Good morning!

Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff! 

Today's newsletter includes:

• Bible Verse Of The Day
• Biden's First News Conference is Tomorrow
• New Instagram App for Kids
• New Social Platform for President Trump
• Glynn Lunney RIP
• Shocking story about Cigna and CRT
• More on Portland
• DEA agent fired after attending Trump's Capitol Hill rally
• A Reader Writes Back...
• America The Beautiful

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY 

Biden's First News Conference is Tomorrow

By Mike Huckabee

President Biden will finally hold his first news conference this Thursday. I heard a commentator suggest some of the tough questions he might face, and I nearly spewed my Cheerios over my keyboard laughing. Does anyone seriously think that the hand-picked reporters will ask any tough questions, particularly when I would bet they’ll all be screened in advance with scripted answers loaded into the TelePrompter?

If you think that’s cynical because after all, he seemed almost lucid in that George Stephanopoulos interview, maybe you didn’t notice the highly unorthodox italic footnote on ABC’s transcript: “Edited for Clarity.”

So ABC not only let him be “interviewed” by a former Clinton staffer, they helpfully cleaned up the interview before releasing it.

At the link, Andrew Malcolm of Redstate.com has more on that, along with a roundup of the many other recent instances that are sparking rising concerns about Biden’s physical and mental fitness for the most important job in the world.

Bear in mind, I have a long history of refusing to pile on to people, even political opponents, for simple misstatements and slips of the tongue. Those can happen to anyone, and are essentially meaningless. But when the slips are so frequent that the President’s staff seems terrified of letting him answer a simple question without layers of protective editing, something is starting to smell as fishy as a Wuhan wet market.

New Instagram App for Kids 

By Mike Huckabee

Facebook announced that it’s working on a version of its Instagram app for kids 13 and under, who are currently barred from using the social media app by federal privacy regulations. This is great news for anyone who was concerned that the peer pressure, cyber bullying, cancel culture threats, privacy invasion, social isolation, stalking, degradation of human decency, increased rates of depression and suicide and lack of sunshine and exercise that social media have brought to teenagers weren’t affecting younger kids.

Read more about it at the link. And if you think Instagram for Kids sounds like a good idea, then you might also be interested in another exciting new concept: Heroin for Kids.

New Social Platform for President Trump

By Mike Huckabee

We’re already seeing some free speech social media networks and apps starting to rise to compete with the censorious leftist giants of Silicon Valley, platforms like MeWe, Gab, Rumble and the recently-returned Parler.com (reminder: the Capitol rioters mostly communicated via Facebook and Instagram, not Parler.) Last week, I told you that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said he is creating a new social media network for free speech. And now, the big dog has barked.

Former President Trump’s spokesman announced that he is creating his own social media platform that will launch in two to three months. Just as CNN’s ratings have tanked by as much as 50 percent once they didn’t have Trump to kick around and blame for everything from bad weather to their ingrown toenails, Twitter (which banned Trump) might learn that it will hurt them far more than Trump when he takes his tens of millions of followers to a new platform that competes with them.

These other platforms have a tough row to hoe, competing as small, poorly-funded upstarts against multi-billion-dollar established giants that act like ironfisted monopolies with no fear that the current government will stop them. They might not have such luck against a former President with billions of dollars himself and a built-in following of over 75 million voters. Frankly, if the competition sends Twitter and Facebook and all their censorious, cancel-culture trolls spiraling to the same irrelevancy as MySpace, it could be the greatest contribution Trump ever makes to saving America.

Glynn Lunney RIP

By Mike Huckabee

You all know what a supporter of the space program I am, and what heroes the early NASA astronauts were to me when I was a boy. But not all the heroes got their names and pictures in the newspapers. Just as important as the astronauts were the NASA engineers who accomplished the miracle of space travel.

One of the most important was Glynn Lunney, who joined NASA in 1963; led the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs; then spent another 10 years leading spaceflight activities in private industry for Rockwell and United Space Alliance before retiring in 1995. Lunney received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the Ground Control efforts that brought the ill-fated Apollo 13 team back home to Earth safely.

On Friday, Glynn Lunney died at 84 after a long illness. You might not know his name, but read his obituary and you’ll be amazed at the impact this man had on so many historic landmarks of the space program.

Shocking story about Cigna and CRT

By Mike Huckabee

The Washington Examiner has an exclusive on the shocking degree to which health insurance giant Cigna has allowed racist Critical Race Theory to infect its business practices.

Cigna workers told the paper that they are forced to undergo “sensitivity training” that they find to be racist and discriminatory. They aren’t just made to feel guilty of “white privilege,” but also “gender privilege,” “religious privilege” (if they’re Christians), heterosexual privilege, age privilege and on and on. There are internal complaints that it’s “disgusting and wrong.” There’s even a list of words that are banned for possibly triggering someone (I guess I’m insensitive due to my whiteness, but I can’t even imagine why “Hip Hip Hooray!” is banned at birthday parties but “Hooray! Yay!” is deemed “inclusive.”)

Cigna offers employees lessons in the “systemic racism” of the US taken right out of the debunked “1619 Project” and recommends that employees read such divisive racist books as “White Fragility” and “How to Be an Anti-Racist.” Worst of all, workers claim the company is engaging in openly discriminatory hiring practices in which minorities are hired despite a lack of qualifications while highly qualified applicants are rejected solely because they’re white. One employee complained of positions being left open for an inordinate amount of time just because the only applicants were white.

Say, isn't it against federal law to discriminate against job applicants based on their skin color?

The Examiner reports that “Cigna did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”

In a related story, here’s a list of the 8 top-rated health insurance companies, seven of which are rated the same or higher than Cigna. Just in case you might find that information useful.

More on Portland

By Mike Huckabee

This is a long but fascinating read in Reason magazine about how Portland, Oregon, went from the amusingly eccentric city depicted in “Portlandia” to the headquarters of angry, radical leftist Antifa rioters – purveyors of mindless violence over things they don’t even comprehend (for instance, they attack police because they think the cops slaughter black people, when there were only two police killings there in 2020, both white men.)

Meanwhile, state and local officials and media seem just as clueless as the radical protesters, blaming the mob violence on Trump and rightwingers, even though there are almost no rightwingers or Trump voters there and the violence has continued even after Trump left office. As one Portland resident put it, “The loudest voices are not the smartest voices, and they don't know how much of anything works, and they don't understand how to move the needle."

You might also be surprised to learn just how fed up many residents are at having their city taken over, destroyed and terrorized by a tiny group of radical morons while city officials just stand back and slash the police budget. The author even contacted one editor of a liberal paper that he thought was in the bag for the protesters and was surprised when the editor told him, “[If they] were all torn apart by bears, as in the book of II Kings, I would consider that the work of the Lord."

DEA agent fired after attending Trump's Capitol Hill rally

By Mike Huckabee

"The saddest part of this is I can’t serve my country any more.”

That was former DEA Special Agent Mark Ibrahim, speaking on Tucker Carlson’s Tuesday night show about being suspended and then fired from his job after merely attending President Trump’s January 6 rally in Washington, DC.

He never participated in anything illegal and is not alleged to have done so, and he spoke out in support of law enforcement when things started to get out of hand near the Capitol, but that apparently made no difference to his superiors.

They said his firing was over “performance issues.”

Ibrahim was one of the “garden-variety Republicans” (Tucker’s words) who attended the pro-Trump rally. He never entered the Capitol, he said, or even set foot on the steps outside. He stayed back and documented some of the action on his phone when a part of the crowd turned unruly, saying on-camera, “It’s crazy how quickly they turn on the cops. It’s not right. Everyone’s just tryin’ to do their job, man.”

Ibrahim hadn’t even been planning to go to the event, but was asked by a friend with whom he’d served in Iraq if he would “help him get there for documentation purposes.” He decided to stay, and the two of them were there as spectators. He turned the video he’d taken of the ruckus over to the FBI “so those criminals would face justice.” He said, “I tried --- I wanted --- to aid law enforcement that day as best I could, and seeing that the WFO [Washington Field Office] SWAT team was there and better suited to handle the situation than me...I decided documenting would be the way to go. I really didn’t think anything of it...And now I’m actually the subject of a criminal investigation.”

Later, when he returned to his home office in Los Angeles, he had his badge and gun taken away and was escorted off the premises to his apartment, “like a criminal,” he said. After a two-month suspension, he was fired.

Tucker, after calling this part of an “ideological purge” that is out of control within the federal government, asked Ibrahim if the action they took against him was even legal. “Don’t we have civil service laws that protect career federal employees from being fired for their political beliefs? I thought we did.”

"I...hope we do, too,” Ibrahim said, seemingly at a loss for how to respond.

He said his brother, an FBI special agent, was there as well. At least so far, “no adverse action” has been taken against the brother.

"They got it wrong,” Ibrahim said. “Me and my brother both served in the Army. I followed him into federal law enforcement. My sister is a Navy veteran. My mom was in the Pentagon on 9/11. And I’m the son of two immigrants who left oppressive regimes...My mom instilled a debt that we owe this country for the liberties and freedoms, that they’re not free.”

So, how much freedom do we have, really? And how is Ibrahim responding? Can he get his job back?

He’s decided to take legal action against the DEA. He said his friends set up a “GiveSendGo” account to help him raise money for legal fees and living expenses. (We looked for this under his name late Tuesday and didn’t find it; perhaps they’ve met their goal.)

"Better men have suffered worse for the preservation of our Union,” he said. “I just didn’t see it coming from my own country, let alone my own agency.”

He explained that since he’d been taking orders since he was 18, he’d thought he would just accept this, but that his friends encouraged him to fight –- not just on his own behalf, but for everyone who’s been wrongfully persecuted for their political views. He encourages others who have faced similar persecution to do the same.

"I pray that our country heals,” he said. “I pray that we stop marginalizing and dehumanizing one another.”

As should we all. At the same time, it’s good that he’s not sitting back and taking it --- good for him, and good for the country. There have been far too many “cancelations” over political beliefs, and when we see it happening within the government, it’s particularly chilling. I’m always reminded of what then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was quoted as saying about firing the (nonpartisan) White House Travel Office Staff: “We need those people out, and we need our people in.”

The Capitol Hill breach gave Democrats convenient cover to falsely label Trump supporters “domestic terrorists,” confront them with razor wire, and purge them from their midst. For example, the U.S. Army official appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the investigation of “the security infrastructure, interagency processes and command and control” on Capitol Hill during the riot, retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, criticized the Capitol Hill police for being 30-40 percent “Trumpsters” and assumed those officers had let “their buddies” into the Capitol Building. Here’s a refresher.

We’ve seen enough examples of this attitude to conclude that it permeates the military and the federal bureaucracy under Biden, with plentiful Obama holdovers now augmented by former Obama staffers, in a happy homecoming.

And now, they essentially fire a career employee for supporting President Trump.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. Don’t expect the Democrats, while they hold Congress and the Senate, to add “political beliefs” to this list, because they won’t, but it needs to happen. It should be illegal to punish or fire someone for attending a political rally, or supporting a particular candidate (as long as they’re not electioneering at work), or tweeting something about a candidate or issue. “Cancel culture” has shown us that in today’s society, every American needs this protection.

Likewise, there are hate crime laws at both federal and state levels that criminalize acts motivated by bias against the victim’s identity within particular groups. (I should note that Arkansas is one of three states that don't have their own separate hate crime laws.) These groups typically include race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. We saw too many law-abiding people get beaten to within an inch of their lives during last year's "summer of love" for daring to wear a MAGA hat. Victims were even blamed for wearing clothing that “triggered” violent responses.

Of course, the violent assault of anyone should be aggressively prosecuted, whether or not the victim belongs to a particular group. The charge: “aggravated assault.” But as long as we’re keeping lists of victimized groups, and it seems we need to, “political belief” remains a glaring omission. We wish Mr. Ibrahim well in his lawsuit.

A Reader Writes Back...

I enjoy your newsletter immensely. It is well thought out. I don’t feel I’m being tutored but just given the facts for me to make my own conclusion. I feel like an intelligent well informed adult.

America The Beautiful

God's creation is all around us. To learn more about Guadalupe Mountain National Park, visit its website here.