Mike Huckabee

Rep. Maxine Waters has been in Congress for 30 years, and I’m astonished to report that she’s finally accomplished something good. Of course, it was completely unintentional, but still…

https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/congresss-vip-air-marshal-program-canceled-after-maxine-waters-debacle/

Last month, Waters sparked backlash when she traveled to Minneapolis to fire up the mob and try to intimidate the Derek Chauvin jury into voting guilty. In true leftist hypocrite style, while she was there to condemn the police, she demanded plenty of police protection for herself, including two Federal Air Marshals pulled off of high-risk flights just to accompany her, even though she was already covered by a four-man detail.

Her behavior was, to quote the trial judge, so abhorrent that the backlash has now caused the cancellation of Congress’ VIP Federal Air Marshal program. Until Waters, most Americans didn’t know that Congress was using dozens of FAMs as their personal security. One whistleblower said that so many air marshals were being diverted from commercial flights to protect Congress members that it “left a glaring hole in America’s air security.” After Judicial Watch exposed the program, it’s been canceled. There are now dozens of Federal Air Marshals sitting around airports, waiting for real missions.

So for the first time ever, Americans can say, “Thanks, Maxine!,” and not mean it sarcastically.

Mike Huckabee

If the 2020 election taught us anything, it’s that we have to be able to trust the system, with complete transparency and a fully auditable outcome. But officials in Georgia, as in Arizona, are acting as if they hadn’t learned that lesson –- or else as if they knew something they were desperate to hide.

In breaking news Thursday, a meeting scheduled for Friday at a ballot storage warehouse as part of a ballot integrity case in Fulton County, Georgia, was canceled after officials filed what was described as a “flurry” of motions. The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections and the county clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts filed these motions, and Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero said they must be heard before plaintiffs may gain access to the ballots, and he has proposed the new date of June 21, though it still hasn’t been scheduled. So the county is able to delay a few more weeks. Delay, delay, delay.

At least the lead petitioner in the case, Garland Favorito, sees a silver lining. “It seems like a desperation move,” he told THE EPOCH TIMES, adding that they now have time to perfect the changes they were having to make in their inspection plan, though he didn’t say what those are. Also, Judge Amero said during the hearing that since there had been no motion to dismiss, petitioners could obtain some discovery. Some finer points of their legal wrangling are contained in ET’s premium story.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/georgia-judge-postpones-election-ballot-examination-after-county-files-motion-to-dismiss_3833447.html

Lawyers for the county –- and almost certainly there are other outside attorneys involved in this fight –- were urging the judge to refuse the plaintiffs access to the ballots. Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said in a statement, “It is outrageous that Fulton County continues to be a target of those who cannot accept the results from last year’s election.” Gosh, he sounds just like the Democrat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who ranted about people upset that “their guy” didn’t win.

These people just don’t understand: IT’S NOT THAT. They are misrepresenting what this fight is about. You don’t protect democracy by slamming the door shut on the process that selects the winner. If Republicans had presided over the kinds of wild irregularities we saw last November, Democrats would never stop screaming about it. Nor should they.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin the election isn’t escaping scrutiny, either. State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, says he’s hiring a team of three retired police officers, highly skilled investigators, to probe some aspects of the election that received “thousands” of complaints. In an interview with the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, he said he believes Biden won but that there were “irregularities” in how the vote was conducted that need to be checked out. The officers will review all allegations and focus on the most credible ones.

Recall that Wisconsin was one of the states that got millions of dollars from a group called the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The five largest cities in Wisconsin got a total of $6.3 million in grants, and it apparently came with some strings attached. Much of the money funded unmanned dropboxes that were reportedly placed where CTCL specified they should go. About 200 municipalities across the state got CTCL money.

According to the story at the link, a judge found that there was nothing in the law to prohibit the use of that money. But I think this is something that really warrants a closer look. Much as they might want millions of dollars in outside grant money, state legislatures need to think seriously about passing laws against it. States don’t need these outside groups coming in and giving them money with strings attached, telling them how to conduct their elections, especially when the changes they demand make it easier to cheat. Simply put, there's just something wrong about this.

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/assembly-speaker-robin-vos-hires-retired-police-officers-to-investigate-presidential-election/article_f610cf8a-3c4f-52aa-ac88-34682aaa4955.html

Mike Huckabee

A new AP/NORC poll is raising eyebrows because it claims that President Biden has an overall approval rating of 63%.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-coronavirus-approval-rating-efcc859a21a0ab6c43dfb4157987bf80

Considering he had an approval rating of 54% shortly after taking office, and almost all Republicans and even some Democrats are appalled at his far-left lurch, where did those 9 extra points come from? Are there people who actually like having a crisis on the border, more racial animosity, exploding crime rates, disappointing jobs numbers, rising inflation and higher prices for gas, when you can even find it? The only thing Biden’s touched that hasn’t been a disaster is the COVID vaccine developed under Trump that he takes credit for.

Personally, I always take polls with a pillar of salt, particularly ones that claim their sample is representative of the population, but don’t give any details (the population of the New York Times editorial room, maybe.) But this one seems especially mind-boggling in light of another new survey from Gallup.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-america-poll-shows-american-economic-confidence-crashed-back-negative-may/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

It shows that the economic confidence index which measures Americans’ confidence in the economy fell from +2 in April to -7 in May. That’s where it was in March, so confidence in the economy is moving backwards even as the pandemic is ending. The survey also found that only 43% of Americans think the economy is getting better, while 53% think it’s getting worse.

If James Carville was right, and what matters to Americans is “the economy, stupid,” then anyone who really believes Biden has a 63% approval rating when 53% of Americans think the economy is getting worse must be pretty stupid about either polls, math or both.

Mike Huckabee

(Warning: huge sarcasm alert)

We interrupt this commentary on censorship as discussed by legal expert Alan Dershowitz to offer the following words of gratitude and praise to Almighty Facebook:

Thank you, THANK YOU, O benevolent, magnificent and powerful Facebook, the arbiter of truth and blocker of misinformation for every American –- and, indeed, the entire planet –- for finally allowing us to express an opinion at odds with the one viewpoint you have permitted about the origin of the virus. We understand why, in your deep concern for our well-being, you spent the past year boldly and tenaciously censoring our slightest question about the “wet market” theory of origin for covid-19. It must have been quite important to make us believe that it entered the first human being quite innocently from a bowl of fresh and tasty bat soup or pangolin pie.

Why, you even dictated, in the interest of accuracy and anti-racism, that we CALL it covid-19, and not something outrageous like “China virus” or “Wuhan virus,” even though it came from Wuhan, China. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your guidance, as we realize that sometimes we need to be told what to think and otherwise kept in line.

Dear FB –- may we call you FB? –- we thank you for graciously informing us these many months that stories about the virus possibly emerging from the Wuhan lab were “misinformation,” nothing more than right-wing conspiracy theory and propaganda, and not worthy of your great and magnificent social media platform. Your diligent and tireless fact-checkers worked around the clock to make sure we expressed only the truth as you saw it, because you cared so much that only the right information would be shared with our “friends.” How thoughtful you were to protect us all from the woefully ignorant view that the Chinese bioweapons program might pose a risk.

Suddenly, now, the tide has turned –- even at the White House, where President Biden has called for an investigation after his State Department disbanded the one Trump had initiated –- and you, Dear Facebook, in your infinite, all-seeing and all-knowing authority and mysterious wokeness and wonderfulness have decided the narrative should change, so you've tweaked your algorithms and now permit us to speculate that the virus came from the Wuhan lab after all.

We are even allowed to say that some Wuhan lab staffers came down with symptoms consistent with covid-19 in the fall of 2019. Praise to you, glorious Facebook! We trust your inerrant judgment in finally offering us this freedom, as you know best, and, again, thank you, THANK YOU, for keeping such a close and protective eye on the information we read and share.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/facebook-reverses-course-allows-users-to-claim-covid-was-man-made-as-lab-leak-theory-gains-ground

……………………………..

Now, on to Dershowitz and the First Amendment.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz did an interview for the EPOCH TV show “Crossroads” to express concern about the removal of Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier from the U.S. Space Force over his stated opposition to Marxism and Critical Race Theory, and also about President Trump’s removal from Facebook, Twitter and other platforms after the Capitol Hill security breach on January 6 of this year.

Before Trump was removed from Twitter, he had about 90 million followers. Twitter says his ban will stay in place indefinitely. Facebook has upheld his ban but has been told by its advisory board to put a time limit on it.

“What Donald Trump tweets --- I may disagree with every word he says, but he has the right to say it,” Dershowitz said. “And more importantly, people forget the First Amendment has two aspects: one, the right of the speaker --- Donald Trump to speak --- that’s one part of it. And the second part, which is largely ignored, is the right of you and me the public to hear and read and see what he has to say to accept or reject it in the marketplace of ideas.

“When you ban a speaker,” Dershowitz continued, “you also ban his viewers and listeners from having access to that speech, and that’s an equally dangerous aspect of violating free speech rights.”

Of course, most of the “moderation of content” (censorship) is being done to conservative and pro-Trump speech.

Lohmeier’s comments about Marxism spreading through the military were deemed “politically partisan,” and he also spoke less-than-glowingly of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s pro-CRT agenda. He was removed from the 11th Space Warning Squadron just a few days ago, on May 19.

Censorship is at the top of Dershowitz’ mind right now; he has a new book out called “THE CASE AGAINST THE NEW CENSORSHIP: Protecting Free Speech from Big Tech, Progressives and Universities.” Here’s the interview, highly recommended, in which he describes this censorship as something new, “a sign of the times.”

“I’m critical of Marxism,” Dershowitz said in the interview, “I’m critical of ‘race theory,’ I’m critical of Black Lives Matter --- not the concept, the organization. I’m critical of many of the things that today you can’t criticize.” He mentioned a course he co-taught at Harvard about ten years ago called “Taboo,” about subjects you couldn’t talk about, and back then it ran 14 weeks. “Today, it could be a thousand-week course,” he quipped.

We have to use our power as consumers, he said, to STOP THIS CENSORSHIP.

The government isn’t supposed to be in the business of censorship, but Dershowitz says it's using Big Tech to sidestep the First Amendment. Be sure and see his full interview, which features multiple examples of the “new” censorship. He also briefly examines the history of government censorship, starting with the Alien & Sedition Acts very early in our nation’s life. Believe it or not, just a few years after the Bill Of Rights was passed, this law that made it a serious, prison-worthy crime to criticize the government, yet it was signed into law by President John Adams and supported by Alexander Hamilton and even George Washington.

“We’ve always had a struggle in our country,” Dershowitz says, “between those who believe in free speech and those who believe that they know better.” I would say that right now, we have a huge oversupply of people on the left who think they know better and have no problem at all with shutting down any speech they deem “problematic.”

Dershowitz brought up the current struggle in the Mideast, noting that former President Trump would very much like to go on social media and express support for Israel. “But they say ‘No, Trump lies! You can’t be on Twitter, you can’t be on Facebook, you can’t be on YouTube.’” Yet they leave up horribly anti-semitic and even pro-Hitler speech, wrongly implying that this is truthful.

“That’s the problem,” he says, “because when you have censorship of some things, then other things seem to have the imprimatur of truth.”

In applying this to Facebook and the virus, we could say the “bat soup” theory was given the imprimatur of truth. Until it wasn’t. “The Truth” is whatever Facebook decides it will be, on any given day. Have mercy on us, O Great And Powerful Facebook.