By Mike Huckabee
December 28, 2021
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THE EVENING EDITION By Mike Huckabee
Good evening! My staff and I are still officially "on vacation" until Thursday, but we don't want you to have to go cold turkey. You're getting enough of that from your Thanksgiving leftovers. So I wanted to share with you some quick takes on the headlines, plus some commentaries not tied to a particular breaking story. We'll be back to covering the day's news in more depth in a couple of days.
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1. DAILY BIBLE VERSE
This verse was recommended by Pattye G.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV
To recommend a verse for the Evening Edition, email [email protected].
THE LATEST NEWS
2. Holiday Travel:
I hope you aren’t planning any airline travel over this holiday weekend, because as of Monday afternoon, more than 1100 domestic flights have been canceled.
Who could have predicted that forcing airlines to fire hundreds of unvaccinated workers would result in a shortage of workers? It’s almost as shocking as learning that defunding the police leads to more crime.
On that subject, two Democrat Congress members who supported “police reform” (i.e., cutting cops and replacing them with mental health workers, etc.), were carjacked within 24 hours of each other.
I’ve decided to dub this a new class of crime: “karma-jacking.” I suggest we send those mental health workers to help anyone who thought defunding the police was a good idea.
3. “Math Is Hard!”:
In the left's attacks on Sen. Joe Manchin for refusing to support the Biden “Bring Back Bankruptcy” bill that 74% of his constituents oppose, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed that he was blocking progress that most Americans want, even though she represents as many people as he does, or maybe more.
For the record: A recent NPR/Marist poll found that only 41% of voters support that bill. Memo to AOC: 41% is less than "most."
Also, Manchin represents the entire state of West Virginia, population nearly 1.8 million. In his last election, he received over 290,500 votes. AOC’s district has a population of just under 700,000, and in 2020, she got about 153,000 votes.
Ironically, she might have a better argument against Bernie Sanders. He seems to think that Manchin is betraying democracy by not voting the way Bernie wants him to. Bernie represents Vermont, population 643,503. So if we really did apportion Senate power among the states by population, the way socialists like Bernie want us to, he’d be sitting at the kids’ table.
4. Mental Lapse:
President Biden’s latest mental lapse during an interview (twice mistaking a new COVID treatment pill for disease test kits) was so obvious and so worrying that even a CNN reporter remarked on his “confusion.”
5. Nations of Immigrants:
Despite the battles over illegal immigration, and the humanitarian disasters caused by our weak border security, nobody argues that America could ever have become what it is today without immigrants. Even if your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, they still had to take a boat to get here. Even “Native Americans” had to cross a land bridge at some point way back when.
Americans have a can-do attitude about tackling tough problems because we’re descended from ancestors who had the gumption to say, “There must be a better life than this,” then risk everything to come here and find it. When you hear smug know-it-alls say there’s nothing exceptional about America compared to other countries, remember that America was founded by all the people who were so exceptional, they just had to get the heck out of those other countries.
Of course, there is one other place where people share that spirit that drives them to start a new life, far from everything they’ve known. And not surprisingly, it’s also constantly criticized by the left. That’s our ally, Israel. Considering the threat from radical Islam all around it, it’s a wonder that so many people still do move there. But there’s a very important tenet of the Jewish faith called Aliyah, or “ascent.” It refers to the duty of every Jewish person to return to the Holy Land at some point and help to build the nation of Israel.
Nearly two decades ago, Israeli Rabbi Yehoshua Fass lost a family member to a terrorist attack. That brought home to him the fear that many Jews who grew up in the safety of the West felt about moving to Israel. So he founded a group to make it easier for Jews to negotiate the security obstacles and come to Israel. It was called Nefesh B’Nefesh, or “Jewish Souls United” (https://www.nbn.org.il.)
It started small, but since 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh has helped over 65,000 Jews from the U.S., Canada and UK come to Israel. They help with travel and financial grants, finding jobs, adapting to the local culture and more. Just as immigrants helped build America into a great nation that benefits its neighbors, these immigrants are helping people of all cultures in the Middle East. They bring the American ideals of freedom, equality and democracy to a part of the world that sorely needs them. And their skills don’t just help the Jewish population. When a doctor shortage was forecast, Nefesh B’Nefesh provided grants to encourage physicians to move there and provide enough medical care for people of every faith.
Nefesh B’Nefesh is keeping alive the idea of the best and brightest leaving the comforts of home to make another part of the world a better place. As many other nations become more dangerous and intolerant, we should celebrate the partnership and mutual values of United States and Israel – two great nations that still stand tall as beacons to immigrants around the world.
6. Don't buy the conventional wisdom:
When a lie gets repeated so often that everyone thinks it’s true, it’s called “conventional wisdom” – maybe because it happens so often at political conventions. These days, the conventional wisdom from some politicians and their “news media” press agents is that European-style, cradle-to-grave Socialism Lite is immensely popular with Americans, and only a handful of evil fascist, racist Republicans are standing in the way of the glorious “progress” the people want. Don’t buy this load of manure.
Throughout the Bush-Obama era, the media kept repeating “failed conservative policies” until even a lot of so-called conservatives believed it. In truth, it’s socialist policies that have been proven to be tragic failures, everywhere and every time they’re tried.
During the Obama years, we tried leftist policies. They resulted in a sluggish economy, depressed job growth, rising income inequality, reduced wealth and opportunities for minorities, and abroad, a decline in US prestige and leadership and the advancement and emboldening of our enemies, including a terrorist “JV team” called ISIS growing and spreading into a worldwide threat.
Polls began to show that most Americans wanted the government to do less and spend less. In France, where an actual Socialist was elected President, his huge tax hikes crashed the economy and made socialism as popular with the French as cheese in a can. The media were shocked when voters turned right in the next election. They should’ve known that nothing turns people off socialism like actually experiencing it. (See “Venezuela.”)
Of course, they were even more shocked when Trump won in 2016. He immediately reversed Obama’s leftist policies. Despite a non-stop media barrage that brainwashed a lot of people into thinking that was the WORST TIME EVER, it was actually a time of nearly unprecedented peace and prosperity. Crime fell, ISIS was smashed, the borders became more secure (although Democrats fought tooth and nail to keep them from being truly secured), unemployment reached record lows, real wages rose for the first time in decades, and the Abraham Accords saw historic Middle East peace agreements.
And then came COVID and the unsecure 2020 election, the inauguration of President Biden, his reversal of all those policies. And the combination of shock and whiplash experienced by many Americans who never dreamed that leftist policies could destroy so much so fast. Let’s all hope and pray that the 2022 elections will reflect that hard-won lesson and dump socialism back on the trash heap of history where it belongs…at least until a new generation arises that doesn’t remember the lessons of history and has to learn the hard way all over again.
It is a shame that we have to keep relearning the hard way that top-down, big government solutions don’t work. Young people can almost be excused for flirting with socialism, since they are empty vessels who get filled with whatever their teachers tell them, and we’ve been remiss in allowing leftists to politicize our schools and fill those precious vessels with garbage. Let’s also hope that parents have gotten “woke” to that scam and we’re about to see some real changes in our school system, from kindergarten through college.
But Republicans who promised small government and fiscal responsibility should already know better. Instead, too many let deficits skyrocket, stuffed budgets with pork, and became cheerleaders for big government. These so-called conservatives slammed me in 2007 for not being a “real conservative” because I pointed out problems in the economy that were hurting working people and criticized the lack of oversight of Wall Street’s excesses. Just two years later, they wanted to spend $700 billion of our grandkids’ money to bail out Wall Street from its excesses. They abandoned government’s rightful role as a tough-but-impartial referee and wanted to use its power to pick winners and losers in the market. Is that “real conservatism?”
The truth is that voters didn’t turn their backs on conservatism, Republican politicians did. Democrats didn’t sweep to power in 2008 by claiming to be government-bloating tax-and-spenders, but by swearing they’d changed and were now fiscally responsible. Of course, once they gave the White House and Congress to the Democrats, voters quickly realized their terrible mistake and gave the House back to the GOP (now it’s déjà vu all over again.) But too many Republicans had already squandered their credibility, so when Democrats ballooned the deficit, they could deflect criticism by simply pointing at their GOP opponents’ own records.
From Jefferson’s belief that government closest to the people governs best to Reagan’s faith in free markets, from low taxes to fiscal restraint, from a strong military to secure borders, conservative ideas work whenever they’re tried. Obama mocked Trump for saying we could bring back manufacturing jobs and have growth of over 4 percent, saying that Trump didn’t have a “magic wand.” But the only magic needed was a simple disappearing act: getting government out of the way. Biden brought back Obama’s policies. Doesn’t anyone seriously believe things are better now, other than Democrat cronies who get rich off government money?
Gandhi once said, "If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today." I think if all politicians really followed the principles they espouse to get elected, all of America would be conservative today. (Much of it already is: look at the 2020 county-by-county voting map – and that’s an election Democrats “won!”)
Americans just need politicians who’ll actually do what they claimed they would do once they arrive in Washington.
7. I Just Wanted To Say:
Thank you for reading.
8. Prayer Tree:
We are stronger together.
Our hope is that our newsletter readers and social media followers will consider these prayer requests each day.
HEALTH AND HEALING
"For our dear pastor's wife, Mary, who has increasing dementia and has fallen several times recently, confined to a nursing home. Our beloved Pastor, Tink, went home to be with his Lord just recently."
"For my son Stephen who has PTSD from military service in Iraq. Thank you!"
""Pray for healing for my granddaughter from confusion and sun."
"My long time friend Tim, who is struggling through, heart issues, cancer and now pneumonia. Especially tough at this time of year."
"For my daughter Janice. She has a deep depression. I don't know how to help her except to pray.""
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