By Mike Huckabee
January 18, 2022
|
|
|
|
Good morning!
Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!
Today's newsletter includes:
- Bible Verse of the Day - John 5:24
- DOJ targets political threats when REAL threats abound
- Nice idea
- Correlating Incompetence by Colonel Kenneth Allard, U.S. Army (Ret.)
- Reasonable Question
- The Voting Rules Bill
- Some thoughts on Biden's upcoming press conference
To subscribe to the advertisement-free version of the newsletter (delivering the morning and evening editions together in one email), go here.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
1. DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
John 5:24 NIV
Today's verse was recommended by Sue P.
If you have a favorite Bible Verse you want to see in one of our newsletters, please email [email protected].
MORNING NEWS:
2. DOJ targets political threats when REAL threats abound:
A Dallas/Fort Worth-area rabbi and several others are taken hostage by an armed Pakistani-born terrorist at Congregation Beth Israel on Saturday. The terrorist reportedly wants to negotiate for the release of, well, another terrorist, dubbed “Lady al-Qaeda,” who is serving more than 80 years in prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. After more than 10 hours, the rabbi throws a chair at the terrorist and enables the whole group to escape. An FBI Hostage Rescue team finally closes in, and fortunately the terrorist is the only one who ends up dead.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, known to congregants as “Rabbi Charlie,” is a hero; he credits training he got from police and the FBI. As the hours ticked by, he knew the terrorist was aware his negotiations were not getting him what he wanted, and the situation was deteriorating. The terrorist had become “belligerent and threatening,” the rabbi says, and had said he expected to die. Rabbi Charlie knew from his training that they had to get out of there somehow. Here are the details of what happened inside that synagogue.
Apparently, the armed man didn’t even have to sneak into the synagogue. Rabbi Charlie had invited him in out of kindness because he appeared to need shelter, and the rabbi says he “didn’t hear anything suspicious” as he brewed a cup of tea for his guest. But while they were praying, he heard the click of the man’s gun.
Biden’s first reaction was a vapid claim that they didn’t yet know the motives of the hostage-taker. But the FBI later admitted the obvious and released a statement calling the ordeal “a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted” and said the Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating.
Fine, but Miranda Devine --- writer for the New York Post and author of LAPTOP FROM HELL --- says that “the attack is a reminder of times in the not-so-distant past, when Islamic terrorism was considered a far greater threat than a MAGA supporter, and the national security apparatus was deployed to protect American citizens, not attack them.” If the FBI is busy chasing down conservative parents who protest at school board meetings, for example, could it be that “the organization has taken its eye off the infiltration into our country of a terrorist like like Akram”? That sure would explain a lot.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/17/why-was-the-dallas-terrorist-allowed-into-the-us/
Devine makes the point that Democrats are using the Capitol Hill riot as a pretext for hunting their political enemies, not the real threats. Her opinion piece on this is a must-read:.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/16/dems-are-using-the-capitol-riot-to-hunt-political-foes/
So, tell me, FBI, how did this terrorist, the late, not-so-great Malik Faisal Akram, from the U.K., manage to fly into JFK Airport and then disappear into this country? According to his brother, “He’s known to police. Got a criminal record...was suffering from mental health issues.” He had no apparent means of support. He listed a hotel in Queens as his destination but traveled to Dallas, where he stayed at a homeless shelter for a week and bought a gun, apparently on the street.
A New York Post editorial put it this way: “American travelers put up with a vast amount of security theater --- millions of man-hours lost each year to unpredictably long TSA lines; intrusive pat-downs; the whole take-off-your-shoes-and-belt rigamarole. Yet the vast security apparatus can’t screen out a mentally ill Muslim extremist?” They’re right: This guy was such a screwball, he made news in the U.K. for being banned from a court after ranting about 9/11. We’re now hearing that he was known to MI-5, the British counterpart to our FBI.
Meanwhile, our “Justice” Department has created a “Sedition Task Force” to investigate Trump supporters for attempting to “overthrow the government” and has put Capitol Hill rally attendees on no-fly lists. The government has set up a National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The national security apparatus has been weaponized against conservatives. But, hey, welcome to America, you disturbed, U.S.-hating Islamic terrorist!
https://nypost.com/2022/01/17/why-was-the-dallas-terrorist-allowed-into-the-us/
When DOJ resources are directed for political reasons to what is wrongly labeled a domestic terrorist threat –- such as conservatives daring to question the honesty of the 2020 election –- that means real threats like this Malik Faisal Akram get to waltz right in. The attorney general, to please Democrats who accuse him of “inaction,” bragged last week about the enormous array of resources they’re devoting to their investigation of January 6, as if Trump supporters were the worst threat to America since the Civil War. (Actually, many leftists, the ones who watch too much MSNBC, believe that.) Meanwhile, a rabbi and several in his congregation came close to losing their lives.
Steve Hilton, on this weekend’s “The Next Revolution,” asked guest Tulsi Gabbard what she thought of the deputy Attorney General’s condemnation of anyone who is “anti-authority” for being part part of what he calls domestic violent extremism. And I have to say that, even though she’s in the Democrat Party for some inexplicable reason, she gave an answer that made a lot of sense --- an answer that one might even expect to hear from a Republican.
“I think it’s really important to bold, highlight and underline what he said,” she told him. “...The authorities of the Biden administration are targeting Americans for holding anti-authority views. That is authoritarianism. And what does that mean to us, here at home? We’re supposed to just sit back passively, follow along, put those blinders on and do whatever they tell us to do? That undermines the heart of our democratic republic, that undermines the essence of our Constitution...”
“...This is where they’re exposing their anti-liberty, anti-democracy mindset, which is so dangerous.”
Of course, Gabbard was saying this on FOX News. She better watch where she repeats such heresy, because if she doesn’t watch out, she’s going to find herself censored by Facebook, Twitter and Google for “lacking context” that would make it clear it’s really Republicans who are against “our democracy.” Even though it isn’t, but never mind.
Her speculation is that this authoritarianism comes from fear of losing the power that they’re trying to hold on to, “fear that people WILL question the decisions that they’re making, fear that people who challenge their authority are a direct threat to their power.”
It’s coming from fear, she said, “rather than from the heart, the essence of the Constitution of the United States of America, the very document that guides us and reminds us of what the United States is all about.” And here’s the money quote: “When people are motivated by fear of losing power, you see the kinds of results that we’re seeing where they’re willing to say or do whatever they feel they need to to hold onto it.”
Those on the left actually fear conservatives and Donald Trump more than they do armed, crazed Islamic terrorists. The choices they make in dealing with perceived threats tell us this. Conservatives are the ones who could take their power away, and all it might take is another election or two.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In related news, the House Select Committee investigating January 6 has subpoenaed the phone records of the MyPillow Guy.
3. Nice idea:
Monday would have been the 100th birthday of TV icon Betty White. In honor of her lifelong love of animals and her tireless work for animal charities, fans online started the Betty White Challenge. People were asked to say thanks for the decades of laughs she gave us by donating $5 (or more, if you like) to your favorite animal rescue. Nice way to honor a great lady.
Colonel Ken Allard with Russian airborne forces, Bosnia, 1994.
4. Correlating Incompetence by Colonel Kenneth Allard, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Col. Ken Allard, US Army (Ret), had a distinguished career that included serving as Dean of the National War College at West Point and as a military analyst for NBC.
In assessing potential battle outcomes or even deciding to go to war, Russian military science always seeks a “correlation of forces.” Put more simply, Bolshevik revolutionaries were taught, “If your bayonet strikes steel, pull back: But if it strikes only mush, then thrust forward.”
Despite the looming indicators, only Vladimir Putin knows for certain if Russia will really invade Ukraine; but so far, he has struck only mush. Haplessly presiding over the third Obama administration, President Biden appears shell-shocked by the sobering evidence amassed by those few Russian experts not yet re-assigned to studying climate change. Consulting dog-eared order-of-battle files airily dismissed by Democratic apologists, these analysts have watched with growing alarm as 120,000 Russian troops converged on Ukraine’s borders. They can’t be serious - or could they?
Like a slow-motion Cuban Missile Crisis, this ring of steel now surrounds Ukraine from three sides. Should Putin give the order, those forces will instantly roll forward to let the blitzkrieg begin. Russian armies are a well-honed network of “operational maneuver groups” - integrated, armor-heavy, fast-moving mechanized formations built to overwhelm border defenses before spreading out to seize key terrain and exploit any breakthrough. Organic Russian artillery and missiles invoke the proverbial “Red God of war,” indirect fires obliterating any targets or obstacles impeding the armored blitzkrieg.
At the strategic level, Russia’s potent air forces are designed for aerial supremacy, first neutralizing enemy air defenses before eliminating critical infrastructure targets - much as the US did in Baghdad thirty years ago. Lending their own distinctive character are the Russian airborne and Spetsnaz forces, wonderfully mobile, elite formations transported by helicopters or cargo aircraft to seize and hold strategic targets, often deep behind enemy lines. Those well-armed squads of “little green men” deployed to Crimea in 2014 controlled restive populations through direct intimidation. Also from their Crimean bases, Russian amphibious and naval forces can support either limited seizures of key territory or the nightmare scenario of Western analysts: An all-out, multi-phased campaign to end Ukraine’s existence as an independent country.
In their comprehensive study, “Russia’s Possible Invasion of Ukraine,” CSIS analysts Philip Wasielewski and Seth Jones recently identified no fewer than six major options available to the Russian military, ranging from more limited incursions to seize breakaway hot-spots (such as Donetsk) or belts of land connecting Crimea with Odessa, effectively severing Ukraine from any Black Sea ports. But their most comprehensive option is that nightmare scenario: “Seize all of Ukraine and, with Belarus, announce the formation of a new tripartite Slavic union…(Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians).” The more military power Putin deploys, the greater his range of options, the only downsides being a re-energized US or NATO response. Even then, the fate of Ukraine would be grim: “Ukrainians in any occupied territory can expect forced Russification that the nation experienced under…Catherine the Great, Alexander II, Stalin and Brezhnev.” https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine? P.3
Should Ukraine manage to mobilize its population and deploy the limited “lethal aid” sent by the US since 2014, Philip Karber of the Potomac Foundation points out that “Ukrainian forces would be hard-pressed to cover a much broader front that stretches from Belarus in the north to the Black Sea in the south…(including) classic tank country where the Ukrainians do not have extensive prepared defenses” (Quoted by Warren P. Strobel, Michael R. Gordon and Nancy A. Youssef, “Moscow Bolsters Weaponry Near Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, 2022.
And as Russian diplomats have become more truculent, their information megaphones blare louder: Russian military units moving west, video footage of combat drills and even cyber-attacks against Ukrainian government websites with the warning, “be afraid and expect the worst.” Worst of all: Displaying sheer gullibility to Soviet-style dezinformatsiya, White House spokes-person Jen Psaki charged that, "Russia is laying the groundwork to (create) …a pretext for invasion, including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine." https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/expect-worst-ukraine-hit-by-cyberattack-russia-moves-more-troops-2022-01-14
With his innate Russian contempt for weakness, Vladimir Putin must take savage glee from having flummoxed the US and its NATO allies - all at comparatively little cost. By shrewdly guessing how far he can play his hand, Putin can either seize territories through pin-prick attacks or even reach for the whole enchilada, de-escalating for “peace” whenever tactically necessary. As always, the greatest danger is war through miscalculation, why former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld always maintained that weakness is provocative. Those provocations naturally befall a country like ours which no longer drafts its young men or even studies war. Instead, we cheerfully elect a clueless military cipher like Joe Biden to serve as commander-in-chief.
Hey man, what could possibly go wrong?
5. Reasonable Question:
How can we keep America-hating, anti-Semitic terrorists out of our synagogues when we can’t even keep them out of Congress?
6. The Voting Rules Bill:
America is facing many serious problems right now. There’s the continuing pandemic, runaway inflation, a gasping economy, a skyrocketing crime wave, a worsening supply chain crisis, and aggressive moves by our enemies around the world. So naturally, the Senate will devote itself today to debating a Democrat bill to unconstitutionally federalize elections and legalize vote fraud.
They call this a “Voting Rights Bill,” but as Brit Hume of Fox News pointed out, it’s really a voting rules bill, an attempt to take the right to set voting rules away from the states and give it to the federal government. Voting rights don’t need protecting, since it’s easier to vote than it’s ever been in history. Despite claims of “voter suppression,” there was record turnout in 2020.
This is a bill that we already know is doomed to fail, since it would require 60 votes to pass unless the filibuster is eradicated, and with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, there are 52 votes to protect the filibuster. (Although, be warned: Kamala Harris might give them the stink eye.)
Despite Bernie Sanders’ apparent belief that 48 out of 100 votes is a majority, or the insane idea that you can simply exempt bills at random from the filibuster, this will and should prove to be a pointless, childish waste of time when we don’t have any time to waste. So much for the “adults being back in charge.”
The Democrats were put in power almost exactly one year ago, and their policies have proven to be the worst example of foot-shooting incompetence since “F-Troop” went off the air. That’s not just my partisan opinion (believe me, I want America to succeed, even if it’s not under my Party.) A new Gallup survey found that in just the past year, Americans’ personal political party identification swung from 49-40 Democrat to 47-42 Republican. That’s a 14-point swing and the biggest Republican advantage in 25 years.
https://nypost.com/2022/01/17/party-preferences-shift-from-democrat-to-republican-in-2021/
Having failed spectacularly on every issue of importance to Americans – indeed, in many cases, having delivered the exact opposite of what they promised, such as Biden’s promise to be a moderate unifier somehow turning into yelling that anyone who disagrees with his far-left policies is a white supremacist – they know they face catastrophic midterm elections. So they’re left with only two flimsy straws to cling to: try to convince minorities that the other Party are all racists, and undermine election integrity laws.
That’s a tough sell when the latest polls show that more than 80% of voters support four key election integrity measures, with some of the strongest support for voter ID laws coming from African-Americans.
It’s ironic because if the Democrats had actually put a fraction of the effort into governing effectively and intelligently as they’ve put into dividing and slandering people and trying to tilt the rules in their favor, maybe they wouldn’t have to divide and slander people and tilt the rules in their favor to win.
Related Tweet of the Day! From Rep. Thomas Massie: “Democrats don’t want you to show an ID to vote so they can get elected and require you to show an ID to buy food.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1483110898906636288
7. Some thoughts on Biden's upcoming press conference:
President Biden is scheduled to hold a press conference on Wednesday, where he’s promised to tell us more about last weekend’s hostage standoff at a Texas synagogue. Surely, he’ll be able to tell us more than he has previously, when he seemed completely stumped as to why a radical Islamist who wanted to free a terrorist known as “Lady Al Qaeda” would target Jews in a synagogue. ‘Tis a puzzlement.
At the link, gun crime researcher John Lott predicts that Biden will give us more of his kneejerk response to the crisis, which was to blame the terrorist’s gun and say we need more background checks, even though he also admitted that he probably bought it off the street where there are no background checks, and there’s no way the government can prevent things like that.
Lott also offers a lot of little-discussed background on background checks, like their ineffectiveness at stopping mass shootings, the misleading statistics used to promote them, the useless mess that is the background check system, and yes, the fact (sorry, Democrats) that they are racist. The error rate for these laws preventing qualified black males from being able to purchase guns is three times their share of the population. And since leftist DA’s have helped turn minority neighborhoods into high crime districts, preventing a law-abiding black resident from being able to protect his family from criminals with illegal guns can be an error with tragic consequences.
8. I Just Wanted to Say:
Thank you for reading the Morning Edition.
For more news, visit my website here.
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2022/1/morning-edition-january-18
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.