By Mike Huckabee
March 3, 2020
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Harmeet Dhillon at Townhall.com took a close look at President Trump’s lawsuit against the New York Times. She argues that it might not be as much of a longshot as it seems, since it’s inarguable that the Times knowingly published false and defamatory allegations about the Trump campaign without even bothering to contact them for a response. She says, “The press freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment do not protect willfully defamatory speech, even against public figures.”
While I agree that it’s inarguable that the Times did just that, you can count on them to argue anyway that they can get away with it, as they already are by claiming it was just an “opinion” piece. I’m not a New York Times-level “journalist,” but I always thought that opinion pieces consisted of the writer stating his/her opinion, not making demonstrably untrue accusations.
I still think it’s a loooong longshot, but the very fact that the Times will now have to publicly defend its indefensible practices makes it a show that will be a lot of fun to watch; and that’s one thing Donald Trump knows how to produce better than anyone else.
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Must-Read Article! I’ve made the point before that for all the whining about President Trump committing “unprecedented” outrages, virtually everything his enemies have accused him of has actually been done by previous Presidents for real, and usually in far greater degree.
Now, Kyle Smith at the New York Post has taken that concept and done more historical research to remind us of how many previous Presidents (including such Democratic icons as FDR, Wilson and Obama) did the same-only-worse things Trump is accused of.
It’s a very enlightening read, even though he left out my favorite example. Trump is constantly accused of threatening the press. But has any of his tweets ever been as threatening as the scathing letter Harry Truman sent to columnist Paul Hume for panning his daughter Margaret’s singing voice? It ended with this:
"Someday I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”
Now, THAT’S how you threaten the press!
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There have been some major shakeups among the top name cable news anchors. One day after being accused of sexual harassment, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews announced that he was retiring. He apologized for his inappropriate comments to women in the past, then in true Soviet “retirement” style, the show cut to a break and when it returned, he had disappeared.
Just a reminder: MSNBC was fine with him pushing insane fake news about Trump, likening Bernie Sanders’ win in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazis invading France, and comparing Iranian terrorist mastermind Soleimani to Elvis and Princess Diana. But this was a bridge too far.
The other big news in cable news news is that Chris Wallace is apparently named “Chuck” now.
https://www.westernjournal.com/moments-denying-perpetual-confusion-biden-calls-chris-wallace-wrong-name/
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As a lesson about the importance of turnout, voter turnout yesterday in Israel was slightly up at 71%, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears on track to win 59 seats, leaving his party two seats short of a majority in the Knesset. That total could rise when the votes of soldiers are counted, but Netanyahu still considers it a major victory. He plans to quickly form a strong nationalist coalition government with other conservative parties.
Full disclosure: Netanyahu is a friend, and I admire him greatly, not only as a great leader of Israel but as a great world leader. I was in Israel just last week, where I gave a speech on his behalf and he graciously thanked me for being such a longtime friend of Israel. I’ve watched in dismay over the past year or so as leftwing opponents who couldn’t beat him at the ballot box have attacked his character and his family and tried to defeat him with politicized charges and investigations (sound familiar?) I congratulate the voters of Israel for seeing through these tactics and making the right choice, for their own security and the security of the entire Middle East.
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This week, I felt a great disturbance in the Twitterspere, as if millions of leftists suddenly cried out in terror at the thought that they might be stopped from silencing conservatives.
It was caused by news that Elliot Management, a hedge fund run by conservative billionaire Paul Singer, had purchased a major stake in their favorite PC, speech-censoring platform, Twitter. Word is that Singer wants to force out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has let his den of social justice warriors repeatedly block conservative content while allowing far more threatening or questionable leftist content to remain online.
As Monica Showalter details at American Thinker, Dorsey likely has more in mind than changing Twitter’s political leanings.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/a_vulture_circles_over_twitter.html
We’ve seen how a number of Silicon Valley tech companies run by socialist billionaires have prioritized advancing “woke” political views and virtue signaling over maximizing shareholder returns, resulting in massive unrealized profits. Twitter has deplatformed popular conservative voices such as James Woods, driven away conservative users and refused to accept political ads because they “don’t want to affect the election”…possibly the stupidest thing a for-profit media platform has ever said.
As Ms Showalter notes, liberals have complained that Singer is aggressive, persistent, very tough, uncompromising, a difficult adversary, and he “won’t go away.” He’s taken on such adversaries as the socialist government of Venezuela, so he’s not likely to be intimidated by Twitter trolls. He may be after Twitter and Dorsey purely for the profits, but it’s possible that a happy side effect would be returning Twitter to the platform for free speech it started out as before being warped into a censorious propaganda outlet and outrage mob tool by the leftist activist techies inside its own corporate version of the Deep State.
I can almost hear them crying out now: “Help us, George Soros! You’re our only hope!”
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The coronavirus outbreak has suddenly been politicized in a way nobody saw coming. There are now 2,336 cases and 77 deaths from it in Iran. One of those deaths was of a close confidant to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and 23 of the new cases are among Iran’s Parliament members.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/iran-says-77-dead-amid-2336-cases-of-new-coronavirus
But the political ramifications aren’t limited to Iran. Shortly before the outbreak hit, Connecticut liberal Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy took it upon himself to thumb his nose at the Logan Act and hold a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, apparently to undermine President Trump’s tough policy stance against Iran. It’s unclear if any other Democrats also held meetings with any Iranian officials at the same time.
Even though there’s a very low risk that Murphy was infected, he’s been schmoozing around Washington for weeks, and there’s a slight possibly he’s been spreading the infection. A number of people are demanding he be quarantined
I don’t know if a quarantine is necessary to prevent Murphy from spreading the coronavirus, but locking him in his house for a while might at least keep him from illegally conducting foreign policy.
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