By Mike Huckabee
April 19, 2022
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Good morning! Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!
Today's newsletter includes:
- Federal judge strikes down mask mandate
- Russia-Ukraine War Update
- Musk talks Twitter Board reform
- And much more.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
1. DAILY BIBLE VERSE
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
Hebrews 13:14
If you have a favorite Bible Verse you want to see in one of our newsletters, please email [email protected].
2. Federal judge strikes down mask mandate
Monday, a federal judge in Florida struck down the national mask mandate on airplanes and other mass transit, finding that while the CDC’s intentions might have been laudable, it overstepped its powers, failed to justify its decision, and did not follow proper rule-making procedures.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-business-travel-tampa-3408cc825582126fbda5fbedd3a49dd3
While the Biden White House urged people to keep wearing masks anyway (I get the impression Joe wears one in the shower), Uber, Amtrak, multiple airlines and airports immediately began rescinding their mask requirements and telling passengers that they could free their faces.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/covid-mask-mandate-uber-amtrak-airlines-requirements
And to quote Monty Python, “There was much rejoicing.”
https://www.toddstarnes.com/politics/liberation-day-passengers-cheer-flight-attendants-weep-for-joy/
Of course, not everyone is happy to once again breathe the safe, heavily-filtered air of freedom. Some people are screaming at the sky and demanding the ruling be appealed.
They’ve become so deeply invested in COVID dogma that telling them they don’t have to wear a mask is like telling a devout Muslim to take off her burqa. The Japanese have even coined a term for this condition: “mask dependency.” They claim they’re on the side of science. But are they really?
I’ve never understood why these people demand that everybody else wear a mask. If they truly believe that masks block the virus, then isn’t the one they’re wearing protection enough? They claim they want to prevent the spread of the disease to others, but from the way they’re constantly screaming at, insulting and threatening those who disagree with them, and wishing mass death on them, I find it hard to believe they’re all that altruistic.
Here’s the bottom line on masks: as uncomfortable and inconvenient as they are, I wouldn’t mind wearing one if I thought it was actually doing any good. We followed the suggested protocols at the time and asked our TV studio audience to wear them, which I swear is the only reason you couldn’t hear them laughing uproariously at my jokes.
But we now have plenty of data showing that mask mandates have had terrible adverse effects on children while making virtually no difference in the spread of COVID. The cloth masks most people wear don’t block the transmission of an extremely microscopic airborne virus. Not to mention that most people, especially children, don’t follow the strict rules for handling masks, which ends up making them less sanitary than going maskless.
If you have any friends who are melting down at the thought of taking off their masks, you might want to share this article by John Tierney at City Journal.
https://www.city-journal.org/the-failed-covid-policy-of-mask-mandates
It contains a lot of data, including a chart comparing the COVID spread rates in states with and without mask mandates. They’re virtually identical. So were the cumulative death rates over the course of the pandemic, except that the death rate was slightly lower in states without mask mandates.
To cite specific states, the media praised Rhode Island in the summer of 2020 for reaching a 96% mask compliance rate. It quickly went on to experience one of the worst COVID surges in America. The media savaged Florida and Iowa as “reckless and delusional” and accused them of not caring if people die for refusing or ending mask mandates. Their COVID death rates turned out to be lower than the national average.
Tierney also cites a book by data analyst Ian Miller called “Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates,” which “documents how mask mandates were implemented without scientific justification, how they failed around the world, and how public officials and journalists have kept making fools of themselves by pretending otherwise.” Might be good to have a copy of that to loan to your friends. But be sure to sanitize it for their protection.
3. Russia-Ukraine War Update
Here is today’s link to continually updated Russia-Ukraine bulletins from Fox News:
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-zelenskyy-live
The most recent headlines: Having pulled back from attacking Kyiv, Russian military forces have turned to conducting a full-scale offensive against the eastern part of the country. Russia’s foreign minister said, “Another stage of this operation is beginning.” President Zelenskyy called it the “Battle of the Donbas” and vowed to fight there, too. He said, “We will not give up anything Ukrainian."
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused the United States and other Western countries of trying to "delay" the course of the war in Ukraine by sending shipments of weapons to Kyiv’s military. He said, "Increasing volumes of foreign arms deliveries clearly demonstrate their intentions to provoke the Kyiv regime to fight to the last Ukrainian." So to recap: we’re sending them weapons and they’re using them to fight off the Russians who invaded their country, and that’s not right because wars are over sooner when the other side is unarmed.
That’s the kind of reasoning that’s so stupid, I’d expect only leftist college professors to agree with it.
4. Musk talks Twitter Board reform
By Mike Huckabee
As I’ve said before, even if Elon Musk never buys Twitter, it will all be worth it just for the anguish he’s causing leftist authoritarians, the way he’s forced them to expose themselves as being passionate enemies of free speech, and now, how he’s showing the public just how divorced from the interests of the stockholders these “woke” corporate board members are.
Last week, Musk tweeted an article revealing that the current board members collectively own almost zero shares of Twitter stock (so why should they care if their decisions, like banning conservatives from Twitter, hurt profits?) One member has had a Twitter account for four years and has never even used it.
And now, Musk has really hit them where it hurts: he tweeted that if his bid to buy Twitter and take it private succeeds, there won’t be a board anymore. That means all those board members will lose their part time job that pays them up to $300,000 annually to suppress free speech, for an immediate savings of $3 million a year.
As we’ve learned from Hunter Biden, overpaid corporate board positions for underqualified but well-connected liberals are one of the left’s favorite ways to launder money. But don’t cry for the Twitter twits if they lose their cushy board seats. There are still plenty of other ways for leftist billionaires to launder money and fund their political puppets. Like do-nothing jobs for well-funded nonprofits and PACs, big speaking fees and huge advances for books nobody wants to read.
5. Illegal immigration: the secret flights are back
By Mike Huckabee
To listen to the Biden spokespeople/apologists, you would think that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's busing of illegal immigrants to Washington, DC, where they can be the problem of the people actually responsible for them is anything from a “publicity stunt” to an unconstitutional outrage. But if Biden is really so opposed to moving illegal immigrants away from the border and into other far-flung locations in America, why has he quietly resumed putting them on secret midnight charter flights and whisking them up to Westchester, New York, where they are then put on buses (!) and dispersed across New York and New Jersey?
The flights to Westchester ended in October after the New York Post exposed them (although secret flights to other locations reportedly continued.) I guess they figured all the Ukraine news distracted us enough that we wouldn’t notice if they rusumed flying illegal aliens into New York again. As with so many other things, they were dead wrong.
6.Debate Thoughts: My Appearance on Laura Ingraham
Last night, I appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. We talked about the RNC’s decision to pull out of the presidential and vice presidential debate organization until they reform it so that it's not blatantly biased in favor of Democrats. If you missed the segment, here’s the video:
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6304357667001
Having been a participant in a number of presidential debates during two different campaign seasons, I cheered the RNC’s move and offered a few suggestions of my own. One was that we do away with those demeaning “kid’s table” debates featuring what the media decides are the “secondary” candidates (news flash: it’s not their job to decide which candidates the voters should pay attention to.) Another is to give all candidates the same amount of time to speak. And one suggestion I didn’t realize would be so popular, but it’s already gotten a flood of positive reaction: do away with the moderators entirely and just let the candidates make statements and then debate each other over them.
Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas didn’t need some talking head from CNN to pick the questions and interrupt them constantly, and I hear those debates turned out pretty darned well.
7. A shocking education scandal
Ever wonder how the New York City Department of Education manages to spend so much money ($38 billion a year) on a dwindling number of public school students (940,000, down from 1.1 million three years ago), and still show such lousy results? Maybe it’s because their teachers union has so much power that even when the principal of a local school made the news for being behind one of the most shocking graduation rate corruption scandals ever, they not only couldn’t fire him, they had to give him a golden parachute just to keep him away from the school.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/adams-must-reverse-golden-parachute-for-crooked-queens-principal/
That principal is getting a seven-year deal complete with pension, paid vacations and lifetime health insurance, valued at a total of $1.8 million. That works out to nearly $260,000 a year plus benefits just to sit at a desk and do nothing.
What’s even more shocking is that that’s $86,000 a year more than Congress members make, and some of them are doing the exact same job.
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