Border standoff

Those siding with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his standoff with the Biden White House over removing the state’s razor wire border barrier now include Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy MIKE HUCKABEE JAN 26 Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Today, if you have a moment, leave me a comment about something you read. Comments help me fine tune what I am writing, and they show that we have an active community of readers. The Morning Edition is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid Sincerely, Mike Huckabee Daily Bible Verse It is better to put trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Psalms 118:8 KJV Newsletter Notes 14 stories 4,193 words Reading time: About 20 minutes Border standoff Those siding with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his standoff with the Biden White House over removing the state’s razor wire border barrier now include Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 25 other states – which along with Texas, means a majority of states now stand against Biden’s open border and his willful refusal to perform his constitutional duties to secure the border and enforce immigration laws. I liked the response from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem: ““If Greg Abbott needs more razor wire, I’ll load it into a pickup myself.” https://www.westernjournal.com/rfk-jr-sides-texas-border-battle-biden-administration/ Former President Trump also voiced support for Abbott and Texas and urged the Governors of other states to use their National Guard troops to prevent the entry of illegal aliens and to deport those who are already there back across the border. https://www.breitbart.com/border/2024/01/26/trump-to-states-use-national-guard-to-remove-migrants-across-border/ Even some Democrats are finally starting to read the angry graffiti on the wall… https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/25/vulnerable-democrat-jon-tester-calls-border-security-doing-nothing-years/ For those insisting that Abbott must obey the Supreme Court ruling allegedly allowing Biden to remove the barrier (see more on that below), Abbott already issued a statement explaining the constitutional basis for his stance. A number of commentators have also cited the expression “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” meaning that states cannot be expected to yield to federal power if it will cause them to suffer grievous harm such as invasion, as Texas most definitely has under Biden’s open border. Some have observed that if that requirement had been part of the original agreement, the states never would have ratified it. https://www.westernjournal.com/gen-flynn-constitution-literally-allows-texas-engage-war-southern-border/ Others are pointing out that since Biden is the one who is truly violating the Constitution and causing these national security and constitutional crises, then Congress should immediately move to impeach him. Sadly, Senate Democrats (and even a few Republicans) would never vote to remove him, as too many of them place power and party above the good of the country. And now, two important new twists: Some legal experts say that the press mis-analyzed the Supreme Court ruling and misled the public (what a surprise!) about what it means. Instapundit has links to several eye-opening articles, including one by attorney John Lund. He says the SCOTUS merely vacated a lower court injunction prohibiting the feds from damaging or destroying Texas’ wire border. There is no court order saying that the feds have the right to remove it or prohibiting them from removing it. The ruling also doesn’t prevent Texas from protecting its own property and blocking the feds from cutting the wire. So if Biden wants to stupidly escalate this by sending in troops against fellow Americans to try to reopen the border, he’ll be doing it without the explicit okay of the Supreme Court. https://instapundit.com/628802/ Finally, a MUST-READ: Ten retired FBI directors and counter-intelligence experts sent a letter to Congress warning that Biden’s border policies have facilitated a “soft invasion” of military-age males from China, Russia and nations linked to terrorism. They called this invasion of our homeland a threat that’s unprecedented in modern US history, writing, “It would be difficult to overstate the danger represented by the presence inside our borders of what is comparatively a multi division army of young single adult males from hostile nations and regions whose background, intent, or allegiance is completely unknown.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2819856/retired-fbi-execs-to-congress-invasion-at-border-perilous-for-america/ They added that this has led to “dramatically diminished national security” and a high likelihood of internal terrorist attacks. They called on Congress to secure the border and take action to make sure these young males who are already here illegally are “identified and removed without delay.” Predicting the weather/climate change Groundhog Day is only a week away, and if you live in a place with cold winters, I strongly suggest you spend the next seven days praying that the groundhog won’t see his shadow and predict six more weeks of winter. Especially if you’re in someplace that relies on exports of US natural gas, which Biden is putting on pause in a bow to climate activists. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-halts-enormous-natural-gas-projects-victory-environmentalists Speaking of very unscientific ways to predict weather, an analysis of 36 computer climate models used to scare the public into accepting draconian “climate change” policies found that they vastly overestimated warming trends between 1973 and 2022. Here’s the full report: https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/global-warming-observations-vs-climate-models For the gist of it, scroll down to the chart with all the horizontal lines. The long red lines show the warming that each model predicted for the US corn belt during those years. The stubby little blue line on the bottom was the actual observed warming trend. This doesn’t even consider how much, if any, of the warming is attributable to human actions, it just shows that the computer models these policies are based on are as unreliable as Joe Biden’s memory. AZ GOP Bombshell In these days of “Deep Fake” news, I’m hesitant to report on stories based on allegedly leaked tapes, especially when it’s only audio. But since Arizona Republican Party Chair Jeff DeWit has resigned over this one, I have to assume it must be as authentic as it is disturbing. This week, the UK Daily Mail released a bombshell story and audio clip that allegedly exposed DeWit trying to bribe conservative Kari Lake to get out of the Senate race and leave politics for two years. https://www.westernjournal.com/bombshell-secret-audio-reveals-plot-bribe-kari-lake-stay-race/ Lake is a strong Trump supporter, MAGA defender and campaigner against shady election laws, and judging from this story, some very powerful people in the GOP establishment “back East” (rich men north of Richmond?) want to keep her out so the feeding at the DC troughs of money and power can go on undisturbed. In the call, DeWit ALLEGEDLY told Lake that they are “willing to put their money where their mouth is in a big way.” She could “name a number” and be given a Hunter Biden-style, high-pay, do-nothing board position with some big company. Not surprisingly, he adds, “Don’t tell people.” To her immense credit, Lake shoots the idea down forcefully, accusing him of insinuating that she can be bought, and saying, “This is about defeating Trump, and I think that’s a bad, bad thing for our country,” and “I don’t want to make a deal with these kinds of people. This is a hill worth dying on.” In his resignation statement, DeWit didn’t deny that it was his voice on the tape, but claimed it was “selectively edited,” that he was “set up,” and that he was being “transparent” and merely offering “perspective, not coercion.” How he was “set up” to actively offer her a bribe or how it was “transparent” when he explicitly warned her that this conversation “never happened” may, alas, remain a mystery. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/24/arizona-gop-chairman-resigns-after-leaked-audio-relaying-alleged-bribe-powerful-people-stop-kari-lake/ What should not remain a mystery is the identity of the powerful people who are trying to use bribery to influence our political elections. If Arizona authorities refuse to do a genuinely transparent investigation, then House Republicans must. Lake was previously mocked by the media for claiming that powerful people had tried to bribe her to leave politics. This certainly leaves an omelet’s worth of egg on the faces of reporters who mocked her. It also verifies what Trump has long said: That powerful, entrenched political forces go after him because he’s the only thing standing between them and you. The economy grows The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday morning that in the final quarter of 2023, the US GDP grew at a faster-than-expected annual rate of 3.3%, adjusted for inflation. Economists were expecting it to come in at 2%. https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2024/01/25/gdp-soars-3-3-much-higher-than-expected/ Normally, strong economic growth would be good news, but the government has messed things up so badly with its uncontrolled spending and staggering debt that this was taken as a worrying sign that the economy isn’t cooling fast enough to reduce inflation. So the Fed might not cut the current high interest rates, as expected. More details at the link which explain how our leaders have turned the economy into a Chinese finger trap. Related: A CBS reporter who talked to New Hampshire voters outside a grocery store was surprised that he couldn’t find anyone who feels good about the Biden economy. Maybe because they just had to pay for groceries. https://www.foxnews.com/media/cbs-news-anchor-admits-no-one-he-talked-outside-nh-grocery-store-feeling-good-about-economy Maine update The Democrat Secretary of State of Maine who took it upon herself to remove Trump from the ballot appealed a state Supreme Court decision to reverse her. But on Wednesday, the court rejected her appeal, ruling that they will wait for the US Supreme Court’s ruling, likely in early February. I hope that by then, enough Justices will have read the Constitution to put an end to this ridiculous 14th Amendment ploy so the self-appointed guardians of “our democracy” will be forced to stop trying to thwart democracy. https://www.breitbart.com/news/maines-top-court-declines-to-hear-appeal-of-trump-ballot-decision-pending-us-supreme-court-ruling/ UPDATES! In the crumbling farce of a RICO case against Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, the judge in the divorce case of special prosecutor Nathan Wade (who was allegedly romancing DA Fani Willis while being paid large amounts of taxpayer money that he spent on trips with her) ordered the case records unsealed and made public… https://www.breitbart.com/news/judge-orders-unsealing-of-divorce-case-involving-georgia-special-prosecutor-accused-of-affair/ The chairman of the Fulton County Audit Committee is demanding that Willis answer questions about whether she misused public funds… https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2807705/fulton-county-audit-committee-asks-willis-misused-funds/ And a local black resident attended a meeting of county commissioners and set them on fire with a two-minute diatribe about Willis’ abuse of power and election interference. This guy should be a county commissioner. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/24/watch-fulton-county-resident-lights-up-commissioners-over-fani-willis-and-going-after-trump-n2169162 No self-awareness One of the many problems with those on the left is that they seem to have no sense of self-awareness of how hypocritical they look to others (maybe because they only listen to people who tell them how great they are, a luxury conservatives never enjoy.) But someone close to Hillary Clinton should have told her that it would not play well for her to claim we need to reelect Biden to fight “election denialism.” Excuse me, ma’am, but aren’t you the one who claimed Trump was an “illegitimate President” and who’s spent years claiming you were the real winner in 2016? That’s not just election denialism, that’s reality denialism. https://www.westernjournal.com/hillary-calls-america-unify-behind-biden-fight-election-denialism-gets-roasted-social-media/ Possibly even worse is Nancy Pelosi, who actually tried to claim that Trump is unfit for the Presidency because he’s suffering “cognitive disorders.” She couldn’t even finish that jaw-dropper before having a senior moment herself. https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/01/24/nancy-pelosi-calls-trump-senile-and-then-immediately-has-a-senile-moment-n2169139 And does she really want to make “cognitive function” the key issue of the 2024 election? Because if so, this is the guy she’s claiming represents it: https://www.westernjournal.com/cognitively-impaired-biden-tries-attack-trump-garbled-mess-comes-mouth/ https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/24/biden-uaw-comments-n2169170 But if cognitive functioning is really the hill they want to die on, I’d be willing to save the taxpayers a lot of money by replacing the election with a mental test of Trump and Biden, and whoever scores highest can be President. What do you say, Nancy? Wanna take me up on it? I didn't think so... Latest example Here’s the latest example of a university doing away with failing grades in the name of “equity” and student “retention.” If that means keeping students in college who fail all their courses, what exactly is the point? https://archive.ph/bpp4q And by the way, if they think they’re protecting students’ feelings by not making them experience what failing is like when they’re in college, they’re setting them up for a really nasty surprise once they get out in the real world. Pink slips I don’t take pleasure in the news that anyone is losing his job, but I have to say that some of the many people being laid off by the Los Angeles Times definitely earned those pink slips. But they seem to be shocked to learn that pushing radical leftist political agendas that insult half their readers instead of writing real news might lead to lower revenues and them losing their jobs. Like this lady, who is shocked that someone of her qualifications should be unemployed. After all, her resume includes writing a book called “Hatemonger” about what an evil white nationalist Trump is, and branding Larry Elder as a “white supremacist in blackface” whose views made him “a real threat to communities of color.” Sounds like something a hatemonger would say. https://twitchy.com/brettt/2024/01/24/journo-who-called-larry-elder-black-face-of-white-supremacy-among-those-laid-off-n2392120 I hear Walmart is hiring. Related: Former (ha!) CNN “journalist” Chris Cillizza tried to dunk on all the people who were quoting the “learn to code” comment that liberal journalists dismissively threw at miners who were left unemployed by Obama’s war on coal. Cillizza tried to claim that was a rightwing hoax and nobody ever said it. Sadly for him, unlike jobs at the L.A. Times, the Internet is forever. https://twitchy.com/dougp/2024/01/24/ex-cnn-journo-chris-cillizza-n2392100 Put Their Mouths Where Your Money Is: A Republican city councilman in Naperville, Illinois (a wealthy, very liberal suburb of Chicago) called for the supporters of the “sanctuary city” policy to prove it by opening up their mansions to all the newly-arrived illegal immigrants (not as gardeners and household help, but as actual houseguests.) Josh McBroom told radio host Todd Starnes, “We are a deep, deep blue, affluent suburb. This is what people voted for. They voted for open borders. They advertise it in their front lawns with a sign that says ‘No human is illegal.'” So to help them “prove their virtue,” he produced a sign-up sheet at a recent council meeting, to let them volunteer to take some illegal immigrants into their big, expensive homes with multiple guest rooms. So far, not one person has signed up. https://www.toddstarnes.com/values/rich-liberals-balk-at-housing-illegals-in-mansions/ Color me unsurprised at the news that the generosity of liberals doesn’t extend to sharing their own money and property. When I was Governor of Arkansas, Democrats were demanding higher taxes. So I created the “Tax Me More” Fund. Anyone who thought they weren’t being taxed enough could write a check to help pay for all those services they wanted to tax other people to cover. As I recall, after more than a year, the fund had less than a thousand dollars in it. To be honest, I’m surprised it had anything at all. A new mission With all the real animal cruelty in the world, the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a new mission. They want to stop the organizers of Groundhog Day from exploiting Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog as a tourist attraction. They claim that groundhogs are shy creatures, it’s abusive to expose them to crowds and human handling, and besides, "Phil is an individual who, although intelligent and self-aware, can't predict the weather.” He can't?! There goes my belief system! They claim he has only a 39% accuracy rate in predicting the weather. https://www.wnd.com/2024/01/not-flipping-kidding-new-push-eliminate-forecasting-groundhog/ On the other hand, that’s a much better record of accuracy than Al Gore has. RIP Charles Osgood By “Huckabee” pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com) As a radio guy and expert on celebrity recordings, I’m sad to have to report that longtime CBS news personality Charles Osgood has died at 91 after suffering from dementia. https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/charles-osgood-former-cbs-news-host-dead-at-91/ar-BB1h8YuG Osgood replaced Charles Kurault as the host of “CBS News Sunday Morning” in 1994 and remained for a record 22 years. He was also the host of the folksy, long-running radio feature “The Osgood File,” where he would often relate human interest stories in the form of poems, earning him the title of CBS’s “Poet in Residence.” My favorite of his poems came after the Census Bureau created the acronym POSSLQ for "Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters.” He offered this romantic verse: “There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do, if you would be my POSSLQ.” (pronounced “Poss-ul-cue.”) And since you look to me to tell you the stuff other obituary writers miss, I’ll mention that he enlisted in the Army in 1954 so he could join the US Army band, where he was the pianist and MC, and he sang with the US Army chorus. He also so-wrote songs with Army bandmate John Cacavas. In 1967, their patriotic recitation “Gallant Men” won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording, an honor they shared with the unlikely recording artist, Sen. Everett Dirksen. See, you knew I’d somehow work this around to the subject of celebrity records. RIP. More “explosive” news about the J6 pipe bomb story We’ve spent the past few days deconstructing the January 6 pipe bomb story, explaining yesterday how we know law enforcement MUST have had video of the placement of the bomb outside the DNC headquarters on the night before the rally --- if that did indeed happen. Dan Bongino has said he’d “bet his career” that the very visible but phony bomb wasn’t actually placed then, as it would’ve been seen much sooner, but had to have been placed shortly before it was “discovered” at the desired time. The recently-released video of police and the Secret Service --- waiting in their vehicles near the entrance because VP-elect Kamala Harris was inside --- being informed of the bomb by a “passer-by,” taken by a “PTZ” (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) camera tells us that there was communication between officers and the camera operator, as officers had to have directed that person to zoom in on the bench area. So naturally one way to put to rest some big questions about the discovery of this bomb would be to get the communications from that day and the day before. They no longer exist. Do you recall the story from summer 2022 about all the Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6 being erased (!) and us wondering at the time, “January 6?? What are the odds, for that day of all days?” Bongino had forgotten about this until investigative reporter Julie Kelly happened to mention it on his Wednesday radio show. Here it is, from the archives… https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/19/national-archives-asks-secret-service-investigate-deleted-texts/10101291002/ Messages from those two days were discovered missing when they were requested by the DHS Inspector General, who was told they were deleted as part of a “device replacement program.” That has got to take the prize for the lamest, most implausible, most intelligence-insulting explanation ever conjured up. (Side note: At the time, these messages were desired for a very different reason. As the AP story said, “The deletion of the messages has raised the prospect of lost evidence that could shed further light on then-President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection, particularly after testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol.” It’s interesting to see how these stories were written at the time; in this case, the writer obviously refers to witness Cassidy Hutchinson’s embarrassingly unsupported testimony about Trump grabbing the wheel of a Secret Service vehicle, which other witnesses contradicted.) Bongino had dismissed the disappearance of the texts as having something to do with the evacuation of Mike Pence, but now it just makes too much sense that it was to hide this Kamala Harris “assassination attempt.” They didn’t need it any more and needed to make it go away. Again, Bongino says there’s “no way” the Secret Service was involved in creating this hoax. But he thinks they “must have been read in, early on, that this was a hoax bomb...something they should ignore for now.” They were told to stand down. “There is no doubt in my mind,” Bongino says, adding that everyone on the protection detail that day needs to be interviewed. To review, Bongino is absolutely convinced that the “discovery” of those two pipe bombs was a Plan B (the “insurrection” was Plan A) to make sure the certification process at the Capitol got interrupted. Democrats wanted to stop that process because the legitimacy of the mass mail-in ballots was going to be challenged, and they knew there had been serious problems. (CISA had done a report identifying these, and then turned around and censored concerns about the very problems they’d identified!) Bongino’s conclusion: “They are hiding the biggest freaking scam we have ever seen.” Here’s Bongino’s Thursday podcast; he starts talking about the pipe bomb at 10:52. (Language alert; he’s pretty steamed about this.) Be sure and see the clip of Rep. Thomas Massie questioning FBI Director Christopher Wray. https://rumble.com/v497j5h-the-cold-civil-war-is-getting-warmer-ep.-2173-01252024.html On Thursday, REVOLVER NEWS did a comprehensive update referring to Bongino’s analysis of the facts they’ve uncovered. A must-read… https://revolver.news/2024/01/dan-bongino-uncovers-more-mystery-surrounding-the-j6-attempted-assassination-of-kamala-harris/ Warning: more buzz about Michelle O taking Biden’s place in November Why is it that so many Republicans still assume Joe Biden will be the Democrat presidential candidate in November? He won’t be; he can’t be. We’ve been warning of the possibility --- in fact, one of my writers has been predicting it here for at least the past two years --- that Biden will be replaced by Michelle Obama at the DNC Convention in August, to ensure another Obama term. (Obama’s power structure was essentially in place during the Biden administration, certainly in the Lisa Monaco-run DOJ and the rest of the “permanent bureaucracy,” and much of it was there interfering with President Trump as well, so in some ways this would be Obama Term IV.) Aside from the Democrats’ continued worship of President Obama, President Biden simply has too many things going against him, mostly his increasingly obvious cognitive and physical frailty as he continues to age poorly, but also his unethical involvement in his family’s international business dealings, his proven lies about that, and the chaos that has followed him throughout his term on virtually every front, in ways that really affect people’s lives. For all these reasons, his polling against Trump is atrocious and bound to get worse, especially now with his bullying of border states trying to protect themselves from invasion, addressed elsewhere in today’s newsletter. The Biden administration is an unholy mess. Anyway, we’ve said for months that Biden will NOT be the candidate on Election Day. Polls that pit Trump against Biden will mean nothing when the time comes. There was buzz about Gavin Newsom for a time, but thankfully that seems to be over. The bench is short for the Democrats, though, and to guarantee a continuation of the same power structure, Michelle is really the only “star” candidate they have that they can sufficiently worship. Her job would be to act as “the face” of the administration; Democrats would be thrilled out of their minds with that, knowing that it meant The Obamas were back. As if they ever really left. They’ve been the only former First Family to keep a house in Washington DC, and Valerie Jarrett and many Obama acolytes have been fixtures there. Megyn Kelly has been hearing some scuttlebutt about a plan: Biden announces sometime around May that he’s not running after all (insert reason here), and at the moment considered most opportune, Michelle announces her candidacy. She is coronated at the convention. Nick Arama at REDSTATE has a take on what Megyn said. He observes that it’s “a rather complicated thing to try to pull off at the last hour,” but we’d say that with the help they’d undoubtedly get from the media (two words: “Russia Hoax”), it might be a fait accompli. “Republicans should be prepared for anything,” he says, “as we see Democrats will try anything to retain control.” https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/25/megyn-kelly-reveals-more-on-the-alleged-plan-to-replace-biden-with-michelle-obama-and-the-timeline-n2169185 Thursday evening, Jesse Watters cited “a gossip column in the NEW YORK POST” as saying the same thing. (That was Cindy Adams’ column, the same one mentioned by Megyn Kelly.) His show featured an on-the-street focus group to find out what people thought of a Michelle Obama presidency. Yes, this was in New York City, but still, it was pretty scary to see people’s eyes light up. In the Cindy Adams column that touched off the discussion, she calls Biden “the temp,” saying that for now, “Biden still play-acts like he’s a real candidate.” If he announced today that he was dropping out, she says, “our dodo-in-chief would have to stop quacking and become a lame duck.” Adams says “their plan is currently being tweaked.” The idea is that America is so divided now, it needs a centrist, the implication being that Michelle would be offered up as one. She’s NOT one, of course, but that wouldn’t matter. She’d be the uniter, the healer. Adams is also hearing that a few others who could conceivably run as centrists are being vetted by that group “No Labels,” ironically named because they’d surely be using the label “centrist.” We might start hearing “murmurs” about some of this in mid-February. https://nypost.com/2024/01/22/opinion/michelle-obama-may-already-be-working-on-a-2024-white-house-bid/ So listen up, GOP. Listen up, Trump campaign. Things are going to get dicey. There will be some curveballs thrown this election year, and our team had better be ready for whatever comes. This is just one example of possible seismic changes on the horizon. We can no longer have just a normal election; that’s been ruined by the left, at least for now. I Just Wanted to Say Thank you for reading my newsletter. The Morning Edition is a reader-supported publication. The Morning Edition