Take a break from counting Democratic Caucus votes in Iowa and join me tonight for a terrific new episode of “Huckabee” on TBN! We’ll visit with retired NFL star-turned-Congressional candidate Burgess Owens. Hear the harrowing stories of longtime undercover drug informant Anthony Burgess. Laugh with zany comic Moody Mulavi. I’ll have commentary on the news, both serious and less so, plus more surprises. And put on your Hawaiian shirts and swimsuits in February because we’re going to visit Surfin’ USA with some classic tunes from Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys!
Cowabunga, dude! Catch a wave and join me tonight at 8 and 11 EST, 7 and 10 CST, and the same times on Sunday, on TBN. To find where you can watch TBN, from local cable and broadcast channels to streaming, visit https://www.tbn.org/huckabee and click on the “WATCH” menu at the top. You can also stream previous episodes, highlights and Internet-only “Digital Exclusives,” like extended interviews and extra performances by our musical and comedy guests. It’s all at https://www.tbn.org/huckabee
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Friday in Manhattan, sleazy lawyer and former liberal media darling Michael Avenatti was convicted of attempted extortion and honest services fraud for threatening to harm the company if it didn’t pay him $25 million to conduct a probe of their alleged corporate corruption. There’s some irony for you! The charges carry a combined penalty of up to 42 years in prison, but the court system is far from finished with Avenatti. He’s still facing trials in April and May for allegedly defrauding clients out of millions, including porn star Stormy Daniels. And with multiple accusations that he was living his high-flying lifestyle by stealing from clients, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see even more trials in his future.
I can almost feel sorry for Stormy Daniels. Avenatti was so sleazy, he actually managed to lead a porn star astray, convincing her to sue President Trump in a case that she not only lost but was ordered to pay $300,000 in Trump’s legal fee after having her lawyer allegedly steal $300,000 from her. I can also see how a woman desperate for cash might fall for Avenatti’s banana oil, but what is the media’s excuse?
For months, they elevated Avenatti to news channel stardom, giving him a fortune in free publicity and even seriously promoting him as a Democratic presidential contender (why do I get a feeling of déjà vu when I hear people talking about Adam Schiff in the same way?) How hard did they shove Avenatti down the public’s throat? Beckett Adams at the Washington Examiner reminds us:
“CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC featured him for a combined 147 television interviews between March 7 and 15, 2018. That is an average of nearly four interviews on each network per day. This is to say nothing of Avenatti’s many other appearances at the height of his news media-promoted stardom, including at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Association dinner and the MTV Video Music Awards.”
I often get comments of the “how can you defend Trump?” variety. Well, when I disagree with something he says or does, I don’t defend it. But I do defend him when I think he’s the victim of unfair or unfounded attacks. If it seems I’m always defending him, it’s not because I’m a rabid Trump partisan, it’s because his enemies are constantly making unfair and unfounded attacks on him. If I’m going to write about the news, that’s what I have to do constantly!
I’ve been around the block in politics and can spot the tactics (which tend to repeat – remember when George W. Bush was the “war criminal” and “literally Hitler”?) I also am well-connected to primary sources, do a lot of reading and have an excellent research staff. And I like to think I have fairly good judgement about people, which is why I spotted what Avenatti was from day one. Believe me, that’s not any special skill worth bragging about. As Adams writes:
“Anyone could have told you, back when Avenatti first appeared on the ‘resistance’ scene, that he was a sleazy tangle of lies, corruption, and faux bravado. Anyone, that is, except for journalists, always credulous where those hostile toward Trump are involved.”
And that’s the key: all it took was for Avenatti to be vociferously anti-Trump, and claim to possess a weapon (his client’s lawsuit) that might bring down Trump, and he was automatically elevated to hero status. The media, who flatter themselves as the guardians at the portal of truth, will throw due diligence on the trash heap and celebrate anyone who shows potential to harm Trump, regardless of their credibility, from Avenatti to Schiff, from James Comey to Ambassador Sondland to Julie Swetnick (the woman who claimed without evidence that Trump SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavenaugh organized rape gangs in high school, and who was – surprise! – a client of Michael Avenatti.)
When the media complain about Trump “attacking” their credibility, they forget that they long ago flushed away their own credibility by giving a massive platform to any liar or con artist who’s willing to badmouth Trump. It’s funny that they often smear Trump as a “liar” and “con artist,” but when they report on Avenatti’s actual felony convictions, I wonder how many of them will remind us that not that long ago, they were all-in for making him President?
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren told MSNBC (of course!) what she thought was a moving and inspirational anecdote. Warren choked up a little as she related that a young woman came up to her and said she was a broke college student with a ton of loan debt and only six dollars in the bank, but she just donated three dollars to Warren’s presidential campaign to keep her going.
https://www.westernjournal.com/millionaire-warren-brags-taking-half-broke-students-money/
But it backfired when critics online slammed Warren for taking half of that poor girl’s entire pitiful savings of six dollars when she’s worth an estimated $12 million. They suggested that she should have instead given the student her three bucks back, or shown real generosity and doubled it to six dollars.
I don’t think they understand that Warren hopes to use that $3 to become President, so she can erase that girl’s student loan debt and let her go to college free by confiscating and redistributing the wealth of greedy millionaires like…well, her. Using the iron hand of government to take people’s money away and give it to other people is the “progressive” version of charity. They see it as much more efficient than putting their own hands in their pockets and giving away their own money.
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Speaking of Elizabeth Warren, she’s already proposed a wealth tax, and then proposed multiple new big spending programs, each of which would cost far more than her tax would generate. When economists protested that she couldn’t afford to pay for all that, she brushed them off as not knowing what they’re talking about. So as long as she’s just shoveling money into the ocean, why not do it literally? This week, she proposed a “blue new deal” to “save the oceans,” to go along with the “green new deal” to save the planet (I kind of assumed that the $90 trillion to save the planet would include the oceans, but apparently, they’re an optional extra.)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/warren-proposes-blue-new-deal-to-save-our-oceans
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Remember when we were told that President Trump pulling out of the UN’s Paris Climate Accords meant the USA was going to embark on a wild spree of spewing poisonous pollution into the atmosphere? A study by the International Energy Agency found that while global CO2 emissions “were unchanged at 33 gigatonnes even as the world economy expanded by 2.9%,” the largest decline in CO2 emissions on a by-country basis wasn’t in any of the nations that remained in the Paris agreement.
According to the organization, energy-related carbon emissions in the U.S. fell by 140 million tonnes in 2019 to 4.8 gigatonnes — a decrease of 2.9 percent over the previous year.
Down nearly one gigatonne from its peak in the year 2000 — a decrease of roughly 17 percent — the 20-year low represents “the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”
So even as the US economy boomed (and other nations scolded us and asked, “How DARE you?!”), our CO2 emissions dropped while theirs went up. This was largely due to the boom in fracking and natural gas production, which is cleaner than the fuels it’s replaced. That’s the industry that just about every Democrat running for President has vowed to destroy on day one if elected, to “save the planet.”
With friends of the Earth like them, who needs enemies of the Earth?
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2020/2/evening-edition-february-15
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