Good morning!

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

Today's newsletter includes:

• Bible Verse Of The Day
• The Gov. Answers Readers On Impeachment, Accountability
• Executive Order Conspiracy Theory
• Minimum Wage Update
• Moderate Democrat Senators Hold Strong On The Filibuster
• Killed In The Line Of Duty
• Interesting Lesson

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Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY 

The Gov. answers readers on impeachment, accountability

By Mike Huckabee

It’s great to see so many readers engaging with us, commenting --- both pro and con --- on our voice of reason at this time of mass hysteria. We’re trying to get through all the letters, promise! Here are responses to two more...

From Gary:

I just have three quick questions:

1.) Since Senator Patrick Leahy is presiding over the 'impeachment' trial, does he have a vote on conviction? The Chief Justice does not have a vote, so why should Leahy, since he is assuming that capacity.

2.) What gives Senator Leahy the authority to preside anyway? I cannot anywhere in the Constitution that says this it is permissible for a Senator to preside over an impeachment trial.

3.) The impeachment articles were delivered AFTER Trump had left office, and was a private citizen, What gives the Senate the authority to try ANY private citizen?

(asking for a friend)

From the Gov:

The short answer: none of this is constitutional. They are making it up as they go along.

Having Sen. Leahy presiding over an impeachment trial is entering uncharted territory, since the Constitution says “the Chief Justice SHALL preside...” Chief Justice John Roberts has wisely chosen not to accept this dubious honor and will play no part in the "trial," so Sen. Leahy has graciously taken it upon himself. I assume he will decide for himself whether or not his vote counts. My guess is that it WILL. This whole circus is already so unconstitutional that, hey, why the heck not?

So, with President Trump already out of office and the Chief Justice not presiding, is what we have even a real impeachment trial? I’m not a legal scholar by any means, but I certainly have a lot of company in saying it is not. What we have here is a big fat banana-republic-style show trial. Your friend is correct in saying the Senate does not have authority to try a private citizen.

Accordingly, Trump’s attorneys are arguing that this entire process is unconstitutional, not only for the reasons mentioned above but also because the House impeachment was conducted without any due process. They also say that Trump is innocent of the charges he was impeached for, having never incited violence, and that they can present evidence that the Capitol breach was planned well in advance of his speech.

Democrats want to "convict" Trump because they think it will prevent him from holding office again, ever. They said he didn’t deserve to in their legal brief filed February 2. (The "trial" is scheduled for next week, starting February 8.) But legal experts point out that they don’t have this power other than with appointed offices, not elected ones. And to do this, even if it were constitutional, they’d have to reach a 2/3 vote on conviction, which they are not going to get.

Will this common-sense argument stop the Democrats? Of course not. But Sen. Lindsay Graham has said that if they call even one witness, Republicans will call a slew of their own, tying up the Senate for weeks at least. Maybe they'll even call the guy in the Viking helmet, if only to establish that he was there at the Capitol long before Trump gave his speech and didn’t even hear it.

Personally, I’d like to see the Republicans call John Sullivan, the left-wing activist who participated, was arrested and charged but then violated terms of bail. What was he really doing there?

I’d like to know how many other left-wing activists were involved in the Capitol breach. Again, we know the so-called insurrection was planned quite a while in advance and had nothing to do with what Trump said.

On the other hand, Trump’s attorneys say they won’t be bringing in the issue of election fraud. It apparently is not true that Trump parted ways with his previous team over that issue. New attorney Bruce Castor said, “There are plenty of questions about how the election was conducted throughout the country, but that’s for a different forum, and I don’t believe that’s important to litigate in the Senate trial because you don’t need it. President Trump has plenty to win with what he has.” Here’s more from THE EPOCH TIMES.

Jonathan Turley warned that even the House impeachment –- not even counting the Senate trial –- was doing great damage to the Constitution.

Turley said, “With seeking his removal for incitement, Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends.” He said that Trump’s speech did not meet the legal standard for “incitement” and would be seen by the Supreme Court as protected speech. This sounds like just the kind of defense Trump’s attorneys are planning for his trial.

"The damage caused by the rioters...was enormous,” Turley said. “However, it will pale in comparison to the damage from a new precedent of a snap impeachment for speech protected under the First Amendment.” Of course, the House did it anyway.

Thanks for writing, Gary; hope I answered your questions.

From Paul:

Thanks for allowing me to comment, Governor. I am very disillusioned, with the Republican "club," and you. For two or three years, you have been chicken little on these CIA/FBI pending indictments. Time and again you breathlessly announced that charges, indictments and jail time was coming. The Democrats are destroying America with unbridled activism and relentless action while the "club" stonewalls and stands around in togas, all the while complicitly skewering Trump. Disgusting. 74 million Americans will not soon forget this insider treachery. Loyalty is supposed to work both ways. I wish Trump would start a 3rd party.

From the Gov:

Thanks for writing, Paul, but I think you mischaracterize my reports. The investigations have been interminable, and I don’t think we’ve ever said anyone was going to jail. We’ve said people DESERVE to go to jail, which is a different thing entirely. I share your abject disappointment and disgust that no one has been held accountable.

We can tell you what investigators have turned up, and we can point you to solid sources and great books exposing much of the deep state, but as for accountability, well, we can’t do anything about that, much as we would like to.

So, you put me, personally, in “the club,” wearing a toga, standing complicit as the Democrats skewer Trump? Aside from thinking I might look pretty silly in a toga, I have to wonder where on earth you get that image of me. I ran for President; didn’t QUITE make it. I have no power to put anyone in jail, as appropriate as that might be. I've made it crystal clear what I think about the double standard of “justice” in Washington DC.

Right now, increased activism is the very thing I’m encouraging for embittered Republicans. As for starting a third party, that would be the worst mistake conservatives could possibly make. Democrats are hoping beyond hope that we do. Start a new third party, and conservatives will never, ever, ever win another Presidential election. Ever. Guaranteed.

Thanks for writing, Paul. I hope this clears a few things up.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM>>>

Executive Order Conspiracy Theory

By Mike Huckabee

As we’ve said before, we don’t go in for promoting conspiracy theories around here. But even we have to admit that some of these signatures on President Biden’s executive orders do look a lot more like his wife’s handwriting than his own.

Does he even know what’s being ordered under his name, or did she just have to take over because he signed so many orders to wreck our economy and national security that he got writer’s cramp?

Minimum Wage Update

By Mike Huckabee

President Biden and Congressional Democrats keep calling for a national $15-an-hour minimum wage, ignoring the devastating consequences for already-struggling small businesses and unskilled workers whose jobs will disappear if they’re priced above market value for labor. They insist that despite years of evidence to the contrary, arbitrary government wage increases don’t kill jobs.

Well, here’s the latest example of politicians who know zip about business ordering higher wages and having it blow up in their (and everyone else’s) faces.

The city council of Long Beach, California, decided to honor grocery workers who worked through the pandemic by ordering supermarkets to give them “hero’s pay” of a $4-an-hour raise. Since the minimum wage there is $14, one of the highest in the US, that means the lowest-paid worker would be getting $18 an hour. The politicians there (whom I assume have never run a business, and certainly not a supermarket) declared that large corporations are making record profits and should be forced to share the wealth with their workers.

So Kroger, the parent company of Ralph’s and Food 4 Less, announced that 25% of their stores in the Long Beach area would be shutting down. Criticized for doing this when the corporation was making strong profits, Kroger replied that many of the local stores were already struggling to stay open (supermarkets operate on notoriously slim profit margins, while the new raise would have increased the stores’ labor costs by 30%.)

I agree that the people who worked through the pandemic are heroes who deserve to be celebrated, but the Long Beach city council, through its cluelessness about private enterprise, just “honored” a lot of them out of their jobs. All things considered, I think they might have preferred a parade instead.

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Moderate Democrat Senators Hold Strong On The Filibuster

By Mike Huckabee

So far, moderate Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are holding strong on their refusal to go along with a radical left agenda or to vote to eliminate the filibuster so that Democrats can steamroll a radical agenda through the Senate with only 50 votes. And as I predicted, they are facing tremendous pressure to cave in.

The latest threat comes from the “progressive” No Excuses PAC, the same group that helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez get into Congress by snatching the nomination from a longtime incumbent in a primary where most Democrats didn’t think it was even necessary to show up and vote. The PAC claims that Sinema and Manchin “stand in the way of progress,” so they’re already running ads against them in their home states and trying to recruit some leftists to challenge them in their upcoming primaries.

The problem with that, of course, is that you can't run a socialist under the radar in statewide races in Arizona and West Virginia. There will be debates, TV commercials and media coverage, and people will turn out to vote. There’s also a good reason why only a moderate Democrat could win in those states, so even if a socialist managed to get the nomination, it’s not likely he or she would defeat the Republican.

To me, however, the most important part of this story is the unintentionally revealing quote from the PAC’s co-founder, Corbin Trent:

"Democrats have a couple years, max, to improve the lives of the American people. If they blow it, Republicans take back over, and then we'll get another Trumper back in the White House—maybe Trump himself."

If he sincerely believed that far-left policies “improve the lives of the American people,” then why is he so terrified that the voters will put Republicans, maybe even Trump himself, back in charge in just two years? Why wouldn't the people vote in more socialists to make it easier to pass far-left policies?

Answer: Because improving the lives of the American people has nothing to do with their policies. Their policies are about one thing only: controlling the lives of the American people. Their policies are engineered to make people’s lives worse: their speech less free, their choices fewer, their behavior highly regulated, their nation and their families less safe and secure, their paychecks smaller, their jobs harder to find, their standard of living lower and their cost of living higher. But give this to them: their policies are remarkably effective at achieving those goals. Just from the ones Biden has instituted by executive order, jobs are already being destroyed and the American people are noticing.

Obama got by with it for eight years because he’s an incredibly slick and gifted politician, and he had worshipful media coverage and the threat of being called a racist if you criticized his policies. But even he lost the House and Senate to the GOP. Biden is giving us the America-destroying Obama agenda on steroids with none of the mitigating factors to sugarcoat it, other than the same fawning coverage from a media that’s so blown its credibility that nobody trusts them any further than Betty White could throw Brian Stelter.

So congratulations! I know he didn’t mean to, but a leftist actually told the truth for once!

Killed In The Line of Duty

By Mike Huckabee

At this writing, word has just come in that three Idaho National Guard pilots have been killed in the crash of a Blackhawk helicopter near Boise.

This follows the news that five FBI agents were shot, two fatally, Tuesday in Sunrise, Florida, while serving a warrant in a child exploitation case. The suspect barricaded himself inside his residence and started shooting, then later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I hope you’ll join me in praying for the victims, their families and the swift recovery of those who were injured.

Interesting Lesson

By Mike Huckabee

This is a very interesting lesson in history and constitutional law that explains why, in their mindless zeal to impeach Trump, the Democrats may be about to open the door to retroactively impeach Hillary Clinton, take away her pension and ban her from ever holding office again. Bonus points: if Republicans did it to her, they’d have actual legitimate grounds.

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