Mike Huckabee

When I promised that we’d watch the news so you don’t have to, I wasn’t thinking about having to sit through four nights of the virtual Democratic convention. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, so we’ll hold our noses, prop open our eyes and press on.

If you’re interested, here’s the live stream of the entire 3-1/4 hours. I notice that it took them until night three to figure out to turn off the comments on YouTube. Too bad, that might have offered some entertainment value.

For the more entertaining recaps, check out the liveblogs by PJ Media and Townhall.com.

Last night was when the convention was supposed to hit its stride, with speeches by superstars Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech. Instead, we got the same small ideas, just mouthed by bigger names.

Conventions are supposed to fire up the base and get them enthused about backing the ticket and the Party. But have you seen any positive messages or fresh policy proposals AT ALL? All we hear about Joe Biden is that he’s a nice guy (which might be true if he’s not yelling at you that you’re a dog-faced pony soldier.) But I’m nicer, and none of these people endorsed me for President. I don’t really want a President who’ll be really nice to China. I think the mean tone is because they know what a new NBC poll found: that only 36% of Biden supporters support him because they want Biden. 58% percent do it because they hate Trump. It says “Love, Tolerance, Compassion” on the label, but the ingredients are hatred, frustration and resentment.

It’s no wonder Americans are tuning out in droves. Night two of the convention was slaughtered in the ratings by “America’s Got Talent,” which featured some yo-yo artists. Understandable: at least their yo-yo’s have some pizzazz. I wonder how many people on night one turned on Penn & Teller’s show because they saw “Fool Us” in the TV listings and assumed that was the Democratic Convention?

This is coming across as a convention of angry, bitter cranks, furious that they were voted out of power by all you dumb racist deplorables and even more enraged that Donald Trump is in the seat of power that should be theirs by divine right. I don’t even recognize America, the way they describe it: a dark, dystopian, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic wasteland where there may be “liberty and justice for all…someday,” as they rewrote the Pledge of Allegiance. I was reminded of Sally Field’s famous Oscar speech: “They hate us! They REALLY hate us!”

Not only is the dour negativity relentless, it’s also incredibly boring and predictable. I’m not even going to bother to recount Obama, Clinton or Harris’ speeches in detail. Just imagine what you think they were like.

You’re right.

Harris mostly dispensed unmemorable platitudes to make sure she didn’t tick off the moderates or the crazy leftists. Hillary did what she’s done for over three years now: snipe at the guy who beat her, remind us that she won the meaningless popular vote (by 3 million votes!), and hint darkly that some foreign influence was going to rig the election for Trump. She’s the Miss Havisham of politics, forever frozen in time on the day she was jilted at the altar.

And Obama was…Obama. Haughty, condescending, defensive, making vicious and underhanded political attacks on his successor while posing as if he were taking the high road. You know the routine. And just as predictably, the media wet their Depends over it.

Obama also implied that Trump, who has lost billions in net worth since entering politics and donates his entire salary, is only interested in enriching himself and his supporters. FYI: since leaving office, Obama has cashed in more than any other ex-President, including a $65 million book deal and a $50 million Netflix deal. Not that you could tell that by any generous donations made to his brother Joe’s campaign.

Republicans always say that you can tell what the Democrats are doing by what they accuse their opponents of doing, but never have they been so transparent about it. So far, we’ve had John Kerry telling us Trump has made a mess of foreign policy, Bill Clinton telling us Trump’s not behaving properly in the Oval Office, Andrew Cuomo telling us Trump botched the handling of COVID-19, Hillary Clinton telling us that Trump dehumanizes his political opponents (I’m sure she’s also worried that HE won’t accept the results of the election), and Barack (Operation Crossfire/rule by executive order/weaponize the IRS against the Tea Party) Obama telling us that Trump abuses Presidential power and doesn't observe the polite protocols of office (like not badmouthing your sitting successor?)

On the very same day Obama spoke, one of his former FBI employees pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence to get illegal FISA warrants to spy on a Trump campaign aide.

I did appreciate that Obama appeared from Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution and talked about the Constitution. But it would have been more persuasive if he’d ever shown any regard for the Constitution, and if the Democrats would say one word about their own followers who are currently ripping down and burning every monument to the American Revolution. They’ve also never mentioned China. Apparently, Donald Trump and climate change are the only threats they recognize.

That would include the threat of being shot in one of the cities they’ve run for decades. Last night’s show also included a lot of talk about gun control. They want to empty the prisons, open the borders, defund the police and take away law-abiding citizens' guns. There’s a winning combination! They also talked about the Parkland shooting while demanding that police be removed from schools. Do you know why so many children died there? Because it took the police so long to show up at the school.

I also wonder how well all the gun-grabbing talk is going over with their voters, considering that thanks to the rampant street violence they refuse to do anything about other than condone it, gun sales are up 95% over this time last year. And guess what’s driving those sales: first-time gun purchases by blacks and women who realize they can no longer count on the police to protect them in blue cities.

And if they’re going to tell constant lies, can’t they at least go to the trouble of thinking up some new ones instead of repeating the same dusty, debunked lies, like “children in cages,” “very fine people among the white supremacists” and “Trump called all Mexican immigrants animals”? I’m not even going to bother refuting those again; by now, anyone who hasn’t been in a coma since 2016 should know those are all bogus and why. But they just keep rolling them out, like a faded pop star sleepwalking through his greatest hits for the 10,000th time. Their only new song is the “Trump is responsible for the Chinese virus and the job losses caused by blue states shutting down businesses” shuffle, but the audience goes to the bathroom during that one.

In a nutshell (emphasis on “nut”), here’s what I’ve gotten out of this convention so far: We HATE Trump! Trump is the cause of all bad things in the universe! We hate people who voted for Trump! America is a really bad country, but maybe there’s hope for it someday if you let us run it. We see countless problems, but our only solution is “Put us back in power!” For instance, if we only had Congress and the White House, we could give everyone affordable health care.

Yeah, they had that from 2008-2010, and they gave us the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.) It cost people their family doctors and doubled and tripled their premiums. It was so unpopular, it cost them the House in the next election.

It’s ironic that Obama accused Trump of “not growing in the job,” when Trump came in as a complete outsider and political amateur, won the Presidency, and has racked up an impressive array of achievements, some by simply doing the opposite of what Obama did. It’s these people who seem to have learned nothing since they were thrown out of office. They’re long on resentment, but short on self-reflection. They’re like the cool kids who peaked in high school, still acting like Big Shots on Campus at the reunion when the rest of us have outgrown being impressed by them. All this convention is doing is reminding us of what a smart move we made when we moved on to something new. They’re forever stuck back in 2015, and demanding we make them prom king and queen again.

It’s funny that Bruce Springsteen appeared on night one of the convention, since he wrote a song that would be the perfect theme for this week, “Glory Days”:

“…Well, time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but

Boring stories of…

Glory days, yeah, they'll pass you by,

Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye,

Glory days, glory days, glory days…”

Mike Huckabee

A few good random observations on the Democratic convention from around the Internet:

From Thomas Sowell: “Barack Obama's political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have.”

From RedState.com’s Brad Slager: “This will be fun - long segments to come about the need to get people back to work, from the party that is arresting people for going back to work.”

From Matt Margolis: Barack Obama, who slams Trump’s character and lack of judgement, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a sex predator who preyed on underage boys.

From Steve Guest: “Biden: ‘When I think about climate change, I think about jobs.’ Biden’s ban on fracking alone would eliminate 19 MILLION jobs between 2021-2025 all while reducing our GDP by $7.1 TRILLION.”

From the Washington Post: "While the Obama administration deported 1.18 million people in his first three years, the number of deportations has been a little under 800,000 so far under Trump." And "DNC misleads by implying Trump called all immigrants 'animals.' He was talking about the animalistic MS-13 gang.” (Surprised that WaPo actually committed journalism.)

Elle Bufkin commented: “Democrats love to say no one is above the law when torching Trump. Meanwhile, they defund the police, advocate for the abolition of jails, and allow rioters and looters to go unpunished. Also, they reward illegal immigrants with sanctuary cities and hide them from the law while advocating for free health care for them.”

The GOP tweeted: “The ‘anemic’ economic recovery under the Obama/Biden Admin was the slowest since World War II. Under the Obama/Biden Admin, homeownership plummeted. In their final year, just 62.9% of homes were occupied by their owner, the lowest level in more than 50 years.”

From Julio Rosas: "Obama said the president shouldn't use troops as political props, right after the DNC did just that yesterday."

And after a DNC rep said you can see that women virtually run the Democratic Party, GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted, “A WOMAN ACTUALLY RUNS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave pretty much the convention speech that everyone expected, but there were two unusual side notes…

1. The subliminal messaging of arranging three children’s letter blocks in the elementary classroom background to spell out “BLM,” which not only tells us where the Dems are coming from but also why so many parents don’t want to put their kids back into public schools run by them…

2. In pushing for government child care, she recalled how her family was only saved because her Aunt Bee brought her suitcase and came to provide child care for her. This prompted some pundits to question if she’s stopped appropriating Native American heritage and started appropriating the plotline of “The Andy Griffith Show.” I won’t doubt her, since maybe she really does have an Aunt Bee. Just in case, I won’t ask her for her pickle recipe. But I will suggest that she stop letting Otis the town drunk write her economic proposals.

Mike Huckabee

The Democrats’ virtual convention ended Thursday at nearly midnight, and never has the phrase, “Thank God it’s Friday,” held so much meaning. If you want to see the whole thing, you masochist, you, it’s here.

Here are the far more entertaining liveblogs of the highlights from PJ Media…

And from Townhall.com…

And here are five important takeaways from the final night:

I’m too burned out (and frankly, after four days of this dour, angry, bitter convention, just too weary and relieved it’s over) to go into detail about all of night four (although I will say they needed better joke writers.)

If you saw any of the first three nights, it was mostly more the same. Lots of Trump-bashing and gloom and doom about America, with hardly a word about China or the shocking violence in the streets of Democrat-run cities. So I’ll concentrate on the “big reveal”: Biden’s acceptance speech. There was a lot of buzz beforehand, not so much about what he would say but how he would say it, or if he would get through it at all. So here are the two most important points:

1. He did a surprisingly good job of presenting the speech. It was a long speech (maybe too long), but he presented it well with no major gaffes and without wandering off-topic or the stage. He was emotional, at times angry (maybe too angry), but controlled and professional. He definitely allayed any fears that he might not be able to perform at least the Presidential function of reading a speech off a Teleprompter. That sounds like a low bar to clear (although it was Obama's chief skill), but it’s not meant as an insult: a lot of people were genuinely concerned that he couldn’t clear it, and he obviously did. I’m sure a big sigh of relief could be heard in the control room and in every Democratic household in America.

2. The substance of the speech is where the many problems lay. It was a mess of contradictions of things we all have lived through and of everything his fellow Democrats have said over the past three nights. Probably the most stunning “What the...?!!” moment was Biden’s claim that when he heard Donald Trump say there were “very fine people” among the violent neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, “at that moment, I knew I had to run.” Problem: Trump never said that.

Trump said he was sure there were fine people on both sides of the debate about removing a statue of Robert E. Lee, but as for neo-Nazis and white nationalists, they should be “condemned totally.” The quote Biden cited as the motivating factor for his run has long been verified even by liberal “fact-checkers” as fake news. So does this mean he’ll pull an Emily Litella; say, “Never mind!”; and quit the race?

This was especially stunning, considering much of Biden’s speech was an attack on Trump for allegedly not caring about “facts.” Biden’s speech was also rife with other claims that are wildly at odds with known facts. For instance, he claimed that Trump’s tax cut only benefited the rich (most of the benefits went to the middle class)…that he will ensure equal pay for women (we already have laws requiring equal pay for women)…that he will create a good-paying job through government investment in rebuilding our infrastructure and creating green energy (we heard that from Obama; it cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and even Obama admitted there were no “shovel-ready” jobs)…and that he will help workers by strengthening unions (that’s code for passing a national version of the widely-hated California law that’s destroying the state’s gig economy, putting musicians out of work, and killing Uber and Lyft in the state.) He also backs doubling the minimum wage, which has cost jobs and shuttered small businesses everywhere it’s been instituted. Real facts: under Trump, wages were rising for the first time in years, and the gains were greater among the bottom half of earners than the top half. That is, until a Chinese virus and Democrat Governors shut down the economy.

Perhaps Biden’s most stunning claim was that he will be a fighter to end the outsourcing of American jobs. This was the major issue that got Trump elected. Trump is actually bringing back jobs after years of outsourcing under Obama/Biden and previous Administrations. Fact: Biden was one of the biggest boosters of job-exporting legislation. He supported and promoted NAFTA, which cost us at least 5 million jobs and 50,000 manufacturing plants, including a Chrysler plant in Delaware that he’d promised would increase hiring. He supported normalizing trade with China, which cost us 3.4 million jobs. And he was pushing Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership that would have sent even more of our jobs to Asia if Trump hadn’t killed it.

He claimed that Trump has done nothing about the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus except hope for some miracle to make it end (first time I’ve ever heard standard herd immunity described as a “miracle,” but okay.) Reminder: Biden criticized Trump for shutting off travel from China quickly, which was the most important factor in slowing the infection spread until we could prepare for it. Democrats predicted deadly shortages of ventilators and hospital rooms, which didn’t happen because of Trump’s actions; and a death toll of 2.2 million. Yes, there have been 170,000 deaths, which is horrible, but that’s the fault of China (and in large part, certain blue state Governors – two of whom were featured convention speakers - who insisted on putting coronavirus patients into nursing homes.) The US does not have the worst death toll in the world per capita, and we only have the largest number of deaths because we have a population of 320 million, and China is plainly lying about their death toll.

Biden claimed Trump does not listen to science. From Dr. Anthony Fauci: "The President has listened to what I have said... When I've made recommendations he's taken them. He's never countered or overridden me."

As for Biden’s bold plan to stop the virus – developing a test and forcing everyone to wear masks – there are already such tests (I drive down the street and see “Free COVID-19 tests” signs in front of every medical clinic), and he has no Constitutional authority to order everyone to wear masks. Also, five million people have NOT lost their health insurance. But a lot of people lost their policies when the Democrats passed Obamacare.

Biden claimed that kids suffer a “daily fear of being gunned down in school.” Putting aside that most kids aren’t even in school at the moment, thanks to teachers’ unions, school shootings are actually extremely rare. Although they might become less rare if Democrats defund the police and remove officers from schools. Right now, it’s far less dangerous to be in school than it is to venture into certain areas of any city that’s been run by Democrats for decades.

Biden claimed that he would not put up with foreign interference in our voting. Fact: Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and Obama and Biden did practically nothing. Well, they apparently did collude with some Russians to try to undermine the results of the election, but that’s another story.

Biden claimed that Trump will do away with the payroll tax, which will lead to cuts in Social Security. Fact: Trump has only called for a temporary suspension of the tax to help people get through the virus shutdowns. That would not affect Social Security, which has a $2.9 trillion surplus. Trump does want to do away with the tax permanently, but Congress would have to do that and arrange alternate funding.

Biden blamed Trump for this dark atmosphere of hate and negativity, even though it was the Democrats who started the “resistance” rhetoric the second Trump was elected, who have refused to accept his election, who attack him and his family 24/7/365, and who had just spent three and three-quarter nights relentlessly and hatefully bashing Trump, putting down America and its history, and painting anyone who opposes them as an angry, misinformed, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic xenophobe. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Biden say he wants to reach out and be the President of all Americans, considering how many of us are the white supremacist spawn of an oppressive, unjust nation that’s responsible for all the evils of the past 400 years. And I’m glad he says he wants to help even those who didn’t vote for him. However, he’s running on a platform that will absolutely devastate most of those people.

One thing I learned when debating Trump myself in 2016 is that he doesn’t attack people who don’t attack him first. I followed Reagan’s 11th commandment and didn’t attack my fellow Republicans, and Trump didn’t attack me. Even though I’ve had occasion to criticize some of his comments and policies, we remain on good terms (I just taped an interview with him at the White House that will air this weekend on “Huckabee” on TBN.) It seems to me that Democrats hate him with the searing heat of a thousand suns for two real reasons: they can’t get over that Hillary lost, and Trump refuses to be a “typical Republican” and just stand there and take their unfair attacks. They would have us believe that he’s another Hitler, but they’ve compared every Republican President or nominee to Hitler or the Nazis since Truman did it to Thomas E. Dewey (only Eisenhower escaped it, but that was because he actually defeated Hitler, so even the Democrats didn’t dare try it.)

Trump actually punches back when he’s attacked, and Republicans aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to be docile punching bags. That’s not Trump’s style, and frankly, it’s a big part of why the base supports him. They’re sick of being slandered as racists and fascists by people who really do act like racists and fascists. That’s where we got the term “crybullies.” Leftists love to attack others, but they cry “Bully” when anyone punches them back.

If today’s Democratic leaders really do care about all Americans and are willing to work across the aisle, then why is Nancy Pelosi citing ridiculous nonsense like the “Disappearing Mailbox Conspiracy” as a feeble excuse not to get back to work and pass extended coronavirus relief?

Speaking of Trump fighting back, here’s his response to Biden’s speech: "In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!"

It is telling that, as several commentators pointed out, Biden has been in national politics for nearly half a century, but the Convention was all about the huge things he’s going to do, with almost nothing said about what he’s actually accomplished in all the years before.

Mike Huckabee

"’There's no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can't believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’” – Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

As I watch the nightly news from urban liberal warzones like Portland or force my eyeballs to stay open through the Democrats’ virtual convention, I keep thinking, “We’re through the looking glass, people!” And that’s not just an expression. I mean that, like Carroll's mad Red Queen, in order to be a Democrat in 2020, you are required to believe an unlimited number of impossible things. The Party’s embrace of "Alice In Wonderland" level madness inspired me to start making a list of these impossible things. To be a Democrat today, you have to believe…

1. That a pre-born human baby is not a human being deserving of protection from killing, and neither is a baby that was born 10 minutes ago if the mother decides she doesn’t want to keep it.

2. That capitalism, which has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and despair worldwide, is evil; but socialism, which has caused the oppression, impoverishment, starvation, and death of hundreds of millions of people over the past century, is the only hope of the future.

3. That the best solution for rioting, looting, arson, and violence in the streets is to defund the police.

4. That all the gains in the economy under Trump were really caused by Obama, but the worldwide economic crash following China’s unleashing of a pandemic was caused by Trump.

5. That Trump has a plan to rig the next election that involves making the Obama Administration remove thousands of mailboxes several years ago. Also, that the Post Office is removing little-used mailboxes in Oregon because the key to Trump’s reelection is for him to win Oregon.

6. And on that subject, that nobody ever complained about the US Post Office being slow, inefficient, and unreliable until Trump was elected.

7. That America is an oppressive, racist, white supremacist nation that’s the root of all evil in the world and its culture is inferior to that of other nations, including the many nations where people are willing to risk their lives just for the chance to come to America.

8. That Trump built “cages for children” on the border during the Obama Administration.

9. That viruses spread like wildfire at church services, but not at crowded protest rallies for leftwing causes. Also, viruses spread at bars that serve chips, but not at bars that serve sandwiches. Because “science!”

10. That people with male genitals are women just because they say they are, but people who say that actually having female genitals makes them women are intolerant, transphobic bigots.

11. Also, hospitals must be forced to give gynecological exams to “women” with male genitals, and taxpayers forced to pay for abortions for them.

12. Again on that subject, that someone born male who developed a muscular masculine physique before deciding he was a girl has no unfair physical advantage in sports over the much smaller teenage girl whose face (s)he is crushing into the wrestling mat.

13. That Trump botched the response to COVID-19 by xenophobically shutting down travel from China and crashing the economy with a shutdown, but Democrats would have prevented both the pandemic and the crash by not stopping travel from China and shutting down the economy sooner, harder and longer. Also, it’s absolutely impossible for Trump to keep people from crossing our border, but he could have kept a virus from crossing our border.

14. That an acceptable way to express how much you care about black lives is to burn black neighborhoods, loot black-owned businesses, and tear down statues of abolitionist leaders. Also, that all black lives matter except those of black cops, black Republicans, and black pre-born babies.

15. That free healthcare is a right, free college is a right, free food is a right, a guaranteed paycheck is a right, and citizenship for illegal immigrants is a right, but free speech and freedom of religion are not rights.

16. That the people who presided over the rise of ISIS, the Iraq and Afghan wars, a nuclear Iran and North Korea, and even Iran falling to the Mullahs in the first place, are trusted diplomatic professionals, while the man who crushed ISIS, dealt with Iran and North Korea, and crafted a historic Middle East peace agreement is a dangerous amateur who’s destroying our foreign policy.

17. That disproven rumors are evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to undermine a presidential election, but Democrats paying Russians for disproven rumors and using them as “evidence” to launch a Deep State coup is NOT collusion with Russia to undermine a presidential election.

18. That 2 + 2 only equals 4 because of white supremacy.

19. That there are 57 genders but only one acceptable political viewpoint.

20. That burning a flag is protected free speech, but objecting to someone burning a flag is not.

Okay, this could go on forever, so I’m going to stop at 20 and let you add to the list in the comments. Have fun, if that's not impossible these days...