By Mike Huckabee
July 6, 2022
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
My staffers will be off this week for a well-deserved break, but keep checking in daily. We’ve prepared lots of great material in advance, and we’ll have a daily round-up of the latest news. And as always, if anything major happens, everyone will drop their hot dogs and sparklers and rush back to their PCs to keep you informed. Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter.
There is no Evening Edition for those subscribers.
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DAILY BIBLE VERSE
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10 KJV
If you have a favorite Bible Verse you want to see in one of our newsletters, please email [email protected].
Don’t Believe 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 is that far-left ideas are the accepted, objective truth and anyone who questions them is an extremist or a believer in “disinformation.” Don’t buy it.
Throughout the Bush-Obama era, the media kept repeating “failed conservative policies” until even a lot of so-called conservatives believed it. So the voters put Democrats fully in power. It resulted in a sluggish economy, depressed job growth, rising income inequality, reduced wealth and opportunities for minorities, rising class and racial divisions, and abroad, a decline in US prestige and leadership and the advancement and emboldening of our enemies, including a terrorist “JV team” metastasizing into a worldwide threat. Not to mention big government schemes imposed against the will of the people. In Obama’s very first midterm election, voters gave the House back to the Republicans.
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 of socialism like actually experiencing it. Ask a Cuban or Venezuelan.
The elites responded by doubling down on the arrogance, condescension and name-calling of those who dared to challenge their divine right to rule. The people were forced to make their point even more clearly by shutting down large sections of the country with Tea Party protests, and demanding their culture and secure national borders back, and finally by shocking the elites with the election of Donald Trump. The media, who assumed that everyone would vote for Hillary because everything they talked to did, were shocked.
Trump reversed virtually every Obama policy. Result: ISIS was crushed, peace started breaking out in the Middle East, illegal immigration plummeted, the economy boomed, and unemployment for all groups fell to record lows while real wages rose for the first time in decades. It took the artificial shutdown of that economy due to COVID-19 to crush it. In 2020, a relentless, four-year media assault against Trump and…other factors…brought the Democrats back into full power. And just as the economy was starting to rebound, Biden brought back all the Obama policies and crushed it again.
If you ever wanted a laboratory demonstration of whose policies work and whose don’t, you could just look at the past three Administrations. It’s like watching someone turn off the lights, turn them back on, then turn them off again.
It is a shame that voters have to keep relearning the hard way that top-down, big government solutions and leftist utopian fantasies don’t work in reality. Young people can almost be excused for believing in socialism for the same reason they believe in the Tooth Fairy: they are empty vessels who get filled with whatever adults pour into them. The leftists certainly know that. Many parents have recently woken up to how dangerously remiss we’ve been in allowing leftists to take over our schools and fill those precious vessels with mental pollution.
But Republicans who promised small government and fiscal responsibility have let us down, too. Too many let deficits skyrocket, stuffed budgets with pork, and became cheerleaders for big government and disdainful toward the very Americans who put them in office. 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. Two years later, they wanted to spend $700 billion of our grandkids’ money to save 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. And despite the media’s claim that “We’re all socialists now,” 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 Obama, Pelosi and Reid unlimited power, voters quickly realized their terrible mistake and gave the House back to the GOP in the next election. But too many Republicans had already squandered their credibility, so when Democrats ballooned the deficit, they could deflect criticism by simply pointing at their opponents’ own record.
In 2020, the endless media assaults on Trump and the false messaging that Biden was a moderate centrist hoodwinked the voters yet again into putting the Democrats back into power. From his first day in power, Biden surrounded himself with leftists who couldn’t wait to bloat government, reverse all of Trump’s successful policies, raise taxes, spend money like water, regulate everything that moves, and turn the whole country into a coast-to-coast version of one of the failing cities Democrats have run for decades. It didn’t take long for buyers’ remorse to hit Americans harder than COVID-19.
For a localized example of this pendulum effect, look at New York City. It became a nightmare until voters finally replaced Democrat David Dinkins with Republican Rudy Giuliani. Under Rudy, the Big Apple staged a huge comeback that was kept going by faux Republican Mike Bloomberg. But by then, it had been a long time since the bad old day. New Yorkers forgot how bad it could get. So they turned over the keys to Dinkins protégé Bill DeBlasio, and they soon found out how bad things could quickly turn. They still haven’t learned their lesson: they elected another Democrat who promised to fix things, but hasn’t. We’ll see how bad things have to get before they finally yell for the Republicans to come save them again.
As George Santayana observed, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. No wonder Democrats hate teaching kids real American history.
From Jefferson’s belief that government closest to the people governs best to Reagan’s faith in free markets, from low taxes to letting markets instead of government make business decisions, conservative ideas work whenever they’re tried. Unfortunately, party leaders and the media are wildly out of touch with most Americans, and they are the ones with Hollywood, the media and social media acting as a 24-hour PR megaphone for bad leftist policies. This amplifies the liberal side and suppresses the conservative side so much that not only is the tail wagging the dog, but it’s like a Chihuahua’s tail wagging a St. Bernard. Too often, they succeed in hoodwinking the voters into giving them power again, despite decades of failure. But once in power, they quickly remind people why they should never be entrusted with it.
As that great Republican Abraham Lincoln observed, you can fool some of the people all of the time (they’re called “progressives”) and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Let’s pray that this November will be another of those “won’t get fooled again” elections.
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A Disconnected Media is Trying to Sell Us a Bill of Goods
How can we all be so connected, and our government be so disconnected?
One of the benefits of living in the 21st century is that thanks to jet travel and the Internet, I constantly talk to Americans from every state and every walk of life. And believe me, they are not shy about sharing their opinions. It gives me a perspective that I wish more of our politicians and media people inside the Beltway Bubble could experience.
According to a recent Pew Research survey, 65% of journalists think the news media is doing a good job of covering the important stories of the day, while only 35% of the public agree.
If I had to explain that yawning gap between the media’s public approval and its self-approval in one world , it would be “disconnection” (although I would accept “narcissism.”) I don’t think there’s ever been a time when the media was so out of touch with the people they’re supposed to be serving. You’d think the shock they experienced on Election night 2016 would’ve caused them to reflect a bit and make some changes, but they only doubled down on the demonizing of people they never talk to.
They apparently really believed in 2016 that when voters demanded “change,” they wanted bigger deficits and a bloated, more powerful regulatory state. Trust me, based on what they told me, they did not. And they didn’t think they were getting that when they voted for Biden, either. They’re so angry now not only because Biden’s policies are making their lives so much harder but because many believe they were the victims of a massive bait-and-switch con.
If you ask most Americans what they want from government, it’s not to have every aspect of their lives regulated and “transformed,” including those that worked a lot better before the government “improved” them. They don’t want 2,000-page bills nobody’s read, or bureaucrats telling them which doctor they can see or how much money they’re allowed to make. The list of what most Americans say they want from government is actually pretty short: national defense, secure borders, safe streets; smooth highways; health care for veterans, seniors, poor children, the disabled (all those who genuinely can’t help themselves); good schools, firefighters and (yes) police – now more than ever. And it would be nice if the trash were picked up on time. That’s about it.
Yet somehow, the government finds so many ways to meddle in our lives that federal, state and local government spending combined now equals about 44% of America’s entire gross domestic product. And in some big cities, they don’t pick up the garbage at all. They just let people live in it.
In poll after poll, despite claims that socialism is on the rise, most Americans say they want less government and less spending. Even those who say they want government handouts like “Medicare For All” abruptly change their tunes when told what it will do to their tax bills and quality of services. They don’t give a hoot what the talking heads or the endlessly-surprised economists or the “too-big-to-fail” Wall Street failures say: they want government out of their lives, out of their wallets and out of their way.
Sadly, whenever political candidates support that philosophy, their opponents and the media paint them as cold-hearted and uncaring. Compassion has been redefined as the willingness to spend limitless amounts of other people’s money. The media also devote almost no time to examining political philosophies and a lot of time to gotcha games, gaffes, fake news and who’s ahead in the horse race.
But the horse is now out of the barn. For eight years, Americans experienced firsthand the results of so-called “progressive” policies. Government out of control, a health care boondoggle two-thirds of us didn’t want, and the economy still struggling long after it should’ve roared back.
The Election of 2016 was not a surprise to me. I predicted it months in advance because, unlike so many people who claim to represent or report on the American people, I actually talk to – and more importantly, listen to - people. Things were turning around quite well before a pandemic artificially shut down the economy and people let the media bamboozle them into blaming Trump and thinking they’d be bringing back moderation and “normality” if they elected Biden.
Now, they find themselves stuck with a combination of Obama and Jimmy Carter times 10. This isn’t what they voted for, but they’re getting it good and hard.
I predict that, despite the media’s best efforts to bamboozle us, politicians who try to sell Americans on socialistic, big government policies will eventually fail, for the same reason that a used car salesman has a hard time selling a lemon to the same customer twice. I think those politicians know it, too; hence their desperation to take over elections so they can control the results, and to rig the government through schemes like eliminating the Senate filibuster and the Electoral College and stacking the Supreme Court. They claim to be protecting “our democracy” while trying to silence and neuter all political opposition. They have to kill democracy to save it.
I also predict that politicians who were elected on a promise not to “fundamentally transform” America will remain in office only as long as they remember that Americans did not elect them to turn the United States into Venezuela.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I READ THEM!
More about the Highland Park shooting suspect
We’re learning more about the suspect arrested in the deadly 4th of July parade mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. And now that he’s a “suspect” in custody and no longer a “person of interest,” you will never see his name here again. I don’t believe in giving sickos who commit violence the fame they seek, nor encouraging others to imitate them.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/highland-park-shooter-flagged-clear-present-danger-2019
I mentioned yesterday that the weapon he used was obtained legally, which is rare for a Chicago shooting but typical for young mass shooters with no criminal records. However, this was unusual, and it could mean his parents may be in trouble, too. The suspect had more red flags than a Chinese military parade, including two prior incidents of attempted suicide and violent threats against his family.
The police flagged him as a “clear and present danger” in 2019 and interviewed him at his home, but his family declined to move forward on a complaint, so it was dropped. They also gave the police no further information on threats or mental health issues (his social media posts suggest there were plenty.) When he applied for a Firearm Owners Identification card (FOID), which is required in Illinois to own or purchase a gun, he was under 21, so his father sponsored his application. And without any information on his previous issues on the background check, the state had no reason to deny it.
Meanwhile, people who try to politicize every tragedy are attempting to paint this shooter as a Trump supporter, something for which zero evidence has been presented. So far, the evidence points more to him being part of the woke, gender-confused left.
But why does every act of violence have to have a political motive so that people whose whole lives are politics can try to pin their crimes on their political opponents via guilt by association? Maybe this person was just mentally disturbed, and his twisted inclinations were indulged and fed by society and the people around him, when they should have been noticed, pointed out and dealt with. Instead of trying to exploit these heinous actions for political advantage, both sides should focus on the societal and family issues that are turning kids into conscienceless killers.
News Recap
From our “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” File:
The Biden State Department and DHS are changing immigration law to allow entry and other immigration benefits to people who provided “limited” or “insignificant” material support to dedicated terrorist organizations.
We're being assured that they pose no danger, just like we were assured that Gitmo detainees would pose no danger before they were released and went right back into the terrorism racket.
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"Bombshell:"
We’ll have more details on this next week, but here’s the latest example of how the January 6th Kommittee’s big “bombshell” anti-Trump witness isn’t so much exploding as imploding.
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New Poll:
A new Harvard/Harris poll on abortion and the overturning of Roe v. Wade includes some confusing and conflicting findings, as Bonchie at Redstate.com points out.
For instance, 55% of Americans oppose overturning Roe, but 72% support an abortion ban after 15 weeks, which wouldn’t be possible if Roe were still in force.
While the results are, as Bonchie says, a “ball of contradictions,” I think they do make sense when you realize just how badly the public has been misinformed about Roe. I’ve spent years telling people that overturning Roe would not ban abortion, it would send it back to the states, where some would ban it while others, sadly, would declare open season on babies in the womb. The pro-life side would have to refocus its efforts on trying to win (or more accurately, open) hearts and minds in those states.
These poll results simply reflect the natural confusion of the public from hearing so much hysterical disinformation from the pro-abortion left. That’s why I’ve been predicting that this will not be the big electoral issue Democrats were hoping for. November is still four months away, and that’s plenty of time for the public to realize they’ve been hornswoggled, the sky isn’t falling, and there are other issues having a much bigger impact on most people’s lives than the inability to kill babies in the womb during the ninth month of pregnancy, at least in most states.
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Biden is selling our strategic oil reserves to China and Europe
I already wrote about this a while back, but now that it’s actually happening and getting some attention, it’s worth repeating: President Biden is not only emptying out our Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a very precarious moment in geopolitics to try to lower gas prices that he raised himself through his war on domestic oil production, but millions of barrels of our SPR oil is being loaded onto tankers and sent to be sold in foreign markets.
https://www.westernjournal.com/shocking-amount-bidens-emergency-oil-reserves-ended-china-europe/
The alleged idea that this will help lower prices internationally and help bring them down here is somehow thought more effective than Biden simply taking his boot off the necks of our own oil producers.
Also worth a reminder: Biden inherited a full Strategic Petroleum Reserve thanks to Trump filling it when prices were very low. At the time, Democrats (of course) attacked him and accused him of wanting to enrich the oil companies. Now, they’re trying to save themselves from the consequences of their own bad policies by squandering the oil that he was wise enough to stockpile. I'll let you know if they ever apologize and thank him for his foresight.
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Biden's DOJ is suing Arizona
The Biden DOJ might think it’s no big deal when leftists hold violent riots or pro-abortion radicals violate federal law by threatening SCOTUS Justices at their homes, but they are capable of springing into action when they think it’s really important. Like suing Arizona to block them from making sure illegal immigrants aren’t voting.
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Contamination
I think Mitt Romney had the right idea when he was tweeting under the pseudonym of “Pierre Delecto.” He should’ve given this interview to the Atlantic under a fake name.
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Elected in Rhode Island
This person actually got elected to the Rhode Island state senate, and as blue as that state is, don’t be surprised if she manages someday to twerk her way to Washington. Warning: Video at link is not for young eyes or for people who are offended easily or otherwise.
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Tweet of the day
Rep. Lauren Boebert wins the award for Tweet of the Day.
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Perfect
Can’t think of a better metaphor for the competence and effectiveness of our Transportation Secretary than this story.
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