December 12, 2021
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THE EVENING EDITION By Mike Huckabee
Good evening! Here are some stories from me that I think you will want to read.
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
This verse was recommended by Ron and Jan H.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14:27 KJV
If you have a Bible verse you want to see in our newsletter, please email [email protected].
THE LATEST NEWS
1. Time to pull the plug:
With President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill on life support in the Senate, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just delivered a report that should pull the plug, if our Senate has any sense of fiscal responsibility whatsoever, which is doubtful.
Biden claimed that all that massive spending and government-expanding would magically be completely paid for without adding to the deficit. But an initial CBO study a few weeks ago dealt a serious blow by estimating that, best case scenario, it would add $160 billion to the deficit. Then on Friday, they brought down the sledgehammer of reality with a report on the cost if all those “temporary” entitlements and deductions, like child care and health subsidies, were made permanent, as we know they will be:
The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that under those conditions, and taking current interest rates into account, over the next ten years, the “Build Back Better” bill would add $3 trillion to the national debt, not $0.2 trillion as claimed. This is expected to harden Sen. Joe Manchin’s opposition, which is all it would take to doom this “Bring Back Boondoggles” bill to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
Of course, the Democrats are claiming that this report is “fake” because the actual bill calls for those programs to be temporary.
Does anyone really believe that? As Ronald Reagan liked to remind people, there’s nothing so immortal as a “temporary” government program. And these are the people who believed the Russian collusion story, and Jussie Smollett and that Stacey Abrams is the true Governor of Georgia, so they don’t have a very good track record at spotting fake things.
It’s ironic because if Biden really did want to build back the American economy, it would be fairly easy and not cost a cent: Just reverse everything he’s doing, return to the Trump policies he killed, end the pointless job-crushing pandemic policies, and get the government off of people’s backs and out of their way. But that will never happen because of the fatal flaw in the wiring of the brains of liberals: they truly believe that jobs and a booming economy are things that are created by the government instead of things that the government lives off of, like a parasite. At least a smart parasite knows not to suck so much blood that it kills the host.
In fact, the government can only help create conditions to help the economy boom. It has very little power to create a booming economy on its own. But as President Biden and Dr. Fauci have proven, it can kill one pretty quickly.
2. Reeder: RIP Mike Nesmith:
Of all the celebrity obituaries I’ve been called on to write, this may hit the hardest yet. Mike Nesmith, former Monkee and musical visionary, died peacefully today of natural causes at 78.
His career was so long, varied, revolutionary and legendary that I won’t even attempt to summarize it. I strongly urge you to read both of these write-ups, since they each contain different interesting facts about his life and career, pre-, post- and during the Monkees. Examples: In 1966, “The Monkees” won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and in 1967, their records outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined. And the Monkees was a flop with test audiences until they edited in the unscripted audition footage of Nesmith and Davy Jones ad-libbing, which should tell you why it really became a phenomenon.
https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-nesmith-dead-monkees-1235130849/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/michael-nesmith-dead-monkees-1235060806/
I am a big Monkees fan, but a HUGE Mike Nesmith fan. I have two autographed First National Band albums that are among my treasured possessions. I can sing (badly) songs from memory off of albums most people have never heard of, like “Loose Salute” and “Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.” I saw him live with the Monkees in 2012 and solo a few years ago at the Kessler Theater in Dallas, where he’s always been a hometown hero. I was thrilled just to be in the same room with him at the Texas Musicians' Museum.
And I was, and still am, furious at a local concert venue that failed to tell us, after waiting through two years of COVID delays, that we had to bring COVID papers to get into his final tour with Mickey Dolenz two months ago. We (and a lot of other furious people, some of whom had driven over 200 miles) were barred from entering and missed our last chance ever to see him.
Since he was the son of a secretary who struck it rich by inventing Liquid Paper, it’s no surprise that Nesmith was incredibly creative. The songs he wrote for the Monkees were always my favorites (I can attest that “Sweet Young Thing” is the most fun to play with a garage band.) He also invented the concepts of MTV with his show “Popclips” and home video with the cassette “Elephant Parts,” was playing country rock before it was a thing, presaged the “unplugged” era with “And the Hits Just Keep On Comin’,” and pioneered many new entertainment, video and concert concepts through his company Pacific Arts. He even produced, scored and co-wrote the cult film “Time Rider.” And you could argue that he invented the rock video by making this:
But he and the Monkees still aren't in the Rock Hall of Fame, while Jay-Z and the Beastie Boys are.
The dirty hippies in the ‘60s, with their misplaced self-righteousness, attacked the Monkees as fakes because they didn’t play their own instruments on their records, unlike all the REAL bands they idolized that also didn’t play their own instruments. Many learned only recently that the same session musicians, the Wrecking Crew, who played for the Monkees also played on nearly all of those albums they thought were “authentic, man!”
That really burned Nesmith, who was a real musician and songwriter with pre-Monkees success under the name Michael Blessing and who had written “Different Drum,” which became one of Linda Ronstadt’s first hits, two years before “The Monkees” debuted. He famously put his fist through a wall in an angry confrontation with a music executive, telling him that wall could’ve been his face, and forced the studio to give the band creative control and let them play (Peter Tork was also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist.) The pop hits might’ve dropped off, but the music got a lot more interesting.
Rest in peace, Papa Nez. You are now truly an Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see your last show, but considering the massive legacy you left behind, and the huge impact you had on the music industry, in your own quiet, brilliant, quirky and visionary way, we should all follow your laidback example and just be grateful for everything we got and not resent the stuff we didn’t get.
This tribute was written by "Huckabee" writer Pat Reeder.
3. Skyrocketing crime:
Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media has a good round-up of all the leftist prosecutors and mayors who are attempting to ignore, deny or spin away the skyrocketing crime, theft and murder rates in their cities following their “reforms” of doing away with bail, letting criminals out of jail, refusing to prosecute crimes and defunding the police. This is phase one of the gas lighting. Phase two will be when their cities have to go back to gaslight because thieves have stolen all the electric lights.
Also, if you’d prefer that your home town not descend into a dangerous, crime-ridden hellhole, then you might want to avoid voting for any D.A. candidate who’s marked by these four deadly words: “Funded by George Soros.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/soros-bankrolls-dark-money-hub-activists-dismantle-police
4. Swimmer smashes records and maybe women's sports:
University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer “Lia” Thomas (who up until 2019 was middling male swimmer Will Thomas) has been smashing all the women’s records since declaring him/herself female. In a recent 1560 freestyle, “Lia” beat the second-place finisher by a staggering 38 seconds. And while everyone is expected to just shut up and cheer this stunning and brave “woman,” like the cowed peasants in the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” one of “Lia’s” female teammates dared to tell the truth to Outkick about how the other swimmers really feel:
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/penn-trans-swimmer-teammate-lia-thomas-speaks
"Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do. When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake."
The term “very fake” doesn’t just apply to the phony congratulations “Lia’s” teammates feel they have to mouth, even though anyone with eyes and a functioning brain can see how insanely unfair this is and how it threatens to destroy all women’s sports -- especially now that the Olympics have jumped on board the trans delusion bandwagon. They claim it will be fair because they’ll make males wait two years instead of one before competing as females, which is too dumb even to comment on.
If all female athletes don’t put aside their fears of the trans Twitter mobs and stand up together to speak out against this and refuse to compete under these ridiculous conditions, then they’d better get ready to kiss women’s sports goodbye.
5. A Simple Christmas:
One of the books I wrote is called a “Simple Christmas.” It was one of my favorites of the 14 books I’ve written in part because it isn’t a political book at all. It’s a series of personal stories that illustrate how the most meaningful Christmases of our lives are often the simplest ones. It’s not having the most elaborate tree or decorations, or setting the perfect table with the perfect menu, perfectly cooked and served. That rarely happens anyway. The best Christmas is usually the one that is most like the very first one—very simple. A young pregnant unmarried teenage girl probably about 14, ended up in labor while taking a trip with her fiancé, a young Jewish carpenter named Joseph. They were in a sleepy little town called Bethlehem, but there was no place for them to seek refuge and for Mary to deliver her baby other than a borrowed cave where animals were kept and fed. In a feeding trough that was designed to feed sheep and goats, she placed her newborn son. It was nothing like the scene depicted in church pageants where things seemed so…well, so clean and holy, and angelic. This was a nasty, smelly place fit for farm animals not intended to be a delivery room for a human baby. But when God wanted to reveal Himself to mankind, He didn’t choose to come in a chariot of blazing fire surrounded by angles and choirs and wonderous miracles. He came in the most humble of circumstances and in a way that identified with the lowliest people on earth—not the wealthiest or most powerful. He still is doing that. He shows up to bring comfort and love to the people who the world views as the unlovable and untouchable. No place is too low and no person is too lost for Him. It’s why I think of Christmas in simple terms. Simple memories of playing checkers with my Uncle Garvin, a lifelong bachelor who came and stayed at our house every Christmas. Or my Aunt Mary’s popcorn balls that she made every year and brought to the family Christmas dinner. They were so chewy and sticky from the Karo Syrup she made them with that it’s a miracle any of us had teeth after eating one. And my mother made chocolate chip cookies with chocolate chips and pecans that came from the pecan trees in our yard. They are still the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. At least that’s how I remember them.
I remember some of my Christmas gifts from childhood, especially the electric guitar that I begged for 3 Christmases in a row, always being told we couldn’t afford it, so what else did I want? After 3 years of getting “what else,” I finally declared I wanted an electric guitar or nothing. Only when I was an adult did I found out how close I was that year to getting the nothing. But that year, my parents ordered for my Christmas my first electric guitar from the JC Penney catalog. The whole rig, amp and all cost $99, which to them was a fortune. It took them a full year to pay for it, a little each month and they didn’t do much Christmas for themselves that year. But it was a simple guitar that changed my life. Not that I was ever good enough to make a living at it, but learning to play meant learning that for every hour of performing, there are hours of practice—a good life lesson for every endeavor. And playing in front of people helped me overcome what was an incredible shyness that you wouldn’t probably recognize today. So as you prepare for your Christmas, keep it simple. God did. And it sure has made a difference in our lives that He did.
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