Mike Huckabee

The other major story that liberal media outlets covered this week like a blanket covers a stained sheet was the latest toxic leakage from Hunter Biden’s laptop. The New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN all dutifully ignored revelations by the Daily Mail of Hunter’s emails in which he repeatedly called his white lawyer by the “n-word.”

https://nypost.com/2021/06/10/mainstream-media-ignores-lewd-hunter-biden-n-word-texts-to-his-lawyer/

While that story is the juiciest (or would be, if the media covered racism on their own side), these stories are arguably more important:

The New York Post reported that even though Joe Biden claimed to know nothing about his son’s foreign business deals, the then-Vice President attended a dinner at Café Milano on April 16, 2015, where he met Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani business associates of Hunter’s. The Washington Post tried to debunk that, but the writer of the New York Post piece hit back pretty hard.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/06/08/washington-post-fact-checker-joe-biden-just-stopped-by-hunter-biden-dinner/

Emails from Hunter Biden's laptop show he was instrumental in setting up a consulting deal between Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that was paying him big bucks, and two Democratic consultants who are currently under investigation for violating foreign lobbying laws.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/hunter-biden-facilitated-deal-for-democratic-consultants-now-under-federal-investigation/

And just prior to the 2016 election, the former Ukrainian prosecutor told the Obama State Department that a lobbying firm linked to Hunter Biden and Burisma had pitched him that they could get him access to high levels of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, when it was assumed she’d be the next US President.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/blue-star-strategies-burisma-hunter-biden-ukraine-prosecutor-access-clinton-campaign-obama-official

You can find more details on all these corruption stories at the links. And here, Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media asks us to imagine the nuclear-level media reaction if any of these stories had involved Donald Trump’s kids.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/06/09/the-morning-briefing-lets-play-a-game-of-if-hunters-last-name-were-trump-n1453024

Mike Huckabee

New York Times editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Mara Gay sparked well-deserved blowback by saying that during a weekend trip to Long Island, she saw “dozens of American flags,” which was “just disturbing.” She apparently assumes those are owned by Trump supporters (admittedly, probably a safe bet), and claims they were sending a message: "This is my country…not your country. I own this." She went on to regurgitate more liberal buzzwords, including, of course, “whiteness.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-analyst-disturbing-dozens-american-flags-flown-pickup-trucks-trump-supporters

Well, I assume those Long Islanders do own their own flags, and the poles, yards and pickup trucks they’re mounted to. But I think the “It’s not your country” message came right out of her own paranoid noggin. She should be counting her lucky stars that when she goes out into the country where she lives, the flags she sees are American flags. They’re flown by the kind of people who join the military and fight to protect all our rights. That includes the First Amendment, which gives the New York Times editorial board the right to badmouth America, insult the flag, and make fools of themselves in print every day.

On that subject, as Townhall.com columnist Mike LaChance reminds us, Ms Gay is the same New York Times writer who once said that the $500 million wasted by Mike Bloomberg on his presidential run could have been divided up to give every American $1 million. It was actually closer to one dollar. But at the rate he's spending money, Joe Biden might hit that mark.

https://www.thewrap.com/brian-williams-mara-gay-get-dragged-for-bad-on-air-math-about-bloomberg-campaign-spending/

Mike Huckabee

From the earliest days of the pandemic, I have been reluctant to assume the worst of authorities who got things wrong about COVID-19. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that since it was a new and deadly disease, they were trying to give the public the best advice they could, given what they knew at the time while battling a steep learning curve.

However, the recent release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails has revealed that on a number of vital issues, we weren’t always given the best data they had at the time. Sometimes we were given the data that served a preferred narrative, even when those giving it out knew that it was at the very least highly questionable, and when it could even lead to more misery and deaths (endless lockdowns, ever-shifting mask advice, silencing doctors who were having success with readily-available drugs, etc.

That’s why it was so irritating when Dr. Fauci tried to dismiss the perfectly justified criticism he’s receiving by claiming that any questioning of him is an attack on “science.” No matter what his fan club at MSNBC thinks, he is not the walking embodiment of science. Actual scientists have their statements challenged all the time. That’s why real science is never really “settled.”

As you might imagine, Fauci’s critics in the media and politics went to town on his hubristic “I am science” defense:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/06/09/i-am-science-says-the-sun-king-tucker-carlson-megyn-kelly-others-scorch-fauci-claim-n2590775

But to be fair, they’re not scientists. So here’s an actual scientist, Stanford University medical professor and epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattachrya, offering his informed opinion on Dr. Fauci: his “credibility is entirely shot.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/06/09/what-a-stanford-epidemiologist-said-about-fauci-after-his-email-fiasco-couldnt-be-more-accurate-n2590713

Mike Huckabee

Despite a number of state Attorneys General launching legal challenges to President Biden’s pointless killing of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, it now appears that it is really quite sincerely dead. The developer, Canada’s TC Energy Corp, and the provincial government of Alberta say they’re abandoning the project. Alberta invested more than $1 billion in it thanks to the US commitment that Biden undid with a stroke of his executive order pen.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/biden-permanently-kills-keystone-xl-pipeline-developer-abandons-project-after-permit-pulled/

This decision will anger Canada, destroy American jobs, and make America less energy independent and fuel more expensive. It won’t even help the environment, since the oil will still have to get to the refineries, only via CO2-spewing trucks instead of a carbon-neutral pipeline. It’s obvious that the Wall Street Journal reporter quoted at the link was struggling to find some coherent justification for Biden’s actions: “It is a victory for environmentalists who have campaigned to block new pipeline construction as a way to limit oil consumption that contributes to global warming.”

News flash: blocking pipeline construction will not limit oil consumption. That’s like thinking that if you blow up the lunch wagon at your workplace, you’ll eat less. No, you’ll just put the driver out of a job, and you’ll still have to eat lunch. But now, you’ll have to obtain it in a more expensive, inconvenient way because, just like the US economy, your body still needs fuel.

While the Keystone XL Pipeline now seems DOA, some wags on the Internet suggested one possible way that it might be revived: Canada could declare itself part of Russia, and then Biden would approve the pipeline.

Mike Huckabee

Before this week is over, I want to draw your attention to two major stories that, to their shame, the biased media have barely mentioned, if at all. The fact that you’ve heard something like them before, and the media have covered them up before, doesn't make the latest cover-ups any less appalling.

The first is the leak of private taxpayer data from the IRS by the left-leaning group ProPublica.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/larry-kudlow-investigation-irs-leaks-urgent-immediate

As Larry Kudlow points out at the link, it’s very convenient that this was leaked just as a leftwing, “tax the rich” campaign is gearing up. Yes, I get that we’re all curious to find out how much income tax these wealthy people paid (although it’s misleading, since many don’t live off of straight taxable income), and it’s fun to rant and rage if you think they aren’t paying enough.

But that’s not the real outrage here. What you should be furious about is that someone in the IRS, the government agency entrusted with the most personal information that the government forces citizens to share – their income, what they spend it on, medical expenses, etc. – leaked that private information for partisan purposes. Echoing the days when the IRS tampered with the 2012 elections by targeting and denying nonprofit status to Tea Party groups, this is an example of someone in one of the most powerful government agencies, with the power to intrude into every aspect of our lives, weaponizing that power for partisan purposes.

(And while we’re at it, hats off to Bryan Preston at PJ Media for asking: if these IRS records were hacked, then why haven’t social media platforms banned ProPublica? Twitter cut off the New York Post for reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop on grounds that they don’t allow hacked material to be distributed, but that laptop wasn’t even hacked; it was left at a repair shop until it became the owner’s property.)

There should be an immediate Congressional investigation to find out who committed this unconscionable leak so that they can be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, to serve as an example to others. I know it’s easy to say, “Who cares about those rich guys?” Well, the Tea Party organizers weren’t rich. They were just average Americans trying to have a say in their government. If the IRS can abuse its power to harm billionaires and working class conservatives alike, then nobody is safe until they’re brought to heel.

Mike Huckabee

There’s a very interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by First Things editor R.R. Reno. It’s at the link, but behind a paywall. So if you’re not a subscriber, I’ll just recap the major points.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-stopped-hiring-ivy-league-graduates-11623103004

It’s called “Why I Stopped Hiring Ivy League Graduates.” This is hardly shocking if you’ve been keeping up with all the horror stories coming out of these elite schools lately about leftist administrators and faculty indoctrinating students with socialism, Critical Race Theory and anti-Americanism, and campuses being run by mobs of leftist cry-bully students who want to silence and punish anyone who expresses a “painful” and “problematic” opinion that differs from theirs.

But many parents still dream of their kids going to Harvard or Yale because they’re coasting on their rapidly crumbling reputations for excellence. They think that Ivy League sheepskin will mean a lifetime of prosperous employment, so they pony up the outrageous tuition. But according to Reno, your kids might be better off spending a fraction as much to attend a state college.

He says he’s found that many recent Ivy League grads who apply for jobs with his company fall into one of three categories: (1.) Oversensitive, thin-skinned narcissists who make inflammatory accusations at the drop of a hat; (2.) Those so cowed by fear of accusations of racism or some other offense that they remain silent if there’s any risk in speaking up; or (3.) Those who actually have the gumption to fight back, mostly conservatives, but who are so used to having to fight that they seem to have PTSD and have developed a habit of aggressive counterpunching.

None of those traits are helpful as part of a team that has to deal with the real world. The Ivies used to train students to be leaders. Now, they may still attract top level students, but they coddle and encourage the dysfunctional ones while attacking and abusing the normal ones. For all the money students pay to go there, the schools don’t add value, they reduce it.

Reno suggests that students who want to learn how to be leaders and prosper in the real world attend schools such as Hillsdale College, Thomas Aquinas College, Wyoming Catholic College and the University of Dallas, as well as large state schools and their satellite campuses. He says their students are more likely to get good educations, to learn to accept the authority of those with more experience, and not to be deformed by toxic political correctness.

And I would add, don’t worry about all the Ivy Leaguers who are unfit to work in the real world. I’m sure they’ll find lucrative jobs in politics or the media.

Mike Huckabee

Are They Really That Dumb Or Do They Think We Are? President Biden (oh, let’s be real: his staffers) put out a tweet and a Washington Post article, both under his name, bragging that in his first four months in office, his American Rescue Plan and his vaccination strategy have “created” over 2 million jobs, far more than Reagan or Trump created in their first four months, and the economy is “growing” faster than any time in the past 40 years.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/454126/

Hoo-boy! Where to start?!

Well, first of all, let’s note that Reagan and Trump didn’t inherit a booming economy that was reopening after a pandemic lockdown. They inherited moribund economies created by the policies of, respectively, Jimmy Carter and Obama/Biden. So naturally, it took a while to get the rusty engine of job creation up and running again.

Secondly, at the risk of quoting Obama, “Joe, you didn’t build that!” The jobs now being “created” were actually created under Trump and are simply bouncing back. They only went away because states mostly run by Democrats managed to stretch “two weeks to flatten the curve” into a yearlong-plus forced economic shutdown.

Fortunately, they can’t keep that up any longer because of the vaccines (also created and distributed under Trump) that Biden is also taking credit for. In fact, the jobs might be coming back even faster if Biden’s American Rescue Plan weren’t paying people more to stay unemployed than to work. Many of those 2 million jobs Biden is taking credit for were only “created” because red states rescinded that policy, which Biden wants to continue until September and other Democrats want to continue to the end of time.

In short, Biden taking credit for “creating” those jobs is like someone demanding the “Lifeguard of the Year” award because he stopped holding someone head-down in the toilet.

Roger Kimball at the Spectator has more on this and other Biden Administration fantasies and illusions, and how the media will credulously cover them, all expressed most amusingly at the link:

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/joe-biden-summer-vacation-g7-europe-trip/

Mike Huckabee

Still more proof that Twitter and CNN are not real life, so stop treating them as if they are:

A survey by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center of American Life found that most Americans don’t cut off their friends over political disagreements. In fact, most don’t even talk about politics to their friends.

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2021/06/08/survey-progressives-are-twice-as-likely-as-conservatives-to-cut-off-friendships-over-politics-n395412

Only 21% say that they discuss politics at least a few times a week, while 55% talk politics less than a few times a month. That held true for both Democrats and Republicans. Both said party affiliation is not a prerequisite for being friends with someone; however, both are likely to have more friends who share the same party as they do.

Interestingly, 53% of Republicans say they have at least some friends who are Democrats, while only 32% of Democrats have friends who are Republicans. Only 15% of Americans have ever ended a friendship over political differences. But the further left you go, the more likely someone is to cut off a friend for having different political views. 28% of liberals have done that, compared to only 10% of conservatives. 33% of liberal women have done that. And the most intolerant of all are extreme liberals or “progressives.” 44% of these crusaders for tolerance have ended a friendship over political differences, making them exactly twice as intolerant as extreme conservatives (22%.)

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention recently to leftist media, social media or activists, all of whom live to gin up hatred and cancellation of anyone who disagrees with them by even a smidgeon. Someone needs to have a sincere talk with them about how they’re letting political extremism warp their priorities, narrow their minds and drive away their friends. Unfortunately, that would take someone who doesn’t agree with them on everything, and they no longer talk to anyone like that.

Mike Huckabee

I told you about the New York City psychiatrist who spoke to the Yale School of Medicine and declared all white people irredeemably racist, said they “make my blood boil” and are “out of their minds,” and that she fantasies about "unloading a revolver into the head of any White person" who gets in her way. That understandably brought backlash against Yale for hosting her. They’re trying to distance themselves from her comments, while she’s just laughing off the criticism (I’m not a psychiatrist but I understand that inappropriate laughter is also a sign of mental illness, just like uncontrollable rage.)

https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-professor-slams-nyc-psychiatrist-shooting-white-people-unfit-practice-medicine

She should know that among her critics is Dr. Carol Swain, who is both African-American and a retired Princeton professor. Dr. Swain called her comments outrageous and hate-filled, as well as ridiculous, unprofessional, un-American and “probably illegal,” and declared her unfit to practice medicine. Yes, I’d say that’s pretty spot-on.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Dr. Swain has stood up to crazed leftists trying to divide Americans and spread racial hatred. Here she is on “Huckabee” on TBN from 2017, talking about attacks on her for that very reason.

https://youtu.be/u6uFftj7VC4

Mike Huckabee

There’s an article by Michael Dahlen at THE OBJECTIVE STANDARD that tells you everything you need to know about the “woke social justice” movement and anti-racism. It’s long, so find some time, but it’s a must-read.

https://theobjectivestandard.com/2021/05/a-woke-new-world/

Read this, and you’ll understand why "wokeness" as expressed in Critical Race Theory is such a threat, and why it has so quickly taken over academia and corporate life. There is absolutely no way to oppose it --- or even to insufficiently support it --- without being accused of racism and punished accordingly. This is a philosophy that’s designed to be impervious to rational argument, because, hey, it associates rationality with white supremacy. If you try to come at it with facts or reason –- which is very easy to do –- that only proves what a white supremacist you are. It’s like the mass hysteria associated with the Salem witch trials: “You are a witch! Better for you just to come out and say so. If you say you’re NOT a witch, that proves to us all the more that you ARE a witch.”

“Oh, and we don’t need evidence," they continue. "We can take your most innocuous statement, maybe from many years ago, and choose to be offended by it, or pretend we know your mind even better than you do and can tell what you really meant by it.”

This philosophy is a house of cards that can’t stand up to debate for five minutes. That’s why they built a protection into it: it doesn’t allow debate.

What “anti-racism” (actually, racism) does is flip the old white-over-black power structure of generations past into reverse. Instead of trying to extinguish oppression, as we’ve been working for many years to do, it asserts that oppression is always with us and always will be, no matter what, in EVERYTHING. And now, they say, it’s time for those “of color” (non-white) to be paid back by white people. White people were on the top; now they’re going to be on the bottom, and we will “guilt” them into going along with this. They believe we are in the time of “racial reckoning.”

What I don’t see “anti-racists” acknowledging is that this philosophy has turned them into the very thing they used to hate when it was white people doing it. THEY are the racists now, only they’ve re-defined “racism” so that in their own minds, they’re not. Language, you see, is a societal construct. And they get to control the language now.

They get to write the dictionary. That’s why we have to call these activists what they want and use their choice of 57 different pronouns to refer to them, but they also get to call us things like “cis-gendered,” even if that’s the last thing we want to be called. This is the new Newspeak. And there's new terminology we're all expected to learn.

Speaking of George Orwell, here’s a three-paragraph excerpt from the article that telegraphically shows how twisted and Orwellian the new “woke” social justice is...

……………….

“In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, the ruling socialist party had three slogans: War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. To say that social justice ideology is Orwellian is an understatement: Reality is a social-linguistic construct—truth is culturally subjective—objectivity is a Western bias—knowledge is a power game—upholding American values is a microaggression—speech is violence—initiating violence is self-defense—earned success is privilege—equal treatment is privilege promoting—argumentation is privilege preserving—disagreement is fragility—merit is unfair—the rule of law is unjust—protecting individual rights is subjugation—individualism is racism—race neutrality is racist—racial discrimination against whites is ‘anti-racist’—color blindness is a preference for whites—diversity of thought is white supremacy—whiteness is domination—being white is to be complicit in racism—being male is to be complicit in sexism—science is racist and sexist—masculinity is toxic—everything is oppressive.

“This is...wholesale intellectual corruption—the corruption of language, thought, and communication. Social justice ideology is brainwashing young minds. It’s rotting our cultural institutions. It’s sowing strife, division, animus.

"Recall that social justice activists want individuals purged for questioning BLM, purged for defending law enforcement, purged for saying “all lives matter,” purged for supporting peaceful protests over riots. They call for abolishing the police. They defend rioting and looting (or commit it themselves). They block, harass, and shut down speakers. They reflexively slander their adversaries as racists, fascists, Nazis, misogynists, or white supremacists."

…………………………………………..

I hope you’ll read this entire article. You’ll understand how deeply “anti-racists” hate America and how hard they’re trying to burn down every social convention. All must be “sacrificed on the altar of gendered racial identity.” And if you think this is some kind of fringe movement, think again. It’s infected popular culture, academia, corporate business, even the military and government agencies. A society based on this philosophy would be an absolute nightmare, a disaster of epic proportions. But we can beat this back, if we only have the courage to be vocal about it, and ABSOLUTELY REJECT IT. DO NOT SIT QUIETLY.

I’ll end with a few more quotes from the article –- about CRT'S rejection of reason and how we can and MUST fight against this –- hoping, again, that you’ll read the whole article.

…………………………

“The thuggish, authoritarian behavior of social justice activists follows not only from the specific tenets of their ideology, but from one of their deepest philosophic premises: the postmodernist rejection of reason. When facts, logic, science, and objectivity are off the table, the only alternatives are smears, deceit, intimidation, and violence....

“The only antidote to a corrupt, irrational philosophy is a rational philosophy, one upholding reason, logic, objectivity, and free will, one extolling the value and reality of the individual, one recognizing that the individual is defined and should be judged by his choices, actions, and character, not by his race or gender.168 Such a philosophy, moreover, is the only antidote to racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice.

“Now more than ever, such a philosophy must be articulated, defended, and tirelessly fought for as if our rights, our freedom, and our nation depend on it—because they do.”

Mike Huckabee

This is a good example of why, when you are entrusted with power, you shouldn’t squander that trust for political reasons. It undermines your ability to take principled stands when people know your own principles are less than solid:

https://www.westernjournal.com/even-putin-calling-biden-hypocritical-prosecution-jan-6-protesters/

President Biden, on behalf of the US, joined with the European Union in condemning the arrest of dissident blogger Roman Protasevich, who had for months supported and encouraged protests of Belarus’ autocratic leader, Alexandr Lukashenko. After his arrest, Protasevich appeared on TV to recant his previous views and voice support and praise for Lukashenko, leading many to believe he’d been tortured or coerced. Of course, Biden was right to condemn his arrest.

But that gave Russian President Vladimir Putin an opening to remind the world that Biden’s DOJ is prosecuting everyone who entered the Capitol on January 6th, even those not accused of doing anything violent. Putin said, “These are not looters or thieves, these people came with political requests,” and Biden is trying to jail them for protesting what they believed to be corrupt actions by the government. And as the linked story reminds us, the government has used social media and other surveillance state methods to track down those people and jail them, while letting leftist protesters who actually did commit violence and vandalism of government property go free.

I’m from the “two wrongs don’t make a right” school, so I’m not going to dismiss what happened in Belarus or let the violent Capitol protesters off the hook. But Biden did hand Putin the stick to whack him with through his and his party’s own hypocritical double standard on anti-government protests (great when we protest the other side, treason and insurrection when they protest us.) I want our President to be able to take firm moral stands in the world, but first, he has to behave in a way that gives him a leg to stand on.

Mike Huckabee

Coach John McDonnell, legendary track/field coach at the University of Arkansas has died at the age of 82. He is the most successful coach in NCAA history, led the Razorbacks to 40 National Championships in Track/Field, and trained and coached numerous Olympic athletes to Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals.

He was born and raised in Ireland, and never lost his love for his homeland or the accent that be brought with him when he came to the United States as a college student.

Long-time UA Athletic Director Frank Broyles had a knack for spotting coaching talent and saw the untapped genius in Coach McDonnell and hired him for the program when he had limited experience. It proved to show the uncanny ability of Frank Broyles to see greatness in others and the brilliance of Coach McDonnell in turning the Arkansas program into the envy of the nation.

On a personal note, during my days when I was training for and running marathons, I invited Coach McDonnell to the Governor’s Mansion for a lunch to honor him for his achievements. Many of his former standout athletes came to pay tribute to their mentor. For me, it was an excuse to have the privilege of being in the presence of someone I admired. He was the consummate Christian gentleman, but what a delight to sit back and just listen to Coach Johnny Mac and his former track stars reminisce. The love and respect his athletes had for him was testament to his firm discipline, but loving care of those he coached. The greatest tribute of him was said by one of his runners, who simply said, “We TRUSTED Coach Mac.”

To his family, thank you for sharing him with us. We are all better because he was among us. Our condolences to you and our gratitude to God for creating and cultivating such a choice servant of the Kingdom!

https://www.kark.com/pig-trail-nation/legendary-arkansas-track-coach-john-mcdonnell-dies-at-82/

Mike Huckabee

Unintentional Joke of the Day! Or possibly the millennium. After Twitter banned the President of Nigeria for a tweet threatening stern consequences for young protesters who are launching arson attacks on government offices and police stations, the government of Nigeria retaliated by banning Twitter from the entire country.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/twitter-human-right-conservatives-reactions

You’re right, that’s hilarious (without Twitter, I’ll bet the people of Nigeria get smarter, nicer and more tolerant almost overnight), but I haven’t even gotten to the really funny part yet. Here’s Twitter’s response to being banned from Nigeria (warning, you might want to sit down to keep from falling over laughing):

“We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria. Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society. We will work to restore access for all those in Nigeria who rely on Twitter to communicate and connect with the world. #KeepitOn."

So Twitter now admits that in banning Donald Trump, they are denying an American President an essential human right. Likewise, every time they ban a conservative for expressing a conservative viewpoint, or any American for expressing an opinion counter to the unquestionable authority of whatever “experts” their “factcheckers” rely on, they have denied those people an essential human right in modern society.

As you might imagine, a number of prominent conservatives had a field day with Twitter’s bone-jarring hypocrisy, and you can read a round-up of their replies at the link above. A couple of favorites: James Woods, who has been suspended from Twitter on various occasions, replied, “If irony were a food, Twitter could cure hunger overnight.”

And referring to the left’s argument that if you don’t like Twitter’s biased censorship, you can build your own social media platform, one anonymous user told Twitter, “Just build your own Nigeria then.”

Personally, I think Twitter’s hypocrisy speaks for itself, but then, it long has. Aside from Trump and conservatives, what about the way Twitter denies this essential human right to Iranians? Twitter is also officially banned in China, yet Twitter blocked people for questioning China’s official story on the origins of COVID-19. Why did they deny people’s essential human right to be on Twitter to protect a regime that denies the essential human right to be on Twitter?

And while I don’t endorse feminist author Naomi Wolf’s extreme tweets about COVID-19 vaccines, like that they enable you to “time-travel,” isn’t it even more extreme to ban her permanently with no right to appeal, thereby depriving her forever of an “essential human right?” Critics accuse her of spouting crazy, dangerous nonsense, but Hollywood is full of people who do that and they never get banned from Twitter.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9656953/Twitter-suspends-author-Naomi-Wolf-spreading-misinformation-Covid-vaccines.html

I stay on Twitter because it is a good way to reach people, but I’ve also built up my own website, newsletter, TV show, podcast and accounts on many other social media platforms, just in case. To cite some country wisdom, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Especially not a basket that draws more loons than a porch light draws moths.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Ellie Kemper, star of “The Office” and “The Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt,” broke under pressure from the Twitter mob and issued a groveling apology and a confession of her “white privilege” and made a donation to BLM.

https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/06/08/the-office-actress-ellie-kemper-apologizes-for-attending-a-ball-acknowledges-her-white-privilege-n393163

And what was her heinous, racist crime? Someone found out that in 1999, when she was 19 years old, she participated in a beauty pageant that she didn’t know used to exclude blacks – a policy they did away with 20 years before she entered and a full year before she was even born. For this, she was vilified on Twitter, the cesspool of basement-dwelling “social justice warriors,” who branded her a “KKK princess.”

She made a serious strategic error in playing along with this. Now that they smell blood in the water, they’ll dig through everything she ever said and did, searching for more things they can twist to try to force more apologies from her, because apparently, their own lives are so empty, they have nothing better to do with their time than get jollies from bullying people.

I assume she must have thought she had to do this, since she works in Hollywood, the natural habitat of clueless rich leftists. (Don’t believe me? Check out Cher’s latest tweet, in which she furiously demands that the wrong Senator be driven from office for refusing to abolish the filibuster. As Jonah Goldberg notes, it's a perfect example of the yawning gap between liberals’ intensity of feelings and their actual knowledge of the issues: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/454594/)

In a world in which Ms. Kemper didn’t fear being blacklisted over a false allegation, she would have told her attackers to get a life or ignored them. Or if she really never wanted to work in Hollywood again, she could have pointed out that every current member of the Democratic Party is supporting an organization with a shameful history of defending slavery, white supremacy, lynchings, the KKK and Jim Crow laws.

Mike Huckabee

On her way to visit the Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Vice President Kamala Harris passed out cookies shaped like her head to the press. Considering that she was trying to get them to believe the root causes of the illegal immigrant surge are things like “violence against LGBTQ people” and “climate change,” I’d say fudge might’ve been more appropriate.

https://www.westernjournal.com/guatemalas-president-blames-biden-admin-border-crisis-just-kamala-harris-arrives/

Fortunately, Giammattei wasn’t swallowing her fudging. In an interview aired Sunday on “Face the Nation,” he explained precisely what’s causing the surge: Joe Biden.

Giammattei said when Biden reversed Trump’s strict border security policies, “The message changed to, ‘We are going to reunite families and we are going to reunite children.’ The very next day, the coyotes here were organizing groups of children to take them to the United States.”

Too bad Harris didn’t just watch “Face the Nation.” It could’ve saved her a trip to Guatemala. And the taxpayer money her trip cost could have paid for something more useful, like, say, her first trip to the US border. Or finishing the wall.

Mike Huckabee

They say that things start in California and spread eastward to other states (lately, that’s meant leftist political ideas that are like spreading scarlet fever.) But let’s hope we’re seeing the beginnings of an opposite trend in the east that will move westward: New Yorkers who’ve had enough of incompetent leftist Bill DeBlasio's rule, with its attendant violence, filth and lawlessness, appear to be on the verge of rejecting the “progressive” governance that’s regressed the city from its safe, vibrant Giuliani comeback years to the bad old days of the 1970s.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/06/07/is-the-progressive-project-over-new-york-city-mayors-race-indicates-it-could-be-n1452685

The leading candidate is former law enforcement officer Eric Adams, who is ahead of Andrew Yang, but both are promising to reinvigorate the NYPD. Meanwhile, far-left, blame-the-police “Democratic” Socialist candidate Maya Wiley, who just got the enthusiastic endorsement of AOC, is at 9%. After getting a good, hard dose of what rule by these people really means, I’m amazed that 9% want more of it. Are 9% of NYC residents professional criminals?

As the linked article also notes, an internal study for the Democratic Party is warning that these policies they think are so popular with minorities are not. Whoever would have guessed that blacks and Hispanics don’t necessarily like having their neighborhoods destroyed by rioters and criminals, or paying twice as much for a gallon of gas as they did a year ago, or having biological males taking their daughters' sports trophies away and coming into their locker rooms?

Some other blue cities to the east of NYC are also starting to wake up and smell the smoke from what used to be safe, clean neighborhoods before their idiot leaders defunded the police.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/06/07/reality-hits-hard-lib-cities-move-to-re-fund-the-police-n1450232

Naturally, Democrats are incapable of admitting leftist policies don’t work, despite the fact that they’ve been tragic failures everywhere they’ve been tried since forever. A New York Times writer hilariously blamed the bad news from the study not on the Democrats' failed policies, but on Republicans for pointing out the awful results of their policies.

Hey, if my constant pointing out of the horrific failures of leftism have in any way helped convince New Yorkers or any other blue state or city residents to elect competent, pro-police, non-America-hating officials, I couldn’t be happier! However, I suspect it’s more likely that they’re just tired of being robbed, looted and shot at.

Mike Huckabee

The latest large corporate entities that have prioritized leftist virtual signaling over the beliefs of their core customer base are…

Country Music Television (CMT), which is promoting the “Wear orange to support gun control” campaign. Many viewers – make that “former viewers” – are telling them bluntly that they only wear orange when they go deer hunting.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/country-music-television-wear-orange-gun-control

Pizza Hut is under fire for funding a fifth grade social studies “Critical Race Theory” curriculum that resulted in a shocking video of Brooklyn school children parroting the race-based, anti-American hatred they’ve been spoon-fed.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/06/07/order-anything-from-pizza-hut-and-a-side-of-toxic-racism-goes-to-kids-in-public-schools-n1452710

Incidentally, this isn’t just being used in Brooklyn; it’s even infiltrated to places like Iowa. Click the link to find out if your kids are being exposed to it. Also, it’s not just Pizza Hut: there’s a link to a list of a couple of dozen big companies that are also funding the teaching of racist CRT poison to our kids, including Intel, Ford, Ralph Lauren and, yes, Disney.

While we’re on the subject, here are some wise words from Dennis Prager to parents on the single best thing Americans can do to protect their kids and retake America from the hateful radical left.

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2021/06/08/the-single-best-thing-americans-can-do-to-retake-america-n2590628

Mike Huckabee

While we were taking our day of rest on Sunday, the world commemorated the 77th anniversary of D-Day, the biggest seaborne invasion in history and likely the most complex military operation of all time. Somehow, a massive invasion involving over 300,000 troops was kept secret until the moment it began on the beaches of Normandy.

Of the Allied troops who stormed the beaches or parachuted behind enemy lines, thousands were killed or injured by relentless gunfire from the entrenched German snipers’ positions. But they fought on and eventually prevailed, gaining a foothold in France and marking the turning of the tide of World War II in Europe.

Here are two articles from Fox News about both D-Day then and the 77th anniversary events.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/remembering-d-day-fox-nation

https://www.foxnews.com/us/d-day-anniversary-reminder-american-greatness

Here is the website of the National D-Day Memorial with more information.

https://www.dday.org/

Here are two fine blog articles about D-Day, the second giving some information about the less-well-known Juno Beach Landings.

https://americandigest.org/june-6-a-walk-across-a-beach-in-normandy/

https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2021/06/06/77th-anniversary-of-d-day-the-somewhat-under-appreciated-juno-beach-landings/

And this is a must-read article by Rick Moran at PJ Media about Sunday’s anniversary commemorations in France.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/06/the-day-the-the-word-courage-came-alive-n1452448

Because of the pandemic, live events were still very limited, with only one D-Day veteran attending the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. That was 96-year-old American Charles Shay, who lives in Normandy.

Shay said, “In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their heart. And they remember what they did for them. And I don’t think the French people will ever forget.”

Sadly, many young Americans are in danger of forgetting because they’re not being taught accurate American history. It’s hard to push a narrative about America being evil when you have to tell students how many Americans willingly risked their lives and limbs to stop the Nazis and save innocent people they’d never met on the other side of the world. As Moran rightly points out, the word “courage” has been devalued in our modern age, as it’s applied to everyone from celebrities admitting their drug problems to comedians insulting the President.

But the anniversary of D-Day is a reminder of what true courage really is. It’s doing the right thing, even when it requires charging head-on into the face of death. D-Day veterans often shun the title of “hero,” but nobody is more deserving of it. And nobody is more deserving of being remembered and honored long after their lives are over, and long after all of our lives are over.

Mike Huckabee

I’ve sometimes taken flak for defending Bill Maher, but even though we’re usually diametrically opposed on the issues, sometimes he’s undeniably right (you know, when he agrees with me), and he’s one of the few people left on the liberal side with the guts to actually speak up and call the leftists on their nonsense.

I don’t know if Bill is getting more conservative or if the left is just getting more nonsensical (I strongly suspect the latter), but he’s been doing it a lot more often these days. Here’s the latest example, from his HBO show Friday, where he ripped into both President Biden’s plans to give everyone “free” college tuition and the overall uselessness of today’s universities in general. (Warning: Contains the kind of language used by Bill Maher.)

https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/06/06/bill-maher-bazookas-bidens-free-college-plan-calls-universities-luxury-daycare-centers-n392008

On the same subject, here’s a thought-provoking article by a Michigan Congress member and a university president, listing 13 reasons why “free” college tuition is a bad, self-destructive idea that will harm students, colleges, taxpayers and America in the long run.

https://townhall.com/columnists/timothynash/2021/06/07/a-bakers-dozen-13-reasons-why-free-college-tuition-is-bad-for-america-n2590510

Mike Huckabee

Almost every day, there's news about election fraud. It’s just not being widely reported.

In perhaps the biggest story, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has announced he won’t vote for the so-called “For The People Act,” which we call the “Legalize Vote Fraud Act.” He rightly says that forcing it through by way of the partisan reconciliation process will further divide the country. And he's right --- if anything could, this is it. The bill runs over 800 pages and, for good reason, has zero GOP support.

Manchin also said he won’t vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster. His reasoning is consistent: it would have given total power to one party that has only a tiny edge in votes.

Thank you, Sen. Manchin, for standing up for bipartisanship and elections that reflect the will of the people. You've said you don’t want either party --- even your own --- to have absolute power, and we applaud you for that.

Here’s what Sen. Manchin said in his home state newspaper, THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE-MAIL.

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/joe-manchin-why-im-voting-against-the-for-the-people-act/article_c7eb2551-a500-5f77-aa37-2e42d0af870f.html

“Do we really want to live in an America where one party can dictate and demand anything it wants, whenever it wants?” Manchin wrote. (Note: most Democrat politicians would answer YES!) “I have always said, ‘If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’ And I cannot explain strictly partisan election reform or blowing up the Senate rules to expedite one party’s agenda.”

“For as long as I have the privilege of being your U.S. senator,” he continued, “I will fight to represent the people of West Virginia, to seek bipartisan compromise no matter how difficult and to develop the political bonds that end divisions and help unite the country we love.”

Amen. And thanks, West Virginians, for making your feelings known about this. I would also add that this bill, by federalizing elections when the Constitution leaves elections to the states, is blatantly unconstitutional.

Mollie Hemingway, whose book about the 2020 election is due out in September, appeared on SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES with Maria Bartiromo to talk about what we know so far.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6257645445001#sp=show-clips

She noted something former President Obama said last week: that in our focus on election reform, Republicans are trying to “rig” the elections going forward. (Once again, accuse us of what YOU are doing.) I would characterize what he said as not just wrong but downright offensive.

Obama was speaking at The Economic Club of Chicago when he spoke in sharp condemnation of the voting reform laws passed in Georgia and Florida and under consideration in Texas and other states. Here’s a strong opinion piece in the WESTERN JOURNAL about Obama’s presentation, including the video. Read on in the article to see what Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said about the risk posed to Texas by the push to send out mail-in ballots to every registered voter currently on the rolls.

https://www.westernjournal.com/trump-banned-questioning-election-obama-claims-gop-rigging-game/

By the way, Republicans in the Georgia House have gone further than passing election reform. They’ve also approved a resolution censuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperget, saying that he failed to perform his duties “in accordance with the laws of the Constitution of the State of Georgia.” The document itself makes good reading.

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1401278635751919622/photo/1

According to this document, Raffensperger’s failure stems from the settlement agreement he entered into with the Democratic Party of Georgia, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Republicans accused him of “undermining the security of our elections by allowing mass mailings of absentee applications by his office and third parties [!] which created opportunities for fraud and overwhelmed election offices; rendering accurate signature matching nearly impossible; allowing ballot drop boxes without proper chain of custody; and ignoring sworn affidavits and disregarding evidence of voter fraud.”

Details are in this EPOCH TIMES premium story.

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1401278635751919622/photo/1

If you’re really into the 2020 statistical anomalies suggestive of election fraud, we recommend this piece from REVOLVER about what appears to have happened in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. (And no, it doesn’t make us “conspiracy theorists” to want to examine this.) Former President Trump is calling for a Maricopa-style election audit in Pennsylvania, saying the vote was rigged. There should be one.

https://www.revolver.news/2021/06/trump-demands-pa-audit-revolver-why-pennsylvania-was-rigged/

As Mollie Hemingway said, tens of millions of Americans saw the election as rigged “when laws were changed about how to control and protect our elections, or, sometimes...the courts just intervened or rogue election officials changed the processes by which we make sure that ballots are correct and should be counted.” Indeed, attorney Marc Elias of the law firm Perkins Coie (the firm that paid Fusion GPS for the Steele “dossier”) might very well be the one individual most responsible for the outcome of the 2020 election, just by traveling around the country and getting states to ignore their own laws, the Constitution be damned. It all made cheating easier, regardless of whether or not the machines got hacked.

Hemingway also noted the practice by Big Tech companies of shoveling outside money to county election officials, essentially “privatizing our election process.” The biggest example of this that we know of is the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which received hundreds of millions of dollars from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. This money had strings attached; for example, money that went to counties in Wisconsin paid for unsupervised dropboxes in locations determined by...CTCL.

Bartiromo recalled the various locations on Election Night where counts were abruptly stopped and picked up again in the morning. Of course, the most infamous of these, at which a skeleton crew of election tabulators continued counting into the night, unobserved, after the building had been evacuated because of a nonexistent burst pipe, was in Fulton County, Georgia, at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

“The whole problem with absentee voting and mail-in balloting is that we don’t even know how many ballots are out there,” Hemingway said. “This is a big concern for people who care about election fraud, ‘cause you need to be able to trust elections to have a republic.” And we can't.

Moving on...the Maricopa audit is working at good pace, with 60 percent of the ballots counted so far. But as the Arizona GOP tweeted Friday, “Democrats aren’t just trying to stop the audit, they are using it to raise millions of dollars from Big Tech and Corporate Cronies, grab power, finance campaigns, and further their anti-American agenda.” Well, of course they are.

https://www.oann.com/ariz-audit-completes-recount-of-more-than-60-percent-of-ballots/

Finally, Mike Lindell hasn’t backed down one iota –- that means "infinitesimal amount" –- on his claims of fraud. We had to go looking for his most recent video and finally found, on his own website, a choice edit that deals with his latest findings. I’ll tell you, it’s much easier to find the so-called “debunkings” (which aren't) than it is to find the videos themselves. And once you see this, you’l be wary of how simple it might be for China to hack into voting machines. The huge take-away is that to have secure elections, we have to go back to old-school paper-and-pen ballots. Stop electronic voting NOW.

https://lindelltv.com/china-puts-biden-in-the-white-house/

Mike Huckabee

Jen Van Laar at Redstate.com reports that one of the highest-ranking defectors ever from China has been working for three months with the Defense Intelligence Agency. This defector reportedly has provided extensive, detailed knowledge of China’s special weapons programs, including bioweapons and the origin of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/04/exclusive-high-ranking-chinese-defector-has-direct-knowledge-of-several-chinese-special-weapons-programs-n391238

US intelligence reportedly now believes that China is trying to produce variants of the virus to suggest that it came from bats to cover up the fact that it came from a lab. They still believe at this point that it escaped accidentally, but was allowed to spread.

Inside sources claim that information from the defector is what led to the sudden crisis of confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci. Also, it’s reported that the defector was kept in the DIA’s Clandestine Services Network and knowledge of him/her was kept from the FBI, CIA, State Department and other agencies out of concern that there are Chinese spies or sources in those agencies (I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet.) Even FBI Director Christopher Wray was reportedly kept out of the loop and suddenly “ambushed” with the information.

Oh, come on: if you can’t trust Christopher Wray, who can you trust? That’s sarcastic, of course. It’s like saying you can trust the word of the Chinese government, and who’d be dumb enough to do that?

In a related story, Dr. Fauci says that the recent attacks on him are "very much an attack on science."

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/04/fauci-recent-attacks-on-me-really-very-much-an-attack-on-science/

I agree that science has been under attack, but not from the people criticizing Dr. Fauci.

Mike Huckabee

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Mike Huckabee

A graduating senior at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas is getting showered with praise from liberal celebrities and politicians, including Hillary Clinton, for using her valedictorian speech to promote abortion rights and denounce Texas’ “heartbeat” abortion limit law.

https://www.christianpost.com/us/valedictorian-slams-texas-abortion-restrictions-at-graduation.html

I could only imagine what their reaction would be if someone used a valedictorian speech to promote pro-life beliefs and denounce the atrocity of abortion. In fact, we don’t have to imagine. Officials at a Michigan high school tried to censor a girl’s valedictorian speech just because she referred to her Christian faith in it. She planned to say that her "future hope is found in my relationship with Christ. By trusting him and choosing to live a life dedicated to bringing His kingdom glory, I can be confident that I am living a life filled with purpose and meaning. My identity is found by what God says and who I want to become is laid out in Scripture.”

The principal reportedly told her, "These are your strong beliefs, but they are not appropriate for a speech in a school public setting." (Unlike promoting abortion, I suppose.) Fortunately, the principal backed down after receiving a letter from lawyers at the First Liberty Institute, demanding that the student be allowed to exercise her First Amendment rights. They said graduation speeches are private speech, not government speech subject to separation of church and state.

So, I wonder when this student will get her congratulatory tweets from Hillary and the rest, lauding her for standing up for her rights, not backing down and speaking truth to power? I won’t be holding my breath. One thing I’ve noticed about liberals is that they’re always ready to defend free speech, as long as you’re saying something they agree with.

For the record, I don’t think the first girl should have given a pro-abortion speech, but I also don’t think she should have given an anti-abortion speech either (the other girl’s speech wasn’t about public policy, it was about her personal religious beliefs that affect her plans for the future, which is an appropriate topic for a graduation speech.) The audience wasn’t there to have someone’s politics inflicted on them, they were there to see a graduation ceremony. Anyone who’s the valedictorian should be smart enough to know that.

Mike Huckabee

Excellent News For America! And it comes from such a dry source that most people would find it boring: “Parliamentary procedure.” You might have snoozed through the discussions of that in school, but parliamentary procedure might possibly save America from being “transformed” into a leftist dystopia.

Chuck Schumer had hoped to use “reconciliation,” the process of passing a budget bill with only 51 votes to avoid a Republican filibuster, to force the Democrats’ radical wishlist onto America. That includes the “For The People Act” that would legalize vote fraud, and the “PRO Act” that would destroy freelance and gig worker jobs. Schumer hoped to stuff them into the gargantuan “infrastructure” bill that would spend trillions of dollars on things that have nothing to do with infrastructure. But last week, the Senate Parliamentarian quietly issued a new ruling: “You can’t do that.” Reconciliation is for tax and budget issues only, and you can’t use it just to avoid a filibuster. So it’s back to the drawing board, or one hopes, the garbage heap, for these destructive radical bills.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/02/the-senate-parliamentarian-just-ripped-the-heart-out-of-the-democrat-agenda-n390126

At the risk of being called a nerd, I say, “Three cheers for parliamentary procedure!”

Now, let’s wait for the Democrats to declare it a form of white supremacy.

Mike Huckabee

Democrats are celebrating a landslide win Tuesday in a special election for an open seat in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. State. Rep. Melanie Stansbury defeated Republican State Sen. Mark Moores by nearly 25 points, 60-36%. The Democrats were sweating over this race because losing it would mean (A.) an even narrower House majority and (B.) bad prospects for the 2022 elections. But now they’re crowing that the Democrats are “stronger than ever” and people are rejecting Republicans’ “fear-mongering” about their policies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-mexico-special-election-results-democrats-big-win-in-blue-district-may-not-say-much-about-2022-races/ar-AAKDOMQ

Yeah, that’s the official line. Here’s the real takeaway from this:

This is the safest of safe Democrat seats. It’s in solid blue Albuquerque, and Biden won it just seven months ago by 23 points. A Libertarian and an Independent siphoned off 4% of the vote, which means that Stansbury’s actual margin of victory over all challengers was 20 points, a 3-point drop in the bluest of safe blue seats in a low-turnout election.

To get to that margin, the Democrats did everything they possibly could, including an endorsement from President Biden, visits from state and national big names like First Lady Jill Biden, and outspending Moores on advertising by 2-1. Analysts are now saying that a victory of more than 15 points should make Democrats “very happy.” But winning by 15 points, or even 20 points, after going all-out in a safe district they’d just won in November by 23 points? That don’t impress me much. In a close district where Republicans really fight for it, losing three points could mean losing the seat; and the races like that in 2022 will far outnumber the Dems’ microscopic majority margin.

Oh, and one other thing: when Republicans slam Democrats for opening up the borders to let in drug gangsters and other criminals they refuse to arrest and deport; and for defunding the police while releasing criminals from jails, going away with bail and refusing to prosecute rioters, resulting in record leaps in violent crime; pointing all that out isn’t “fear-mongering.” It’s just alerting the voters to the fact that their opponents are nuts.

Mike Huckabee

As we reported in February, Dominion Voting Systems is suing Mike Lindell and MyPillow for $1.3 billion for defamation. Now, in a new filing, Dominion is focused on going after the company itself –- deeper pockets, of course –- by arguing that MyPillow is liable for Mike Lindell’s allegations about them.

I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that Lindell was speaking very much as an individual when he made allegations about the lack of security surrounding the Dominion voting machines. He’s definitely a man on a mission, and I’m not talking about the mission of selling pillows, sheets and mattress toppers. Yet Dominion is arguing that this is really just about selling lots of bedding –- that Lindell has been waging a “defamatory marketing campaign” in his capacity as “the MyPillow guy.” They say he’s “integrating bogus election fraud claims with an extensive marketing campaign for the pillow company.” They couldn't be more wrong.

They point to his online store, in which he uses promo codes such as “FightForTrump.” My thought is that if Lindell is appealing to his right-wing clientele, it’s because he’s had to say goodbye to just about all of his other clientele over the election issue. I would assume that conservative Trump-supporters are pretty much all he’s got left.

“The law is clear that corporations can be held liable for the defamatory statements their employees make within the scope of their employment and furtherance of the company’s business,” their attorneys wrote. They argued that a jury could infer that Lindell was acting as the company’s agent and “exploited lies about Dominion to market MyPillow products.”

Lindell, however, had already claimed to have lost tens of millions of dollars in retail partnerships. Recall that major retailers such as Bed, Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s discontinued his products. MyPillow has also said in its own defense that Lindell sincerely believed his claims.

Lindell had asked the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Carl John Richards, to dismiss Dominion’s lawsuit against him. But with this latest filing, Dominion is now asking him to move their suit forward.

What has bothered me about Dominion, and still does, is that they insist they have “publicly available facts and evidence” disproving the claims against them, and that the statements against Dominion have been “rebutted by the evidence,” while refusing to turn such evidence over to auditors. For example, they continue to withhold the administrative passwords for the machines used in Maricopa County, Arizona, to those who are currently conducting the audit there. My understanding is that these passwords would enable auditors to thoroughly investigate whether or not the machines are hackable and might have contributed to a rigged election. Dominion is trying to have it both ways: deny the charges but withhold their evidence.

It’s challenging to find stories in the news about Lindell and his claims that don’t dismiss them out of hand and call them false and “debunked.” To date, no one has debunked them. If you read this story in BUSINESS INSIDER, keep in mind that there’s some editorializing, such as the statement that “Lindell has continued to levy falsehoods against Dominion in interviews and rallies.” The accuracy of Lindell’s claims is yet to be determined. So, who’s defaming whom?

https://www.businessinsider.com/dominion-says-mypillow-liable-mike-lindell-election-falsehoods-defamation-lawsuit-2021-6

In other election fraud news, RealClearInvestigations has a detailed expose about how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan paid $350 million to a progressive group called the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which, in turn, distributed those millions to cities and towns across America and worked with election officials to conduct their elections just so. We’ve previously reported on the use of this money to pay for unsupervised ballot dropboxes in locations chosen by CTCL, but this article reveals other ways in which they were involved. It’s long, but worth your time.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/05/26/how_zuckerberg_millions_paid_for_progressives_to_work_with_2020_vote_officials_nationwide_778300.html

According to the story by Stephen Miller, “In exchange for the money, elections divisions agreed to conduct their elections according to conditions set out by the CTCL, which is led by members of the New Organizing Institute, a training center for progressive groups and Democratic campaigns.”

A partner with CTCL, the Center for Civic Design, actually helped design absentee ballot forms and instructions, crafted voter registration letters for felons, and tested automatic voter registration systems. In Michigan, they worked alongside “progressive activist groups.” In Georgia (yes, Georgia) and Utah, they worked directly with elections offices.

This type of funding has apparently never been done before. Does anyone see a problem here?

It gets worse. Even Facebook got into the act, producing a webinar and guide to help election officials engage voters, specifically targeting low-income people and minorities, “helping Democratic candidates win key spots all over the U.S.”

According to court documents filed by the conservative law firm the Thomas More Society, the CTCL allowed election officials in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to use the grant money to buy vehicles to transport “voter navigators,” who were used to “assist” voters at their front doors, answering questions and witnessing ballot signatures. They also “cured” absentee ballots that lacked signatures, addresses, etc.

In Georgia, agents from CTCL trained poll workers. I can’t help wondering if they trained the small team of ballot tabulators who stayed behind in the State Farm Arena in Fulton County late on Election Night after other workers, including the poll watchers, had been dismissed over a bogus water leak. Hadn’t their “training” included the fact that they weren’t supposed to count votes without supervision?

The infuriating examples go on and on. Erick Kaardal, a lawyer with the Thomas More Society, says, “It was a pay-to-play scheme, where in exchange for taking this money, the CTCL gets to tell them how to run the election. And it’ll happen again in 2022.”

This use of private funds to control how elections are run has got to be stopped –- now. State legislatures will have to pass laws to stop it, because in the absence of such laws, some judges are enabling it to continue. For example, in Texas of all places, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant III, an Obama appointee, ruled in favor of this kind of funding, and apparently his stance is typical. He said, “Ultimately, plaintiffs complain that people with different political views will lawfully exercise their right to vote. That is not a harm. That is democracy.”

Wrong. The practice he ruled in favor of is HARMING DEMOCRACY.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

We’ve lost another of those beloved, omnipresent actors that generations of Americans grew up watching on TV. Arlene Golonka died Monday in West Hollywood at 85 after a long struggle with Alzheimers.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/arlene-golonka-mayberry-r-f-d-actress-dead

The bubbly blonde comic actress was best known as bakery shop clerk Millie Swanson, Ken Berry’s girlfriend on “Mayberry RFD” (she’d earlier appeared on “The Andy Griffith Show” as the same character, only named Millie Hutchins, who was engaged to stuffy county clerk Howard Sprague until they realized they had nothing in common and broke up.) But that was only the most famous of her countless roles.

After working on stage, the Chicago-born actress moved to Los Angeles, and was soon making appearances on virtually every TV show of the ‘60s and ‘70s, from the early days of “Naked City” and “Car 54, Where Are You?” through “That Girl,” “The Flying Nun” and “Get Smart,” and post-“Mayberry,” in “M*A*S*H,” “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “The Love Boat,” “Matlock,” “Murder She Wrote” and many more.

She also made a number of movie appearances, including “Hang ‘Em High,” “Airport ’77,” “The In-Laws” (hilarious, you should see it), “Love At First Bite” and “The Age of Innocence.” Her last TV appearance was in “The King of Queens” in 2005. By that time, she was mostly retired from the screen and teaching acting.

Arlene Golonka brightened every show she appeared in for many years. Fans of “The Andy Griffith Show” who have seen all the reruns a million times might want to check out the spin-off, “Mayberry RFD,” that was killed by CBS’ “rural purge” while it was still a hit, but it’s very hard to find. There is no DVD box set, and at the moment, it doesn’t appear to be on any streaming services. However, I recently watched all the episodes, in varying quality, on the video streaming site Dailymotion.com, so give it a try. You might find it relaxing, in this trying age, to spend a little time with Sam, Millie, Howard, Emmitt and Goober.

Mike Huckabee

Anyone who argues that President Biden isn’t embarking on a more radical third term of Obama should take it up with someone who obviously believes that: Barack Obama.

https://www.westernjournal.com/barack-obama-joe-biden-finishing-job-using-people-administration/

Obama pointed out that Biden is appointing people from his Administration, reinstating his policies and essentially, “finishing the job.” Considering that Obama vowed to “fundamentally transform” America, and that many people were horrified at what he was transforming it into, the phrase "finishing the job" carries ominous echoes of "The Godfather." Anyone who bought the line that Biden was going to be a moderate centrist working across the aisle was conned worse than Bernie Madoff’s clients.

Latest examples: say goodbye to small hometown banks and Alaskan oil…

https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/biden-climate-policy-will-be-kiss-of-death-for-small-banks-ceo-says

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-suspends-alaska-oil-gas-leases-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge

Mike Huckabee

Rishi Sharma has made it his life’s mission to interview World War II veterans and get their memories on video for posterity. But if the YouTube censors have their way, posterity will never see them.

https://www.glennbeck.com/radio/big-tech-now-censors-the-stories-of-ww2-vets-too

Sharma told Glenn Beck that clips of some of the vets’ stories were going viral until suddenly, the numbers of views and subscribers crashed. He can’t get YouTube to explain why, but he thinks they were censored, possibly because their algorithm assumes that anything about World War II must be promoting Hitler and the Nazis, even if it’s interviews with the heroes who defeated Hitler and the Nazis.

Fortunately, just as many conservatives are leaving social media sites and returning to having their own websites (I already did that long ago), the veterans’ stories are not reliant on the Big Tech censors. You can see them at the original source, Sharma’s Heroes of the Second World War website.

http://www.heroesofthesecondworldwar.org/

I encourage you to check it out, and if it inspires you, donate to help his mission.

Pat Reeder, Staff writer

Over the long weekend, we lost two beloved showbiz figures of the past half century, who couldn’t have been more different but who had something very important in common in their private lives.

One of the most distinctive singers of his generation, B.J. (Billy Joe) Thomas, died Saturday at his home in Arlington, Texas, at 78, after announcing in March that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/hooked-on-a-feeling-singer-b-j-thomas-dies-at-78

Most remembered for his Oscar-winning hit, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Thomas had a decades-long string of hits in multiple genres. He broke through in 1966 with a cover of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” That was followed by major pop hits like “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Rock and Roll Lullaby,” “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Don’t Worry, Baby” and “(Hey, Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” (still the longest title of any song to hit the Billboard Hot 100.) In the ‘70s, he released “Home Where I Belong,” the first Christian album to go platinum, and became the top Christian singer of the era.  In the ‘80s, he moved into A/C and country with hits like “Whatever Happened to Old Fashioned Love” and “New Looks from an Old Lover.”

Personal note: my wife and “Huckabee” co-writer Laura Ainsworth and I live very near Arlington and saw Thomas perform at the Arlington Music Hall in 2019 before a packed house. He sounded as great as ever and we planned to see him there again in March 2020. Sadly, that show got canceled due to COVID.

Recommendation: Check out his 2013 album “The Living Room Sessions,” featuring stripped-down versions of his greatest songs with guests like Keb Mo and Vince Gill. It puts a fresh twist on his classics with the focus on his still-fantastic vocals.

Also on Saturday, actor Gavin MacLeod died in Los Angeles at 90.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/gavin-macleod-love-boat-captain-dies-at-90

MacLeod was a struggling working actor for years, playing small roles in dozens of TV shows and movies before finally landing his unexpected breakthrough as wisecracking news writer Murray Slaughter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (his passing leaves Ed Asner and Betty White as the only surviving cast members.)

After that, he became Captain Merrill Stubing on “The Love Boat.” Critics hated it, but audiences loved it. It ran for nine seasons, spawned four specials and made MacLeod an unlikely TV star and spokesman for Princess Cruise Lines. By all accounts, MacLeod was a truly nice guy, very grateful for his success, whose bright smile on TV was genuine.

Obscure Trivia: MacLeod’s baldness, later one of his most famous features, initially kept him from getting roles, so he wore a toupee early on. He originally auditioned for the part of Lou Grant on “MTM” but realized the gruff character was wrong for him and asked to try out for nice guy Murray instead. He also declined to audition for Archie Bunker on “All In The Family” because he just couldn’t say those bigoted lines.

If you want to see him in an atypical mean guy role, check out “The Kill,” the first episode of the great detective series “Peter Gunn” (streaming free on the IMDb TV app), where he plays a ruthless gang boss.

And what did Thomas and MacLeod have in common in real life? Both had addictions (MacLeod to alcohol, Thomas to drugs and alcohol) that nearly destroyed their marriages. But both overcame their addictions and saved their marriages after becoming Christians. Outspoken about their faith, Thomas became the most popular Christian music artist of the ‘70s, and MacLeod and his wife Patti Steele hosted a Christian radio series called “Back on Course: A Ministry for Marriages.” 

Our sympathies to their families and condolences to their fans, which includes all of us here.

Mike Huckabee

Last week, Miranda Devine broke the news in the NEW YORK POST that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop confirm that then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with his son and a number of foreign business associates at a Washington, DC, restaurant. The dinner had been arranged by Hunter three weeks before. Invited guests included a now-deceased former mayor of Moscow famous for his corruption and also his wife, who happens to be the Russian woman who wired Hunter’s business $3.5 million for...well, something.

In case you didn’t see our report, here it is.

Since then, the story has gotten worse. Again, I want you to imagine how this would be reported if it involved Donald Trump and any of his offspring. There’s no need to tell you --- you know exactly how it would be.

In a follow-up report, the NY POST said that Joe Biden was a “regular” at Cafe Milano, the Georgetown restaurant where he dined with Hunter’s associates and which bills itself as the place “where the world’s most powerful people go.”

President Biden has repeatedly said that he's never even had a conversation with Hunter about his foreign business dealings, that there was “a wall” and that he knew nothing about them.

In an update, there’s actually a photograph that was taken of part of this group --- Joe Biden included --- and the background matches other interior shots of Cafe Milano. The image was posted in 2019, with no word on where or when it was shot, but the April 16, 2015, dinner Hunter arranged is almost certainly it. The photo shows a smiling then-VP Biden, flanked by Kazakhstani oligarch Kenes Rakishev and Karim Massimov, former prime minister of Kazakhstan. According to the DAILY MAIL, Hunter worked with Rakishev to find U.S. investments for his $300 million-plus fortune between 2012 and 2014.

Here’s the story, with the photo. (Note: the story says the “Bidens” are in the picture, but do you see Dr. Jill Biden, Ph.D? I don’t.)

Anyway, the media have ignored this story just as we knew they would. Over the weekend, Judge Jeanine Pirro slammed the media for failing to pick up on the NY POST report. “Joe Biden lied to the American people again and again,” she said. “He told us that he never talked to his brother, never talked to his son about their businesses, and yet now we have photographs of him, now we have that laptop. And, by the way, they never denied the authenticity of that laptop. And so now Big Tech comes in, along with the media, to say we’re not gonna let the American people hear about this. I mean, can you imagine if it were a Trump that went over there and then they brought back a $1.5 billion from China or $3 million from the widow of the Russia?"

That's the question I've been asking, but, again, we all know the answer. FOX & FRIENDS WEEKEND host Will Cain also sounded a lot like me when he compared the media's blatant lies about this to the lies they've perpetuated about the Wuhan lab and COVID-19. Recall that Twitter even suspended the account of the NY POST over its Hunter Biden laptop story, because they dared to suggest that Hunter’s dad knew more than he let on about his son’s foreign business activity.

But now it’s clear that the hyper-politicized social media “fact”-checkers were wrong, not the NY POST. Even so, those “fact”-checkers have the power to determine which accounts are going to be demonetized, frozen, or otherwise given black marks. Time after time, reality turns out to be diametrically opposed to what they tell us it is. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing they should be looking into at this point is their own nether regions. They’re not qualified to check anything else. I wouldn’t ask them to check my oil.

An excellent interview segment featuring Harris Faulkner and guest Will Cain is at the link. It includes a video montage of the times Biden has denied knowing anything about Hunter’s business.

“I think every single one of us would have to look...at our television screens and ask ourselves, what is our appetite for manipulation and lies? Because you have been manipulated and lied [to] blatantly --- not even...surreptitiously, but blatantly --- for more than a year. And...the Hunter Biden laptop story arc, follows very neatly, Harris, with the ‘COVID came from the Wuhan lab’ as a conspiracy theorist idea.”

This is from their playbook, he said, the way they call these ideas “crazy talk” and “Russian disinformation” (which I would add is really getting old) even though they’re true. Cain asserted that the way both of these stories –- Hunter’s laptop and COVID –- were dealt with by the media actually manipulated a Presidential election.

Oh, no, he just gave the “fact”-checkers something else to call crazy. But it's true.

EPOCH TV has put together an outstanding video called “Hunter Biden Is Back in the News: A Look at the Media’s Cover-Up of His Laptop Scandal.” It’s a great refresher on the whole story, and it also looks specifically at the impact of the media’s coverage (or, I would say, lack of coverage, and outright censorship) on the 2020 election. It runs just under 17 minutes and is well worth your time.

As you’ll see in the video, NPR’s Managing Director for News Terence Samuels said of the Hunter story, “We don’t waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste our listeners’ and our readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

I wonder, how many times on NPR over the past five years have they pushed stories somehow linking Donald Trump, and/or Trump’s family, and Russia? How much of their listeners’ time has been wasted on story after story that turned out not to be true?

Another great point: Joe Biden himself tried to rely on the “Russian disinformation” story as a cover during two of the presidential debates when Trump brought up Hunter’s laptop. He had to be well aware that this was a fabrication.

Finally, Matt Taibbi has a great piece about the media’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, calling it even a bigger scandal than the actual story.

Taibbi shows exactly what the social media “fact”-checkers are up to, how they scrub or de-rank the real information in favor of the slanted “explainers,” which are pure propaganda. For when you have time (it’s long), his piece is one of the best choices of reading material you could make on the the subject. Aside from this, of course.

Mike Huckabee

The latest study suggests that if you had even a mild case of COVID-19, your antibody levels may fall over time, but memory B cells will patrol your bloodstream for reinfection and plasma cells in your bone marrow will keep making antibodies for decades.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9

This would make sense, since most vaccines work by making your body think you had a particular disease, to try to mimic the immunity you get from really having it. But it brings up an important point: with so many people trying to divide Americans into two groups (vaccinated and unvaccinated), and prevent the unvaccinated from going without masks or getting on planes or even being able to afford to attend a concert, what about people who had COVID and are now naturally immune, maybe even more so than the vaccinated? Some doctors are advising them not to get the vaccine, out of concerns that it could cause complications. Should there be a third category: “Unvaccinated but immune because I had it already”?

Or maybe we should just stop putting people in categories and denying them rights, keep allowing those who haven’t had COVID to get vaccinated if they want to until we reach herd immunity (if we haven’t already), and quit trying to force people to get the shot if they don’t want to. Because forcing them to take a shot is a practice that’s about to enter the court system, and there’s a good chance it won’t survive.

https://www.westernjournal.com/100-health-care-professionals-staff-sue-hospital-vaccine-mandate-warns-employees-not-human-guinea-pigs/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Mike Huckabee

Many Americans who voted for Joe Biden thought they were getting a moderate, bipartisan unifier. Instead, they’re suffering whiplash from how quickly he’s yanked the nation hard-left, with open borders, massive spending, huge tax hike proposals, a return to failed “appease our enemies” foreign policies, the destruction of America’s fossil fuel industry and more insanity from the far left wish list.

The buyer’s remorse is showing up in polls. I told you last week about a Fox News poll showing that the number of Americans who think Biden is too far left has jumped 10 points to 46%. Now, a new survey by Echelon Insights and Winning for Women finds deep concerns about Biden’s profligate spending.

Fifty-eight percent believe that "inflation, raising prices and the cost-of-living for Americans" is certain if Biden’s massive spending plans become law; 57% agreed that the tax hikes on American families his spending would require would "slow down our already fragile economy" and "jeopardize our recovery;" and 53% said his plans would "lead to an unprecedented expansion of big government."

Surprisingly, those numbers include 61% of Independents, 54% of women, 63% of women with children and even 56% of non-liberal Democrats.

https://twitter.com/WinningForWomen/status/1398271066418683906

So if Biden is governing far to the left of his record, his campaign rhetoric and even many of his own supporters, you have to wonder why? It’s almost as if the guy who’s running the Biden Presidency isn’t the Joe Biden who was in Washington for nearly half a century.

The editors of Issues & Insights have a theory that might explain why Joe Biden doesn’t seem to be governing like Joe Biden. Meet the person they believe is virtually the acting President, his unelected Chief of Staff known to some as “Biden’s brain,” Ron Klain.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/01/this-isnt-the-man-voters-put-in-the-white-house/

Mike Huckabee

Freddie Sayers, executive editor of Unherd.com, has a good article on Facebook’s censorship of any questioning of the origins of COVID-19, and how, despite their recent reversal, they have failed to learn any lessons from that and are continuing to censor other legitimate comments and questions that run counter to “official” narratives that remain unproven.

https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-facebook-censored-the-lab-leak-theory/

Meanwhile, Instapundit has a good round-up of some of the other recent news about the media’s red-faced crawl-back of its “fact-checkers’” flat denial that COVID-19 might have possibly escaped from the Wuhan virology lab.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/453205/

This collection of stories and tweets shows you just how badly the media’s combination of Trump Derangement Syndrome and financial dependence on China warped their perceptions and their “reporting.”

It also features a new twist: they didn’t just automatically deny the lab theory because Trump raised it. A New York Times reporter has admitted that reporters (and other leftists in general) first went into kneejerk denial mode because Republican Sen. Tom Cotton raised the possibility, and they also had to automatically dismiss everything he said. So Tom Cotton was in good company with the President. Here’s a separate link to that story from the Daily Wire.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyt-writer-admits-media-dismissed-claim-of-wuhan-virus-origin-because-cotton-said-it

That includes Cotton’s original comments, and it’s interesting to compare what he actually said to the distorted version most media consumers received. If you listened to the liberal media (which I keep warning you not to do), you’d have thought Cotton was spouting racist, anti-Chinese conspiracy theories as if they were fact. Actually, he merely pointed out things China had said that were proven to be false, facts we had learned that undermined the official “wet market” story, and the way China was being so resistant to allowing access to doctors or investigators. He never said it came from the lab; he just said it was a possibility that deserved consideration and that shouldn’t be discounted simply because Chinese officials adamantly denied it while blocking any efforts to investigate it.

In other words, the exact same situation that prevails today. And come to think of it, the same situation that prevails in all the states where they’re trying to audit the 2020 ballots.

Mike Huckabee

Wouldn’t you say that in Arizona, given the still-unresolved problems they had with the 2020 election –- the audit there is still going on –- it’s more important than just about anything to pass election integrity legislation?

That's what I'd say, but Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey apparently disagrees. On Friday, he vetoed 22 bills, including two of special note: one that would've prohibited the inclusion of Critical Race Theory in training for government workers, and also one designed to help ensure voter integrity. It would have outlawed the mass mailing of ballots to voters who did not request them. I call that a good start.

But it was not to be. Here’s a portion of what Gov. Ducey had to say in a tweet on Friday:

“Today, I vetoed 22 bills. Some are good policy, but with one month left until the end of the fiscal year, we need to focus first on passing a budget. That should be priority one. The other stuff can wait. Once the budget passes, I’m willing to consider some of these other issues. But until then, I will not be signing any additional bills. Let’s focus on our jobs, get to work and pass the budget.”

With all due respect, and as important as a budget is, there is some “other stuff” that mustn't wait, and any chance to sign such important legislation should not be passed up.

According to the AZ MIRROR, the Republicans failed to pass the $12.4 billion budget bill they'd worked out with the governor. They have only a one-vote majority in both houses, and the Democrats didn’t like this budget, so Republicans would've had to vote unanimously to approve it. They don’t quite have the votes yet, so they’ve adjourned till June 10.

https://www.azmirror.com/2021/05/28/ducey-vetoes-22-bills-says-nothing-will-be-signed-until-budget-is-approved/

One senator and one representative have said they won’t support this budget. These two Republicans are stuck on one provision: a proposal to get rid of the graduated state income tax brackets and replace them with a 2.5 percent flat tax. It’s estimated this would cost the state $1.9 billion. And since a cut of the tax revenue goes to cities and towns, those also would take a hit. Both legislators want them compensated for lost revenue, and they say they have some other concerns as well.

The governor’s decision to veto all 22 of those bills apparently angered both Republicans and Democrats, depending on which of the bills we’re talking about. Democrat Sen. Tony Navarrete described Gov. Ducey’s refusal to sign one prison reform bill as “a public temper tantrum fit for a toddler.”

Other bills had been more important to Republicans. One big one was the anti-CRT Senate Bill 1074, banning training for government officials “that presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex.” This was one of the last bills to be passed before they all ended up in quicksand because of the failed budget.

And one that absolutely did not deserve to be vetoed for ANY reason was House Bill 2792, which would have made it a Class 5 felony for an election official to send a ballot to someone who hadn’t requested one. This practice should never be allowed. As reported by the AZ MIRROR, the legislation outlawing this was “a response to Democratic election officials across the country, including former Maricopa County recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, who sought to send early ballots to all voters last year at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Maricopa County judge barred Fontes from carrying out his plan for the Democratic presidential preference election in March.[2020].”

The judge’s ruling came after the Arizona attorney general issued a temporary restraining order to stop Fontes from sending out the ballots. Fontes had taken it upon himself to do this, tweeting at the time, “We are in uncharted territory here.” (Indeed. All the rule changes that were made across the country during 2020 put us into uncharted territory, all right. We’re still trying to find our way out.)

The AG’s restraining order said, “Sending out unauthorized ballots will create voter confusion on the eve of an election [it was just four days prior] and could result in voters attempting to vote ballots that are not fully authorized.” Gosh, really?

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told Fontes she understood his concern but that he didn’t have the legal authority to mail ballots to people who had not requested them. The Maricopa Board of Supervisors had determined this as well. With all this, it still took a restraining order and a judge’s ruling to stop him. The guy even held a press conference to say his office DID have authority to do this “in time of crisis.”

“I believe it is permissible to send ballots to voters,” he said, “particularly in a type of emergency that we are having now, to ensure that those fundamental rights are maintained and upheld.”

You know, I think we’ve figured out why the county recorder at the recent Board of Supervisors is not the same person who was in charge in 2020. That person is gone. We did a little digging and found there had been a website called fireadrianfontes.com, but nothing is online now. He ran for re-election in Maricopa County on November 3, and he lost.

https://ballotpedia.org/Adrian_Fontes

Of course, we saw at the recent Maricopa County Board of Supervisors “special” meeting that his successor, Stephen Richer, is no prize, either. He’s the one who wrote the letter, unanimously approved by the Board, refusing to cooperate with the audit that had been authorized by the State Senate.

In December of last year, there was a story in AZ CENTRAL referring to Fontes as “outgoing Maricopa County recorder” (leaving January 1) and saying he was taking a job as an interim chief deputy recorder in Pima County. Oh, goody.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/adrian-fontes-outgoing-maricopa-county-recorder-takes-a-job-with-pima-county-recorder/ar-BB1bPh5B

Apparently, the newly-elected Pima County recorder was eager to work with Fontes because “he has been leading the way in so much of the revolution of voter registration and early voting for the state,” said Gabriella Cazares-Kelly. She described him as “innovative.”

Well, that’s for sure. We’d like to add that he’s a real “take-charge individual.”

Anyway, this background is offered to make the case that it’s very important for Arizona to “right the ship” after the crazy 2020 election year and pass voter integrity laws. The least they can do is make sure ballots aren’t being mailed out to everyone on their list, requested or not, just days before an election. And Gov. Ducey should have gone ahead and signed that bill, understanding that it's at the county level in key states that national elections are won or lost.

Here’s the story as reported by NEWSMAX.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/arizona-veto-critical-race-theory-election-integrity/2021/05/31/id/1023369/

Meanwhile in Arizona, the Maricopa County election audit continues, with, I assume, a break over the Memorial Day weekend. (Of course, the ballots will be secured 24/7.) There’s really no news out of there right now, at least not that we'd consider reliable, so as soon as we have an credible update, we’ll bring it.

Mike Huckabee

I hope you had a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend, and remembered to honor our fallen military heroes who made possible every day of freedom that we enjoy. Former President Trump released a moving statement about Memorial Day that I’m sure you’ll want to read.

https://www.westernjournal.com/legacy-immortal-trump-delivers-stirring-memorial-day-statement/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

President Biden and Vice President Harris also tweeted about the holiday, even though it took Harris two tries and a lot of backlash before she remembered to mention what it was really about.

This story features a lot of photos of the giant MAGA boat flotilla in Jupiter, Florida, for Memorial Day.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9637215/Trump-honors-Americans-supreme-sacrifice-Memorial-Day.html

It also includes Biden’s comments at Arlington National Cemetery. It was fine, but the allusions to “democracy” being in peril here and abroad came across as self-serving, insulting and inappropriate. There is zero moral equivalency between Americans wanting to ensure that the 2020 vote was honest and the kind of democracy-crushing dictators our soldiers have given their lives to stop.

Mike Huckabee

This is mostly a story about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ most likely Democrat challenger, Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried, tweeting “Florida is not a red state,” only to have it pointed out that her own Twitter bio describes her as the only Democrat in statewide elected office.

https://www.westernjournal.com/likely-desantis-challenger-declares-fl-isnt-red-state-unknowingly-fact-checks/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

But as amusing as that is, read the full story for DeSantis’ comments from last week’s townhall with Sean Hannity, in which he claims that the overwhelming majority of people fleeing blue states for Florida are registering Republican. Let’s hope so because Colorado and Austin, Texas, provide chilling examples of what happens when leftists flee their fouled nests and then vote for the same policies and people they fled from.

Let’s hope DeSantis is right, and that the pandemic was the final straw that red-pilled (or red-stated) many longtime Democrats, who saw their businesses shut down, their rights taken away and their children’s schooling prioritized below the wishes of teachers’ unions.

If he’s correct, then the good news is that red states will be less likely to turn purple or even blue (as I’ve pointed out before, “turning blue” is often what someone does before dying.) The bad news is that it will leave the blue states in the hands of the most die-hard leftists, the ones who absolutely refuse to learn from experience. It will mean even deeper polarization between the states, and I feel true sympathy for anyone stuck in a blue state who can’t move out for some reason. I fear the crime, unemployment, filth, taxes, corruption, high cost of living and assaults on Constitutional rights are only going to get worse.

Mike Huckabee

With the lockdowns winding down in most states, many Americans are chomping at the bit to get out of the house and go to beaches or parks to celebrate Memorial Day weekend as the unofficial start of summer. But let’s not forget that Memorial Day means far more than that. It’s a day set aside to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice to provide for us the unprecedented freedom that we so often take for granted as Americans.

In a premium story in the Epoch Times, veterans talked about the meaning of Memorial Day, and all of them made it clear that it isn’t about them, but about their comrades who never made it back home. As one put it, “Veterans Day is for those who survived and retired. Armed Forces Day is for those who are still serving. Memorial Day is reserved for those who never got to take off their uniform.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/veterans-speak-about-memorial-day-its-not-about-us_3836117.html

Despite the distortions of America’s history that so many people want to force into our schools, the fact is that no people in the history of the world have experienced the liberties, opportunities or prosperity that we have enjoyed as citizens of the greatest country on God’s green earth — the United States of America. I don’t say that as a biased American, but as one who has traveled the world and who can scour the pages of human history and say definitively that no nation has ever given its inhabitants the degree of freedom, security, and pursuit of happiness as has this extraordinary experiment in government called the United States.

Our Constitution is a simple, yet profound, blueprint for a government in which the ultimate power rests with the people and not with a king, a tyrant dictator, a military general, or even an elected official. The genius of our nation is that the people have been vested with the highest power, and while we temporarily grant it to those we elect, we don’t give it away (even during a pandemic.)

This great system of self-government with its separation and balance of powers and its accountability to its people has been and continues to be protected against both foreign and domestic threats by those who trade their clothes of choice for a uniform and who trade their personal liberties to accept orders from someone who outranks them.

In the process of providing that protection, in wars and other police actions over more than two centuries, more than one million of those in our military have given their lives for those of us who will enjoy this long weekend. No American should take this for granted nor ignore it. It shouldn’t be left to the Gold Star families alone to take a pause for a somber reminder of the price of our benefits of citizenship. We all owe it to them to show respect in some way for those whose deaths gave us our lives.

This year, May 8 was the 76th anniversary of World War II’s VE Day (Victory in Europe) and August 15 will be the 76th anniversary of VJ Day (Victory over Japan.) While most of the commemorative events last year and this were canceled due to the pandemic, parents should use the Internet to teach kids at home about VE Day and VJ Day.

For kids who’ve heard derogatory comments about the military, these anniversaries are a golden opportunity to teach them that the rights, freedoms and comforts they enjoy were paid for with the blood of patriots: over a million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. To cite just one war alone, many people today unconscionably water down the meaning of the term “Nazi” by hurling it thoughtlessly at political opponents.

This Memorial Day, especially in light of the shocking rise of anti-Semitic attacks by those who are ignorant of what World War II was about, please teach your children about the real evils of Nazism and the tens of millions who died because of it. And fly your flag and give thanks and prayers for the 16 million Allied military members – over 405,000 of them Americans – who heroically gave their lives to stop it.

Mike Huckabee

Once a year, on the last Monday in May, we set aside a day to honor our fellow Americans who made the greatest of all sacrifices so that the rest of us could continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty and security.

Memorial Day was born after the Civil War, when families would take a day to tend and decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers. It soon spread to the North, and became known as Decoration Day. Eventually, it became a national holiday to honor all American military veterans who gave up their homes, their families, their very lives -- everything they had, or ever dreamed of having – all in sacrifice for their country. And just how many have made that ultimate sacrifice? Brace yourself:

From the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812, the Civil War and Spanish American war, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other wars, police actions and rescue missions around the world since 1776, over one million, three hundred and eight thousand Americans have died in uniform.

Imagine if all those soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen could come back to life for a Memorial Day parade. Picture them marching past in rows of ten, each row taking just 10 seconds to pass. That parade would stretch on and on, row after row, 360 rows per hour, for hour after hour, 24 hours a day, for over 15 straight days. That is the enormity of the military casualties America has experienced since 1776. That doesn’t even include the millions more who sacrificed their limbs, their sight, their peace of mind, and the best years of their lives, all for us.

Make you realize just how ignorant and slanderous it is to claim America's history is built on slavery, racism and selfishness instead of freedom, compassion and sacrifice.

Today's military members, like those before them, risk their lives to protect the cherished American principles of liberty, equality, democracy, fighting tyranny and defending the weak. Previous generations guarded these bedrock principles so that they could be passed down to us. It is now our sacred duty to preserve them for future generations.

Every year, the American Legion sells poppy pins to support veterans and their families. May 22nd was National Poppy Day this year (https://www.legion.org/poppyday). I hope you bought one and are wearing it proudly. The poppy became the symbol of Memorial Day, thanks to the famous poem, “In Flanders’ Fields,” by Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae. He wrote it in memory of his friend Alexis Helmer, whom he watched die in battle in World War I.

The poem starts, “In Flanders’ fields, the poppies blow,

Between the crosses, row on row…”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47380/in-flanders-fields

Read the poem. It's very short, but it still conveys a powerful message of the depth of those soldiers' sacrifice and the debt we owe them all.

The pandemic is waning, but there are still fewer group activities than usual available where we can gather to show our support for veterans and our gratitude to those who gave their lives to protect our freedom. But we can all proudly fly our American flags. And we can offer support to some of the many great veterans’ support organizations, such as the VFW and the American Legion.

Another great new organization with an especially timely mission is Code Of Vets, founded by Air Force Veteran, Gretchen Smith. She and a staunch supporter, the late Charlie Daniels, once appeared on “Huckabee” on TBN to talk about the group’s efforts to provide support to veterans struggling through the pandemic. You can learn more and donate at http://www.codeofvets.com. It’s tax-deductible, and with their 1% operating costs, you can rest easy knowing that 99 cents of every dollar given goes directly to help veterans in need.

And of course, one more thing we can all do from wherever we are is to stop for a moment and think of all the rows and rows of crosses in veterans’ cemeteries…say a prayer of thanks to them…and remember that each and every cross represents a genuine American hero who made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

McCrae’s poem ends, “To you, from failing hands, we throw the torch. Be yours, to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders’ fields.” If you really want to memorialize these greatest of American heroes, then take up the torch they passed to us. Hold it high. And NEVER let it drop.