Mike Huckabee

In the most underreported story of the week, Mike Lindell’s three-day cyber web symposium on 2020 election fraud kicked off Tuesday morning. Have you heard much about it yet?

Lindell is hosting the event from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and says it will feature 65 forensic cyber experts who are challenging the official results of the Biden/Trump presidential election. It will include a recreation of the vote count “in real time,” he says, so viewers can have a better understanding of what unfolded on November 3 and into the wee hours of November 4.

He’s offering $5 million to anyone who can show that the evidence he presents is “not cyber data from the November 2020 election.”

https://xyz.frankspeech.com/content/mike-lindells-cyber-symposium-2021

Let me say up front that we have no advance knowledge of the evidence Lindell plans to present at his event. I know Mike and he’s been a guest on my TBN show, but we promise to analyze his evidence as independently and objectively as possible (we’re not cyber experts) and report the findings as honestly and spin-free as we can.

We’d like to think Lindell has the goods, but whether or not he can show that voting machines were, or even could be, hacked (we have no idea), there’s plenty that still arouses suspicion about hanky-panky on Election Night. And, no, it has NOT been “debunked.” That doesn’t mean it’s been proven –- it has not –- but it can’t just be discarded, either, unless one’s agenda depends on it being discarded.

Some of Lindell’s critics wish he’d concentrate on those other reasons to suspect cheating, such as problems with mail-in ballots, and view the voting machine issue as a distraction. I see their point, but have a question for them: If there ARE security problems with electronic voting, shouldn’t we find that out before the next election?

Anyway, Lindell has invited people from across the political spectrum –- some reports say thousands of invitees –- and at this writing, we don’t really know who’s going to be there. He says he’s invited cyber experts, politicians and media. One we do know: Nancy Pelosi said she had a scheduling conflict and won’t attend. (Those hair appointments are hard to change!) But I don’t think anyone will miss her.

Lindell is hoping the event will attract hundreds of millions of viewers and be “the most watched live event in history.” That will be a good trick with the almost-total news and social media blackout on it. “I believe people are going tune in,” he said. “I want them to watch whether they’re a Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative. This is America, and we, and every person needs to see this, and say, ‘What are we going to do about it?’”

Of course, that’s the big question. Lindell actually has claimed that he can show the election should have gone the other way, but what he’s taken the most heat for is his prediction in March that former President Trump would be re-installed as President by August. For one thing, it’s already August, and for another, it just doesn’t work that way. For one thing, there would have to be formal impeachment proceedings in the (Democrat) House and removal of Biden by two-thirds of the (barely Democrat) Senate. And we know how the Democrats would react to even the most compelling proof: by draping it with the Cloak of Invisibility.

NEWSMAX, which --- unlike FOX NEWS --- did agree to run Lindell’s ad for the symposium, issued a statement that it does not endorse ads and that it accepts the 2020 election results as “legal and final.”

Predictably, left-wing news outlets such as MEDIA MATTERS made fun of Lindell as a right-wing conspiracy theorist and criticized him as a threat to democracy itself. Some on the right are exasperated, with Matt Margolis at PJ MEDIA saying he should “go back to selling pillows,” expressing admiration for his vocal support of Trump while saying he “jumped the shark” when he said Trump would be President again by August.

As you might know, Lindell pulled his “MyPillow” advertising from FOX NEWS after they wouldn’t run his ad for the symposium. The ad doesn’t make any claims about election fraud, only about the importance of this event, and it invites everyone to tune in –- and tell everyone they know to do the same. Then it offers some great deals on pillows and other MyPillow products, which, as you might imagine, are more challenging to sell these days.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/O3_q/frank-speech-cyber-symposium-featuring-mike-lindell

So let’s tune in to as much of this symposium as we can and see what he’s got. I promise you a full report. And let me just put in a word for MyPillow and, especially, Giza Dream Sheets. Those sheets are fantastic to sleep on and oversized to fit the thickest mattress.

Just like he says.

By the way, here’s an example of problems on election night that have nothing to do with wilder claims of foreign countries hacking the voting machines to make Biden President. When a ballot shows that more than one candidate in the same race has been marked, it is deemed an “overvote” and is handed over to an election worker to review. JUST THE NEWS has seen what was going on with some of these “adjudicated” ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and it’s not pretty.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-ballot-adjudication-spoiled

Every election has ballots that have to be adjudicated –- remember the nightmare of the “hanging chads” in Florida in the Bush-Gore race –- but in 2020, hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia were voting absentee for the first time and that meant many more ballots were mis-marked and, shall we say, open to interpretation. And in Fulton County, the rules apparently weren’t clear and consistently applied, and they weren’t even in writing, but passed along verbally.

JUST THE NEWS got ballot images through an open records act request; Fulton County officials would not respond to questions regarding what they found. More than 5,000 of the 148,000 absentee ballots processed through Fulton County --- about 3 percent --- required “some form of human intervention,” they report. "Mistakes" in the adjudication process alone were not enough to have changed the outcome of the election, they say, but this is one more potentially contributing factor. We’d second what they conclude, that “[these ballots] reveal an imperfect system vulnerable to chaos, subjectivity, or political dirty tricks, especially in a county like Fulton where state officials documented widespread irregularities and misconduct and now want to take over election counting.”

Mike Huckabee

Far-left Rep. Cori Bush didn’t do the Democrat propaganda machine any favors by going on an impassioned defense of defunding the police (a movement they’re trying to claim doesn’t exist, or if it does, uuuuh...the Republicans did it! – Yeah, that’s the ticket!) She made it worse by declaring, with zero self-awareness, that defunding the police has to happen now, while defending her own heavy expenses on private security because she’s so worth it.

She claims she’s gotten threats (like people surrounded by gangs and Antifa thugs thanks to police defunding aren’t under constant threat), and she needs security because her work in Congress is so important (she has to keep “protecting” people by making them less safe.) She declared, “I have private security because my body is worth being on this planet right now.”

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2021/08/08/watch-cori-bush-gives-pathetic-defense-of-defund-the-police-video-n423169

I was on Jesse Watters' show on Fox News over the weekend to talk about this stunning display of naked hypocrisy (we’ll overlook the fact that she also threw in her continuing fight for justice for Michael Brown, even though the Obama DOJ found that the “hands up, don’t shoot” story was fiction and Brown was fighting the police officer and trying to take away his gun when he was shot.)

Personally, I’m stunned that America made it for so many years before Cori Bush arrived in Congress to do the great work that’s so important that it makes her life more valuable than her own constituents’ lives. I award her my “Gavin/Cuomo Award for Ultimate Hubris and Hypocrisy” for those who impose rules on others that they would never inflict upon themselves.

Obviously, if the people of St. Louis value their own lives, they will quickly correct the dumb mistake of sending Cori Bush to Congress. But don’t count on it.

I’ll just conclude by pointing out that Cori Bush happily accepted the enthusiastic endorsement of the pro-abortion group NARAL, which said she would be a champion of “reproductive justice,” which is their latest phony euphemism for killing innocent children in the womb.

Why am I not at all surprised that a strong defender of abortion believes that her life is sacred, valuable and worth protecting, but other people’s lives aren’t?

Mike Huckabee

Here’s a lesson in why it’s so hard to tell real demands from “social justice warriors” from hoaxes created by people mocking social justice warriors. It’s almost impossible to make the hoaxes more ridiculous than the real thing. But craven leftists filled with white liberal guilt don’t care out ludicrous they are; they just hear “Jump!” and ask, “How high?”

My question: How high were the officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who approved urinating away $50,000 on this?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/08/youre-not-going-to-believe-why-a-wisconsin-school-spent-50k-to-move-a-rock-n1467973

They actually spent 50 large to move Chamberlain Rock, a 42-ton boulder that had been sitting on campus since the dawn of time, after some leftwing activist students declared it a "racist monument." Why? It’s named after Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, former university president and geologist. He’s never been accused of anything racist (although I’m sure he was a racist, as was everyone who isn’t in 100% agreement on all things with a 2021 social justice warrior.) But one newspaper article, one time way back in 1925, referred to the rock by a racist name. That's it: that's the extent of this rock's connection to racism. But naturally, that’s so triggering to students who know zip about history and have never even read a newspaper that $50,000 had to be spent to haul it off campus lest it start them literally shaking with moral outrage.

The college says private donations paid for it, but so what? That doesn't make it any less of a pointless waste of money. If they really wanted to help black Americans, why not give those 50,000 smackers to, say, the United Negro College Fund? But that would be missing the point, as any attempt to apply common sense to modern leftism is bound to do. The money is gone, the rock is gone, and people who might have actually benefited from that cash are left like Charlie Brown on Halloween, moaning, "I got a rock." But the leftists can enjoy their own 42 tons of self-satisfaction.

As Daniel McLaughlin at National Review Online observes, the point is power. The loud activists wanted to see just how far they could push the college leaders and still get their way. And it worked: they caved (a perfect term for people who just moved a giant rock, which I think was also Fred Flintstone’s job.)

If you wonder where the “woke” left is taking America, there’s your answer: back to the Stone Age, thanks to people like this who kowtow to stupid, childish demands. If these administrators want to remove any more rocks, I respectfully suggest they start with the rocks in their heads.

Mike Huckabee

You don’t have to wait until 2022 for some big political drama and major elections. Sept 14 could be an election that will deliver a Cat 5 hurricane, a 10 on the Richter Scale earthquake, and a F-5 tornado all on the same day. It’s the date of the CA election to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. I recently spent a few days out there working with the campaign to recall him and traveled the state from top to bottom. I was asked why it even mattered to me since I didn’t live there. First, there’s my personal disgust with someone who wears the title “governor” but who abuses the trust he was given by acting in hypocrisy and hubris. As someone who was a governor for nearly 11 years, I am appalled if someone believes being governor is equivalent to being a King and who arrogantly imposes rules on others he doesn’t apply to himself. No true leader asks others to do what he is unwilling to do. After imposing strict mask requirements on gatherings and closing restaurants for indoor dining, he hob-knobbed with mask-less swells at the most expensive restaurant in CA, the French Laundry. “Rules for thee, but not for me” has been his motto and practice. Maybe it’s time CA voters send the guy who dined at the French Laundry to the cleaners.

But there’s another reason what happens in CA matters to me and should matter to you as well. It’s been long said that whatever starts in CA becomes a trend across the country, whether trends in entertainment, fashion, language, music, or even politics. The same state that gave us Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom also gave us Ronald Reagan. But CA holds distinction as the most important agricultural state in the nation. The farmers and ranchers of CA, mostly in the San Joaquin Central Valley supply over 17% of the entire nation’s ag products, and produces over 400 different commodities. It’s truly the salad bowl of the world. But the overreaching taxes and idiotic regulations and restrictions that CA farmers and ranchers live with along with the lack of leadership in ensuring a stable water supply means that it costs a lot more to grow and harvest food in CA than anywhere else in the country. And that means that a man in Mississippi standing on a concrete floor all day lifting heavy things and sweating through his clothes, will go home bone-tired and sit at his dinner table with his wife and kids and the cost of the food on his table costs more than it should—and CA politics are to blame. You might live in one of the other 49 states beyond CA, but you are directly affected by the nutty policies imposed in CA when you buy food, fuel, or even footwear. And now, Gavin Newsom’s CA has really gone too far. They want to impose strict limits on how many pigs or chickens can be kept in a space because CA wants pigs and chickens to have more space. The same state that turns a blind eye to homeless people packing into a public park or business district and who doesn’t believe we ought to control the border and limit illegal immigration, wants to make sure Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn have room to roam. And that means bacon prices are likely to increase by as much as 50%. It was bad enough that Gavin Newsom was a gun-grabber and shut down churches but not strip clubs. But now he’s really done it. He’s messed with the price of bacon and where I come from, them are fighting words that’s a food fight for sure!

I felt pretty good that even liberals in CA would vote to get Gavin Newsom’s noose off their necks, but now I’m really confident. On September 14, voters will be able to tell Gavin Newsom not to let the door hit you where the good Lord split you!

Mike Huckabee

In a special election in Ohio’s 15th Congressional district, Trump-backed candidate Mike Carey beat 11 others for the Republican nomination, which in that red district pretty much means he’ll win the seat.

https://redstate.com/setonmotley/2021/08/05/oh-15-trumps-guy-wins-soros-and-steyers-guys-come-in-fourth-and-dnf-n421438

But the most interesting news is who didn’t win. At least two candidates described as “conservative environmentalists” were backed by leftist mega-donors George Soros and Tom Steyer. It was seen as a trial stealth effort to see if they could fool GOP voters into “flipping” a safe seat without realizing it.

It didn’t work: one candidate dropped out before the vote and the other came in fourth with 12.6%. But as Seton Motley at Redstate.com points out, Republicans now know that far-left power brokers are trying to meddle in GOP primaries to elect their candidates in red hats. It means from now on, Republicans will have to be even more careful to research the backgrounds of candidates before they mark their ballots.

Mike Huckabee

Here’s how you know you’re over the target: Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas wanted to know what her daughter was being taught in kindergarten, so she asked for a copy of the public school curriculum, which she has a right to see. For some reason, they refused to hand over the document. That made her suspicious, so she starting filing Freedom of Information Act requests for more documents. They fought those, and even tried to make her go away by billing her $74,000 for their alleged efforts at having to compile those documents.

Now, the powerful teachers’ union, the National Education Association-Rhode Island, has declared full-out war on Solas and is suing her, claiming they’re trying to protect “private” information. But the emails Solas is seeking were sent on public school servers, which makes them public record (anyone else getting a Hillary Clinton vibe here?) For the record, the NEA backs teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools and boasts that its president, Becky Pringle, is a “fierce social justice warrior.”

Bryan Preston at PJ Media has lots more details at this link:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/05/gigantic-teachers-union-sues-mom-for-asking-what-the-local-public-school-is-teaching-her-daughter-n1467245

If the intent was to try to intimidate Solas into backing down, it didn’t work. She’s now represented by the Goldwater Institute, and her response to the NEA lawsuit was, “Game on.” If they were trying to hide public information from FOIA requests, then they’re not going to enjoy the discovery phase of this lawsuit.

Sounds like the self-flattering “social justice warriors” are about to discover what a truly fierce warrior looks like. And by that, I mean a mom who’s being told that she has no right to know what’s being taught to her kid.

Mike Huckabee

A new Emerson College/Nexstar poll shows that Californians are warming to the idea of recalling and replacing Gov. Gavin Newsom.

https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/newsom-clings-to-lead-in-recall-while-crime-becomes-a-top-issue-for-ca-voters

Only 48% of likely voters now say they’d vote to keep Newsom with 46% wanting to fire him, his narrowest lead yet, and 6% undecided. Among Republican replacements, Larry Elder is by far the most popular, but 40% are still undecided.

Among the noteworthy details: Newsom is only in positive territory in two places (L.A. and the San Francisco Bay area) which you could argue have deteriorated the worst under his “leadership.” Over 54% of Independents want to deep-six Newsom, as do 22% of Democrats, while 16% of Republicans want to keep him, which I can only attribute to sunstroke or smoke inhalation. Oddest of all, voters who self-identify as “non-binary” gender prefer Larry Elder to Caitlyn Jenner. So maybe some people think not every election should be determined by gender politics. And in California! Imagine that!

Mike Huckabee

The New York Attorney General’s report on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s multiple accusations of sexual harassment (as well as retaliation and creating a toxic workplace) seems to be the tipping point at which fellow Democrats and sycophantic media members decided it’s time to stop circling the wagons, as they usually do for powerful Democrats, and cut him loose.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-facing-impeachment-votes-from-majority-of-ny-assembly-if-he-doesnt-resign-report

Cuomo is still trying to brazen it out, accusing the report of being biased and his accusers of misunderstanding his intentions. But even some of his former top allies and defenders say he’s lost the ability to govern and should resign. If he doesn’t, a majority of Assembly members (86 out of 150 at last count) have gone on record supporting impeachment.

Howard Kurtz has a rundown of some of the former Cuomo-worshipping media outlets that are now howling for his blood, and some thoughts on why.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-the-press-wants-cuomo-their-onetime-shining-knight-to-resign

To me, the biggest question is why sexual harassment allegations, as bad as they are, are accepted as grounds for Cuomo’s removal when the same people turned a blind eye to his insane COVID policies that killed thousands of nursing home residents and his staff’s ham-fisted attempts to cover that up. Is sexual harassment deemed a worse crime in liberal circles than causing mass deaths?

But if that were true, why did such avatars of wokeness as the founder of Time’s Up and the president of the Human Rights Campaign allegedly try to save Cuomo initially by helping to smear his accusers?

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/465953/

The editors of Issues & Insights think they know why Cuomo is suddenly being thrown under the crosstown bus, and it has little to do with justice, principles or victims’ rights. It’s about raw politics. Anything is tolerable until you become a liability to the party. Only then do they spring the trap door and drop you into the shark tank.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/05/the-real-reason-dems-suddenly-want-cuomo-gone/

Mike Huckabee

I wish we’d had this new information from the NEW YORK POST in time for yesterday's update on the flood of COVID-infected “noncitizens” –- illegals –- at the Texas border. (That story: the DOJ sued and obtained a temporary injunction against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order that curbed the federal government’s transportation of migrants from the border into Texas and beyond.) But here it is.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/04/thousands-of-covid-positive-migrants-pass-through-texas-border/

Nearly 7,000 immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19 --- out of the ones who WERE tested --- have passed through McAllen, Texas, including more than 1,500 in just the past seven days.

It wasn’t a big announcement, just one that was folded into a statement from the City of McAllen, population 140,000, announcing the construction of emergency shelters to help them cope with the overwhelming numbers of immigrants. On Monday, the buses Gov. Abbott is trying to stop were running constantly, dropping off passengers at a downtown Catholic charity every 30 minutes throughout the day. McAllen has declared a state of disaster.

https://therightscoop.com/breaking-mcallen-tx-declares-state-of-disaster-after-biden-dumped-1500-illegals-with-covid-last-week/

According to this story, July marked the highest number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the US-Mexico border in more than 20 years.

On Wednesday afternoon, a crash occurred about 50 miles north of McAllen on a remote Texas highway when a van carrying 25 people (!) --- but designed to carry no more than 15 --- turned over on a curve, killing 11 people and injuring at least a dozen others.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/11-dead-13-injured-in-crash-linked-to-human-smuggling-near-us-mexico-border-officials-say

Migrants continue to pour in, as Gov. Abbot has been ordered not to interfere, at least for now. After the temporary halt to his order, a spokesperson for his office said, “The governor’s Executive Order attempts to prevent the Biden administration from spreading COVID-19 into Texas and protect the health and safety of Texans.” The next hearing is scheduled for August 13.

Abbott’s spokesperson also said this: “The Biden administration has knowingly --- and willingly --- released COVID-19 positive migrants into Texas communities, risking the potential exposure and infection of Texas residents.”

And this brings us to what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday to President Biden, which is absolutely what needed to be said. Watch and learn; this is EXACTLY the way all Republicans need to fight back against the politics-driven idiocy being inflicted on our country right now by those in power. It makes no sense to talk about lockdowns when you’re allowing COVID-infected “noncitizens” to stream into the country as Biden is.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/florida-governor-desantis-biden-covid-restrictions

Biden had admonished Govs. DeSantis and Abbott for not doing “the right thing” to fight COVID. “Look, we need leadership from everyone,” he said. “If some governors aren’t willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic, they should allow businesses and universities who want to do the right thing to be able to do it.” Rational people are more at risk from busting a gut laughing at lines like this from Biden than they are from the coronavirus. I wonder how many infected people crossed into America at our southern border while Biden was giving his little speech.

DeSantis’ stand-up-and-cheer response to President Biden: “Why don’t you do your job? Why don’t you get this border secure? And until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you, thank you.”

DeSantis also appeared briefly on THE INGRAHAM ANGLE with Laura Ingraham Wednesday to talk about personal decisions regarding COVID, particularly regarding parents on issues that affect their kids, such as mask-wearing in school. He pointed out that last year, school districts in Florida that didn’t institute compulsory mask-wearing had lower rates of infection than those that did.

Mike Huckabee

“You Will Show Us Your Papers!” New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced that starting next month, proof of COVID vaccination will be required to engage in a range of indoor activities in the city, including dining, fitness, entertainment and others.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/08/03/de-blasio-announces-nyc-proof-of-vaccine-mandate-for-indoor-activities-n2593514

So having forcibly shut down businesses for months to stop the spread of COVID, he’s now going to allow the businesses to open but ban large numbers of potential customers from entering them -- to stop the spread of COVID. “Full enforcement” will begin on September 13th, marking perhaps the first time since taking office that DeBlasio has actually enforced something.

Since this makes no exceptions for people who had COVID and have natural immunity or who object on religious grounds, or who have been advised against vaccinations by their doctors, or who just have personal objections, it’s being described by critics as madness and tyranny. But New Yorkers should be used to that by now.

Incidentally, how will people prove they’ve been vaccinated? They’re required to show either their paper CDC vaccine record card or the New York City or State's vaccine record app. That means not only forcing people to make their private medical records public to strangers, but also forcing them to show a government-issued ID. And since blacks and Hispanics have declined vaccination in higher percentages than whites, and will be disproportionately affected by the policy, that means it’s straight-up racism under the Democrats’ own definition.

Mike Huckabee

For the last couple of days, we’ve been following Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s attempt to stop contractors hired by the federal government from transporting “noncitizens” (illegals) from the border to other parts of Texas, where those infected with COVID-19 can spread it throughout the state and beyond. The case was presented on Monday before the U.S. District Court in El Paso, and the feds won this round, obtaining a temporary restraining order against Abbott. LEGAL INSURRECTION has a very good analysis of what took place, by William A. Jacobson.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/court-issues-temporary-restraining-order-halting-texas-illegal-migrant-transport-ban/

Gov. Abbott had signed Executive Order GA-37 to minimize the “potentially catastrophic effect on public health in Texas” caused by the confluence of the migrant crisis and the pandemic. Texas was facing two surges at the same time: a COVID-19 surge and an illegal immigration surge, and he had to do something to protect the citizens of his state. There is precedent for his standing up to the federal government in such a situation, in the case of Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts: “Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.”

But the DOJ sued, claiming the Texas order infringed on federal control of immigration. Here are the details, also from William Jacobson, including the full texts of the order from Gov. Abbott, AG Garland’s complaint, and a letter sent by Abbott in response, helpfully suggesting some actions the Biden administration could take to avoid a “constitutional showdown.” But such a showdown seems to be exactly what they want.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/07/doj-sues-texas-to-continue-private-transport-of-illegal-migrants-despite-covid-risks/

One of those suggestions was to “simply enforce the existing federal immigration laws and stop admitting migrants who are not authorized by Congress to be admitted. That would substantially reduce the importation of COVID-19 while also fulfilling the government’s role to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.” Seems simple enough. Of course, we know that this is not President Biden’s goal at all, or he would do it.

“How much does the Biden administration love the illegal migration taking place at the southern border?” Jacobson asks. “Biden has encouraged people to come here illegally, and to send their children here illegally in dangerous conditions, by offering a de facto sanctuary nation. So important is protecting this migration to the Biden administration that it trumps the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.”

With that last sentence, Jacobson nails the reason for this whole mess: twisted, toxic politics. We see quite clearly what this administration's actual priorities are, and it’s infuriating. We’ve done our part for a year and a half with the masks and distancing and social isolation and kids at home and business-crushing lockdowns and now shots, only to see that those in charge, in the end, care nothing for our safety. That’s a strong statement, I know, but it’s obviously much more important to them to bus in illegal immigrants by the hundreds of thousands from a part of the world where the virus is rampant. Come on in, healthy or sick, the Biden administration tells its new “noncitizens”; Biden and his Justice Department want you here so much that they’re willing to let you spread the virus from sea to shining sea if you happen to be infected. They just know you’ll vote Democrat, and they want you to keep pouring in till the country is solid blue.

Jacobson finds the federal government’s argument presented Monday to be without merit. The U.S. government, he says, “seeks to judicially nullify GA-37 through a blunderbuss and sweeping application of preemption and intergovernmental immunity.”

[From Oxford Dictionaries –- blun-der-buss (noun) an action or way of doing something regarded as lacking in subtlety and precision: “economists resort too quickly to the blunderbuss of regulation”]

So Attorney General Merrick Garland is using a big ol' blunderbuss to keep Gov. Abbott from protecting the people of his state from the rampant spread of COVID-19. And so far, it’s working. A DOJ lawyer argued that Abbott’s order would disrupt a network of government-paid contractors transporting migrants and cause a backup --- “chaos.” You know what’s already causing chaos? Biden’s border policy.

The next step now is for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to file responsive papers, in which he’ll acknowledge that, yes, the feds control immigration but will then argue that their non-enforcement of federal law is creating a health crisis in Texas. This is not an attempt to regulate immigration but to regulate public health during a pandemic. Also, the reasoning goes, there is no infringement on federal immigration because Texas isn’t deporting people. To put it another way, they’re just “stopping the spread,” as we can’t stop the spread of COVID without stopping the spread of migrants who carry it.

In a statement on July 30, Paxton accused the Biden administration of abandoning its duty to safeguard the border and vowed to protect Gov. Abbott’s executive order in court. He says he and the governor “will work together to keep President Biden out of Texas’ business.” We should all count ourselves as Texans in spirit today.

The temporary restraining order goes until 8AM on August 13, “or until such later date as may be extended by the Court or agreed upon by the parties.” That's the specific date and time set for the hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction against Gov. Abbott’s order. In the meantime, presumably the buses will continue to run.

Jacobson agrees that Biden’s malfeasance is “outrageous,” but he says Texas still has “an uphill fight.”

Mike Huckabee

To the surprise of many, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, the first transgender Olympic athlete to compete in women’s events, flamed out and lost to weightlifters who were, you know…actually born female.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/08/02/heres-how-that-transgender-weightlifter-fared-at-the-olympics-n420030

As the article at Redstate.com notes, defenders of allowing biological males who’ve “transitioned” to compete against women will treat Hubbard’s failure as evidence that they have no unfair physical advantage. But there were two major factors in this case that worked to counter Hubbard’s unfair advantage. The first is age: Hubbard didn’t start taking female hormones until the age of 34 and is now 43, by far the oldest person in the competition.

The second is that weightlifters don’t all lift the same weight. They choose how much they’ll lift with the total of three lifts comprising their scores. By attempting to lift 120 kg (264.5 lbs.), 125 kg (275.5 lbs.) and 120 kg (failing on the first and third lifts), Hubbard tried to lift too much weight. I hope she didn't give herself a hernia. Some might attribute this to “male ego,” but I’m sure that was surgically removed.

Frankly, Hubbard’s loss was the best thing that could have happened to the transgender movement. Imagine how it would have looked on TV to millions of viewers if Hubbard had cleanly lifted so much weight, then stood there towering over the competition and accepting the gold.

Also as noted, Hubbard still got lots of adulatory press coverage for “making history” while the actual winners of the event were completely overlooked. None of the stories that I saw that fawned over Hubbard’s “accomplishment” even mentioned the winners. I had to do a Google search and dig deep into the Olympics website to discover that the gold went to China’s Li Wenwen, the silver to Great Britain’s Emily Jade Campbell and the bronze to American Sarah Elizabeth Robles. Congratulations, ladies: you’re the ones who made Olympic history.

Mike Huckabee

Monday, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report that the preponderance of evidence, including recently uncovered evidence, points to COVID-19 being accidentally released from the virus lab in Wuhan, China, sometime before September 12, 2019.

https://gop-foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/mccaul-releases-addendum-to-origins-of-covid-19-report/

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul said the Wuhan virologists were “playing with fire. They were genetically manipulating at the lab this gain-of-function that was taking place." McCaul called for top researchers involved with the Wuhan lab to be sanctioned and for Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliances that sent $3.4 million in NIH grants to the Wuhan lab, to be called to testify before Congress.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-lab-report-raises-further-questions-about-possible-covid-19-lab-leak

McCaul also accused the Chinese Communist Party of engaging in “the greatest cover-up in human history.” I don’t know if there’s an award ceremony for that, but if so, I hope the CCP remembers to thank all the US-based social media sites that made their win possible.

Mike Huckabee

When the Supreme Court pulled a right to same-sex marriage out of the air, it created a legal hornet’s nest that pitted their newly-created right against the clearly-enumerated religious freedom rights of the First Amendment. Almost overnight, LGBTQ activists went from arguing that legalizing same-sex marriage would have no effect on Christians who oppose it to launching lawsuits to destroy Christian-owned businesses that declined to participate in same-sex weddings. In its original ruling, the SCOTUS voiced some empty words about respecting others' beliefs, but created a cloud of confusion that opened the door to religious persecution.

They had a chance to correct it when they got the case of Colorado Christian cake artist Jack Phillips, who has been hounded for years by lawsuits for declining to take jobs creating gay wedding cakes. But again, the SCOTUS punted and refused to clarify that First Amendment rights are supreme. So Phillips continues to be targeted with malicious lawsuits. And now, the SCOTUS’ creative rights-making and general dithering has resulted in yet another injustice, and from the same state and the same politicized and vindictive state officials they already had to reprimand before.

https://www.westernjournal.com/judges-rule-christian-web-designers-beliefs-not-supersede-colorado-law-refuses-promote-gay-marriage/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Once again, a federal court has sided with Colorado officials who are ordering Christian web designer Lorie Smith to take jobs designing same-sex wedding websites or else face serious legal consequences. In a 2-1 ruling, the court said Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination law is a “neutral law of general applicability” and can therefore compel Smith to promote speech that violates her religious beliefs. But the dissenting judge called the ruling “unprecedented,” and said, “This case illustrates exactly why we have a First Amendment.”

Exactly. So how many more Christian business owners are going to have their lives, businesses and finances ruined before the Supreme Court finally does its job, cleans up the mess it’s created, and affirms the supremacy of the First Amendment?

Mike Huckabee

One common refrain over the weekend, in podcasts and on the radio, was that “there just isn’t anything to talk about right now!” What, are they kidding?

Here’s a story, for example, that probably hasn’t been talked about much (yet) outside the Lone Star State, but it has to do with vitally important issues of states’ rights, balance of power, federal sovereignty, illegal immigration and public health. The federal government is trying to stop Gov. Abbott from restricting the ground transportation of illegal border-crossers within his state, as he did with an order filed last Wednesday. And Abbott has responded in writing that the Biden administration has “created a constitutional crisis between the federal government and the State of Texas.”

It sure is looking that way. According to Biden’s DOJ, “In our constitutional system, a State has no right to regulate the federal government’s operations.” Even when those operations are affecting the health and safety of people in that state? We’ll see about that.

Biden’s disastrous border policies have been leading up to this moment, but the final straw was when Attorney General Merrick Garland, who apparently is so disappointed at not becoming a Supreme Court that he’s decided to act like one, filed a restraining order in U.S. District Court, the Western District of Texas in El Paso, on Friday afternoon to stop Gov. Abbott’s order. We went to THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, definitely not a conservative newspaper, to see how a local paper reported this development. To their credit, it’s pretty straightforward.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-sues-texas-over-abbott-e2-80-99s-order-restricting-transport-of-migrants/ar-AAMLxcD?ocid=uxbndlbing

The state attorney general has filed five immigration-related lawsuits against the Biden administration. But AG Garland’s suit alleges that this order by Gov. Abbott “violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that federal laws take precedence over state laws.” Oh, really? I would imagine that many Texans would have a big problem with that, considering that Biden’s border policies are putting the lives and property of Texans near the border at serious risk.

But never mind those Texans --- Garland’s suit argues that the governor’s order causes injury to individuals whom the U.S. is charged to protect (yes, he’s talking about the migrants, not the Texans), “jeopardizing the health and safety of noncitizens in federal custody, risking the safety of federal law enforcement personnel and their families, and exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.”

What? If anything is exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, it’s the steady stream of illegal, potentially infected border-crossers into Texas and other border states.

But Garland called Gov. Abbott’s order “both dangerous and unlawful.”

Let’s turn Garland’s argument around and word it so it actually makes sense from Gov. Abbott’s point of view: Biden’s border policy causes injury to American citizens who reside in Texas, particularly near the border, whom the U.S. is charged to protect. By allowing covid-infected individuals and members of violent drug cartels –- and who knows who else? –- to cross into Texas, they jeopardize the health and safety of American citizens (Texas residents and their families), risk the safety of federal and state law enforcement personnel, and exacerbate the spread of COVID-19 in Texas communities.

Abbott accuses the Biden administration of exposing Texas to COVID-19 (true) and “creating a public health disaster in Texas.”

I would add that letting thousands of untested, unvaccinated and largely unmasked people cross illegally into Texas makes it a lot harder for rational people to take the government’s warnings about the virus seriously. COVID-19 and its variants are either still very dangerous, or they’re not. If they are, then why are hundreds of thousands of people from around the world allowed to stream into our country through our southern border? This makes absolutely no sense, except perhaps in Joe Biden’s brain.

Abbott’s executive order, which took effect on Wednesday, ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to detain vehicles that were transporting migrants after their detention by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and reroute them to their point of origin or entry.

Attorneys and “immigration nonprofits” jumped all over this order as unconstitutional. But Abbott responded that he has legal authority to do it under “long-established emergency response laws to control the movement of people to better contain the spread of a disaster, such as those known to have COVID-19.”

Abbott’s order certainly plays heck with the government’s logistics for transporting “noncitizens” (the nice vanilla word now used by the feds to encompass illegals), as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are designed only for short-term holding, and with people pouring as fast as they are, they have to keep folks moving...somewhere else. In just the Rio Grande Valley, CBP in the fiscal year to date has used contractors to transport about 120,000 (!) “noncitizens” hither and yon. Your tax dollars at work.

The “noncitizens” are transferred to another federal agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), except for unaccompanied children, who are taken to Health and Human Services. It is then that “other non-governmental agencies” do COVID-19 testing along with what Garland suit describes as “safe placement and quarantine.” Sarcasm alert: I’m sure it’s all very safe and the virus doesn’t spread at all.

The numbers quoted in the DALLAS MORNING NEWS report are quite staggering. Just Thursday, nearly 2,300 unaccompanied minors were put in custody of the Border Patrol. This fiscal year, about 95,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended. Detention facilities can hold only so many. It’s clear that if Texas doesn’t play nicely with the Biden administration and cooperate fully with their master plan for spreading new “noncitizens” throughout the country, the feds will face a logistical nightmare. That’s the argument being used by many to get Gov. Abbott to reconsider and cooperate.

We all know there’s another solution to this logistical nightmare: stop letting people stream across the doggone border. Close up the gaps in the wall and stop the flow NOW. But that won't happen.

A story in the DAILY CALLER has more details. The DOJ suit also claims that in dealing with the contractors the feds are using to transport “noncitizens,” Abbott’s order allegedly interferes with nongovernmental partners and contractors working with the federal government and the “administration of federal immigration law.” It also said that the order obstructs Congress, since Congress is charged with crafting immigration law.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/30/biden-doj-sues-texas-greg-abbott-migrant-transportation/

If that’s the case, then Texas or any state is at the mercy of any federal law having anything to do with immigration, no matter how damaging it might be. Abbott could be right: this might be a constitutional crisis.

And so far, he's not blinking. Garland has warned him that if his order is not rescinded immediately, then the United States “intends to pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.” It occurs to me that this is the strong-arm approach he’s taking with state legislatures that want to run and audit their own elections, as they are constitutionally entitled to do.

Mike Huckabee

The Biden White House is furious at the New York Times and the Washington Post for tweeting what they claim is false information about the risk of COVID infection among the vaccinated and their likelihood of spreading it. Details here:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/white-house-washington-post-new-york-times-covid-spread-vaccinated

Can I just point out that it’s no wonder the public is skeptical of government claims about COVID and vaccines? What does it say when the Administration’s messages are so mixed and confused that not even their court stenographers can get the official version straight?

Speaking of which…

https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/30/white-house-walks-back-biden-statement-that-national-vaccine-mandate-is-under-consideration/

And Matt Taibbi shows how vaccine skepticism is not a new phenomenon but the latest manifestation of the long term out-of-touch arrogance and doubletalk of the elites.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/smug-dems-have-only-selves-to-blame-for-vaccine-hesitancy/

Mike Huckabee

Thanks to all who wrote concerning the story of the father whose son has been "detained" for months after the Capitol breach and our follow-up concerning a letter critical of the dad. Here's one we found particularly insightful and would like to highlight, from Terry...

Dear Gov. Huckabee:

First of all, I am extremely grateful for your daily newsletters, which are a primary source of news for me, as well as for your TV show that provides a variety unmatched in that medium.

I'm moved to write concerning what is being said about the events of January 6 by people on both ends of the spectrum who seemingly value inflammatory hyperbole over rational discussion of what actually happened. Your own remarks have consistently been even-handed and well thought out, it seems to me.

Conservatives are wearily accustomed to the distortions and outright falsehoods voiced by people like the chair of the Joint Chiefs and the Capitol Police officer who testified this week before the House committee. As onerous as those remarks are to us, some statements I've seen in your reader comments bother me almost as much. They amount to heaping fuel on the fire that the left wants to keep burning. The criticism leveled at the letter from the detainee's father was to me excessive and uncalled for.

Believing in an unrealistic and idealized view of Jan 6 is certainly their prerogative, but conservatives who do so need to realize the grave harm still being done to the movement they purport to represent.

This response is somewhat lengthy I know so I will end here. Once again, thanks for providing a forum for rational discussion.

Terry Allen

Pekin, IL

Dear Terry:

Thank you so much for writing. This is a point we've been trying to make ever since the event took place. It's easy to understand why Trump supporters were fed up --- especially after even the Supreme Court refused to look at evidence --- and why some of them were ready to blow and desperately wanted to make a statement, but to understand this is not the same as approving of it or defending it.

The way they chose to make their statement caused tremendous long-term harm to conservatives, by playing right into the left's hands. We should know by now how the left will twist whatever they can to further their own narrative, which in this case was that Trump supporters are crazy right-wing "insurrectionists" who want to "subvert democracy." Conservatives attended that rally because they want to PROTECT democracy. Think that case ended up being made? No, it did not.

Letters such as yours might help more conservatives see that we have to not just fight, but FIGHT SMART. Thanks again.

Mike Huckabee

The only good thing I can say about Attorney General Merrick Garland and his stewardship of the Biden “Justice” Department is that at least he’s not a Supreme Court Justice. During his brief time in office, he’s obliterated any sense of the DOJ as a fair and impartial arbiter of laws and the Constitution and is rapidly turning it into the kind of politicized enforcement arm of the President that we normally see in banana republics.

Here are just a few recent stories out of the DOJ:

They’re threatening states that conduct ballot audits…

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/28/doj-warning-election-ballot-reviews-501295

They’re threatening states that pass laws to safeguard election integrity…

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-sets-stage-permanently-destroy-election-integrity-ensure-gop-never-wins/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

They’re suing Texas because Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to stop the feds from transporting COVID-positive illegal immigrants around the state. Imagine if this Administration went to this much effort to keep COVID-positive illegal immigrants out in the first place...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/doj-sues-texas-gov-abbott-over-the-governor-s-executive-order-on-migrant-transportation

They dropped charges against five suspected Chinese spies while hounding Trump supporters like Inspector Javert…

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/07/26/doj-drops-charges-against-5-possible-chinese-spies-as-fbi-focuses-on-january-6-n1464726

They declared vaccine mandates legal, even while admitting that some legal scholars say they’re not…

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-vaccine-mandates-legal

And now (surprise!), the Biden DOJ has ordered the IRS to turn over former President Trump’s personal income tax records to his rabid haters in Congress for them to fish through.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-orders-irs-release-trumps-tax-returns/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

The DOJ memo said, “Executive Branch officials must apply a presumption that Legislative Branch officials act in good faith and in furtherance of legitimate objectives.”

So I’ll give Biden’s and Garland’s “Justice” Department this: they may no longer be providing justice, but at least they’re trying to give us some much-needed laughter.

Mike Huckabee

Thursday, President Biden held a press conference where he promised to give us the straight facts about COVID-19 and vaccinations. To say the least, many were skeptical of that.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/07/29/joe-biden-loses-it-calls-fox-fax-snaps-at-peter-doocy-and-wrecks-his-own-argument-on-masks-n418622

The big takeaways from Biden’s speech were that Americans should get vaccinated, and he would require civilian federal workers to “attest” that they’ve been vaccinated or wear masks and undergo regular tests and travel restrictions. He also encouraged local governments to use leftover COVID relief funds to pay $100 to people who get vaccinated.

(Just as an aside: isn't making people prove they're vaccinated a form of requiring ID? And since blacks and Hispanics are less likely than whites not to be vaccinated, that would mean it's an ID requirement that disproportionately affects minorities, or as the Democrats call that, "RAAAAAAACISM!!!" But I digress...)

Many critics are taking this as a sign that the government is ramping up for tighter restrictions and even more lockdowns over a spike in cases that’s not that high and that isn’t accompanied by a big increase in deaths because the Delta variant isn’t as dangerous. All this paranoia, and the DOJ’s dubious ruling that it’s legal for companies to require workers to get vaccinated, is sparking big companies like Google, Twitter, Netflix and Facebook to require their employees to get vaccinated.

(Some legal scholars question the DOJ’s reasoning, arguing that the Geneva Convention recognizes the right to refuse to have experimental drugs injected into your body against your will, and the vaccines have received only emergency use authorization by the FDA. Please note that I’m not discouraging vaccination – I’ve been vaccinated myself – I’m just talking about other people’s right to say no.)

I expect quite a bit of pushback even from government workers (the postal union already is rebelling), and even more if they try to use COVID to hang onto the abusive power the government seized last year.

Meanwhile, Mark Theissen in the Washington Post (surprisingly) helped put this pandemic/”Dem panic” into perspective by pointing out, using the CDC’s own numbers, that only 4,072 vaccinated Americans have been hospitalized with symptoms out of 161 million, for a breakthrough infection rate of less than 0.003%. Of those hospitalized, 849 have died, for a death rate of 0.0005%. The median age of those hospitalized with breakthrough infections was 74, and an Israeli study found that only 4% of those hospitalized with breakthrough infections had no comorbidities.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/07/29/joe-sacrifices-military-readiness-and-freedom-over-stats-showing-vaxxed-people-are-more-likely-to-die-from-bee-sting-than-covid-n1465668

For comparison, that means that if you’ve been vaccinated, you are less likely to die of COVID than from a car crash; seasonal flu; a lightning strike; choking on food; sunstroke; drowning; a dog attack; or being stung by a bee. Yet some people want to bring back draconian pandemic measures.

Somehow, I get the feeling we're all being stung.

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.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

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.

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.

Mike Huckabee

Nancy Pelosi’s embarrassingly political “January 6 commission” is underway as planned. (Was there ever any doubt that she wouldn’t go through with this carefully staged farce and take great delight in it?) Her handpicked “commission” purports to “find the truth,” but her search for truth is like looking for your misplaced glasses way over in the corner of another room because the light is better in there. Where she’s looking, she’s guaranteed to miss a big part of the truth, and that is on purpose. But we do get to see Adam Schiff cry.

Those who really want the truth surrounding the Capitol breach –- and Pelosi’s role in letting it happen –- are going to be kept in the dark.

There’s a more personal story, too, that this charade is going to miss. Part of it was reflected in a letter we ran a couple of days ago from retired Army staff sergeant Joe Biggs, a man who was arrested after peaceably entering the Capitol Building and who, after three months, is still being held without bail in a Florida jail in what he describes as extremely poor conditions. Then, yesterday, we received a similar letter from a reader of this newsletter, whose son is also one of those incarcerated, this one in Washington, DC. What this father told us will touch your heart...

Dear Gov. Huckabee:

My son Alan Byerly is in DC Correctional. Did not enter Capitol Building, but had a confrontation with a reporter and policemen. But the charges are much greater [than what] was done. I do not know exactly what happened, because phones being monitored in jail.

Most Jan. 6th folks are somewhere else; there are only two in this jail. When they first arrived, the population (mostly black) thought they were pedophiles, and that is very dangerous, to be one in jail (where did they get that idea?). Anyway, Alan spoke up the next day and told them who they were, and things simmered down, although most were not happy about them being Trump supporters. He has not had a bail hearing in DC yet and expects that bail will be denied.

Greg Kelly on 7/22/21 reported on the mistreatment of Jan. 6 people –- Alan was mentioned in that list of folks he read out. I guess if you are a Democrat, you can burn a city or burn a federal building with agents inside; you may get arrested but will be out the next day without bail.

Sorry I had to vent. Since Alan was saved, he is not the same as he was...What he did was wrong, and he’s sorry for what he did. Thank you for the opportunity to express my frustration. Good bless you and yours.

………………

We looked for the Greg Kelly report and found a write-up on it by THE GATEWAY PUNDIT. Kelly read out the names and showed pictures of all who have been arrested and held in “pretrial detention” without bail. Their trials might not even begin till next year, so these detainees (Kelly’s apt term was “political prisoners”) could be spending 23 hours out of every 24 in a small cell, even denied private conversations with their attorneys, until 2022. Unbelievable.

As Kelly reported, over 500 Americans were arrested, and dozens have spent the past six months in solitary confinement, some of them for simply walking into an unsecured building, unaware that there was violence going on in another area. (Alan apparently didn’t even go inside; we still don’t know the details of his confrontation outside.)

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/bravo-greg-kelly-airs-photos-jan-6-political-prisoners-still-gulag-without-trial-video/

And now, as part of the politics surrounding this “commission,” everyone who even peripherally took part has been labeled a domestic terrorist and white supremacist, though no one was armed and race had nothing to do with it. The crackdown is happening step-by-step; for example, in Florida, the agriculture commissioner, Democrat Nikki Fried, has moved to suspend the concealed-carry licenses of 22 people who were charged in connection to the Capitol breach. In her words, “The deeply disturbing events that occurred at our nation’s Capitol on January 6 were sedition, treason, and domestic terrorism –- and those individuals involved in the insurrection must be held accountable for attempting to subvert our democratic process.”

That’s odd; I thought our democratic process included such basic concepts as “innocent until proven guilty.”

But never mind the Constitution –- this is politics, Fried blamed Trump, and she happens to be one of the top two candidates for the Democrat nomination for Florida governor, trying to unseat Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. She did this to rally the Democrats...around herself. And since when do Democrats care about the constitutional rights of Trump supporters?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/565096-florida-democratic-official-suspends-concealed-carry-permits-for-22-people

I’ve made my disapproval of what happened at the Capitol crystal clear. It was a stupid stunt that led to the death of an unarmed woman and caused tremendous, lasting political damage to the conservative cause. (That’s true even if the FBI had a role in encouraging it, which is another aspect of this story that won’t be addressed by Pelosi’s “commission.”) The comments by Fried, above, illustrate just how it played right into the hands of Democrats itching to tar Trump and his supporters as insurrectionists.

Whenever possible, even when it doesn’t make sense, Trump support will be linked by Democrats with race and white supremacy. It doesn’t matter that they made it up. Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University Eddie Glaude, Jr., appeared on MSNBC to respond to what he’d heard on Day 1 of Nancy’s “commission,” saying how “moved” he was by the “powerful testimony.” He said that “this is in some ways a white mob arguing for a white nation.”

If you’re mystified as to where he got this idea, I’ll try to explain. Those who are contesting the election process are doing so in black-majority cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta. So if you challenge the results in those places, it means you are against black people. Um, got that?

He says that, given our nation’s history of inequality, a third of America is “still in the soil of our American republic. It has not been excavated in a way to to remove the poison of it.” That’s right, we, as conservative Trump supporters, are poisoned with racism. The only solution: excavation, removal.

“And Donald Trump,” he said, “give Donald Trump credit for one thing. Donald Trump recognized that when he came down the escalator.”

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/07/28/professor-calls-jan-6-protesters-a-white-mob-arguing-for-a-white-nation-1109983/

This is all political theater at its worst. Sadly, “detainees” such as Joe and Alan are being used as props. Yes, some of them were confrontational and might deserve to be charged with something, though not held without bail for months on end. Yet all have been branded domestic terrorists and white supremacists when all they might have done was walk peacefully into our nation’s Capitol –- a public building –- take a selfie and ask where the restroom was.

Please pray for Alan’s father, as he watches helplessly while his son is caught in what is obviously a two-tiered justice system.

For more on our "Two-Tiered Justice System" go here>>>

Mike Huckabee

Robin DiAngelo, the white lady who’s made a fat living off of peddling woke racial divisiveness and cringing white liberal guilt to corporations and the media via her absurd book “White Fragility,” must know how many people, including some professional comedians (although not late night hosts, of course) are starting to shake off their fear of cancel culture and make fun of her nonsense. You can tell because she’s now declared comedy itself to be racist.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-fragility-author-comedy-excuse-racist

I’m not going to recount what passes for her “reasoning,” because it was painful enough just having to slog through it once. But you can read it at the link. It might remind you of the classic scene in Mel Brooks’ “History of the World” where he’s a Greek philosopher applying for unemployment, and the clerk (Bea Arthur) says, “Oh, you’re a bull-BLEEP artist,” and asks, “Did you bull-BLEEP last week?...Did you TRY to bull-BLEEP?...” No wonder she hates comedy: Mel Brooks has already summed up her profession perfectly.

You won’t be surprised to learn that this tidbit of self-interest disguised as high-mindedness came in an interview promoting her new book, "Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm." Finally, she said something we can all agree with!

Comedy is essential to free speech and free thought. Since the days when court jesters were the only ones allowed to joke about the king, it’s been the job of comedians to mock the foibles and hypocrisies of all sides, especially those in power. They perform the vital service of pointing out when the emperor has no clothes. That’s why tyrants always try to crack down on comedy, and why victims of oppressive regimes always have plenty of jokes about their leaders that they only tell amongst themselves. Here in America, we tell those jokes out in the open. Or at least we used to (I refused to stop), and I hope we’re finally getting back to doing it again.

For the record: no, Ms DiAngelo, I will not stop joking about things that richly deserve it, and if that includes certain politicians or celebrities who happen to be black, then so be it. Claiming as she does that it’s racist for white people to joke about black people is itself racist and condescending. The shows she criticizes (“Family Guy,” “South Park,” “The Simpsons”) often include jokes that are offensive to my sensibilities, but I’d never say they shouldn’t be allowed to make them. They can make fun of my beliefs, and I can make fun of theirs. And fortunately, since MsDiAngelo is white, she should have no objections to all of us making fun of her beliefs, which are a veritable Mother Lode of comedy material.

Mike Huckabee

Demonstrating the priorities of our “intelligence” and “justice” agencies, just as actual violent, anarchist rioters are being released without charges, Biden’s DOJ has dropped the investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s part in putting COVID patients in nursing homes with deadly results.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cuomo-still-faces-a-doj-investigation-e2-80-94-but-the-real-action-is-the-state-ag-e2-80-99s-probe/ar-AAMAu4f

The DOJ has also dropped charges against five Chinese scientists who hid their involvement with the Chinese military to obtain work visas at American universities.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/07/26/doj-drops-charges-against-5-possible-chinese-spies-as-fbi-focuses-on-january-6-n1464726

Meanwhile, they are focusing hard on investigating and prosecuting the daylights out of the real threat to America: everyone who entered the Capitol on January 6th, even if they just stepped through the open door to take a selfie or use the bathroom.

Related: Cuomo dismissed the now-dropped DOJ investigation of his nursing home policies as “toxic politics” (funny, I reserve the word “toxic” for things that actually kill people, like forcing nursing homes to take in COVID patients.) He’s now showing his COVID-fighting bona fides by declaring that government reps should knock on doors, put unvaccinated people in cars and drive them to get vaccines. If they were forced into a car with a driver who had COVID, that would sound like an Andrew Cuomo plan.

https://www.westernjournal.com/cuomo-says-knock-doors-put-people-cars-drive-get-covid-vaccine/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Four Republican members of Congress --- Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar --- walked to the doorstep of the Department of “Justice” headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue at midday Tuesday to express their concerns about treatment of those jailed for participating in the Capitol Hill “breach” on January 6. They had serious unanswered questions for Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The doors of the DOJ building were closed to them. The members of Congress were not allowed inside.

But guess what happened? Some leftist protesters showed up who seemed to take their inspiration from January 6th. No doubt the only reason they didn’t “breach” the DOJ headquarters themselves is that the doors had been shut to keep out the Republicans. Would those leftist protesters have been tossed into sweaty jail cells and held without bail for three months (and counting)? I think we know the answer to that question.

It was only a matter of minutes before the four Republicans speaking outside the entrance were swarmed by leftist protesters, one of them incessantly blowing a shrill whistle to keep them from being heard from their podium.

The Right Side Broadcasting Network aired their press conference live, not knowing, of course, what it was going to turn into. So now we can see from their recording the lengths to which intolerant, idiotic leftist protesters will go to shut down attempts at reasoned discussion. Video starts about 30 minutes before the press conference begins, but this time is used by reporter Liz Willis to read the letter to AG Garland and give some background, detailing some truly horrific allegations of beatings and denial of sleep and medical care.

Note: their video was removed from YouTube, but as far as we know, you’ll still be able to see it in its entirety here. If sometime between this writing and your attempted viewing it has been taken down, C-Span should have it.

https://rsbnetwork.com/video/live-reps-gaetz-gohmert-gosar-and-greene-press-conference-on-status-of-jan-6-prisoners-at-doj-7-27-21/

As soon as Greene took to the podium and started asking substantive questions, the loud, piercing whistle started, and it never let up. “We’re here standing up for due process,” Gohmert said as the whistle shrieked nonstop. Gohmert is a former defense attorney and Texas district judge, so fighting for due process and other basic civil rights has been an integral part of his career. He said that when he was a judge, he used to make unannounced visits to jails to make sure the conditions weren’t abusive.

Matt Gaetz spoke through the whistle as well, pointing out that Antifa “set fire to this country for months” when law enforcement didn’t seem to be concerned about that.

Rep. Gosar (yes, through the interminable whistle) called for all 1400 hours of security tapes from that day at the Capitol Building to be released and for all those taken into custody to have their due process rights respected.

Leftist protesters edged closer and started circling, to the concern of staffers and security personnel. To interrupt the press conference, they simply invaded, walking right up to the podium area and causing participants to scatter.

I hope you will listen through the headache-inducing whistle; they used this appalling tactic it to try to keep anyone from hearing. As it went on, they also used drums, horns and other instruments along with the whistle to prevent the members of Congress from speaking. They did manage to speak for about 15 minutes, mostly to stress that they were there to get answers concerning January 6.

As THE EPOCH TIMES has reported, “According to numerous reports, January 6 inmates have been beaten, held in solitary confinement, and denied access to evidence about their own cases.” The attorney general should provide thorough answers to questions on this, but he has responded with silence for months.

“To the guy who’s blowing the whistle, we are not deterred,” Taylor Greene finally said. They were there to ask questions, she said. It was at that point that the leftists stormed the podium and created a situation that made them have to leave. Cars were blocking traffic, and a loud band with crashing cymbals played as well.

As it turned out, the loud whistle-blower interrupting the speeches was standing directly behind the reporter and refused to stop when he was asked. She said after the event that her ears were still ringing. That’s “the intolerant left,” she said. “You’re being censored if you’re a conservative,” she said.

I would encourage you to watch the entire video, as there are some great comments from onlookers after the event ended. “These savages, they belong in jail,” said one onlooker after the speakers dispersed. She called for an investigation of what Nancy Pelosi knew about plans for the Capitol breach before it happened.

Another bystander called for interested persons to contact their representatives for an appointment to tour jail facilities where detainees were being held. She said that in one facility, the temperature had reached 114 degrees. We would add that during the winter it was freezing --- that’s how long these people have been detained! There have been reports of beatings, and of at least one detainee losing an eye in one.

THE EPOCH TIMES has a “premium” report of today’s event.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/leftist-protestors-interrupt-gop-lawmakers-inquiring-into-treatment-of-jan-6-prisoners_3921206.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-07-27-3&mktids=e8a6c285787e5b6b98f4a01dfe90b148&est=VWnwVhRU%2FPjJCAPvbXUOKiirZjUjkhSFCvTHBImWZLxe7RMBoLOSvnGNmKxNvSZkSG3xVA%3D%3D

On the same day this happened, the hearings called for by Speaker Nancy Pelosi into the events of January 6 began, with an extremely dramatic depiction of what happened from the point of view of the Capitol Hill police. Republican committee member Adam Kinzinger of Illinois got all choked up. California Rep. Adam Schiff also appeared to weep at one point (right), and a staff member was handing out Kleenex. Tucker Carlson had a field day with this on Tuesday night.

https://mediarightnews.com/tucker-carlson-mocks-emotionally-fragile-adam-kinzinger-and-adam-schiff-for-weeping-during-jan-6-hearing/

Here are more highlights –- or perhaps I should say lowlights.

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/pelosis-sham-hearings-on-jan-6-capitol-protest-are-even-more-staged-and-nauseating-than-expected/

We'll have more on this as it unfolds. If only it could be a nonpartisan attempt at fact-finding, but it won’t be. Recall that Pelosi rejected two of the Republican choices for committee members (a first), Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana. Pelosi says the “bipartisan” panel “will pursue the truth,” but I have no confidence that it will do so, as that is not its purpose

A real investigation would do what that bystander at DOJ headquarters suggested: find out what Pelosi herself knew and why she didn’t order even the barest security, when President Trump had offered her the National Guard and essentially anything she wanted. We also deserve to know more about the killing of Ashli Babbitt, but what do you think are the odds of that?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/police-officers-offer-harrowing-accounts-at-first-jan-6-panel-hearing_3920968.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-07-27-3&mktids=e8a6c285787e5b6b98f4a01dfe90b148&est=temtjr12Hlmkjye3KyC%2BgFfzhYWQD7AU7gXIHFdam2Qmd26R%2FqZ%2B%2BEYljrLLp69H4av8VA%3D%3D

Mike Huckabee

Expressway shootings in Chicago are surging, with two on the same day last week, bringing the total to 137 just so far this year. There were 52 in all of 2019 and 128 in 2020.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-expressway-shootings-surge#&_intcmp=hp1bt1

Of course, the roadways aren’t the only dangerous places to be in Chicago. Over the weekend, 70 people were shot and 12 killed. Last weekend, 56 were shot and 11 killed. The details are here, and they're heartbreaking.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-expressway-shootings-surge#&_intcmp=hp1bt1

The state police got a $12.5 million state grant in February for automated license plate readers, software and specialized cameras to help fight the expressway shootings, but they haven’t been installed yet. Meanwhile, Democrats like President Biden continue to blame the problem on gun dealers who don’t run background checks, as if criminals buy their guns from legal gun dealers. Or maybe the guns just go around firing themselves.

Or maybe, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot suggested, it’s all due to racism and is Trump’s fault. That’s why she rejected his offer of federal troops to help, but is now begging Biden for them. I guess she assumed the shooting victims prior to January 20, 2021, would rather have been shot than accept Trump's help.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/07/09/hypocrite-after-rejecting-help-from-trump-lightfoot-asks-biden-to-send-federal-troops-to-chicago-n1460609

If you’d like to read about all the “nuances” of the argument over why Chicago is so bloody and whether it’s due to the “defund the police” movement (Mayor Lightfoot has proposed cutting nearly $59 million from the police budget), here’s everything you might ever want to know from NBC News:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chicago-crime-complicated-truth-behind-defund-police-efforts-n1231381

On the other hand, since Democrats always insist we have to get to the “root cause” of crime, okay, here’s your root ball: thanks to the city’s leadership driving cops to quit, they’re now outnumbered up to 10-1 by gang members. Gangs commit about two-thirds of all the murders in Chicago, and thanks to the corrupt city government, gang leaders enjoy a great deal of protection from the police.

https://lettersfromflyovercountry.com/urban-criminal-gangs-in-the-civil-war-to-come-210/

And this all grows out of one big root: Chicago’s last Republican Mayor left office in 1931.

Mike Huckabee

Congratulations to the US swim team, which has already won eight medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including a record six on the first day.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/us-swimmers-win-8-medals-historic-6-sunday

It’s a shame that the accomplishments of so many great young Americans are being overshadowed by the anti-American political grandstanding of a handful of ingrates. But it appears that the squeaky wheels have soured a lot of people on watching the Summer Games. The opening ceremony pulled only 17 million US viewers across all viewing platforms, the lowest numbers in 33 years. By comparison, the 2016 Rio Games opener attracted 26.5 million viewers.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/tokyo-olympics-opening-sees-33-year-low-tv-viewership-167-million-us-viewers

In a sign of how much the knee-taking and bad-mouthing of America and its flag and anthem have turned off viewers, many are saying online that for the first time ever, they’re rooting against certain US teams, such as women’s soccer and basketball. The women’s soccer team kicked off with a 3-0 skunking by Sweden, and the US men’s basketball team, filled with NBA pros, snapped its 17-year, 25-game winning streak by losing its first game to France, 83-76.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/us-mens-basketball-team-loses-first-olympic-game-in-17-years/ar-AAMxScb

In the last 4-1/2 minutes, the US team missed five shots in a row and didn’t score a single point. And in the comments sections of conservative media outlets, normally rah-rah patriotic Americans were saying things like, “Serves ‘em right” and “Never thought I’d say this, but ‘Go, France!’” (For the record, the French team also had some NBA players.)

Unless these athletes are throwing the games so they won’t have to suffer the terrible pain of hearing their own National Anthem while receiving gold medals, I have to assume something else is up. Maybe they’re learning that pride goeth before a fall, and they should have prioritized effort, practice and teamwork over political posturing. Or maybe God really does listen when people pray for their teams to win, but this time around, all the Americans who pray are backing their opponents.

Mike Huckabee

In politics, a “gaffe” is when someone slips up and accidentally tells the truth. Like when a co-host on “The View” agreed that it would be great to demand people provide ID before opening social media accounts to keep racists from having a forum.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/23/the-views-sunny-hostin-you-should-be-required-to-identify-yourself-before-you-use-social-media-n2592941

Uh…isn’t asking someone to show an ID a form of racism itself? You know, “Jim Crow on steroids?” Also, hate to mention it, but demanding that people show proof of vaccination before being allowed to exercise various rights, another current hot liberal idea, is also demanding a government-issued ID.

President Biden also committed an accidental truth “gaffe” at last week’s CNN Townhall. In response to the White House’s jaw-dropping claim that it’s Republicans who want to defund the police, a reporter asked, “Are there people in the Democratic Party who want to defund the police?” Biden snapped, “Are there people in the Republican Party who think we’re sucking the blood out of kids?”

https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/is-joe-biden-calling-defund-democrats-crazy/

As Noah Rothman at Commentary magazine points out at the link, yes, there are a teeny-tiny handful of crazy conspiracy theorists who self-identify as Republicans. And Biden just compared all the Democrat Congress members, mayors, city council members, academics and others who’ve pushed the insane “defund the police” movement to a fringe group of nutjobs. Which, I have to admit, makes a lot of sense.

To be fair, when a Democrat President tells a lie so blatant that even the Washington Post calls him out on it, telling the truth is pretty much his last resort.

Mike Huckabee

Facebook has started partnering with churches to make the platform a virtual home for religious communities and to help their message and services “go further farther on Facebook.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/facebook-getting-involved-religion-signs-contract-megachurch-platforms-director-global-faith-partnerships-reveals-coming/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

I admit to having mixed feelings about this. Anything that helps spread the Gospel is good. And all their talk about reaching the world with your faith is certainly a tempting apple to dangle. But Facebook has a reputation for getting people dependent on it, and then cutting off, or threatening to cut off, access if they decide your message doesn’t jibe with their Silicon Valley leftist views.

Do you really think they wouldn’t try to tell any church that, for example, held to the Biblical definition of marriage that it was guilty of hate speech or homophobia as an excuse to deplatform it if it didn’t change its beliefs?

So I would warn churches to be very cautious in dealing with Facebook and not let it become a deal with the Devil. Use it to get the word out, organize the church picnic, or share your services with shut-ins. But never let it replace real fellowship in person in the church. Don’t let it erode human interaction, or replace your church socials, newsletters and email lists. Most importantly, never let it become the exclusive channel through which you communicate with the world. Let it be just one of many tools you use, so that if you are suddenly banned, it’s no big deal.

Remember that Mark Zuckerberg seems to think he’s God, and that what Zuckerberg giveth, he can taketh away.

Mike Huckabee

When some Democrat legislators in Texas didn’t like some legislation that would have made it harder to conduct election fraud, they didn’t stand and fight back in public debate. They high-tailed it to an airport, boarded a chartered private jet and flew to Washington, DC with cases of beer on board. They were all smiles and looked more like naughty college students proud of their latest pub crawl than serious public officials. By fleeing the state, they kept the Texas legislature from having a quorum and therefore unable to conduct business. Beside their actions being as petulant as a 5 year old having a meltdown in the grocery store because his mother selected Special K instead of Fruit Loops, things got kind of messy for them when their arrogant stunt fell apart in oh, so many ways!

They seemed so proud of themselves and posted photos of their Excellent Adventure with their maskless faces smiling bigly, shortly after arriving in Washington, the “mother ship” for those who love government more than liberty. They were honored as heroes and were seen hob-knobbing with the Vice-President, Speaker Pelosi, and White House staff. But soon as many as 8 of them tested positive for Covid, throwing official Washington into panic and throwing the renegade Texas legislators into lockdown/quarantine where one boo-hooing legislator lamented that she actually had to do her own laundry while holed up in her hotel room.

For a state whose origin was Col. William Travis and his small band of citizen-soldiers defending the Alamo despite being outnumbered by 20:1 against the troops of Santa Ana, the sight of Texas Democrats fleeing their duties in a private jet and swilling beer like a scene from Animal House was just the sort of image political ad-makers dream of. These off-duty Democrats continued to receive their taxpayer funded paychecks and live in nice DC hotels, but the narrative was not about “courageous Democrats fighting against legislation” but that of cowardly carriers of Covid who created a super-spreader event in the nation’s Capital and had become a shining example of hypocrisy, hubris, and humor, being ridiculed from every angle except the far left, who is beyond shame of any kind at any time.

The ultimate irony? (And irony is something leftists seem incapable of seeing) Is that the big issue that caused them to run like a 3 year old’s nose during allergy season was a bill to secure the integrity of elections which included requiring photo ID to vote. Even on their charter flight, they had to show a photo ID to the charter company, showed one to check into their hotel, showed one to get into the Capitol and to the White House, and showed one to go to the clinic where they tested positive for Covid. So since Democrats have said that having to show photo ID is racist and a return to Jim Crow laws, I guess that these Democrats have reverted to racism and decided to comply with Jim Crow laws after all.

In politics, the worst situation is not losing—it’s being ridiculed. And these Texas Democrats have conducted a clinic in more than Covid transmission—they have schooled the political world how to carry out the most ill-planned disaster since General Custer. And they still haven’t answered the question, “who paid for the millions it has cost for them to have their little excursion into political history?” To quote the great philosopher Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as Stupid does.”