By Mike Huckabee
June 11, 2021
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Good morning!
Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!
Today's newsletter includes:
- Bible Verse Of The Day
- EVOLUTION OF A BILL, or "How To Create A Monster"
- The Biden DOJ Embraces Orwell
- Well-Deserved Blowback
- Criticizing Fauci
- In Case You Missed It: Border Data
- If It Doesn’t Fit The Narrative, Bury It
- A Reader Writes Back...
- America the Beautiful
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Matthew 5:9 KJV
EVOLUTION OF A BILL, or "How To Create A Monster"
By Mike Huckabee
“We have to pass the bill, so you can find out...what is in it.”
That was Nancy Pelosi talking to her colleagues about the monstrous “Affordable” Care Act. And, of course, they did pass it, on a slim, completely partisan vote, without even knowing the details of what they were passing. How could they? The bill, like too many “comprehensive” bills, ran thousands of pages.
But today, I’d like to talk about the content of another such comprehensive bill that has just passed the Senate, originally called the Endless Frontier Act. It’s designed to compete technologically with China, which certainly is a laudable goal, and the name “Endless Frontier” sounds great in that context. However, in medical research, there are some frontiers that we should think about long and hard before we cross, if indeed we ever do.
Our curiosity about the development of this bill started building on Thursday, when Tammy Bruce on FOX NEWS PRIMETIME did a segment on its potential to fund research on “chimeras,” organisms that combine the DNA of humans and other animals. What??
Here is the report by Charles Creitz at FOX NEWS, featuring Bruce’s segment, which includes her interview with guest Lara Logan.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/lara-logan-human-chimera-research
The Endless Frontier Act was introduced by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, which alone sends up red flags. But it got bipartisan support, with six Republican and seven Democrat co-sponsors. The final 1,445-page bill passed the Senate Friday, after being “rebranded” by Schumer as the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. Who could be against innovation and competition?
But one thing the Chinese apparently are working on is this kind of trans-species research. In fact, as Bruce reported, they’ve actually created human-monkey embryos that lived 20 days in a lab. So are we going to compete with China on THAT kind of innovation? What could possibly go wrong?
In May, numerous amendments were introduced. One of them, brought by GOP Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana and Mike Braun of Indiana, would have outlawed the type of experimentation that hybridizes human and animal DNA through bioengineering, sometimes called “chimera” research.
Some scientists call this area of experimentation “Pandora’s Box,” with good reason. We’ve already seen how research from Chinese labs –- in this case gain-of-function manipulation on coronaviruses –- can inflict disaster on the world. Recall that funding for gain-of-function was banned during the Obama administration, but that it happened anyway when the NIAID (National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease) funded an intermediary group that, in turn, funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But the amendment to Schumer’s bill outlawing the funding of “chimera” research did not pass. And the Senate went on to pass their “comprehensive” bill without it.
I'm sure there are some excellent provisions in this bill, but how could any pro-life Republican senator have possibly supported it, absent that amendment? Without it, we might very well be funding research using human embryos and other fetal tissue. But the bill passed 68-32; do the math.
Think those experiments aren't going on? Wrong.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/stanford-research-fetal-tissue-mice-funding-disclosure-complaint
Here’s a report by Tyler Olsen at FOX NEWS from May 19, when Republicans were proposing their various amendments to the bill. Any concern about fetal tissue or "chimera" research was not mentioned.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/anti-china-bill-price-tag-senate-republicans-tough
At the time, the bill was to cost $130 billion, and Republicans chafed at that. The Republican Study Committee in the House had dubbed it “the Endless Pork Act,” which I’m sure is accurate. Yet some Republicans thought it didn’t go far enough and needed important amendments. “As it stands,” said Florida Sen. Rick Scott, “much of the Endless Frontier Act will not effectively counter Communist China’s aggression. A slush fund to universities with little security and oversight isn’t the answer.” He had proposed amendments, he said, to “secure American innovation, protect our national security, hold China accountable and put American interests first.”
At that time, Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said, “While I am still reviewing the hundreds of pages that comprise this legislation, it is my belief that this bill will need to be seriously improved through the amendment process to attract broad support. Enhancing U.S. research and development is an important part of countering Communist China, but that alone is not enough for the Senate to say it has checked the box and held the regime accountable.”
The story gives examples of amendments several Republican senators backed. Ted Cruz, for instance, backed amendments banning China from controlling American radio stations (good idea!); adding money for the extraction of rare earth minerals (which we need to end our dependence on China); blocking the sharing of nuclear technology with China (thank you); and addressing the issue of Chinese spies at American universities, including Confucius Institutes, which happen to be in the news today for another reason.
Sen. Cruz ended up voting “no” on the final bill.
One House aide, a Republican, told FOX NEWS that China “is really breathing a sigh of relief” because the bill, as much as it costs, won’t do much. He said it should require disclosure for all think tanks that are funded by the Chinese government (of course it should!) and also sanction the CCP’s United Front Work Department. Good idea; here’s what the UFWD does.
A later story from May 27 by Sam Dorman of FOX NEWS gets to the meat of what happened with the “chimera” amendment: “The Senate narrowly rejected an amendment geared towards criminalizing research that created chimeras, or human-animal hybrids, in expectation that the federal government could lift a moratorium on funding for those projects.” This would have been a way to provide a check on the National Institutes of Health possibly lifting its moratorium on “chimera” research.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-human-animal-hybrid-experiments-chimera-ban-rejected
On a party-line vote, 48 Republicans approved the amendment. Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Thom Tillis of North Carolina inexplicably did not vote. WHERE WERE THEY? And the one Democrat who might have defied his party, Sen. Joe Manchin, didn’t vote, either. These three could have made the difference.
Currently, the International Society for Stem Cell Research has guidelines that we should all find reassuring (too bad you can’t hear the sarcasm in my voice right now): “This research must proceed incrementally, stopping at well-defined timepoints to assess the degree and scope of chimerism during development before proceeding to full gestation, if full gestation is one of the well-defined goals of the research. To avoid unpredictable and widespread chimerism, researchers should endeavor to use targeted chimerism strategies to limit chimerism to a particular organ system or region of the gestating chimeric animal.”
Feel better? It occurs to me that the way we put our bills together is, itself, kind of like making a chimera. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, sometimes it dies, or maybe just part of it dies, but let’s see what we come out with in the end. It might be something that should never see the light of day.
The Biden DOJ Embraces Orwell
By Mike Huckabee
In its latest Orwellian move, the Biden Department of “Justice” is trying to prevent three Christian colleges and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities from intervening to defend themselves in a lawsuit challenging the religious exemption to Title IX protections of LGBTQ students. The DOJ claimed in the filing that it could “vigorously defend” the constitutionality of the exemption. But the next day, they amended the filing to read “adequately defend.” And by “adequately,” they actually mean “inadequately,” like a boxer who throws the fight.
Biden is already on record as being hostile to religious freedom protections and for kowtowing to the radical LGBTQ lobby. The idea that his DOJ would protect those freedoms on behalf of Christian colleges, and that they shouldn’t even be allowed to have a say in their own defense, sounds like something out of a banana republic where the defense attorney is also the prosecutor.
Related: In a VIP article that’s unfortunately behind a paywall at PJMedia.com, Tyler O’Neil warns Evangelical Christians that Burger King has jumped on the “Pride Month” float. All this month, 40 cents from the sale of every CkKing chicken sandwich will be donated to the LGBTQ activist group, the Human Rights Campaign.
O’Neil points out that the HRC supports the Democrats’ “Equality Act” that would gut the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and is partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center in its campaign to defame conservative Christian nonprofits like the Alliance Defending Freedom as anti-gay “hate groups.” So every chicken sandwich Christians buy at Burger King this month will fund a group that wants to take away their rights.
Say, you know who has the best chicken sandwich? Popeyes.
Well-Deserved Blowback
By Mike Huckabee
New York Times editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Mara Gay sparked well-deserved blowback by saying that during a weekend trip to Long Island, she saw “dozens of American flags,” which was “just disturbing.” She apparently assumes those are owned by Trump supporters (admittedly, probably a safe bet), and claims they were sending a message: "This is my country…not your country. I own this." She went on to regurgitate more liberal buzzwords, including, of course, “whiteness.”
Well, I assume those Long Islanders do own their own flags, and the poles, yards and pickup trucks they’re mounted to. But I think the “It’s not your country” message came right out of her own paranoid noggin. She should be counting her lucky stars that when she goes out into the country where she lives, the flags she sees are American flags. They’re flown by the kind of people who join the military and fight to protect all our rights. That includes the First Amendment, which gives the New York Times editorial board the right to badmouth America, insult the flag, and make fools of themselves in print every day.
On that subject, as Townhall.com columnist Mike LaChance reminds us, Ms Gay is the same New York Times writer who once said that the $500 million wasted by Mike Bloomberg on his presidential run could have been divided up to give every American $1 million. It was actually closer to one dollar. But at the rate he's spending money, Joe Biden might hit that mark.
Criticizing Fauci
By Mike Huckabee
From the earliest days of the pandemic, I have been reluctant to assume the worst of authorities who got things wrong about COVID-19. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that since it was a new and deadly disease, they were trying to give the public the best advice they could, given what they knew at the time while battling a steep learning curve.
However, the recent release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails has revealed that on a number of vital issues, we weren’t always given the best data they had at the time. Sometimes we were given the data that served a preferred narrative, even when those giving it out knew that it was at the very least highly questionable, and when it could even lead to more misery and deaths (endless lockdowns, ever-shifting mask advice, silencing doctors who were having success with readily-available drugs, etc.
That’s why it was so irritating when Dr. Fauci tried to dismiss the perfectly justified criticism he’s receiving by claiming that any questioning of him is an attack on “science.” No matter what his fan club at MSNBC thinks, he is not the walking embodiment of science. Actual scientists have their statements challenged all the time. That’s why real science is never really “settled.”
As you might imagine, Fauci’s critics in the media and politics went to town on his hubristic “I am science” defense:
But to be fair, they’re not scientists. So here’s an actual scientist, Stanford University medical professor and epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattachrya, offering his informed opinion on Dr. Fauci: his “credibility is entirely shot.”
In Case You Missed It: Border Data
By Mike Huckabee
Wednesday, US Customs and Border Protection released data from May showing that border agents stopped 180,034 people trying to cross the border with Mexico illegally. That’s a 21-year high, up from 178,622 stopped in April and 172,331 in March. That doesn’t include the ones that got past the border patrol, estimated at 40,000 in April.
Wow, the climate in Central America must be changing really fast!
If It Doesn’t Fit The Narrative, Bury It
By Mike Huckabee
As hungry as the media are to find and write about new Internet breakthrough stars, you’d think that an indie rapper whose latest song topped the iTunes charts and whose video for it on YouTube racked up over 4 million views in four days would be a major story. Yet he’s being largely ignored. How could that be?
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/tom-macdonald-snowflakes-media-bias/
Maybe it’s because the song is called “Snowflakes,” and it rips cancel culture, anti-capitalists, BLM, America-haters, race baiters, people who demand you learn their chosen pronouns and other leftist icons we’re not supposed to criticize.
Funny, the media are constantly lauding artists who are “transgressive,” “non-conformist” and not afraid to “speak truth to power.” This is the first one I’ve heard of in ages who’s actually like that, and they’re doing their best to ignore him in hopes he’ll go away.
A Reader Writes Back...
You have a keen sense for selecting news that's interesting and communicating it perfectly with wit and humor. I love your newsletter!
America The Beautiful
God's creation is all around us. To learn more about Lake Clark National Park & Preserve , visit its website here.
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