By Mike Huckabee
November 30, 2022
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THE EVENING EDITION
BY MIKE HUCKABEE
Blessings on you and your family and from all the Huckabee staff! Thank you for subscribing and I hope you enjoy my newsletter.
And in case you missed it, this is the top story on my website today: Pelosi attack: How does a reporter become a nonperson? - Latest Stories - Mike Huckabee
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15 NIV
Radio Mambi
While many of us were distracted with other stories, the FCC quietly gave permission to the Latino Media Network to buy Miami’s Spanish-language conservative radio station, Radio Mambi.
The “Latino Media Network” is a liberal company run by a couple of former employees of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and partly financed by an investment group associated with socialist megalomaniac George Soros. One Radio Mambi host, Lourdes Ubieta, already quit because she refuses to accept a paycheck from George Soros. Although I’m sure that anyone who doesn’t share Soros’ far-left views probably won’t be getting a paycheck for long anyway.
This story already sparked angry responses from Radio Mambi listeners. Many are immigrants from places like Cuba, and they have no patience for being preached to about the wonderfulness of socialism. It’s a sign of how panicked the Democrats are that Hispanic Americans are abandoning their anti-American leftism and starting to vote Republican, which is far more in line with their patriotic, hard-working, pro-family and pro-God values.
I guess the left thinks that, since they believe everything they hear on MSNBC, all it will take to brainwash Hispanics is to take away conservative talk radio and replace it with leftist talk radio. How insulting. As if conservative Hispanics are so simple-minded that they’ll eat up that propaganda with a spoon and swallow it, despite the evidence of their own lives.
If experience is any guide, spending millions to push leftist talk radio is a good way to lose a ton of money (and I hope Soros keeps throwing away his money on dumb ideas like this or putting “Beto” O’Rourke into any position of power.) Here’s hoping some more intelligent radio programmers in Miami switch to conservative Spanish talk and steal their audience overnight.
25 years
For those who continue to insist that vote fraud is just a “big lie,” tell it to the Walker County, Georgia, man who was just sentenced to 25 years (the first 15 with no chance of parole) for forging his neighbor’s absentee ballot after it was delivered to his post office box by mistake.
I can already hear the objections: “But it was just one ballot, it wasn’t “widespread” voter fraud!” First of all, just one fake ballot disenfranchises one real voter, and that’s one too many. Second, look at how it happened: a ballot-by-mail not being delivered to the correct person. Now imagine the potential for vote fraud if a state mailed out a ballot to every person on the voter rolls, even those who are dead or who have moved away, so that millions of ballots were floating around in the mail system. And in a state like Georgia, where elections can come down to a few hundred votes. No wonder so many Democrat-run states are pressing for mass mail-in balloting.
Maybe the judge should have made it 25 years without parole to send a message.
Disney’s latest bomb
If you’ve never heard of the new Disney animated movie “Strange World,” you’re not alone. It opened over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend to a dismally low $18.6 million. The predicted gross was $30 to $40 million, and even that had been revised way downward.
This movie was the latest and most in-your-face example of Disney’s “not-so-secret gay agenda,” in which the company let radical activist employees take over and try to shove woke, pro-LGBTQ-M-O-U-S-E messages into every frame. Nobody even talked about the story, they just talked about how it featured a gay teen who is in a romance with another boy, and how there are hardly any white people, and even the dog is disabled (or “differently abled.”) It turned off parents and gave kids nothing of interest. I assume moviegoers figured they already had a turkey at home.
Disney has suffered plenty of bombs since it decided to ignore stockholders and double down on the “Get work, go broke” business model, but this is a Hiroshima-level nuclear event. The movie cost $180 million just to produce (that doesn't include advertising and promotions.) It’s estimated that it will need to make $360 million just to break even. And it’s currently projected to gross a total of around $45 million.
International receipts won’t help it: due to all the gay themes, it won’t be shown in a number of countries, including China, Malaysia, Indonesia and much of the Middle East. This film alone could cost Disney a minimum of between $100 and $140 million. It’s like taking a family of ten to Disney World!
And before anyone tries to blame departing CEO Bob Chapek, this movie was greenlighted by his predecessor, Bob Iger, who is now back in charge. He’s also the one who hired all the work activists in the first place.
I don’t take any particular delight in seeing once-great companies I used to love destroy their reputations or burn their stockholders’ money. But if this is what it takes to force Disney to realize that it is in the family entertainment business (and it is a business) and not the far-left, LGBTQ+++ToInfinityAndBeyond grooming business, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Related: Maybe Iger is finally getting the message after all:
Dave Barry’s Annual Christmas Gift Guide
Because we could all desperately use a few laughs, here’s humorist Dave Barry’s annual Christmas gift guide, for people who don’t care how weird a gift is, as long as it’s cheap. Although I am curious to know what kind of plant grows out of the Willie Nelson Chia Pet.
https://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article268823847.html
Surprise: DC jury finds Stewart Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy
Late Tuesday, after eight weeks of trial and three days of deliberations, the verdict came in.
And it was a sad first. As Julie Kelly tweeted: “No American has ever been convicted of seditious conspiracy. Today, a DC jury convicted [Oath Keepers founder] Stewart Rhodes and [head of the Florida chapter] Kelly Meggs of attempting to overthrow the U.S. government without weapons and mostly based on texts and videos.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland released a statement: “The Justice Department is committed to holding accountable those criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Never mind that these defendants, however misguided their actions (and they were –- I don’t excuse them), believed that the real assault on democracy was happening inside the Capitol Building. And never mind that we’re still learning about the role the FBI and others in the government played in the inevitability of this so-called “insurrection.”
The last convictions for seditious conspiracy were in 1995, when Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted in a plot to blow up landmark buildings in New York City. Yes, it’s correct to say that no Americans ever have been convicted of this charge, though three other Oath Keepers chose to plead guilty to it rather than face a DC court.
Julie is “the” reporter on January 6, who literally wrote the book on it. Her tweet went on: “This is why it’s absolutely imperative that House GOP investigate Jan. 6. At least 5 FBI informants, including the VP of Oath Keepers, were embedded in the group months beforehand. Jury never heard this or witness testimony that some attempted to help police including Harry Dunn.”
(NOTE: Harry Dunn is a Capitol police officer who did testify, though it's unclear from his testimony if he understood at the time who the Oath Keepers were or that they were trying to help him. Language alert...)
According to the US code, seditious conspiracy is when two or more persons “conspire to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force seize, take or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.” Conviction brings a fine, less than 20 years in prison, or both.
Three other co-defendants --- Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell --- were acquitted on the seditious conspiracy charge. But, as REUTERS reported, “all five defendants were convicted of obstructing an official proceeding --- the congressional certification of election results --- with mixed verdicts on a handful of other charges.” Four other Oath Keepers go to trial in December on similar charges of seditious conspiracy, and also some members of the Proud Boys.
James Lee Bright, an attorney for Rhodes, said after the trial, “The return in this, even though we’re not pleased with it, probably speaks to the fact that the DOJ is going to go full steam ahead in like fashion on all the others.
Another of Rhodes’ attorneys, Ed Tarpley, called the verdicts a “mixed bag” and told reporters, “We are grateful for the not guilty verdicts received. We are disappointed in the guilty verdicts. “There was no evidence introduced to indicate there was a plan to attack the Capitol.”
In fact, Rhodes took the stand and told the jury he had no plan to storm the Capitol and didn’t even know some of his fellow Oath Keepers had gone inside until after the riot was over. He and two of his co-defendants, Caldwell and Watkins, testified that they had not plotted such an attack and weren’t trying to block Congress from certifying the results, though Watkins did admit criminal liability and apologized for impeding police officers protecting the Capitol. Watkins, who was acquitted on the sedition charge, testified she was “swept up” in the moment, like a shopper on Black Friday. Caldwell, a disabled Navy vet who also was acquitted on that charge, did not enter the building and wasn’t even formally a member of the group.
What apparently made the prosecution’s case were all the inflammatory texts, recordings, etc., that these guys sent around to each other, not so much their actions on that day. Some of these were silly memes adapted from Bugs Bunny cartoons and movies such as “The Princess Bride.”
As the NEW YORK POST reported, defense attorneys told the jury the hotheaded rhetoric was just bravado. Rhodes testified that he was upset when the mob stormed the Capitol, saying his followers were “stupid” for going inside. On the other hand, prosecutors had evidence of his expensive investment in a stash of weapons intended for a just-in-case “quick reaction force.” The weapons were never brought into DC.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/29/oath-keepers-founder-stewart-rhodes-guilty-of-seditious-conspiracy/
Rhodes told the jury that they'd dressed in combat gear to act as bodyguards and peacekeepers, not attackers, but they apparently didn't believe him. As POLITICO wrote (included in a REDSTATE commentary; link below): “Defense attorneys contended Rhodes and the other four Oath Keepers defendants were prone to violent rhetoric but took no effort to back up their words. They noted that they left their firearms arsenal at a Comfort Inn near Arlington, Va., on the day of the riot. They traveled to Washington to perform security details for speakers at Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally and related events, including figures like longtime Trump ally Roger Stone and event organizer Ali Alexander, who were among those in a Signal chat with Rhodes shown by prosecutors and defense attorneys.”
Attorneys for Rhodes and Harrelson plan to appeal.
Those of us who strongly disapprove of what these defendants did but understand they weren’t seriously engaged in bringing down the United States government or forcefully preventing the certification will see the irony in this quote from U.S. Attorney Mark Graves: “This case reaffirms the strength of our democracy and the institutions that protect and preserve it, including our criminal justice system. Over a period of many weeks, a fair and impartial jury heard evidence in a search for the truth of the conduct of these defendants before, during and after the events of Jan. 6, 2021.”
I believe that after the events, these hardened insurrectionists went out to eat at Olive Garden.
And rather than “reaffirming” our institutions, January 6 prosecutors have been abusing the rule of law, as with the overly broad “geofence” warrant they’ve been using to "go back in time" and sweep up thousands of people who are simply shown to have been in the proximity of the Capitol. “Equating presence with criminality” –- what better way to stifle dissent! Fortunately, defense attorney Rebecca Fish, Assistant Public Defender in Tacoma, Washington, has convincingly made the case that this tactic is illegal and violates Fourth Amendment rights. It's as I've said: the law is on our side, but our lawyers have to be better than their lawyers!
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