Tag Archives: Mike Huckabee

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Huck weighs in on HUD pick

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Mike Huckabee has joined the tweeter in chief in communicating with Americans about public policy.

Here’s a fascinating Twitter message from the one-time presidential candidate/Arkansas governor/Baptist preacher: “Ben Carson is first HUD Sec to have actually lived in gov’t housing. Fancy Nancy Pelosi says he’s not qualified; is she racist or just dumb?”

There you have it. Ben Carson is qualified to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because he once lived in a public housing project.

Is that what Huck has said?

I am absolutely certain that Gov. Huckabee would expand on Dr. Carson’s alleged qualifications when asked.

However, I cannot get past the statement that Dr. Carson made a week after the election, that he didn’t want to serve in Donald Trump’s Cabinet. A close Carson associate said the doctor — one of the world’s renowned pediatric neurosurgeons — isn’t qualified to run a federal agency.

If Huckabee’s logic holds up, I guess I’m qualified to pilot a jet airliner because I’ve flown several hundred thousand miles on them; I’m also qualified to practice dentistry because I’ve had root canals done on my teeth.

Don’t misread me here. I admire Dr. Carson’s skill as a brain surgeon. He has performed great work on young patients in need of medical miracles.

However, living in a public housing development does not give one the qualifications needed to manage a massive federal agency. Beyond that, he has zero government experience. Of course, neither does the man who has nominated him to become HUD secretary.

I will await with eager anticipation the grilling that Dr. Carson is going to get from the U.S. Senate committee that will recommend whether he gets the job he once said he didn’t want.

national news, political news

Huck is right about POTUS’s response to shooting

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Hell hasn’t frozen over, but it’s a bit chillier down there this morning.

Why? Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a man with whom I rarely agree — offered a fascinating critique of President Obama’s immediate response to the Dallas shootings overnight.

The president, said Huckabee — himself a former Republican candidate for the highest office — politicized the event by introducing the topic of gun control during his statement on the killing of five Dallas law enforcement officers.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-huckabee-dallas-shooting-obama-225280

The president, Huck said, needed to be more Reaganesque in his response. Huckabee recalled how President Reagan sought to bring the nation together after the Challenger shuttle tragedy. That, he said, ought to be the model for presidents to follow in this time of national grief.

As Politico reported: “During his statement earlier Friday morning in which he condemned the attack as ‘vicious, calculated and despicable,’ Obama remarked that ‘we also know that when people are armed with powerful weapons, unfortunately it makes it more deadly and more tragic, and in the days ahead we are going to have to consider those realities as well.”‘

Huckabee, of course, focused more on the latter part of that statement rather than the first part. But he does make a valid point about how presidents ought to react publicly to events such as this.

“He doesn’t need to inject the divisive arguments like gun control at a time of great grief for the nation,” Huckabee said. “And he ought to do for us what Ronald Reagan did after the Challenger disaster. And that’s remind us of what we have in common, not what separates us. And that’s why I’m always so frustrated. Barack Obama has such great potential to be a leader.”

The president has labeled the acts in Dallas correctly. They were “despicable,” “vicious” and “calculated.”

My hope now is that the president goes to Dallas and embraces the police department and the families of those who were struck down and offers words of healing to a nation that is stunned.

That, too, is how Ronald Reagan would react — and it’s also what Barack Obama has done many times during his presidency.

national news, political news, religious news

Partisan preacher quits his party

(RNS1-MAY02) Evangelist Franklin Graham preaches during a recent crusade in Mobile, Ala. See RNS-GRAHAM-QANDA, transmitted May 2, 2006. Religion News Service photo by John David Mercer/The Press-Register in Mobile, Ala.

The Rev. Franklin Graham has given up on the Republican Party.

He quit, citing Congress’s refusal to stop federal funding for Planned Parenthood. So, Graham — son of the legendary preacher the Rev. Billy Graham — has had enough of the GOP.

I thought immediately of a bumper sticker I once saw on a car here in Amarillo. I am paraphrasing, but it said, “God is bigger than a bumper sticker.”

Indeed …

Graham isn’t the first high-profile preacher to become involved in partisan politics. Another Republican, Mike Huckabee, is a former Baptist preacher seeking the Republican presidential nomination; Democrats Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both of whom are ordained Christian clergymen, also have run for the highest office in the land.

Still, I find it intriguing to hear that Franklin Graham is quitting the Republican Party because of an intensely emotional issue. That would be abortion.

Perhaps, though, he ought to know that the Hyde Amendment — named after the late Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde — prohibits the federal government from dedicating public money for abortion and that Planned Parenthood’s mission goes far beyond providing abortion referrals for women seeking to terminate their pregnancy.

And, yes, God truly is far bigger than a bumper sticker.

Or a political party.

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Religion takes center stage

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Bobby Jindal says Donald Trump isn’t really a Christian.

Ben Carson said — initially, at least — that a Muslim isn’t fit to be president.

Mike Huckabee says Barack Obama is trying to “criminalize” Christianity and that the president is a “pretend” Christian.

Can we stop — please! — with the religion rhetoric?

Jindal was just the latest to ridicule another Republican presidential candidate’s statement of faith. Trump had spoken to the Values Voter Summit and proclaimed his deep Christian faith. Jindal followed him and said Trump has never read the Bible and that he believes only in himself.

Religion has no place here

I kind of get where Jindal, the Louisiana governor, is going with the Trump jabs. Trump opened himself up to the ridicule by proclaiming to a group of zealous conservatives that he’s one of them. Jindal, I suppose, has the right to challenge one of his rivals’ assertions in that regard.

But this continual back and forth regarding candidates’ faith is getting tiresome and, frankly, it misses a critical point about electing the next president of the United States.

The point is that the president is head of a secular state and government. We can argue until hell freezes over about what the founding fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution. But the finished document is as secular as it can possibly be.

The First Amendment spells it out. Congress shall make no law that establishes a state religion, it says. Isn’t that enough evidence of what the founders intended when they established the Bill of Rights in the nation’s government document?

So, let’s cut the talk about who’s a real Christian?

It does not matter.

 

 

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Shocking! County clerk joins GOP

Old fashionet American Constitution with USA Flag.

There once was a time when I argued that many county offices should be made non-partisan … with county clerks being among them.

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who’s been in the news lately has demonstrated that perhaps my earlier view was, well, not entirely correct.

Davis today switched from Democrat to Republican, saying that the Democratic Party left her long ago.

Davis joins GOP

Why comment on this? Davis is the county clerk who said she couldn’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples. So, she quit issuing licenses to anyone. She refused to do the job she took an oath to do, which is serve the public and to obey the laws of the land. A federal judge found her in contempt of court, then tossed her into jail for a few days; the same judge released her and then former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a GOP candidate for president — volunteered to go to jail in her place.

Oh, please.

The public include gay citizens. The laws of the land allows gay people to get married, just like straight people.

Davis said she is acting according to God’s will. God, she said, disapproves of gay marriage. Therefore, she is empowered to flout the oath she took.

Wrong, Ms. Davis.

You are not free to quit performing your job as long as you hold the title of “county clerk.”

With that, she joined the Republican Party. Does the GOP approve of elected public officials tossing aside their sworn oath?

Man, I hope not.

Oh well, if she feel more at home in the GOP, then that’s her call.

Just do your job, Mme. Clerk … or else quit.

 

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Obama ‘pretends to be a Christian’? Really?

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How in the world does Mike Huckabee possibly know what’s in another man’s heart and soul? What on God’s Earth qualifies him to make such a claim by saying another man “pretends to be a Christian”?

That’s what the former Arkansas governor and current Republican candidate for president has done with Barack Obama.

He said the president “pretends to be a Christian,” suggesting quite openly that the president’s profession of faith in Jesus Christ — which he has made several times during his presidency — is somehow inauthentic.

Huckabee has stepped in it with this ridiculous assertion.

What’s more, he contends that the president and his administration are making it more difficult for Christians to worship as they please.

Let’s hold on here.

I would challenge Gov. Huckabee to offer a single example of how Christians these days are less able to worship in their church. He needs to provide specifics on how individuals are being punished or harassed or ostracized by the federal government because of their religious faith.

If he’s referring to the case of Democratic Rowan County (Ky.) Clerk Kim Davis, who’s made news by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples based on her religious belief, well, that argument is a non-starter. Davis took an oath to serve all the people and she has no right under the secular law to which she swore to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

As a friend of mine noted on social media, the only authority that can judge someone’s faith “isn’t from Arkansas.”

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Do your job, Mme. Clerk … or quit!

Old fashionet American Constitution with USA Flag.

Dear Ms. Davis,

You’ve made a name for yourself: Kim Davis, staunch opponent of gay marriage.

You served a few days in jail because a federal judge held you in contempt of court because you failed to do the job you swore you’d do. Part of your job is to issue marriage licenses to those who request them. The law says you aren’t supposed to discriminate against gay couples if they request a license to be married.

But you did discriminate. You paid a small price by being tossed into jail for a few days.

Well, you’re going back to work Monday.

There likely will be more marriage licenses requests awaiting you; after all, you stopped issuing them to anyone, which is why the judge tossed you into the hoosegow in the first place.

What are you going to do once you show up at the Rowan County clerk’s office there in Kentucky?

Here’s a suggestion from an outpost a good bit west of you: Do your damn job or else turn in your resignation.

You say your religious teaching forbids gay marriage. Who cares? The oath you took doesn’t allow you to stand behind your faith. It says you must uphold the laws of the land. And you also ought to stop the “religious persecution” nonsense … and while you’re at it, tell your Republican presidential candidate/surrogates — such as Mike Huckabee — to can that malarkey as well.

I’m betting real money some gay couples will be at your door when it opens Monday morning.

Just remember: All Americans are entitled to be treated equally. The U.S. Constitution says so. The nation’s highest court has affirmed it.

It’s up to you now. The nation knows how you feel about gay marriage. There’s never been the need for you to use your office to make a personal statement of faith. Do not continue to abuse your public office in that fashion.

 

 

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Cruz gets shoved aside at Davis rally

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Check out the look on Sen. Ted Cruz’s face. My guess is he’s thinking: “I can’t believe I’m hearing this … from this guy.”

What he’s hearing, apparently, is that he cannot go near the podium where Rowan County (Ky.) Clerk Kim Davis was shouting “Amen!” in the presence of thousands of supporters, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The guy blocking Cruz’s entry into the rally is a Huckabee aide.

I’m no fan of Ted Cruz, but Huckabee’s conduct at that rally was disgraceful in the extreme. This is one example of how he and his campaign sought to commandeer the rally for his own political purposes.

Huckabee shuts down Cruz

Oh yes. Huck and Cruz are running for the Republican presidential nomination.

It turns out that Huckabee got there first. Davis got out of jail, where she had sat for a few days after refusing to do her job, which includes issuing marriage licenses. She shut down the license issuing to protest gay couples who were seeking such licenses, which the Supreme Court says they are entitled to do.

Davis has proclaimed a religious objection to gay marriage. Then we heard Huckabee shout from the podium that he is willing to take Davis’s place in jail.

That, I submit, is about as tasteless an example of grandstanding as I’ve seen since, oh, when Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox went to Mexico in the late 1980s vowing to capture the killers of a University of Texas student. The issue with that showboating example, of course, is that the Texas AG has next to zero criminal jurisdiction, but by God, the fiery Democrat was going to get ’em.

Huckabee’s behavior at the Davis rally rivals the Mattox example. Then he makes it worse when his aide shuts down another grandstander, Sen. Cruz.

 

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Gov. Huckabee makes spectacle

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Is it me, or did I witness this week a shameful exhibition of political grandstanding by someone seeking the limelight on a stage being dominated by one or more of his many Republican presidential rivals?

There was Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who was released from jail, where a judge had sent her for refusing to issue marriage licenses, which is her job as a public official.

I’m glad she’s out of jail. I just wish she’d quit her office, given that she cannot perform the duties required of her.

Then there was Mike Huckabee, a GOP presidential candidate, welcoming Davis to the podium upon her release. He then said he’d be willing to spend time in jail in her place. Take me to jail, he said. I’ll go in Kim’s place, he bellowed. She’s a victim of “judicial tyranny,” Huckabee said.

What a disgraceful exhibition of political showboating.

Davis is a victim of nothing other than a judge believing she needs to do the job she swore she would do. And the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the U.S. Constitution guarantees that all citizens are entitled to “equal protection under the law,” and that mean all citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation — are guaranteed the right to marry whomever they love.

Davis believes she is being persecuted because of her Christian faith. No, ma’am. You aren’t. You are being asked to perform your job.

Then there’s Huckabee, interjecting himself directly into this debate by declaring his willingness to go to the slammer?

Give me a break, governor.

***

Here’s a blog on the Kim Davis soap opera from a fellow former print journalist I’ve known for a number of years. Dan Radmacher nails it.

You go, Dan.

 

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Now the clerk is free … to quit her job

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Believe this or not, but I am glad that Kim Davis is no longer in jail.

A federal judge ordered the Rowan County (Ky.) clerk to jail because she had stopped issuing marriage licenses to protest the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage all across the United States of America; the ruling includes Kentucky.

I didn’t want her jailed over this.

Davis is free, therefore, to make a critical decision.

She needs to quit her job as county clerk. Heck, she won’t perform all the duties required of her. She cites religious objections to the legalization of gay marriage, even though she has a rather checkered heterosexual marital history herself.

The germane issue is whether Davis will do the job to which she swore an oath.

She insists she cannot. Her husband says she’s become a victim of a government that is persecuting her because of her Christian beliefs — which, by many people’s thinking, is a serious crock of mule fritters. Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz say Davis is a victim of “judicial tyranny,” which also is so much malarkey.

Just quit your job, Mme. Clerk, and take up the cudgel against gay marriage as a private citizen. You are free to do so. No one’s going to arrest you.