By Mike Huckabee
December 22, 2020
|
|
| December 22 2020 | |
|
|
Good morning! Today's newsletter includes:
- 2020 Isn’t Through With Us Yet
- How Oregon Works
- News roundup
- Christmas means a whole lot more
- It’s not how fancy your tree is
Thank you again for subscribing! If you wish to use a browser to read my newsletter, please go here.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
2020 Isn’t Through With Us Yet
By Mike Huckabee
Please say a prayer for our fellow Americans on Hawaii’s Big Island who are under a shelter-in-place order after the Mount Kilauea volcano began erupting on Sunday.
How Oregon works
By Mike Huckabee
Riot, loot, burn and “occupy” other people’s property in the name of BLM, Antifa or protesting the police, and you’re exercising your constitutional rights and nobody will lay a finger on you. Come to the Capitol to protest endless draconian lockdowns destroying your livelihood and get met with riot cops wielding pepper spray.
That may be how Oregon works, but it’s not the way the Bill of Rights is supposed to work.
News roundup
By Mike Huckabee
(We usually shift to Christmas-only material during Christmas week, but since the news refuses to stop coming this year, here’s a round-up of some of today’s biggest and most interesting stories. After you read them, relax and enjoy some of our great reader Christmas stories.)
Monday, Congress finally came to agreement on a $2.3 trillion spending bill that includes long-overdue coronavirus relief. It’s one of the costliest spending bills ever proposed. However, critics are thrashing the bill as a pork-stuffed Christmas tofurkey, light on virus relief and heavy on disgusting things that shouldn’t be in it at all.
For instance, Americans making $75,000 a year or less will get a one-time $600 stimulus payment (half of the first bill’s relief) and a $300 addition to unemployment benefits.
Meanwhile, the bill also includes $130 million for “invasive species assessment, mitigation and reduction;” $1 million a year through 2025 for “water resources on the Tibetan plateau” plus $675,000 for Tibetan scholarship programs; $30 million a year for a US-India Development Foundation; $8 million a year for the next four years for Tibetan refugees plus $4 million a year for Tibet’s government; $10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan; $130 million for HIV/AIDS workers stationed abroad to buy cars; and the creation of a committee to regulate performance-enhancing drugs in race horses. Plus, of course, a lot of spending to fight “climate change” and promote “diversity,” both of which are vital to controlling the coronavirus, I’m sure.
Here are even more spending items in the bill that benefit people everywhere but in America.
It isn’t often that I find myself in agreement with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she was right when she fumed that Congress members were handed a 5,500+ page bill and told they’d have to vote on it in two hours, with no time to read it. The problem is, as Republican Rep. Thomas Massie pointed out, that the Democrats all voted to waive the 72-hour waiting period that was created to give members the time to read a bill before voting on it.
However, the real problem is that massive omnibus spending bills like this exist at all. If the coronavirus is an emergency, then a bill should’ve been passed that focuses solely on that. If these other things are worthy of robbing the taxpayers to pay for, then let their sponsors justify the spending in open debate, not hide them behind the camouflage of emergency virus aid.
Here’s more on the bill and a call for President Trump to veto it and force Congress to pass a clean relief bill.
Christmas means a whole lot more
By Mike Huckabee
This story shows us that Dr. Seuss was right: Christmas is not something that comes from a store. Christmas means a whole lot more.
Tina from California wrote that she was a struggling single mom for many years. She managed to keep a roof over her daughter and son's heads. But there was no money for the Christmas extravagances many families enjoy. They had to be creative and "make do."
Instead of buying cards, they'd call relatives and sing carols to them over the phone. And instead of buying fancy Christmas treats, they'd go into the kitchen and make donuts out of Pillsbury biscuit dough, and sweeten and decorate them with cinnamon and sugar. Tina said that for years, Christmas wasn't a good memory for her. All she remembered about those Christmases was being poor.
Then, Tina wrote:
“When my son was 20, he said 'Mom, remember when we used to make donuts and sing to everyone for Christmas?'
Sulking, I replied, ‘Yeah.’
He said, 'That is one of my BEST Christmases. We didn't have a lot of money, but we had a lot of love to give.'
I have since changed my opinion...(Now), it is one of my best Christmas memories also. My heart grew 3 sizes that day!...Ever since, I make it a point to make a homemade gift for the people in my family. Last year, I made everyone throw quilts. Christmas is more than a day... It is a memory!”
Thank you, Tina for that precious memory and a valuable lesson for us all. It’s not the presents you spend money on that stay with your kids for a lifetime, it’s your presence spent with them that they’ll cherish forever.
It’s not how fancy your tree is
By Mike Huckabee
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. A radio listener of mine named Vicky from California sent me 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.”
BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2020/12/morning-edition-december-22
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.