Good morning!

Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!   

Today's newsletter includes:

• Bible Verse of the Day - Acts 18:9
• Reader responds to father of "insurrectionist"
• Questions That Need Answering
• RIP, Dusty Hill And Ron Popeil
• Related News?
• America The Beautiful
• Reliable News Sources

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

DAILY BIBLE VERSE

9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:

Acts 18:9

Reader responds to father of "insurrectionist"

By Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, we wrote about a letter from a newsletter reader whose son is one of those incarcerated in the wake of the Capitol breach on January 6. (His son is one of those who didn’t even go inside the building.) Imagine how it must be to have one’s son being held in jail by the feds, with no bail, for many months (like a murderer), awaiting a trial that might not even happen until sometime in 2022. It’s not even possible for the father to have a private conversation with his own son, as phone conversations are monitored at the jail, and the son isn’t even able to meet in private with an attorney. All of this, I feel compelled to remind you, is happening in America, the land of the free.

In case you didn’t see the father’s letter and our response, here it is.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=25AAFBB1-0197-4525-A6F6-CC190FDAB183

After this piece ran, we received a comment from another reader who took exception to what the father had said about his son, saying the son had nothing to apologize for and was even a hero. In fact, her letter ended in a way that seemed downright abusive to the father. (It’s all too easy to get abusive towards people we only talk to online, people we have never met and don’t know at all.) We thought this reader’s questions and observations deserved to be addressed at length. First, here is her letter...

(From Sharon)

Just a couple of questions about the father of the Capitol Hill detainee:

First of all, why would black people not support Trump people?

Because most black people do but then again these were criminals.

Also, the father says what his son did was wrong? Oh? Getting in the way of Goebbels and the Gestapo?

My father saw combat in Korea and Vietnam and if that’d been me he’d have been cheering not saying I’d done wrong.

Mister your son did right and he is a hero and if you don’t stand with him shame on you.

………………..

Dear Sharon:

Thank you for responding; we welcome responses from all sides. But I think some issues here cry out for clarification.

The father, Keith, did mention in his letter that most of the inmates at DC Correctional were black –- as are most of the residents of Washington, DC –- and that in general they were dismayed to have Trump supporters in their midst. That is not surprising and is not the same as saying black people don’t support Trump, only that these particular black people in Washington, DC, did not. And while the black conservative movement is picking up steam in some parts of the country, most black people are still not a part of that. We can deny reality if you would like, but these inmates of the DC Correctional facility, who do happen to be mostly black, are not Trump supporters. Probably some of the white ones aren’t, either; after all, this is Washington, DC. On the bright side, once they learned Alan was a Trump supporter and not a pedophile, they treated him better than they treat pedophiles.

Recall that according to the letter we previously posted from detainee Joe Biggs, some of the black people Biggs met in a Florida correctional facility were struck by what a nice guy he was. They liked him. It wasn’t the black men, but some of the white men identifying as white supremacists, who didn’t want to be associated with him. They said he was “too nice” to be in their group.

In fact, Joe said that one thing he’d learned for sure after meeting real white supremacists in this jail was that he WASN’T ONE.

Sharon, you criticize Alan’s father for saying that what his son did was wrong. We don’t know the details of the confrontation his son had with police and a reporter outside the Capitol Building, but the son does, and if he feels contrite and believes he was in the wrong, I think we should take him at his word. You know I’ve said myself that this confrontation was a bad idea and has had terrible repercussions. I’m not sure you understood me when I said the left is using this for great political benefit. In that sense, anything that was done at the Capitol Building that went beyond peaceable assembly was indeed wrong. If this young man realizes that, so much the better.

You may say he did right to fight against “Goebbels and the Gestapo,” but, again, we don’t know exactly what went down and his part in it. According to his dad, since he’s come to the Lord he’s thought deeply about the kind of man he wants to be. He’s sorry for what he did. His father respects that, and I think we should, too.

The thing that really stood out to me in this father’s letter was the dismay at the two-tier justice system. “I guess if you are a Democrat,” he said, “you can burn a city or burn a federal building with agents inside it; you may be arrested but will be out the next day without bail.”

This young man does NOT deserve to be languishing on a lower rung of our “justice” system simply because he is a Trump supporter, and he absolutely does not deserve to be held for many months with bail denied. As I’ve said, he and the other “detainees” (political prisoners) are being used as political props for the statecraft that is Nancy Pelosi’s investigatory “commission,” when they should be treated with exactly the same rights as any other American. Direct your fury at THAT, not at a father who is hurting and thinking about his son.

PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT, FOR AS YOU CAN SEE, I READ THEM!

Questions That Need Answering

By Mike Huckabee

Since we’re not likely to learn anything of value about the January 6th Capitol violence from the one-sided political show being staged in the House, C.S. Boddie at American Thinker has helpfully listed a series of questions about that day that do need to be answered – that is, if anyone ever undertakes a serious investigation of it.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/questions_that_wont_be_asked_by_the_january_6_commission.html

And today’s MUST-READ is this Twitter thread by Breitbart.com writer John Hayward, assembled into one article at the Bookworm blog:

https://www.bookwormroom.com/2021/07/28/john-hayward-says-what-needs-to-be-said-about-the-jan-6-show-trial/

It reminds us in detail of why Americans who believe in respecting elections that are run respectably, who have zero tolerance for political violence, and who think everyone’s safety and property (not just Congress members’) are deserving of respect and police protection, are rolling their eyes at the histrionic hypocrites at the House show trial.

RIP, Dusty Hill And Ron Popeil 

By Huckabee pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)

While it’s always sad to have to write the celebrity obituaries, this one hits especially hard. Dusty Hill, bassist and vocalist for “The Little Ol’ Band from Texas,” ZZ Top, died in his sleep at his home in Houston Wednesday at 72. The Top were on tour and Hill had taken a break, supposedly to deal with hip problems.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/dusty-hill-zz-top-bassist-dead-at-72/

Hill was a Dallas native (like me), and I can assure you that to us true Texans, ZZ Top are icons. Anyone who badmouths ZZ Top, Willie Nelson or the Alamo in Texas runs the risk of getting their butts kicked up to their shoulder blades with a pointy-toed boot. We grow up on ZZ Top, never grow tired of ZZ Top, and when the real thing isn’t touring, we go see tribute bands who wear department Santa beards. ZZ Top IS Texas. What other band ever went on tour with live longhorn steer on stage with them? Or had a hit song about the Chicken Ranch five years before “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” debuted? But I saw a recent YouTube video that attempted to list the “Most American Bands of All Time,” and they tied for #1 with Lynyrd Skynyrd, so I guess we’ll share them with the rest of y’all.

Dusty Hill, drummer Frank Beard and guitarist/vocalist Billy Gibbons had been together since 1969, making them the longest-running band ever with the original unchanged lineup (52 years!) They’ve gone through some musical changes over the years, from the bluesy sound of “ZZ Top’s First Album” through the smoother ‘80s hits like “Sharp-Dressed Man” and “Legs,” to their more recent albums like “Rhythmeen” or 2012’s “La Futura,” that returned to the rough blues/rock style I sometimes think of as the sound of heavy machinery self-destructing. But they never strayed too far from that uniquely Texan blend of blues, rock, country and sly, hilarious lyrics. If you liked the old stuff and haven’t heard any of the newer material, check it out. It’s raw and terrific.

The band announced that it will continue on, and I’m sure Billy and Frank will keep making great music (Billy has put out a couple of excellent solo albums in recent years.) But it will never be exactly the same. Especially if Gov. Huckabee grows his new beard out and becomes Dusty’s replacement.

Order a taco plate, hoist a Lone Star and put on “Tres Hombres” or "Tejas" in Dusty’s honor. And watch the Grammy-nominated documentary, “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

https://www.amazon.com/ZZ-Top-That-LIttle-Texas/dp/B085LW1FYD

But wait, there’s more! We’ve also lost yet another American icon of a very different sort: Infomercial king Ron Popeil died in Los Angeles Wednesday at 86.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/infomercial-icon-ron-popeil-dies-at-86/ar-AAMGaB6

Possibly the greatest sales/pitchman of all time, Popeil also invented many of the gadgets he hawked on TV (although two of his most famous, the Veg-O-Matic and the suggestively-named Pocket Fisherman, were actually invented by his father.) Popeil’s knack for coming up with products you never knew you needed (The Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler! The Mr. Microphone! The Electric Food Dehydrator! The Portable Smokeless Ashtray! And of course, Hair-In-A-Can!) was matched only by his talent for making them so entertaining.

While some of these products seem kitschy today, they were often surprisingly high quality. I recently saw a YouTube video of someone trying a Veg-O-Matic from the ‘60s, and it still worked like a charm. Try that with one of today’s plastic, made-in-China gadgets. And I would definitely not recommend any Chinese-made Hair-In-A-Can.

Related News?

By Mike Huckabee

Are these stories related? You make the call!

1. Wages are rising due to the difficulty of getting people to take jobs (maybe because they’re being paid more not to work under expanded unemployment.) But at the same time, inflation is pushing consumer prices so much higher that real average hourly wages decreased by 1.7% between June 2020 and June 2021. That means that Americans earning $50,000 a year lost about $850 in purchasing power to inflation. And with Biden and the Democrats determined to pump out trillions more in deficit spending, inflation shows no signs of slowing.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-america-american-wages-drop-nearly-2-inflation-spirals-control/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

2. The Commerce Department reports that in the three months ending in June, the US economy grew slower than expected, considering the lockdowns were finally ending. Due to supply chain disruptions and labor shortages (see above), GDP grew at only a 6.5% annual rate. Economists were expecting 8.5% growth. First quarter growth was also revised downward from 6.4 to 6.3%.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/gross-domestic-product-q2-2021

3. Six months into his Administration, President Biden’s approval rating with likely voters has taken a plunge. Rasmussen’s poll is based on a three-day rolling average, and Biden has generally polled in the high 40s to low 50s. As of yesterday it had dropped to an all-time low of 46% with 52% disapproval.

https://www.westernjournal.com/official-poll-shows-bidens-approval-rating-time-low/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

See any connection? If you do, forget about ever working for CNN.

America The Beautiful

God's creation is all around us. To learn more about Gates Of The Arctic National Park, visit its website here.

Reliable News Sources

By Mike Huckabee

I get a lot of requests from readers asking where they can find reliable sources of news that are not tilted too far to the left or the right – aside from this newsletter that is (I am unapologetically conservative, but I won’t bend or ignore facts to make a point; that would only weaken my own arguments.)

The sad truth is, there are few sources these days that are completely reliable. My staffers previously wrote a radio prep service that required them to read news from a variety of sources and they developed good noses for sniffing out self-serving bias and spotting fake news and slanted “facts,” which made them uniquely qualified for this job. I like Fox News and Western Journal and have business relationships with them, but I acknowledge that they mostly come from a conservative point of view, even as they do try hard to get the facts correct. One good thing about them is that, unlike many of their critics, they label commentary as “commentary,” not front page news.

To find the news we print, we look at a wide variety of sources, even liberal outlets (we have to know their version if we’re going to refute it.) The aggregator/commentary site Instapundit is a good place to go for a variety of viewpoints and intelligent commentary. For videos that YouTube censors, the sites Rumble and Odysee are oases of free speech. JustTheNews.com does a good job of living up to its name. Substack has become the home base of a number of reporters such as Glenn Greenwald whose archaic pursuit of actual journalism has gotten them banished from the big media outlets. And the Epoch Times and the associated sites of Redstate.com, Townhall.com and PJMedia.com offer a good selection of news and conservative/Libertarian commentary.

And here’s some welcome news for those who have been frustrated by the recent leftward lurch of the once-mighty Drudge Report: a former Drudge editor who feels your pain has launched a site called OffThePress.com that brings back the no-holds-barred spirit of the original Drudge Report.

Here’s some more information on that:

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2021/07/27/conservative-and-miss-the-old-drudge-report-heres-some-awesome-news-for-you-n417299

Or you can just continue reading this newsletter, safe in the knowledge that we read the news, so you won’t have to.

For more news, visit my website here.