Biden’s Farewell Speech
Tonight, President Biden will make his farewell speech from the Oval Office.
Photo credit: NBC News
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Today’s newsletter is below.
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Daily Bible Verse
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”
1 John 3:18 KJV
Today’s Videos:
From “Huckabee Today” on TBN, Gov. Huckabee talks with Reagan economic adviser Dr. Art Laffer about his new book “The Trump Economic Miracle” and how Trump can fix our ailing economy:
https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=C5BD85A3-3F15-4879-963F-BEC61068C1A2
And here’s Gov. Huckabee on Newsmax, talking about Biden’s “schizophrenic” foreign policy:
https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=95CD2FCA-B4FA-4450-9E43-854743838FB2
California Wildfires updates
Here is today’s link to continually-updated news on the wildfires in California…
https://www.foxnews.com/category/us/la-fires
As Democrats in California attempt to blame Republicans for daring to point out the many ways their bad policies contributed to the fires, another popular new leftist excuse is that due to “climate change,” the winds were unprecedented and unpredictable, so nothing could have been done to prevent the fires. Matt Vespa at Townhall.com reminds us that the same conditions existed in 2011, and that it might have helped if, instead of focusing on DEI measures, they’d deployed fire trucks to the places where the fires were most likely to start.
On that subject, the president of the local firefighters union accused the fire chief of making an “operating funds decision” not to pre-deploy firefighters to high risk areas so she could avoid paying them overtime. Because they have so many other wise ways to spend the taxpayers’ money…
Maybe, instead of spending millions on free attorneys to help illegal aliens fight deportation, California Democrats could have spent some money on actually repairing the 100 or so fire trucks that were sitting in a parking lot, out of commission.
And there’s a must-read. It’s by a Pacific Palisades resident, who despite being a civil rights lawyer, blames the fires on the homeless.
https://californiaglobe.com/fr/i-live-in-pacific-palisades-and-i-know-who-caused-the-fire/
While the city chose to spend $1.3 billion on the homeless, and the county passed a tax to raise another $1.1 billion for services and housing for the homeless, the mayor cut over $17 million from the fire department’s budget. This while the LAFD responded to almost 14,000 fires in 2023 that were started by the homeless. That’s 54% of all fires in the county. One LA City Council member told him she spends 80% of her time dealing with homeless issues.
While he can’t say for sure that these specific fires were started by homeless people, the author points out that the leftist politicians’ skewed priorities, focusing most of their time and money on the homeless and precious little on fire prevention, made this disaster as inevitable and predictable as the windy season.
The External Revenue Service
In what could be a major announcement (or a major trial balloon), President-elect Trump announced that he plans to create a new agency called the External Revenue Service. This agency would be responsible for Trump’s new tariffs and other fees owed to the US by foreign nations.
As is always the case with Trump’s announcements, the idea sparked an array of extreme reactions, from enthusiasm to mockery. Critics pointed out that tariffs are already collected and distributed to the General Fund by US Customs and Border Protection. But defenders replied that under Trump, collecting tariffs will be a far bigger job, and he would like that agency to focus on other things, like protecting the border for a change.
Others focused on the possibility that this could be a first step back to the original way of financing America through tariffs and fees, before the government became addicted to spending vast amounts of money extorted from our own citizens, which punishes productivity and incentivizes businesses to move overseas. If so, that could eventually result in something many Americans have only dreamed of: the abolishment of the IRS and the income tax.
However, critics pointed out that tariffs are only a small percentage of government revenues relative to taxes on US citizens. The response to that is that tariffs and fees from other nations could become a much larger part of government revenues, allowing income taxes to be reduced or even eliminated, bringing companies back to the US, and causing the economy to boom.
It’s all still in the concept stage, and there will be a lot of debate before the External Revenue Service becomes a reality, if it ever does. It sounds promising, almost like a variation on the Fair Tax (eliminating income taxes and the IRS via a national sales tax, which is similar in that tariffs tend to raise prices of goods.) To us, the greatest fear is that we’ll create a new taxing authority, but the IRS won’t go away, and we’ll eventually end up with two giant bureaucracies taxing us coming and going. We want smaller government from Trump, not more of it.
As Ronald Reagan warned, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.
Hegseth Hearing Impairs Our Hearing
By “Huckabee” writer Pat Reeder
On Tuesday, Senate Democrats pulled out all the stops to destroy Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, or at least to destroy his hearing with their incessant shrieking. It seemed to backfire bigly: the more hysterical attacks they launched, asking ridiculous hypothetical questions and refusing to shut up long enough to let him answer, the more cool and in command he seemed. As their attacks blared on, betting odds on his confirmation steadily climbed to nearly 90%. Instead of blowing away Hegseth, they shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. By the end, they not only hadn’t made Hegseth appear unqualified for the job, they'd made viewers wonder how in the world such an obnoxious gaggle of morons ever got elected to the Senate themselves.
The loooong day began with Hegseth’s opening statement, which was an inspiring account of his personal faith, his patriotism and devotion to the military, and his goal of restoring the “warrior ethos” of the military and eliminating corruption, divisiveness and politicization. He said he would be “laser focused on lethality, meritocracy, war fighting, accountability, and readiness.” I strongly recommend you read or watch the full statement, it’s a welcome sea change for a military that’s seemingly forgotten how to win a war while it’s become distracted with politics and social engineering.
It was a great start, but it went downhill from there, as one Democrat after another used their question time to launch personal attacks and repeat unsourced accusations, usually giving him little opportunity to reply. I’m not going to recount all of the idiotic things said by Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono Elizabeth Warren and more, as I already sacrificed enough of my hearing and IQ points listening to them the first time, but I’ll link to more for the foolhardy who want to experience it themselves. Suffice to say, it was the Lou Reed “Metal Machine Music” of Senate hearings. As one commentator put it, listening to them was “literally worse than active-duty combat.”
Some of the mud they threw included anonymously-sourced accusations from liberal media outlets that he drank on the job at Fox News (a claim denied on the record by 34 of his colleagues); that he committed sexual assault (he blasted that as a smear, he was never charged, and the only “evidence” produced was a surveillance tape that suggested the woman was the aggressor); that he once took business colleagues, including female co-workers, to a strip club (I suspect that if he hadn’t invited them, they’d call him a sexist); and that he allegedly has had sexual relations with women. I had no idea that the Party that lionized Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton had become such Puritans.
The Dems went into this obviously hoping for some devastating sound bites, but instead, they bit themselves in the rear end. When the dust settled, the two most-quoted moments were when Elizabeth Warren (who “qualified” for her job by lying about being a Native American) tried to badger Hegseth into agreeing not to work for the defense industry for 10 years after leaving office the way he had proposed for generals. She barked, “In other words, you're quite sure that every general who serves should not go directly into the defense industry for 10 years, but you're not willing to make that same pledge?” He replied, “I’m not a general, Senator,” which sparked laughter in the room at Warren’s expense, something she surely didn’t expect.
The other sound bite that went viral also won’t help the Democrats. Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin ripped the Dems into tiny shards for their staggering hypocrisy, pointing out that there are few required “qualifications” for the Def Sec job, just as there are for Senators, “except we’re lucky enough to be here.” He also noted that current Democrat Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin, whom they supported, needing to have one of the few listed qualifications waived – which they did (I would add that for all the phony concern over Hegseth being reliable, Austin has disappeared for days on end without telling anyone where he was.)
Mullin went on, asking his Democrat colleagues how many of them had voted while drunk, and if they were asked to resign over it…” And then how many senators do you know have got a divorce for cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No, but it’s for show… It is so ridiculous that you guys hold yourself as this higher standard, and you forget you got a big plank in your eye.”
It was glorious. I would have also reminded those who claimed Hegseth wasn’t qualified because of a false sexual assault charge that Biden, whom they falsely told us was fit to hold office and run for another term, has been credibly accused of sexual assault. So a false claim of sexual assault disqualifies a Republican from being Defense Secretary, but if you’re a Democrat, a credible accusation doesn’t disqualify you from being President, even if you’re senile?
Suffice to say that the Democrats did such a bad job of attacking Hegseth that after listening to them for hours, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst got off the fence and announced she’d vote to confirm him. Anything to leave them speechless!
Coming up today: Secretary of State pick Marco Rubio, Trump CIA nominee John Ratcliffe, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright, OMB Director nominee Russell Vought and Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Patrick Duffy. Chuck Schumer urged Democrats to go hard after all of them, and after the way they beclowned themselves in public on Monday, I concur. It can only help Trump.
However, I will charitably suggest that they refrain from questioning Duffy’s qualifications. After confirming Pete Buttigieg for that job, they’d be laughed out of office.
Here’s a link to live updates on all the hearings…
And just for fun, here's my suggested theme song for all these Democrats who are vehemently opposed to everything Trump wants to do, even if it makes sense and the vast majority of Americans agree with it:
Latest Hidden Camera Expose
James O’Keefe’s latest hidden camera expose caught Jamie Mannina, a former FBI special agent, former special assistant to Hillary Clinton and a consultant senior advisor with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, badmouthing Trump and Pete Hegseth. He also says, “I’m in conversation with a couple of retired generals to try to explore what we can do,” apparently referring to undermining Trump and his orders. Sounds awfully insurrection-y to us.
You can read more at the link, including the update that Maninna has already been FIRED. Which we’d call a “good start.”
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Biden’s Farewell Speech
Tonight, President Biden will make his farewell speech from the Oval Office. But if it’s anything like the farewell letter he released this morning, it will be yet another delusional dispatch from an alternate universe, where thanks to him, America is stronger, freer and more prosperous, more united and secure, and where he has been a shining example of integrity and bipartisan healing who helped save “the soul of America.”
Meanwhile, in welcome news from the land of Reality, after that speech, there are only five more days until Trump takes over.
RELATED: For his outrageous last-minute order of the day, on Tuesday, Biden removed the communist government of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, despite its known links to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. All we can say to Cuba is, “Enjoy being off that list for the next five days.”
