Mike Huckabee
The long-awaited IG report found that James Comey deviated from FBI and DOJ procedures in handling the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails but found no evidence of political bias. And Bonnie & Clyde deviated from the law in robbing banks, but they didn’t do it for the money.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-14/comey-broke-from-fbi-procedures-in-clinton-probe-watchdog-finds
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Another Supreme Court decision has arrived in a flurry expected this month. The SCOTUS voted 7-2 to strike down a Minnesota law banning voters from wearing political apparel such as partisan T-shirts or MAGA caps at the polls. The case was brought by a voter who was told he had to remove his Tea Party shirt and “Please I.D. Me” button before being allowed to vote, which the SCOTUS ruled was a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights.
The majority held that states may ban campaign signs, solicitations and other direct attempts to influence voters in and near polling places to protect voters from the clamor and din of electioneering. But extending that ban to passive, non-disruptive expressions of political views such as a voter’s own clothing is taking it too far.
So does this mean I can now vote while wearing a T-shirt with my daughter’s picture on it?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/14/supreme-court-strikes-down-minnesota-law-prohibiting-voters-from-wearing-political-apparel-to-polls.html
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The Berkeley, California, City Council declared a “climate emergency” worse than World War II and voted to demand “humane population control.” I say to them what I say to all radicals who demand we lower the population: “Okay, you go first.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/13/berkeley-declares-climate-emergency-worse-than-world-war-ii-demands-humane-population-control.html
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At the New York Times, everything President Trump does is wrong, even when he does exactly what they advised him to do.
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/06/nyt-columnist-attacks-trump-for.html
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For everyone who’s been asking me if it’s true my daughter Sarah is leaving the White House at the end of the year, I think I’ll let her respond. She’s had even more experience dealing with fake news than I have.
https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2018/06/14/sarah-sanders-punches-back-at-cbs-report-that-shes-leaving-the-white-house/
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Here’s reason #3,934 why people are signing petitions to split off from California. I should warn you that the link takes you to the type of content that should be seen by adults only. Which is ironic, considering it’s a description of the graphic sex ed curriculum California public schools force on children. Be grateful you at least have the option of whether or not to see it, because parents who don’t want their kids exposed to it are told, “Tough toenails” (FYI, that might the only body part not covered in the curriculum.) But the schools say parents are permitted to tell their children if there are parts of it they disagree with. How magnanimous of them to grant parents the privilege of free speech. Wonder how long that will last?
https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/calif-school-district-forbids-parents-to-remove-kids-from-graphic-sex-ed-class/
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This story features an interesting examination of the attempt to cite Scripture as an argument for lenient immigration and border control policies. It includes the rationale of theologians on both sides of the issue. Unfortunately, it doesn’t delve into why people who spend much of their time attacking or mocking Christians for believing in the Bible cite the Bible to support their positions when it’s convenient. But we can probably figure that out without Divine intervention.
https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-msnbc-host-questions-jim-jordans-christianity-for-wanting-to-enforce-immigration-policy/
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Those of you who never miss my TBN TV show “Huckabee” (and if you have missed it, you can see past episodes here, so there’s really no excuse: https://www.tbn.org/programs/huckabee/episodes) will remember my April 28th interview with Cabot Phillips of CampusReform.org. He’s the young man who bravely ventures out into America’s university campuses armed only with camera and microphone and asks students questions guaranteed to trigger them into running for the nearest Play Doh-equipped safe space. Well, he has a new video up, and it’s a must-see.
In this one, he interviews George Washington University students about the Supreme Court decision in favor of Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips. The question: should a Christian baker be forced to take a job making a same-sex wedding cake if it violates his religious beliefs?
The predictable response from some students who’ve spent too much time steeping in the PC culture of leftist professors: of course he should, because baking is his job and he has no right to say no to anyone. As one poetically put it, “His ability to exercise his freedom of religion ends when that infringes on another person’s ability to be who they are.”
Quite moving. But hold on: there are follow-up questions. What if the baker is Jewish; should he be forced to bake a cake for a Palestinian wedding? What if he’s black; does he have to cater a KKK rally? One young woman who sides with the Jewish and black bakers admits that she’s contradicting what she just said about the Christian baker. What’s really happening is that she’s undergoing the uncomfortable process of having to examine something from a different point of view than she’s accustomed to, which used to be one of the main reasons for attending college before it was outlawed.
Watch to the end: it’s surprising and heartening to see how many students actually side with religious freedom, including one who knows enough about the case to realize how badly Colorado authorities discriminated against the baker because of his religion.
If I could add one more question, it would be, “If the baker were Muslim; should he be forced to cater a same-sex wedding reception?” Only I wouldn’t ask that of students, I’d ask it of the people who keep filing lawsuits against Christian bakers that subject them to bankruptcy and death threats, but they never seem to target Muslim bakeries. Is it because they fear Muslims would retaliate, because that's awfully Islamophobic? And if so, does that mean they only target people they think won’t fight back, since that’s the very definition of bullying, and I thought they were opposed to bullying?
I read that during an acceptance speech on the Tony Awards, an actor in the gay-themed play “Angels in America” got a big ovation for taking a stand for tolerance by declaring, “Let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked!” It was a perfect illustration of the lack of empathy in the insular world of the self-appointed tolerance police.
Obviously, their definition of tolerance is a perfect world in which everyone sees things their way. Real tolerance would be religious people not trying to force them to live in a way that complies with their sacred beliefs, and them not trying to force religious people to comply with things that violate their sacred beliefs. No matter where you stand on any issue, using force of government to make everyone say and do only the things you approve of is not tolerance. It’s totalitarianism.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11009
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I’m about to do something I don’t often do: I’m going to offer what I think is some good advice to the leadership of the Democratic Party. The point I want to make may become clearer if we look at three stories in the news, side-by-side.
First, there is Cynthia Nixon, the “Sex And The City” star who is challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the left (and you can imagine how far to the left you have to circle) in New York’s Democratic Primary. She is a perfect representative of the type of people who are taking over the Party; if not the leadership, then at least the public image and state- and local-level offices. These are the “progressives,” which I put in quotation marks because there’s nothing progressive about believing in ideas that have been tried for over a century and brought nothing but failure and misery every time.
The far-left tail now seems to be wagging the dog, as the national party moves further left to accommodate the loudest, most activist part of its base, which refuses even to pretend to be moderate anymore. Instead, they openly endorse policies such as socialism, open borders, amnesty and repeal of the Second Amendment that the national party has tried to paper over for years. Ms Nixon represents that base well: she’s called for even higher taxes in New York to help fund her just-released education plan. It includes barring Immigration enforcement agents from schools, easing disciplinary measures at schools with the highest suspension and arrest rates, and free college for all, including illegal immigrants.
https://www.westernjournal.com/celeb-running-against-cuomo-ban-ice-give-illegals-free-college/
Now, if you listen to certain media outlets, you would think that stuff like this is the wave of the future. It’s what intellectuals tell us will happen first in California and sweep eastward across the nation. Before the Democratic leadership swallows that, let’s look at two other stories in this week’s news.
California activists just garnered over 402,000 signatures on a petition that will put a measure on the November ballot to split California into three states. They would be North California, South California, and California, which would be a skinny strip along the coast where all the “progressives” can live like wild chimps in a nature preserve: free to do whatever they like, but no longer able to fling their poop at those around them. (Personally, I would’ve proposed splitting it into two states: “Left California,” for multiple reasons, and “Wanted to Leave California.”)
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/proposal-to-split-california-into-3-states-eligible-for-states-ballot-in-november
Meanwhile on the other coast, in deep blue New York, even among Democratic primary voters, the latest Siena poll shows Cynthia Nixon trailing Cuomo by 61-26%. And the more she’s campaigned, the wider the gap has grown.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/06/13/time-stick-fork-cynthia-nixons-campaign/
Put all this together and here’s what it means: even in the most liberal, coastal elitist states in America, far-left progressivism is a pitiful loser of a position with the vast majority of voters. No, we are not “all socialists now.” Believing your propaganda is how you end up losing about 1,000 elected offices over a decade.
I offer this advice to the Democratic leadership for two reasons: (1.) I sincerely hope you pull back from the cliff and move to the middle, for the sake of a healthy, two-party system. And (2.) I have no illusions that you will actually listen to a word I try to tell you.
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At this writing, we’re still waiting for the report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton’s email case. It’s scheduled to be released Thursday, with the President receiving it by midafternoon. The version we see later in the day will no doubt contain some redactions, as the DOJ has had it over two weeks for “review.” The President (being the President) had better receive both the redacted and unredacted versions, to be able to compare them and see what the DOJ is trying to withhold from Congress and the general public.
Keep in mind, this report doesn’t deal directly with the FBI’s investigation of Trump and alleged Russia “collusion,” or with the Mueller investigation that spun off from that. It doesn’t examine the process for obtaining the FISA warrants to spy on Trump campaign associates. But it deals with largely the same cast of characters at the FBI, and if it shows that Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page and the rest of that sorry lot were in the tank for Hillary, we’ll be able to infer a lot about their motivations regarding Trump. In other words, if “the fix was in” for Hillary, we may assume “the knives were out” for Trump.
So that’s coming within hours. In the meantime, I must say that the Rod Rosenstein story from yesterday --- concerning threats he made to members of Congress and their staff about putting their email and phone records under subpoena --- has caught fire. The idea that such intimidation tactics might be used by bureaucrats against elected officials and their staffers who are trying to carry out their constitutional duties is just not in keeping with what we want our government to be here in America. And as the story got around, it became increasingly clear that the Rosenstein temper is legendary and that similar threats have been made, in other meetings with lots of shouting. Most of all, the story suggested how desperate the Department of “Justice” is to hide...what??...and how close the committees charged with oversight must be to finding it.
Andrew C. McCarthy has explained the legal implications of Rosenstein’s behavior in his latest column for NATIONAL REVIEW. The great thing about it is that he places the contentious meeting in the context of what was going on five months ago, on January 10. McCarthy reminds us that this was at a time when they were trying to maintain that they would never use unverified information in a FISA application. They wanted us to believe that they would clearly inform the FISA court of the questionable origins and potential biases of the information supplied to them. We found out only later that what they’d told us about the FISA application process was a pile of you-know-what.
McCarthy has done the heavy lifting for this latest piece, outlining in clear detail what is wrong with having the deeply conflicted Rosenstein play the role of FBI-head and Mueller’s supervisor. (By the way, did you know McCarthy has just been hired as a FOX News contributor? He’s been our go-to legal “advisor” for some time, adding greatly to our understanding of complex legal issues at a time when we really need that.) He says he doesn’t know Rosenstein personally and is not attacking his integrity but theorizes that the conflicts he’s facing in his work are distorting his judgment.
I’m not sure I can cut Rosenstein that much slack. What is it that has kept him from recusing himself, given those enormous conflicts? Failure to do that is, in itself, a horrendously bad judgment call. It’s even possible that he’s keeping some documents under wraps because they implicate HIM. After all, he did sign one of the warrant renewals sent to the FISA court. Whether or not that is true, just the appearance of something like that is one more reason he shouldn’t be anywhere near this case.
In fact, McCarthy makes a compelling argument that it doesn’t make sense for Jeff Sessions to recuse himself and Rosenstein not to, that in fact it should have been the opposite. Rosenstein has to go, and all the documents must be disclosed.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/rod-rosenstein-subpoena-threat-shows-conflict-of-interest/