By Mike Huckabee
February 16, 2023
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BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee staff! Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter.
With gratitude,
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Free Speech Victory
In a welcome victory for free speech rights, Federal Judge Andrew Carter Jr. issued a preliminary injunction against New York’s new “Hateful Conduct Law,” finding it to be just the latest of a series of unconstitutional state laws passed in Albany.
The law bars “hateful conduct” on social media, defined as efforts “to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” It also requires social media platforms to have a mechanism for dealing with such conduct.
The judge pointed out that even the state admitted it might have trouble withstanding a challenge. He noted that words like “vilify” and “humiliate” are vague and open to interpretation, creating the opportunity for widespread censorship, and that free speech protects even the right to express thoughts that other people might find hateful. In short, the best guardian against hate speech isn’t censorship, it’s raising your kids right so they don’t go around hating other people.
Law Prof. Jonathan Turley has a lot more on this law and the case at the link above, along with the depressing news that, as with rulings that New York gun laws are unconstitutional, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s immediate response was to vow to find some way to get around the First Amendment and try again. Also depressing: Turley’s observation that Democrats in places like New York do this over and over because they know that no matter how many times they trample on the Constitution, they will pay no political price for it. It will likely even make them more popular with people who cheer politicians for trying to take away their own constitutional rights.
Rare bipartisan agreement highlights danger
The toxic chemical spill and fire caused by the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is so bad that it’s even brought Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Ilhan Omar into agreement that residents are correct to be very concerned about their longterm health and well-being. That must be something that’s glaringly obvious to have those two singing from the same hymn book.
Unfortunately, as the citizens are left in an environmental disaster that they describe as like their town being nuked, watching their animals die, worrying about what might be happening to themselves and their kids, and thinking of moving out (but who would buy their houses?), Omar and other Democrats immediately shattered the rare consensus by trying to blame the derailment on former President Trump for changing rail safety rules. They conveniently overlook the fact that they could have changed the rules at any time during the past two years when they controlled the House, Senate and White House. Also, the rules changed under Trump had nothing to do with what caused the Ohio train to derail or with the cargo it was carrying.
A Fox News reporter ran the “blame Trump” excuse past some East Palestine residents, and the consensus was that it’s ridiculous blame-shifting. But that’s not stopping “Transportation Secretary” Pete Buttigieg from trying it, as his presidential ambitions are derailing faster than the train did. He’s being blasted from all sides as a “complete embarrassment” and “a horrid hire” for letting 10 days go by without visiting the town, and then taking to Twitter to blame Trump and tout the ways he’s improved rail safety.
Buttigieg may be the greatest example of our lifetimes of the concept of “failing upward”: continuing to get promoted, no matter how bad a job you did in your last position. He went from small town mayor to his present Cabinet level office with zero qualifications for it and has yet to attain any. Yet many in the Democratic Party and the media (but I repeat myself) were seriously discussing him as a leading presidential contender. That shows two things: (1.) the incredible weakness of the field, and (2.) the Democrats’ obsession with checking off identity boxes and valuing personality and charisma over ability and experience.
Let’s hope and pray that we see only one more train derailment and that it’s the derailment of the “Buttigieg For President” train.
In Case You Missed It (The Serious Version)
Sen. J.D. Vance showed during Biden FCC Commission nominee Gigi Sohn’s Senate confirmation exactly why she has no business making rules governing media and Americans’ freedom of speech. He hauled up her old racist, leftist, politically-divisive tweets. He then reversed them to show that if someone had tweeted the same horrible things about people on the left that she tweeted about people on the right, the Democrats wouldn’t allow them anywhere near the FCC.
Of course, this is an academic point, since Democrats don't mind demonizing Republicans, and Biden is trying to politicize and weaponize the FCC, just as he’s done with the FBI, DOJ and IRS. He and Sohn need to be stopped, and you’d think that even the Democrats would realize what a bad precedent politicizing the FCC is. Not just on the general principle that it’s wrong, but for the fact that when they fall out of power, it could be used against them, just as their lack of foresight in changing Congressional rules keeps coming back to bite them.
Unfortunately for Americans, and as proven by our $32 trillion national debt and problems funding Social Security and Medicare, we have a government that’s largely controlled by people who are really, really bad at thinking ahead.
Another example of stunning incompetence
Speaking of the stunning incompetence of Biden appointees, that apparently applies even down to the level of the Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, who seems to have no concept of what life is like for women under the brutal Taliban regime. Instead, she’s tweeting about it the way a 15-year-old girl would tweet about Lizzo and Beyonce. Trust me, this is not a parody account, although I fervently wish it were. This woman makes Pete Buttigieg look qualified.
While she’s deleting her Twitter account and pulling an all-nighter to learn about Afghanistan, she might want to read this article.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-730913
It’s about how Taliban members are complaining of being bored with actually having to run Afghanistan. They used to enjoy carefree lives of waging jihad, planning attacks, attacking people, and other fun stuff. They had no responsibilities. Now, if people are hungry, they expect them to do something about it, aside from killing them. They whine that they’re stuck behind desks at computers all day to earn a paycheck, and one said they’re getting addicted to the Internet, especially Twitter.
If they continue on this trajectory, the Taliban will evolve from young violent radicals to bored, useless, Twitter-addicted bureaucrats. Then Afghanistan will finally have a government just like ours.
Bidens’ China ties grow more evident, as does China’s threat to U.S.
Yesterday, we reported that the Biden family financial “empire” --- what we know of it --- has expanded to include the Middle East, where brother Jim Biden was concentrating his money-making efforts, and a total of about a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia. Here’s an interesting take on that story, theorizing that Jim might be even more dangerous to Joe than Hunter is.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/james-biden-may-be-more-dangerous-to-joe-than-hunter/
Today, updates show that the hunt for Biden classified documents has expanded as well.
According to FOX NEWS, the FBI recently searched the University of Delaware twice for classified documents that President Biden would’ve had to have transported there. This report also features video from an earlier interview with legal expert Andrew C. McCarthy, who points out how President Biden has contradicted himself on his knowledge of what these documents are. If he’s been advised by his attorneys not to look at the documents and doesn’t know what they are, how can he say they go back to 1974? How would he know that?
The NEW YORK POST has a more detailed story.
https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/fbi-searched-university-of-delaware-for-classified-biden-docs-report/
It’s been reported that two truckloads of documents had been brought there by Biden, many of them likely dating back to his earliest Senate days. According to Tucker Carlson, the FBI is “still assessing” whether or not classified material was there at the university.
Follow-the-money reporter and author Peter Schweizer was a guest on the show, and he said that to look at the Bidens’ activities in China, it’s necessary to go back to “the Chinese state,” meaning the CCP, and also “Chinese intelligence.”
Hunter Biden got not one but three big deals in China. Some of the money was shared with Jim Biden, and some potentially went to other family members as well. Recall from yesterday’s story that private investigator and former U.S. Treasury official Thomas Sullivan said “multiple” family members were involved. According to Schweizer, “If you get all three of the businessmen that made those deals happen, those ties are there.”
We’ve discussed the ties, but Schweizer gets into more detail and names names. The first tie was to a man named Che Fang --- nicknamed “The Super Chairman” --- who helped set up Hunter for a private equity deal with Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) that netted Hunter’s company “perhaps $20 million, based on estimates.”
Che Fang had a business partner who has been identified through Hong Kong corporate records as the vice minister for state security in China, the intelligence official responsible for “foreign recruitment.”
Another deal set up for Hunter was through Henry Zhao, who transferred $5 million into one of Hunter’s accounts. At that time, Zhao was partners with the daughter of the former minister of state security, the intelligence official “who ran the entire spy apparatus of China.”
Chairman Ye Jianming of energy company CEFC had previously worked for Chinese military intelligence.
Schweizer was ahead of the pack on this reporting, telling the story a little over a year ago. We related it then, but in light of all that’s currently going on with China, his report is a must-read, or a must-read-again.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/chinese-elite-have-paid-some-31m-to-hunter-and-the-bidens/
“So when you’re talking about money coming from China to the Bidens,” Schweizer said, “when you’re talking about concerns about classified records, when you’re concerned about ‘what did the Bidens do in return for that money,’ these are all very serious, legitimate questions that I don’t have much confidence at all that the Department of ‘Justice’ is going to look into.”
To make it clear how egregious this is, Schweizer takes us back in time to the Cold War with Russia, perhaps during the Reagan or Carter administration: “Imagine if Ronald Reagan’s family or Jimmy Carter’s family took, you know, tens of millions of dollars from Russian businessmen linked to the KGB. Would there be any question at all that this requires serious investigation? Instead, what we’re getting from a lot of people is, ‘Well, you can’t prove that a crime was being committed…’ It’s an absurd standard that needs to be looked at.”
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320516934112
In fact, Mark Levin pointed out Wednesday night that “we are in a Cold War right now, not of our choosing.” The CCP is led by a “ruthless, genocidal dictator, who takes out people whom he thinks challenge him and has a firm grip on his society. And he’s aiming at us.” To hear Levin talk about how militarized the Chinese are compared to our defenses is truly scary. And in China, “the fusion between the civilian side and the military side is so complete,” it’s hard to gauge their strength. We’ve pared our own military way down, while giving a great deal to Ukraine. Levin said the Chinese are looking for a battle, “cruisin’ for a bruisin’.” He also pointed out that “there’s a reason” the Chinese have the contracts that run both sides of the Panama Canal, as well as a military base on the West Coast of Africa.”
“...This country is on a straight line to either take us to war or to choke us off economically.” And war is an unholy disaster. “We are not the provocateurs; they are.” We need to “clean out the Pentagon” and build back what Reagan advised: peace through strength.
Anyway, seeing the Biden family connected in any way to the Chinese Communist Party is disconcerting to say the least, especially with what we’re dealing with now. We ARE in a Cold War, and the man in the Oval Office does seem to be what some critics have called him: “the Manchurian President.” As Sen. Joe Kennedy said Tuesday, “I wouldn’t turn my back on President Xi if he were two days’ dead.” He added, “That’s just an unfortunate reality, and the Biden administration needs to accept that.” It takes his breath away, he said, when the Biden White House says we can trust President Xi. This is serious, he said, “as serious as an aneurysm,” and the American people deserve answers.
Kennedy learned through briefings from the White House --- though it’s “like pulling teeth,” he said, to get information out of these --- that for FIVE YEARS, China has been sending sophisticated spy balloons “that can stop and start and take detailed photographs over our military installations.” Sometimes we’ve known about this; other times, we’ve not. He wonders, “If the most recent balloon had not been reported by a civilian to the media, would the Biden administration have told us about the balloon?”
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6320514844112
I think we all know: they’d choose to leave us blissfully pig-ignorant. It’s the same with everything that comes out of the Biden White House, including information about the Bidens’ dealings with the very people who’ve been spying on us for years, perhaps reflected in those documents the President has squirreled away here and there.
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