting in the wind because he prioritized signing a worthless “Iranian nuclear agreement” to cement his legacy. That it did.
Biden also falsely claimed that Iran targeted “military facilities in Israel” when they fired indiscriminately at areas filled with civilians.
Naturally, Israel is facing international calls to “show restraint” in responding. In reply, Dave Portnoy tweeted, “There is no country that is consistently attacked by their enemies and then told to use restraint when defending themselves (despite superior military) more than Israel...” Dave Rubin responded, “No other country would accept one single rocket fired into its territory. Jews are told to feed the people raping their women and killing their children. Enough.”
Indeed, there are those who are making the reasonable argument that Israel would be perfectly justified (as well as capable) if it obliterated Iran’s military bases and took out its nuclear facilities in the bargain. Others are calling this a huge embarrassment for Iran that after so many years of hyperbolic threats that their attack was easily shot down.
Of course, that’s assuming it was a legitimate attack and not a piece of orchestrated political theater to save face for Iran’s mullahs. If so, it’s an even worse affront to decency, because I wouldn’t trade the life of that little Arab girl for the entire sorry lot of Iran’s mullahs. Either way, Bonchie at Redstate.com argues that Iran may have seriously overplayed its hand.
There are the usual worries that if Israel responds as it has every right to do, it might set off World War III. But which Arab nations would rush to take Iran’s side, other than Syria, which is an Iran-controlled basket case? Nations like Egypt or Saudi Arabia might publicly condemn Israel, but they have no more use for Iran than they do for the “Palestinians” that they refuse to accept as refugees. I have a sneaking suspicion that if Israel took out the mullahs of Iran, those nations’ leaders would privately celebrate.
This is an ongoing story, but to wrap up for now, let’s visit Memory Lane and remind New York City voters how AOC theatrically wept in 2021 when the House passed funding for the Iron Dome defense that just saved thousands of Jewish lives.
https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/04/14/aoc-cried-when-iron-dome-was-funded-n2395076
Related Must-See Video:
Sunday, Dallas Jewish Conservatives hosted a presciently-timed event featuring retired Lt. Colonel and now Dallas GOP Chairman Allen West, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki and author and Center for Security Policy founder Frank Gaffney. It was called “Israel’s Fight for Western Civilization and Against the Two-State Delusion.” It covered a lot of ground that far more Americans need to hear. It ranged from the lies we’ve been fed (including the PR agency-created fiction that there is a “Palestinian people” with a historic claim on Israeli land) to how the multi-front threats to Israel, Taiwan and our own border are all part of a larger assault on Western Civilization that most Americans, including too many Republicans, refuse to take seriously.
The entire panel was live streamed and can now be seen on Rumble at this link:
https://rumble.com/v4pghf5-israels-fight-for-westefrn-civilization.html
By the way, the dark-haired guy in the light green shirt and the stylishly-dressed redhead in the front row are my writers, Pat Reeder and Laura Ainsworth.
Trump NYC trial begins
Today, New York City DA Alvin Bragg’s trial of Donald Trump on 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels to go away gets rolling. The leftist news channels like MSNBC will be giving it breathless wall-to-wall coverage as the “first criminal trial of a former President,” but I think I speak for many if not most Americans when I say that, in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel, the people pushing this ridiculous, transparent lawfare look even tinier and pettier than they did before, and that’s really saying something. One commentator put it well by saying that most Americans view it as a pathetic reality show.
I don’t want to glorify this farce by going into too much detail but suffice to say that it required Bragg to take a dubious claim of a state misdemeanor charge that was beyond the statute of limitations and creatively pump it up into 34 alleged felonies by treating it as a federal case, even though federal prosecutors who would do anything to get Trump looked at it and passed. To do so, Bragg had to claim that Trump’s actions were taken to try to cover up another crime, which he has not specified and claims he doesn’t have to specify under the law. It’s also based almost entirely on testimony of convicted serial perjurer Michael Cohen. Law professor Jonathan Turley says that Trump’s attorneys will have to “destroy Cohen’s credibility,” to which I’d reply, “Too late!”
Constitutional law expert John Shu told the Epoch Times, “If I were teaching this case, I would certainly use it as an example of an overzealous prosecutor improperly dividing a single misdemeanor into multiple charges, and then turning them into felonies by purporting to enforce federal campaign finance laws when the [Justice Department] already declined the case.”
A fair judge would have dismissed this tripe out of hand and fined Bragg for wasting the people’s time and money by bringing it into court. Of course, in New York City, this doesn’t mean that Trump won’t be convicted, though if so, it will almost certainly be thrown out on appeal. But it will serve its purpose of keeping him off the campaign trail and silenced by a gag order – i.e., banana republic-style election interference.
If you do want to keep up with it, Redstate.com will have continuous updates that are guaranteed 100% Rachel Maddow-free.
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/04/15/live-trump-manhattan-trial-day-1-n2172776
Speaking of ludicrous Trump trials, House hearings into Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani Willis’ use of federal grant money could get even more interesting, thanks to word that not only will the known whistleblower testify but some current members of her staff are ready to talk as well.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/04/14/fani-willis-whistleblower-trouble-n2172768
The Evidence Pile is growing
Here’s even more evidence piled on a growing mountain of it to dispute the clearly nonsensical claim that there’s no physical difference between female athletes and male athletes “identifying” as female.
In Sherwood, Oregon, a “female-identifying” boy named Aayden Gallagher competed in three girls’ track events. In the 200-meter, he came in second with a time that would have earned him 64th place in the boy’s competition. He also took second place in the quarter mile race with a time that would have landed him in 57th place if he were competing against boys. Brittany Sheehan has a good write-up of the outrage sparked by this, along with a great quote from Oregon high school girls’ tennis coach Dave Brown on why he resigned from his job:
https://redstate.com/brutalbrittany/2024/04/14/transgender-track-runner-n2172736
“I can no longer stand by and watch as their dreams are shattered, and their opportunities are taken from them. I can no longer stand by silently, while all the work that was put into title 9 is disregarded. I cannot support policies that put the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health of women at risk. I stand with my wife. I stand with women. I stand for truth.”
Let’s all hope that the days of people standing by and silently watching as delusional trans activists bully people into silence are finally coming to a halt. Over the past couple of weeks, two medical studies in the Netherlands and the UK have shattered the false narrative that “gender affirming medical treatments” are safe or effective. The studies found that if not butchered by quacks, most kids outgrow gender confusion, that the claims of puberty blockers being safe and reversible were based on a small study by the makers of puberty blockers, and that most of the so-called “research” backing this barbaric butchery were just activist groups referring to each other.
Author J.K. Rowling, who was vilified for daring to speak out against trans madness endangering women and taking away their rights is now being vindicated. Julie Burchill at the Spectator UK has a brutally hilarious post-mortem on the crumbling of the trans paper tiger.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-and-the-cass-report-reckoning/
Others are finally starting to speak up as well. Like this British TV host who refused to use a trans activist’s made-up pronouns, asking, is it “now disrespectful to use factual grammar?”
https://www.megynkelly.com/2024/04/11/julia-hartley-brewer-shivani-dave-pronoun-debate/
And Brendan O’Neill at Spiked Online makes a good case for how the trans lobby is “allergic to debate” and dismisses medical research as “bigotry” and “transphobia” because “they fear proof the way the rest of us might fear the firing of a gun.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/13/why-the-trans-lobby-is-so-allergic-to-debate/
Even Bill Maher recently pointed out to liberals that the European nations they claim we need to emulate have abortion restrictions, are cracking down on immigration, and are banning trans medical quackery.
While I’m certainly relieved to see this mass societal delusion apparently coming to an end, I just want to remind you that in this newsletter, we have always been on Team Reality. I have nothing but compassion for young people experiencing gender dysphoria (which is a real condition) or just having difficulty coping with the changes to their bodies during puberty, which happens to many kids. But the way to deal with that is to offer them kindness and professional counseling, not to permanently butcher their bodies or demand that everyone in the world pretend to go along with ideas that are clearly insane and dangerous. Like claiming that a 250-pound man with a beard is a woman just because he says so, and he should be allowed in women’s locker rooms and prisons or to compete against them in contact sports.
At the risk of online attacks and demonetization, we have stuck to basic Biblical and biological truths since day one. It’s nice to see the rest of the world finally coming around, even if belatedly.
Joel Kotkin of the Telegraph on the possibility that “progressive” Jews who have long put their leftist politics ahead of their religious identity might finally be waking up to the realization that leftists are not their friends.
Susie Moore at Redstate.com has a good round-up of a number of major stories getting underway today…
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/04/15/monday-morning-minute-n2172770
And here’s one to watch for tomorrow, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that could release or reduce the sentences of hundreds of January 6th protesters. The issue is whether the DOJ improperly applied a law to get longer sentences for “impeding an official proceeding” that was never intended to apply to this type of circumstance. And indeed, it has never been applied to leftist protesters who disrupt Congress.
Much-Needed Comic Relief:
Jane Fonda apologized to college students for the “climate crisis,” which she claimed is a "manifestation of racism, misogyny and patriarchy." Wow, is there anything that racist white men can't do?!
Hilarious but savage takedown of Maddow
I mentioned Rachel Maddow elsewhere in the newsletter, which gives me the perfect opening to share Derek Hunter’s hilarious but savage takedown of her cult of hysterical baloney masquerading as “journalism.”
Interesting but unverified story from “CIA contractor” about FBI, J6 and entrapment
Perhaps you’ve seen the hidden-camera video currently making the rounds of someone identified as Gavin O’Blevin, who’s seen describing himself as a contractor for the CIA. This very outspoken individual has plenty to say about the ease with which intel agents can and do set Americans up and entrap them in order to prosecute them or gain their cooperation. Nothing he says about this is a surprise; it’s just compelling to hear it spoken out loud by someone who purports to be on the inside.
He also says there were about 20 FBI agents in the crowd on January 6, 2021. The only thing surprising about this is that “20” sounds like an extremely lowball estimate. Our guess is that he should at least add a zero to that number.
Maybe you’ve also wondered, “Why hasn’t Mike been talking about this?” Once again, we applied our rule of waiting a few days to see if we can determine whether this is 1) the real deal, 2) partially-real-but-somewhat-exaggerated, or, as so many stories are, 3) just an outright hoax. Dan Bongino follows the same policy, calling it “the Bongino Rule” even though we’ve always instinctively used it. I think we could just as easily call it the Huckabee Rule, and it has never failed us.
Anyway, after receiving many emails about this video, Bongino did spend a minute or two on it in his Friday podcast, mainly to say that it’s time to apply “a very, very very heavy application of the Bongino Rule [Huckabee Rule!] here.”
With his own experience in the federal government --- over a decade in the Secret Service --- Bongino senses that “the job titles he’s throwing around there” and a lot of other potential tip-offs make his self-identity as CIA appear implausible. Maybe O’Blevin, if that’s his real name, is just a deluded wack-job who thinks he’s a government agent. (Hey, the leftist wack-jobs who run these agencies might have to insist that if he identifies as CIA, he actually is CIA, haha!)
Bongino says he’ll talk more about this when he’s “confident that the story’s real,” once he has no reservations about “this particular guy.” Of course, like us, he already had “ZERO doubt” about there being FBI plants on January 6; this is well established. No need for this bloviating clown.
We’d think another tip-off on O’Blevin would be this: When the undercover journalist asks if people know the Bureau was in the crowd, he answers, “Nope, and they probably never will.” The joke’s on O’Blevin, because we already do know. In fact, there’s really no new information here, to those who have been paying attention the last few years. The FBI entraps people? Really??
“I would just urge you strongly,” Bongino says, “very strongly, based on what I heard from that guy and which sounds like a lot of bluster, I would urge you strongly to take caution on this.” Besides just wanting to know what’s true as opposed to getting it wrong, our credibility takes a hit if we get taken in by any hoax, so it’s important not to let that happen. And, yes, that’s why we take care ourselves not to be fooled by any of the fake news that’s out there, whether it comes from the left or the right.
Julie Kelly, considered by many, including us, to be the best and most comprehensive reporter on January 6, hasn’t touched this story. Perhaps she’ll weigh in soon.
In the meantime, we looked into the group that produced this Project Veritas-style undercover video, a relatively new nonprofit called Sound Investigations. Before this, they did another undercover project dealing with PornHub, which led to some action being taken against them over failure to limit minors’ access to their site. So apparently Sound Investigations is for real. Here’s their original post, the one that caused all the fuss:
https://twitter.com/SoundInvestig/status/1777697750764658927
TOWNHALL went ahead and reported the story, featuring a tweet by Rep. Mike Lee of Utah saying this is “yet another reason why we’d be crazy to reauthorize FISA 702 without a warrant requirement.” Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia said the same.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2024/04/11/undercover-video-fbi-january-6-n2637634
NOT THE BEE reported on it, with the comment “Holy moly” and the qualifier that they “don’t know how much of this is an embellishment.” Still, this story stirred up thoughts, they said, about “the mysterious federal shootout with the executive director of the Bill and Hillary National Airport, who was shot in his home during an early-morning raid last month by a stack of armed ATF agents.” As you know, Bryan Malinowski died three days later at a Little Rock hospital after suffering two gunshot wounds to the head. (More on that in related news, below...)
Needless to say, if the man in this video really does work for the CIA but is exaggerating what they do, Americans should have a different concern: that there are some really disturbed people working there.
In the video, O’Blevin talks specifically about the FBI setting up Alex Jones, saying the government’s goal in targeting him was to “take his money away” and “chop his legs off.” Jones is responding with a lawsuit. Believe it or not, NEWSWEEK has a surprisingly even-handed report on this, noting that they’ve not been able to confirm O’Blevin as CIA, either. That’ll have to be Jones’ next step.
https://www.newsweek.com/alex-jones-fbi-cia-gavin-oblennis-sound-investigations-allegations-1889285
RELATED: BRYAN MALINOWSKI UPDATE
As you recall from last month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) staged an armed, pre-dawn raid on the executive director of Little Rock’s Clinton Airport, after launching an investigation last November that culminated in a “sting” operation at a gun show, where he allegedly sold guns without checking IDs or filling out the required paperwork. Malinowsky was a known gun and coin hobbyist and trader. A few of the guns he’d sold later turned up in connection with alleged crimes, mostly marijuana-related traffic stops but also one found in a Los Angeles park after a gang shooting. These were traced back to him through serial numbers.
But the charges hardly matter. This wasn’t even to make an arrest, only to carry out a search warrant. An agent or two could’ve calmly approached Malinowski as he walked to this car in the morning. Instead, Malinowski ended up dead, shot twice in the head while his wife stood a few steps behind him.
There have been few updates on this story, but Steven Richards had one last week in JUST THE NEWS…
“Regardless of the allegations,” he wrote, “Bud Cummins, the lawyer representing Malinowski’s estate, has concerns about whether the ATF followed proper procedures executing the search and noted that the ATF has not released footage from Body Worn Cameras (BWC) the agents are required to use, possibly violating administration policy established in the wake of major police-involved shootings. Cummins is a former U.S. attorney and onetime chief legal counsel to former Gov. Mike Huckabee.”
Yes, that’s right. Full disclosure: Mr. Cummins did work for me as chief legal counsel while I was governor.
As Cummins said in a statement to the media, there is still no publicly available evidence to show that agents bothered to knock on Malinowski’s door or announced their presence before breaking down the front door. (The last thing observable on the RING camera video is one of the agents disabling it.) Not only are they supposed to knock-and-announce by law, they’re also required to give an “adequate” time for the occupants to respond. It’s a large house.
More details from Cumming:
“The Malinowski home is almost 3000 square feet. It was 6AM. Mr. Malinowski apparently had no idea he was under law enforcement scrutiny. The justification for the search involved suspicion of a crime carrying a puny 0–6-month U.S. Sentencing guideline range which typically results in a sentence of probation or more often probation ending with complete dismissal (pre-trial diversion).”
Translation:
For a crime that’s treated pretty lightly by the “justice” system (assuming he were even to be found guilty), Malinowski had his door broken in by a swarm of armed men in black and ended up paying with his life.
As Cummins said, even if the allegations against his client are true, the evidence contained in the affidavit “only suggests he (perhaps unknowingly) crossed a subjective line which put him in a different class of weekend gun seller and obliged him to buy a $200 FFL license.”
NOTE:
“FFL” refers to “Federal Firearms License.” According to GunUniversity.com, “An FFL License is a license issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to an individual or business for making, importing, selling, or repairing firearms as a business activity. To be clear, an FFL License is NOT required to manufacture or sell firearms under federal law.”
Malinowski was not in the “business” of selling guns. (He was the highest-paid city executive in Little Rock.) At worst,” according to Cummins, “Bryan Malinowski, a gun owner and gun enthusiast, stood accused of making private firearms sales to a person who may not have been legally entitled to purchase the guns.”
The Arkansas State Police are reportedly investigating to see whether this use of force was proper under state codes.
Questions swirl around deadly ATF raid of Arkansas home leaving a local airport administrator dead
I Just Wanted to Say
Thank you for reading my newsletter.
Problem : if this attack were orchestrated to let Iran save face ( save those faces?!) Seeing as there was little death if Israel hits Iran and causes a lot of death than support will dry up ( and if others had not helped the Iron Dome wouldn't have cut it and the results would have been tragic) and anti Semitism and attacks on Jews will get worse. Careful Israel.
This attack is only a prelim of what Iran can actually do conventionally. Iran and it's proxies has thousands of missiles and drones. They're only testing the waters. Isreal should really consider destroying their bomb making nuclear facilities then the revolutionary guard. This will not end until they're eliminated. Of course Obama who's running the show has funded them with billions of dollars and their allies Russia and China are eagerly looking on.