Huckabee, Mike
===
primary on iran 3 war 3 26 omfg
TRIFECTA
MERRO OK
2nd on trump admin 2 11 24
---
3rd temple bibi wingnuttery 5 25
bossie
MBZ
BACHMAN NUGENT
CUFI
BAK
---
---
-=-=
DCK 10 26
New York Times
How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel ...
Oct 8, 2026Britain accused some settlers of "ethnic cleansing." It is unclear to what extent Mr. Huckabee is aware of his adviser's actions. Both he and Mr. Milstein declined requests for an interview.
Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org › news › huckabee-aide-israel-coverup
Top Huckabee Aide Covered Up Report on Killings of 9 Americans by ...
Oct 8, 2026Top Huckabee Aide Covered Up Report on Killings of 9 Americans by Israeli Settlers One American journalist, who has covered Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, called Huckabee aide David Milstein "a literal traitor." Stephen Prager Oct 08, 2026
The Times of Israel
Huckabee aide tried quashing US embassy reports to protect Israeli ...
Huckabee aide tried quashing US embassy reports to protect Israeli government — NYT Report citing over a dozen sources says David Milstein undermining diplomatic work on settlements, settler ...
The Hill
https://thehill.com › homenews › administration › 6137880-huckabee-aide-blocked-israel-memo-report
Huckabee aide allegedly quashed Israel memo: Report - The Hill
Oct 8, 2026One of Huckabee's senior advisors, David Milstein, reportedly quashed a memo that criticized Israel's decision to approve more settlemenT
-=-=
---
8 26 bucked bibi on am?
an 8 26
MAGA evangelicals think they've found their post-Trump savior
Evangelicals think that they've found their next great hope as they gear up for the 2028 presidential election.
Journalist Sarah Posner penned a report addressing the new chatter about Mike Huckabee as the new heir of the MAGA evangelicals to regain influence in the Republican Party after Trump has largely placated them.
Discussions looking beyond Trump are also coming at a time when even MAGA evangelicals are starting to lose faith in their president. The far-right political group believes the next GOP pick must be part of an effort to end growing anti-Israel and antisemitic elements in MAGA.
Huckabee has long been a recognizable figure in conservative Christian politics. A former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate, and television host, he has deep ties to evangelical voters and presents a more openly religious, folksy style than Trump. As ambassador to Israel, he has also become a prominent defender of Israel’s right-wing government and of Christian Zionism, which is the belief that the modern state of Israel has special biblical and prophetic importance.
His philosophy is part of an "end times" belief that they can entice Jesus Christ to return by causing an Apocalypse, thereby accelerating the Book of Revelation. Critics describe it as a "death cult."
The message, though, still appeals to many conservative evangelicals. It has also exposed tension inside Trump’s broader MAGA movement. Some figures associated with the populist-nationalist wing, like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have questioned the United States’ close alignment with Israel and its risks of deeper involvement in Middle East wars. Huckabee's beliefs mandate a pro-Israel stance because Jews returning to Israel fulfill the biblical prophecy that kicks off the end times.
The idea of Huckabee being the new leader comes from David Brody, a Christian Broadcasting Network reporter with deep connections in evangelical politics, Posner explained. Writing for "All Israel News," run by a fellow Christian Zionist, Brody floated Huckabee’s name after Christian nationalist organizer David Lane suggested that pastors should consider him for 2028. Huckabee, now 70, has lost the presidency twice so far.
Brody sees Huckabee as someone who could unite two increasingly divided parts of the GOP coalition. One side includes pro-Israel Christian Zionists, while the other includes MAGA figures and followers skeptical of U.S. involvement with Israel and foreign wars.
"To bolster his case, Brody includes some quotes from leaders of the Christian right’s old guard weighing in on Huckabee’s perceived strengths, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and former Republican National Committee Director of Faith Engagement Chad Connelly, who told Brody that the ambassador could 'make the case that supporting an important ally does not mean giving that ally a blank check. That approach could resonate with Republicans who want an America First foreign policy while still recognizing the strategic importance of Israel," cited Posner.
The writer explained that there are obstacles, namely that Huckabee would be 73 in 2028, and American attitudes about older politicians have changed significantly in the past 10 years. It will be difficult to go up against younger Marco Rubio or JD Vance if they also decide to run. Brody, Posner said, merely glosses over the concern.
She also sees most of the pro-Huckabee talk coming from the allies that are close to him, meaning it could merely be a friendly trial balloon rather than an actual movement.
Ultimately, Posner argued that Huckabee speculation reveals less about a likely candidacy than about the Republican evangelical movement trying to regain influence after Trump. Evangelical leaders were once a powerful group for crowning a Republican presidential candidate. But 2016 changed everything.
"The only thing that is clear from this early Huck-mania is that these leaders would like to return to their pre-Trump era of evangelical kingmaking, but are worried that Trump, by courting both them and the anti-Zionist, antisemitic wing of MAGA, and then bungling the Iran war, has complicated their inheritance," Posner closed.
---
AN 8 26
Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Monday called on Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, to resign after repeatedly failing to condemn mistreatment of American citizens by the Israeli government.
In a video posted on social media, Van Hollen (D-Md.) recounted instances of US citizens being detained or abused by Israeli security forces, along with Huckabee’s lack of response.
“On his watch, we continue to see American citizens being mistreated, wrongfully detained,” Van Hollen explained, referencing the recent detentions of 20-year-old American citizen Sama Safi and 16-year-old Adam Karakrah.
Van Hollen added that he and more than two dozen fellow US senators have urged Huckabee to hold Israel accountable for “the killings of nine Americans over just the last four years” by either Israeli settlers in the West Bank or members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“And yet, no accountability,” said Van Hollen. “No justice.”
The Maryland Democrat further called out Huckabee for failing to abide by his professed compassion for the Palestinian Christian community.
“We’ve seen an increase in violent settler attacks on Christian villages in the West Bank, and we’ve seen those attacks conducted with impunity,” he said. “And when asked about this, Ambassador Huckabee said, ‘Well, look at me. I’m a Christian and I think I’m doing OK here in the Holy Land.’”
“And that exposes the entire problem,” Van Hollen continued. “Because what Ambassador Huckabee is talking about is visitors to the Holy Land, Christian visitors, including evangelicals who come on the kind of tours that Ambassador Huckabee used to lead. Well, what about the Christians who have lived in the Holy Land for thousands and thousands of years?”
The senator then speculated that Huckabee simply “doesn’t care” because “he’s become a complete apologist for the most extreme Israeli government in history.”
“He should be defending Americans and defending American interests,” Van Hollen concluded. “He’s failed to do so. He should resign today.
---
see theocRacy apoc xian nat’l
'Deeply alarming': Christian fundamentalists see Trump’s military policies as biblical war
After U.S. President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the country's far-right Shiite fundamentalist leader since 1989 — was killed, a long list of other countries were drawn into the conflict. Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. installations in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was attacked by Iranian drones.
Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah (a pro-Iran Shiite militia in Lebanon) fired missiles at once another. From Riyadh to Beirut to Dubai, the Middle East is on pins and needles.
Trump is claiming that going to war with Iran is necessary from a national security standpoint. But MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, in an opinion column published on March 4, argues that Trump's Christian nationalist allies view the conflict as a holy war for evangelical fundamentalist Christianity.
"President Donald Trump can't get his story straight on why he launched a war against Iran," Aleem argues. "But some commanders in the U.S. military are apparently telling service members that they're on a mission to fulfill biblical prophecy. The independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more than 110 complaints from service members about their commanders' religious gloss on the war on Iran."
Aleem continues, "These complaints, according to Larsen's report, came from every branch of the military, across more than 40 different units, situated in at least 30 military installations…. MRFF President Michael Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints from service members shared a common feature: Commanders are describing the war as 'biblically sanctioned' and 'clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian End Times as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation."
Weinstein told Larsen, "Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."
When military commanders "are reportedly selling American aggression on Iran as a holy war," Aleem warns, it is "deeply alarming."
"Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints violate the Constitution's separation of church and state," Aleem explains. "But regardless of its legality, telling American troops that they're fighting for a Christian god against a Muslim country is medieval madness. It isn't the role of the U.S., per the Constitution, to promote any religion over another. Furthermore, the reported remarks from these commanders is likely to prompt U.S. service members to dehumanize Iran's population, and help set the stage for viciousness in combat and human rights violations. The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force."
//
an 3 26
People are growing increasingly uneasy as President Donald Trump's attacks on Iran are looking more and more like they could be part of a right-wing religious fanatic's fantasy for the apocalyptic.
The Cradle Media's Jonathan Larsen wrote that American soldiers were given a pep-talk about the war in Iran. A U.S. combat-unit commander told them that the attack is part of “God’s divine plan." He said that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” for the specific purpose to ignite Armageddon.
“U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for 'Armageddon,' Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military," Larsen wrote.
The comments come as part of a lawsuit brought by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation; however, it is only one of "110 lawsuits brought in 48 hours from over 40 units across 30 installations," the report said. The complaints came from Christians, a Muslim and a Jewish soldier.
The Christian nationalist theory that Israel has a God-given right to much of the Middle East is one espoused by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. In a speech at a Christian Zionist church in Jerusalem in December, Huckabee conveyed his " purpose is to convert Israeli Jews to belief in Jesus in order to bring about the End Times," explained Religion Dispatches.
The concept is bad for anyone seeking peace in the Middle East, one 2024 report by Forward explained.
The sect of Christianity that Huckabee believes in holds that if they are able to remove Palestinians from the Holy Land, then Jesus Christ will return. He believes in “dispensational premillennialism,” which Forward describes as a belief that “the Rapture will come,” and deliver all evangelicals to Heaven as Israel is invaded by the armies of the world. It will cause Armageddon and prompt the return of Jesus Christ.
The language is making some fearful that the war waged wasn't really about Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons, which Trump claimed he destroyed last summer. It's a holy war, desperate to force Armageddon.
"Maybe it’s a bad idea to put people in charge of government who are eager for the rapture," lawyer and self-described nerd John Collins commented.
"Love when I'm in the military and my boss is, like, 'Time for Armageddon!'" commented author and journalist Emily St. James.
Writer and former Cato Institute policy analyst Will Wilkinson wrote, "Personally, I don’t think we should bring about Armageddon."
"One thing about the U.S., we definitely do not have insane religious zealots in charge,"said Heidi N. Moore, previously of the Wall Street Journal business side.
Writer and elections lawyer at the Cato Institute, Walter Olson, quoteda line from the 1965 song "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" with lyrics by Tom Lehrer: "And this is what he said on/ His way to Armageddon.”
:{---}
---
https://wareagle.substack.com/p/the-iran-war-exposes-the-farce-of
SUBSTACK
NO LNX
The Iran War Exposes the Farce of American “Representative Democracy”
J Richard Duke
Mar 03, 2026
The Iran War Exposes the Farce of American “Representative Democracy”
Ryan McMaken
“The Trump administration has unilaterally—without any Congressional debate or vote, of course—forced Americans into yet another war. This time, the war is a large-scale military campaign against Iran. Was there any groundswell of public support for this war? Did the Congress vote to spend more American tax dollars on another war? Apparently not. According to a March 1 poll from Reuters, only 27 percent of Americans polled said they support the US’s new war on Iran. Needless to say, few Americans have been calling their representatives in Congress asking for yet another Middle Eastern war.
:{:{So, why is the US now at war with Iran? Not even the administration appears to know for sure. After the war had already begun, the White House repeatedly changed its stated rationale for opening hostilities against Iran. At the beginning the US regime had been claiming it wanted regime change in Iran to “liberate” Iranians. Yet, by Monday, when Trump listed his reasons for starting the war, he didn’t mention regime change at all. Rather, the administration now seems to have settled on claims that the Iran regime was creating a missile program that, somehow, endangers the United States.}:
Yet, virtually no one believes that the Iranian regime has ever had long-range missiles capable of getting anywhere near US territory. Rather, the only “threat” to the United States is a threat to US bases which the US government has insisted on building 10,000 miles from US territory, and which have nothing to do with the safety of Americans in the United States.}:
On Monday, Rubio said that the United States began the war because the State of Israel planned to attack Iran, and that this would lead to Iranian reprisals against US bases. Rubio was essentially stating that Tel Aviv forced the US into the war. Trump today directly contradicted his Secretary of State—as well as the GOP Speaker of the House and GOP Senator Tom Cotton—and claimed “I might’ve forced their hand.”
Completely absent from all these confused and retroactive attempts to justify the war is any mention of the American people, their tax dollars, their freedoms, or even their alleged representatives in Congress. Nor is this surprising. The current war is a timely reminder that the US ruling elites regard the US taxpayers and ordinary Americans as little more than inconvenient afterthoughts in the formation of US foreign policy. At the same time, the US regime also claims to have the moral high ground precisely because the American regime is supposedly “democratic” with the support of “the people.”
Indeed, the Trump administration overall has helped make it abundantly clear that US elections and public opinion are almost completely irrelevant to the foreign policy. Throughout his campaigns, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to be the peace candidate, announcing in his speeches that he would end wars, rather than start them. In the days before the 2024 election, the GOP posted this image in social media, clearly presenting the Trump administration as “the pro-peace ticket”:
Yet, less than a year into his second term, Donald Trump’s foreign policy looks largely indistinguishable from that of the foreign policy of Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Indeed, if the current war drags on, we’ll be able to say Trump’s foreign policy is reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration.
It was clear during the campaign that the Trump ticket was trying to take advantage of public sentiment which favored less US involvement in foreign wars. With American foreign policy, however, elections don’t matter. This was recently emphasized by the bumbling US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. Carlson began with a simple question for Huckabee:
Carlson: How much does it matter what Americans think?
Huckabee: Well, it matters every bit what Americans think.
[Huckabee is a delusional liar. - JRD]
Carlson then points out that about 21% of Americans support war with Iran. He asks Huckabee if that’s enough for the US regime to start a war with Iran. Huckabee states “We don’t live in a world where you have a poll taken to find out whether our policy should be in a particular direction...”
Carlson then points out that Huckabee had just said public opinion matters a lot and Huckabee says “we care deeply about it...”
[Huckabee is a liar. - JRD]
Carlson: “If we’re ignoring it, in what sense to we ‘care deeply about it?’”
Huckabee then offers a non sequitur: “I think we care deeply when we see there’s a threat.” Huckabee then continued with more word salad in a desperate attempt to make a connection between public opinion and his preferred policy of repeatedly starting elective wars with Middle Eastern regimes that are no threat to the US population.
[Huckabee, the Ambassador to Israel, is a former pastor who does NOT understand the Bible and is puts Israel first and American somewhere below. - JRD]
The reality, of course, is closer to Rubio’s explanation for the US’s involvement in the war: following the lead of the State of Israel.
This is apparently fine with Ambassador Huckabee, of course, who in his Carlson interview, was asked if Huckabee thinks the State of Israel has a “right” to take over most of the Middle East. Carslon stated: ”Does Israel have the right to that land?” Huckabee responded ”It would be fine if they took it all.”
And what if most Americans don’t share this opinion? Clearly, the US regime doesn’t care, and neither does Huckabee, or Donald Trump.
In spite of all the US regime’s posturing about “the will of the people” and “representation” in Congress, what really matters in Washington is serving powerful interest groups. The taxpaying public simply exists as a resource to be bled dry in favor of wars, protectionism, and federal spending which serves the ruling elite’s complex system of patrons and clients that keeps the elite in power.
When it comes to US foreign policy in the middle east, the dominant interest group is the State of Israel. This is executed through the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and other elements of what foreign-policy scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen walt call “the Israel lobby.” When Mearsheimer and Walt released their book The Israel Lobby in 2007, they were predictably accused of anti-semitism. Yet, the book was ahead of its time in describing how pro-Israel interest groups have been extremely successful in gaining financial, military, and strategic favors for Israel from US policymakers. It has all been done at the expense of American taxpayers. The result has been an American foreign policy elite that overwhelmingly favors incessant foreign intervention to favor a foreign state—the State of Israel—regardless of any concern for the cost borne by Americans or the potential for drawing the US into broader conflicts that do not in any way increase the security of the United States.
In 2007, The Israel Lobby seemed controversial to many. In 2026, it is merely a statement of the obvious—that US foreign policy is tailored to favor certain interest group, rather than the interests of ordinary voters. This, however, is how all interest group politics works. The voting public doesn’t matter, and it hasn’t mattered for a long time.
This is shown in empirical studies that have tried to find a connection between public opinion and actual policies favored in Washington. The connection is tenuous at best.
For example, in a 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benajmin Page, the authors note that when it comes to “impacts on U.S. government policy ... average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” Gilens and Page note that “the preferences of economic elites ... have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.”
This can be seen in Trump’s own fundraising given how one of his biggest donors, billionaire Miriam Adelson, is notable for an extreme pro-Israel position. This is, not surprisingly, reflected in Trump’s foreign policy.
The final conclusions of Gilens and Page are clear:
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
Perhaps no group of “economic elites” is more influential in foreign policy than those who control campaign funds distributed through pro-Israel interest groups like AIPAC, or through the spending of wealthy individuals like Adelson.
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. For example, in a 2017 paper on voter preferences, John Matsusake concluded that legislator preferences don’t correlate with voter preferences:
[W]hen legislator preferences differed from district opinion on an issue, legislators voted congruent with district opinion only 29 percent of the time. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and competitive election, term limits, campaign contributions, or media attention. The evidence is most consistent with the assumption of a citizen-candidate model that legislators vote their own preferences.
There is, of course, no such thing as a “district opinion,” but the general idea is clear enough: if a legislator’s campaign war chest depends on pleasing a specific interest group, then the preferences of the voters don’t really matter.
Similarly, in a 2016 study from Michael Barber, he writes on how votes in the US Senate bear little relation to public opinion: “[S]enators’ preferences diverge dramatically from the preference of the average voter in their state. The degree of divergence is nearly as large as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator.”
So, if policymakers are largely independent of the voters who the policymakers ostensibly “represent,” then what determines federal policy?
The current war is just the latest reminder that pluralism is wrong and elite theory is right. There is no “we the people.” There is no “representative democracy.” And, when it comes to the big stuff like war, federal spending, and the central bank, elections don’t matter. It’s why, no matter who gets elected, US foreign policy proceeds more or less as usual, year after year after year.
This is why it doesn’t matter that only about one in four Americans is interested in being on the hook for yet another Middle Eastern war with no apparent benefits for any average American. This is why the administration continues to engage in shifting claims about the origins of this conflict. The administration knows that claims about Iran being a threat to the American people are not tenable, and are on the same level as claims about Iraqi WMDs. Nor can the regime just come right out at say “our pro-Israel funders told us to fight Iran.” So, we have Rubio telling us the war was a “preemptive strike” against the potential blowback from US-funded Israeli strikes on Iran. This explanation is already falling apart, which is why Trump now denies it.
In the end, the regime doesn’t even really need to come up with a plausible explanation. The political fallout will settle largely on the current administration, and this will have little effect on the real governing elite which remains in control regardless which party is ostensibly “in power.”
Open link
SEE:
Why Parts of MAGA Feel ABANDONED After Trump Goes to War with Iran, with Marjorie Taylor Greene
---
---
rww
05/05/2025
by
- David Lane comes to the defense of embattled Trump nominee Ed Martin: "Please pray that the U.S. Senate will confirm him as U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Better yet, lead your congregation to call their two U.S. Senators’ state offices, imploring them to confirm Ed for this strategic position."
- Tony Perkins, Jason Rapert, Michele Bachmann, and other Christian nationalists were in Israel last week, praying over U.S. ambassador Mike Huckabee.
- Joshua Haymes says that "no one has to be gay" and that it's a "perversion almost always catalyzed by horrific abuse in childhood."
- Virginia state Del. Nick Freitas asserts that "the Bible [was] one of the most frequently quoted books when it comes to the discussions about the Constitution." No, it wasn't.
- Finally, Sean Feucht claims that multiple people have been "radically healed" simply by listening to his new album.
---
---
an 11 24
concerns are mounting over Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is a vocal opponent of the military’s multiculturalism and decision to allow women to serve in combat, promises to purge the military of generals disloyal to Trump and sports tattoos connected with neo-Nazi and white nationalist movements. “Here’s a man who wrote a book declaring his intention to wage, not metaphorical, but actual war within the United States,” says Jeff Sharlet, an expert on the rise of far-right extremism in the United States. Sharlet explains how Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel, have Christian nationalist and Christian Zionist views that ultimately work to whip up animosity toward domestic enemies of the far right.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman in Denver, Colorado, broadcasting from PBS12 right here in Five Points Media Center, also home to our colleagues at Free Speech TV, a wonderful media center, joined by Democracy Now!’s Nermeen Shaikh in New York.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Concerns are mounting over Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth. CBS News reports that Hegseth was one of 12 National Guard members who were removed as guards for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration over possible extremist ties. Hegseth has tattoos associated with the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, including what’s known as a Jerusalem cross, a symbol used by Christian nationalists.
Meanwhile, officials in Monterey, California, have confirmed police investigated Hegseth as part of an alleged sexual assault that occurred in 2017 at a hotel where Hegseth addressed the California Federation of Republican Women.
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Hegseth has also been a vocal opponent of the Pentagon’s embrace of multiculturalism and the Pentagon’s decision to allow women to serve in combat. Hegseth, who once served at Guantánamo, made headlines in 2019 for pushing Trump to pardon U.S. soldiers accused of war crimes, including one convicted of murder.
We’re joined now by Jeff Sharlet, journalist and author, professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. His book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. Professor Sharlet’s new piece for Religion Dispatches is headlined “Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an 'Extremist' by the US Military.”
Well, let’s start right there, Jeff Sharlet. Explain what you mean. Who called him an extremist, and what are Pete Hegseth’s views?
JEFF SHARLET: The number one person who called Pete Segseth an extremist is Pete Hegseth. It’s page one of his new book, The War on Warriors. It’s the way he leads out his interviews, this idea that he was too extreme for today’s “woke” military, dominated, as he puts it, his words, by trans, lesbian, Black females. And so, he tells a story of being pushed out of the military. We can’t actually confirm that. No one can confirm that. I think what’s more important about it is that he wants that story out there. He wants it known that he is too far to the right for the Armed Forces.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Jeff Sharlet, could you explain? What do you think led Trump to name him?
JEFF SHARLET: So, Pete Hegseth, one, he’s from Central Casting. He’s got the chiseled jaw. He’s got the biceps that he flexes on his Instagram showing off his tattoos that are from the white supremacist world.
But he really came to Trump’s attention through his advocacy for three military personnel charged or convicted of war crimes, and most famously Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL who was — his own men said that he stabbed to death a teenage prisoner who was receiving medical care, shot deliberately a young girl. And Hegseth used his platform to say — to sort of amplify Trump’s idea — we’ve heard that Trump says the “one rough hour” that violence is needed. And Trump liked it.
But more than that, Hegseth promises in his book the first war he’s going to wage is against the U.S. military — that’s whom he describes as the domestic enemy, the enemy within — to purge the generals who are disloyal to Trump and replace them [inaudible] who will do absolutely the commander’s will. And I’m not paraphrasing. What’s startling to me about this pick and the reaction to it is we speak of it as concerns. Here’s a man who wrote a book declaring his intention to wage, not metaphorical, but actual war within the United States. That’s what he says. He says this is not a political project anymore. This is a civil war.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Is anything known at all about his foreign policy positions? What does he think about the position of the U.S. military around the world?
JEFF SHARLET: That’s actually kind of — that’s another part of what makes him appealing to Trump, is, on the one hand, he writes, in traditional fascist style, that war is absolutely necessary for what he calls normal men to realize their masculinity. On the other hand, like Trump, he presents this kind of isolationist posture. It’s not that he doesn’t want Israel to wage total war; he doesn’t care as much about it. So, then he says, “OK, so, where is this war? The war is within, and we will depend on the so-called normal men in Israel.”
He is, however — and this is important — he’s a Christian nationalist. He believes absolutely in the idea of the ingathering of Israel as a stage toward the Book of Revelation in the Bible. So, he sees Israel’s war on the Palestinians as biblical prophecy and one that must be supported for the sake of Christendom.
AMY GOODMAN: And we want to continue on that strain and also talk about Governor Huckabee, also a proud Christian nationalist, who President Trump has nominated to be the ambassador to Israel. But I wanted to stick with something you said for one moment and that you wrote about, Jeff Sharlet, in your piece. You laughed about, you know, his biceps. But it’s what’s on his biceps, those tattoos. “On his chest he’s had inked a 'Jerusalem cross' — a symbol of the crusaders’ holy war against Muslims and Jews — and on the flip side of his bicep there’s this, featured on his Instagram: 'Deus Vult,' God wills it, is more crusader kitsch — and popular with White supremacists.” Talk more about this. And then we’ll play what he has to say to, for example, to Netanyahu.
JEFF SHARLET: So, Hegseth talks a lot about his tattoos. They’re important to him. He began getting them around 2016. The very first one was a cross with a sword running down the middle, which he said was a tribute to one of his favorite biblical verses, Matthew 10:34. This is taken by those who want not a peaceful Christianity, but a war religion. It’s where Christ says, “I come to bring not peace, but the sword.”
He then starts adding this, as I say, crusader kitsch, because it’s important. The Jerusalem cross, it was — is always a political symbol. It’s not a symbol of spiritual struggle, just like “Deus Vult.” But this imagery comes into popular culture not through deep study of history, but through a 2005 Ridley Scott movie, The Kingdom of Heaven. Much like the right at one point was emulating Braveheart, now they’re emulating this movie, this idea of this crusader knight who wages holy war against Muslims, against Jews.
In Hegseth’s book, he talks at great length about the story of Gideon from the Book of Judges. And what’s interesting to him about Gideon is that Gideon’s first step was to purge the enemies within. That was the first battle. And then he emphasizes another part. Gideon goes to war. And we sort of know this. These are sort of Bible stories. But the part that he really likes is that after they won the battle, Gideon orders his men to hunt down every one of the other force and, in Hegseth’s words, “eliminate them all.”
That’s the idea of this sleeve of tattoos, which mixes American nationalism, an AR-15 folded into an American flag, 1775, the year the Army was founded, but also part of sort of the mythos of J6, a group that he has had very positive things to say about.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we’d like to turn now to ask about President-elect Trump’s selection of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who’s openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2008, Huckabee declared, quote, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” This is Huckabee speaking in 2017, when he was visiting an illegal Israeli settlement.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Israel would only be acting on the property it already owns. I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. They’re neighborhoods. They’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Jeff Sharlet, that’s Huckabee speaking in 2017. So, if you could comment on what he said and also why Trump has selected him?
JEFF SHARLET: I mean, Huckabee is a sort of a key element of the Trump coalition. He brings in evangelicals, and particularly kind of the older, more traditional evangelicals. He’s a Southern Baptist. And he’s also been involved with Israel for a long time. As he says, since 1973, he leads pilgrimages of Christians.
It’s important to understand that in all his advocacy for Israel, this comes from no particular care for the Jewish people, but, as he puts it, he says, “It’s because I’ve read the end of the book,” and by which he means the Book of Revelation. And again, like Hegseth, he sees Israel as playing a role in a battle not so much between Israelis and Palestinians, but as between Christendom versus the real enemy.
There’s an episode of his show in which he talks about who’s really behind Hamas. And I tuned in, thinking, you know, he was probably going to talk the various ideas and so on. And instead, he sounded like the old Saturday Night Live character: “Satan.” Hamas is, he argues, demon-filled — again, not a metaphor for him.
So this is the man who is sort of representing the United States in Israel now, who is as fully fundamentalist as even the furthest-right element of the Israeli government right now, and sees this as a holy war — and again, kind of like Hegseth — in which any step is justified. You are fighting for God, and that’s the end of the story for him.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Sharlet, you have written this book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. You certainly have extensively followed white nationalists, white supremacists. Where do Christian nationalists and Christian Zionists fit into this picture? I mean, he calls himself a Christian Zionist. You heard Huckabee — and by the way, he was the governor of Arkansas. His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is now the governor of Arkansas, and she was the spokesperson for the first President Trump White House. But where does he fit? Where do Christian Zionists fit into this whole story? And how do Jewish Zionists relate to them? And how does Israel, people like Netanyahu — how do they rely on Christian Zionists?
JEFF SHARLET: Huckabee likes to brag about his special relationship with Netanyahu. And Israel has — or, right-wing Israel governments have said, “Look, Christian Zionists are useful to us, so we’re going to support them.” In fact, the right-wing Israeli governments have said Christian Zionists are actually our better American allies than American Jews.
But Christian Zionism has in some ways been folded into Christian nationalism. Every Christian Zionist is a Christian nationalist, but not every Christian nationalist is a Christian Zionist. Christian nationalism is the larger view — and it tells us something more about what Huckabee is doing. When you go through his archive, so often when he’s talking about Israel, what he’s really talking about is, from his point of view, a struggle for power on the battleground that really matters, which is the United States. And so, for instance, he talks more — when he wants to talk about Hamas, he often talks about Harvard. He talks about elites, these sort of — again, this idea of the enemy within. What happens in Israel is theologically important to him, but it’s more useful politically in the United States. And that’s where it brings us back around to Christian nationalism, this idea of a kind of — not so much a pious nation as a holy war nation, and the war is within.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Sharlet, we want to thank you so much for being with us, journalist and author, professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College, author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. We’ll link to your piece, “Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an 'Extremist' by the US Military.”
===
===
13 Nov 2024
US President-elect Donald Trump has announced the appointment of pro-settlement former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the US ambassador to Israel.
The controversial political figure and TV personality who claims to have visited Israel more than 100 times will replace Jack Lew, who has held the position for a year.
UN aid chief warns of ‘gravest crimes’ committed in Israel’s war on Gaza
list 2 of 4
Houthis launch attacks against US warships off coast of Yemen
list 3 of 4
Israel’s UNRWA ban is another declaration of genocidal intent
list 4 of 4
Biden dismisses journalist’s question on reaching deal for Gaza captives
end of list
Who is Mike Huckabee, and what was he doing before this appointment?
The devout 69-year-old evangelical Christian was born in the southern US state of Arkansas.
He served as governor of his home state between 1996 and 2007 before launching unsuccessful bids to be the Republican presidential candidate during the 2008 and 2016 primary seasons.
Between these two bids, he had his own talk show, Huckabee, which ran on the Fox News Network between 2008 and 2015.
In 2017, the show was revived and broadcast on TBN, a Christian-based broadcast television network.
Since ending his campaign for presidential candidacy in 2016, Huckabee has consistently supported Trump.
Arkansas Governor
Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee shake hands after participating in a roundtable discussion hosted by Building America’s Future in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024 [File: Charly Triballeau/AFP]
What is Huckabee’s position on Israel and Palestine?
Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israel.
After his appointment, Trump released a statement in which he said Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”
His appointment demonstrates a “very hawkish, very pro-right-wing Israel” approach by the Trump administration, Yossi Mekelberg, an expert on Israel at the Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera.
He said Huckabee’s appointment is similar to that of David Friedman, who served as US Ambassador to Israel between 2017 and 2021 and supports Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Huckabee views Israel as an “overwhelming ally of the United States”, Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.
“He will certainly be a strong voice for a pro-Israel faction in the administration and the country,” he said.
Huckabee has tied his evangelical faith to support for Israeli control of the West Bank and his support for Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.
In an interview in 2017 with the CNN news network, he said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria (the territory’s biblical name). There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Huckabee has gone as far as to question Palestinian identity.
During his Republican presidential campaign, he said: “I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset – there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”
Huckabee is against a two-state solution.
Instead, in various TV interviews, he has propagated the idea that “there’s plenty of land” for Palestinians in countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
Huckabee
Mike Huckabee visits a large settler enclave, called Maale HaZeitim, in the Ras al-Amoud neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem on August 17, 2009 [File: David Furst/AFP]
He has also criticised US President Joe Biden for requesting that Israel temper some of its actions in the war on Gaza and the administration’s calls for a ceasefire.
“If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas,” Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.
In a recent interview with a podcaster, he labelled himself an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist”.
He also said “radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century” adding “I don’t want to go back there”. He said: “I like modernity.”
What has the reaction been like in Israel to his appointment?
The Israeli government, in its current form, will be very pleased with the appointment of an ambassador who supports settlements and annexation, Mekelberg said.
Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right, pro-settler security minister, took to X to celebrate Huckabee’s appointment, simply posting emojis of the US flag, the Israeli flag and a heart alongside the former Arkansas governor’s name.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, took to X to offer congratulations to Huckabee, who he described as “my dear friend”.
“I look forward to continuing to work with you and to strengthening the eternal bond our two countries share!” Danon wrote.
Mekelberg said even though it will raise concerns about any potential peace agreement, the Israeli public, in general, will be supportive as, given the current climate, “anyone who expresses full support of Israel will be welcome.”
What can be expected from his term?
It is too early to tell how his appointment will affect Israel’s strategy for Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, Musgrave said.
However, he noted it likely indicates that there will be little “pushback” from a Trump administration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war plans.
It is a sentiment shared by Mekelberg, who said any fears in the Israeli administration that an incoming ambassador could have placed restraints on how Israel may conduct itself will have “eased considerably” after Huckabee’s appointment.
Source: Al Jazeera
===
===
11/14/2024
by
Mike Huckabee succinctly lays out his approach to dealing with Israel as Trump's ambassador: "I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side."
===
===
tag rww
1-10 of 850 Results
Sort by
Sort by Relevance
Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee Wants To Be On God's Side As Trump's Ambassador To Israel
11/14/2024
Mike Huckabee Wants To Be On God's Side As Trump's Ambassador To Israel Extremist video 11/14/2024 by Kyle Mantyla Mike Huckabee succinctly lays out his approach to dealing with Israel as Trump's ambassador: "I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who …
RWW Round Up
A Winning Issue
09/18/2024
A Winning Issue Briefing 09/18/2024 by Kyle Mantyla Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog : New reporting makes Vance’s handling of Springfield story look even worse Angry White Men : Jeremy Carl: The Racist Lie About Haitians Eating Pets Is ‘Gonna Be A Winning …
‘Our D-Day is Coming,’ Warns My Faith Votes Spokesperson Allen West
06/11/2024
‘Our D-Day is Coming,’ Warns My Faith Votes Spokesperson Allen West 06/11/2024 by Peter Montgomery “Our D-Day is coming,” declared the ominous subject line of an email from former Rep. Allen West sent on behalf of the religious-right voter turnout …
Bonus Tracks
Right Wing Bonus Tracks: The God Of War
05/29/2024
Right Wing Bonus Tracks: The God Of War Round-up 05/29/2024 by Kyle Mantyla Tim Barton delivered a presentation for Memorial Day in which he argued that "God is not anti-war" and is actually "in favor of wars sometimes." Mike Huckabee will soon "share his …
RWW Round Up
Right Wing Round-Up: Got Talked Into It
11/09/2023
Right Wing Round-Up: Got Talked Into It Briefing 11/09/2023 by Kyle Mantyla Roger Sollenberger @ The Daily Beast : James Comer, Like Joe Biden, Also Paid His Brother $200K. James Comer is going after Joe Biden because he loaned his brother, James Biden, …
Bonus Tracks
Right Wing Bonus Tracks: Demonic Drugs
09/12/2023
Right Wing Bonus Tracks: Demonic Drugs Round-up 09/12/2023 by Kyle Mantyla Todd Starnes interviewed Mike Huckabee on Monday but apparently didn't think it was important to ask Huckabee about his recent comment threatening that if President Donald Trump …
Mike Huckabee and Other Right-Wing Leaders Escalate Threats of Electoral Violence
09/07/2023
Mike Huckabee and Other Right-Wing Leaders Escalate Threats of Electoral Violence 09/07/2023 by Peter Montgomery Analysis Former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee made a striking prediction on a recent episode of his …
Mike Huckabee Warns 2024 Will Be the Last Election 'Decided by Ballots Rather Than Bullets' if Trump Loses
09/06/2023
Mike Huckabee Warns 2024 Will Be the Last Election 'Decided by Ballots Rather Than Bullets' if Trump Loses 09/06/2023 by Kyle Mantyla Former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee opened the most recent episode of his "Huckabee" …
RWW Round Up
Right Wing Round-Up: Slitting Throats
08/03/2023
Right Wing Round-Up: Slitting Throats Briefing 08/03/2023 by Kyle Mantyla Ian Millhiser @ Vox : There is no First Amendment right to overturn an election. John Knefel and Jacina Hollins-Borges @ Media Matters : Right-wing media call for “revenge tour” in …
Republican Politicians and Anti-Choice Activists Rallying Behind Democracy-Restricting Initiative in Ohio
07/28/2023
Republican Politicians and Anti-Choice Activists Rallying Behind Democracy-Restricting Initiative in Ohio 07/28/2023 by Peter Montgomery In a desperate attempt to thwart the will of Ohio voters, who support access to legal abortion by a wide margin, …
===
mma
Mike Huckabee wouldn’t rule out using the military to stop abortion. Trump is campaigning with him. 10/24/24
===
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-activists-cheer-trump-calls-for-spiritual-civil-war-at-road-to-majority-conference/
pretty much only winning issue 2022 so big in 2034 see trump
r ww 6 23
former President Donald Trump received a rapturous hero’s welcome Saturday night as he delivered the closing keynote address to a room packed with religious-right activists in Washington, D.C. for the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference.
Trump knew his audience. “We are warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, atheists, globalists, and the Marxists,and we will restore our republic as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all,” Trump said. As part of his typically long and rambling speech, he denounced his recent indictments, bragged about his administration’s accomplishments–including his Supreme Court justices cementing the right-wing majority to overturn Roe v. Wade—and declared that Democrats have become “monsters.”
Trump thrilled the crowd with promises about what he would do as the 47th president, saying, “When I get back in the Oval Office,I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”And he vowed to push “school choice” plans—which divert public education dollars into private and religious schools and homeschooling—and,oddly, called for public school principals to be chosen by direct election by parents.
Trump’s speech and others at the conference signaled the issues and strategies around which the MAGA movement is mobilizing to try to take power in the 2024 elections: waging war on “wokeness,” demeaning transgender people and calling for institutionalized discrimination against them, mocking corporate support for diversity, equity, and environmental protection, and, in the name of parents’ rights,purging schools and libraries of materials that do not align with MAGA activists’ political and religious worldviews.
Trump’s speech was preceded by awards given to right-wing movement fundraising godfather Richard Viguerie and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Viguerie declared that the nation is in “a spiritual civil war” that “the left has launched against Western civilization, America, our Constitution, Judeo-Christian moral values, and much else we value at home.” Viguerie encouraged activists to get more involved in any way they can, signing off with, “Good night, ladies and gentlemen. See you on the battlefield of the spiritual civil war, and don’t be late!”
===
oddly high soc media rank for geezer? boost by twit? other rw celebs?
note ~ soc media bias BS mma 7 22
- ## ...Out of the top 10 posts with the most interactions that Media Matters analyzed, 6 were from right-leaning Facebook pages
- These 6 posts were from Newsmax, Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee, and Fox News, which had 2 posts. Out of these 6 posts, half contained industry talking points or attacked the administrative state and federal agencies that the right has villainized for enforcing lockdowns and vaccine mandates. These reactions and the sources cited in them further demonstrated the decision as a victory for the fossil fuel industry and its conservative allies which helped orchestrate this result to line their pockets and hinder progress on climate action.
Among the top examples from right-leaning pages that contained misinformation was a post from Ben Shapiro with nearly 22,000 interactions that linked to an article from the Daily Wire. The article quoted Heritage Foundation research fellow Daren Bakst, who claimed that the court had rightfully blocked the EPA from overstepping its boundaries and that only Congress can make certain regulatory decisions under the Constitution.
The Heritage Foundation has received millions of dollars in funding from Koch-connected organizations, as well as considerable funding from the fossil fuel industry, while outwardly denying the scientific consensus on climate change. The foundation has also played a major role in moving courts to the right, and even created a secretly financed program to train law clerks to elevate its views. According to The New York Times, Heritage helped the Federalist Society compile the lists of potential Supreme Court nominees from which President Donald Trump chose to appoint Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Both justices voted to stifle the EPA. However, the Daily Wire article ignored these connections between the conservative think tank, its financial backers in the fossil fuel industry, and the court’s ruling.
The article also quoted Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who baselessly claimed that the Clean Power Plan would “lead to higher utility bills, job loss and overall increased energy prices.” While these regulations were never implemented, the plan was predicted to have cut electricity bills by 7% and deliver up to $34 billion in health benefits.
- [twt ben shapiro]
- Many of the top 10 posts, particularly those from right-leaning pages, framed the decision primarily as a victory against the EPA’s ability to enforce regulations – or what Mike Huckabee referred to, in a post that received more than 11,000 interactions, as “the reign of tyranny by unaccountable bureaucrats.” A post from Sean Hannity that garnered 14,000 interactions also linked to an article on his website describing the decision as a “blow to climate extremists” and calling to “unleash American energy.”[twt]
- The top left-leaning post, which was from historian Heather Cox Richardson and had over 61,000 interactions, provided an overview of several recent and upcoming Supreme Court decisions and pointed out that the court set a precedent in West Virginia v. EPA using legal reasoning that was even rejected by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in 2001. She also highlighted excerpts from Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent pointing out that Congress already delegates power to federal agencies to address issues where it does not have expertise.
Another popular left-leaning post about the case from former President Barack Obama,which had over 55,000 interactions, mentioned climate impacts on vulnerable populations and urged Congress to “pass President Biden’s climate and clean energy investments.” Though right-leaning posts received more engagement overall, Richardson and Obama’s posts each had twice as many interactions as the top right-wing misinformation posts.
- the top Facebook posts about the ruling from left-leaning pages, which accounted for 3 of the top 10 posts, criticized the decision while highlighting various grievances with how the court came to its decision and what impact the ruling will have on the communities being affected by the climate crisis. [twt]
- The only post about the case from an ideologically nonaligned Facebook page in the top 10 came from CNN. It received just over 12,000 interactions and linked to a fairly detailed article putting the decision in the context of urgent calls from scientists to cut emissions and transition away from fossil fuels, and citing the 2021 report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which called the climate crisis a “code red” for humanity.
Although left-leaning and nonaligned pages were vocal about the gravity of the Supreme Court’s decision, the right was was still able to co-opt much of the conversation on Facebook, shifting attention and blame away from the small group of right-wing figures and industry executives who benefit from the ruling to hamstring environmental protections in the face of the worsening climate crisis, leaving the rest of us to grapple with an uncertain future.
- none of the top 10 posts outlined how, as The New York Times puts it, the case “is the product of a coordinated, multi-year strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries.” Some only mentioned the court case in passing – for example, a popular post with more than 16,000 interactions from controversial documentarian Michael Moore referenced the case once among a host of other political grievances in a “declaration.”...
===
https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-runs-ads-mike-huckabees-climate-denial-book-targeted-children
6 23
no lnx twt vid
former Arkansas governor, frequent Fox News commentator, and Trinity Broadcast Network host Mike Huckabee — who once joked that the threat of climate change to Americans amounted to “a sunburn” — is now marketing climate denial to children through ads airing across Fox News programming and social media.
Through his EverBright Media venture, Huckabee promotes an educational series targeted at children called The Kids Guide, which includes lessons on “Fighting Socialism,” “Cancel Culture and Free Speech,” and “Media Bias and Fake News.” The series of booklets is based on the premise that American children are vulnerable to biased and agenda-driven public school textbooks and liberal media reports, leading them to oppose“faith in God,” “lower taxes,” “smaller government,” and “the right to bear arms.”
The Kids Guide series is now promoting a new title that Huckabee claims “will help your kids break free from news-induced panic” and learn “the truth” about climate change.
Video
CitationThe Kids Guide to The Truth About Climate Change Ad
Huckabee’s materials targeted at children have long been called out for their blatant misinformation; a Huffington Post article from 2013 criticized his Learn Our History video series for distributing “Christian nationalist revisionism and right-wing political propaganda.” More recently, a Kids Guide to former President Donald Trump’s accomplishments from 2022 was widely mocked by online critics, who pointed out the glaring hypocrisy of books with such a clear right-wing political agenda and “cult”-like indoctrination being marketed to children at the same time Republican leaders are calling for eradicating access to books that reference any ideas they deem “woke.”
Now, Huckabee’s latest Kids Guide pushes long-debunked narratives and misinformation to downplay, dismiss, or deny the threat of climate change at a time when communities across the globe are already experiencing catastrophic climate impacts and the scientific community is urging immediate action to address the climate crisis.
Mike Huckabee is marketing climate denial to parents who watch Fox News
Fox News has long primed its audience to distrust teachers and the mainstream media, and to believe that climate change is a manufactured crisis to achieve a progressive agenda. And Huckabee's Kids Guide ad hawking a book to teach kids “the truth about climate change” seems tailor-made for the Fox audience:
MIKE HUCKABEE: Parents, you may have heard from your kids that the Earth is soon going to be an uninhabitable hellscape. Well, that's because some of their teachers and the media have an agenda. But is it really what kids should actually be learning? It's why my team created the new Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change. It answers your child's toughest climate questions, and you can have it for free.
Ads for The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change began running during Fox News programming in mid-May. Ads for other entries in the series, including The Kids Guide to Fighting Indoctrination and The Kids Guide to Fighting Socialism, appeared on Fox throughout May. In 2023 alone, Kids Guide ads have appeared hundreds of times across Fox programming.
Similarly, according to a Media Matters review of data from Sensor Tower, Kids Guide has spent $83,300 running ads on Facebook from January 1 to June 6, 2023, garnering over 11 million impressions. Kids Guide has also been running Google search ads that appear when users enter the phrase “climate change for kids.”
Kids Guide to climate change Facebook ad
While the ads only hint at climate denial and misinformation, the guide itself is a primer in some of the most oft-repeated and long-debunked arguments used to cast doubt about anthropogenic climate change and delay climate action.
The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change is climate denial propaganda disguised as education
The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change acknowledges that the climate is changing and that “human pollution has made things worse. No one disagrees with either of those concepts.” However, these acknowledgments are undermined by oft-repeated climate denial talking points and arguments that are intended to downplay the crisis and maintain the status quo.
In fact, the book goes to great lengths to suggest that even while climate change is happening, the U.S. response has been more than sufficient and “made significant progress toward Earth’s recovery.” To support this claim, itencourages readers to “recycle what we can, turn off lights, buy more pre-owned items, not waste our food, make better use of what we have, and support sensible programs to protect the planet and its life.” While these are worthy endeavors, they are nowhere near the level of action scientists urge is needed to ward off the worst climate impacts – rather, they neatly align with the fossil fuels industry’s campaign to individualize climate action and sidestep the need for systemic change.
Here is a sample of common climate denial tactics and arguments laundered through The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change.
The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change pushes debunked lies about settled climate science
The Kids Guide falsely argues that the causes of climate change are still being debated among experts: “Well, what you may not know is that thousands of renowned scientists and weather experts worldwide have some very different opinions on climate change.They point to the powerful effects of the natural cycles of the sun and changes that happen in earth’s magnetic field.”
In fact, there is overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming our planet. For nearly a decade, it was reported that 97% of scientists endorsed anthropogenic climate change. In 2021, a new study by U.S. researchers “examined the peer-reviewed literature and found more than 99% of climate scientists now endorse the evidence for human-induced climate change.”
It claims the climate is always changing: “The climate has always changed — long before humans walked the earth — and it continues to change!”
Climate communications expert and professor John Cook counts “the climate has always changed” among the most-used arguments by bad actors to mislead the public about the climate crisis. On his website Skeptical Science, which catalogs and debunks climate denial claims, he writes:
Climate has indeed changed in the past with various impacts depending on the speed and type of that change. Such results have included everything from slow changes to ecosystems over millions of years - through to sudden mass-extinctions. Rapid climate change, of the type we're causing through our enormous carbon dioxide emissions, falls into the very dangerous camp. That's because the faster the change, the harder it is for nature to cope. We are part of nature so if it goes down, it takes us with it.
So anyone who dismissively tells you, “the climate has always changed”, either does not know what they are talking about or they are deliberately trying to mislead you.
The book asserts that climate scientists’ predictions have never come true: “As you can see from the decades of headlines above, well-known and trusted scientists and experts have long predicted ice ages, killer floods, giant storms, and planetary catastrophes. By now, they said, we should have starved, frozen to death, or drowned!”
In fact, not only have scientists accurately predicted global warming for over half a century, but the consequences of a changing climate in the form of “killer floods,” “giant storms,” and “planetary catastrophes” that climate scientists have warned about are increasingly causing devastation and death across the globe.
The Kids Guide promotes the false argument that natural phenomena, not CO2, are responsible for changes in the climate: “Looking back in time, carbon dioxide levels have always gone up and down,” even before industrial activity. “The Sun’s natural lifecycles and Earth’s ‘wobble’ have helped drive ice ages and hot periods like the time of the dinosaurs.”
Akin to the claim that “climate has always changed,” the argument that natural phenomena are causing the climate to change also seeks to dismiss the role that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels plays in warming the planet. Looking specifically at the argument that the sun is to blame, Cook writes that those perpetuating this claim use cherry-picked data:
From the early 1970s until today, the Solar radiation reaching the top of Earth's atmosphere has in fact shown a very slight decline. Through that same period, global temperatures have continued to increase. The two data records, incoming Solar energy and global temperature, have diverged.
…
Attempts to blame the sun for the rise in global temperatures have had to involve taking the data but selecting only the time periods that support such an argument. The remaining parts of the information - showing that divergence - have had to be ditched. Proper science study requires that all the available data be considered, not just a part of it.
While the Kids Guide book uses common climate denial arguments to undermine the science of climate change, it also employs other narratives that are frequently used to attack climate action.
The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change argues against the need for climate action
The book makes the argument that renewable energy is not clean: “While protecting our home planet is certainly a noble cause, quickly switching off our primary energy sources is already costing people their jobs, deeply damaging supply chains and creating painful shortages of energy and food. Also, these new technologies have their own issues and environmental costs.”
It is true that all forms of energy development have environmental impacts, but the Kids Guide’s environmental-focused attacks on electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines are highly disingenuous considering that their effects pale in comparison to the collective damage fossil fuels have wrought on our environment and climate. In addition to their role in driving climate change, a new study put a price tag on one of the human costs of domestic oil and gas activity: “Air pollution from U.S. oil and natural gas production causes roughly $77 billion in health impacts nationwide every year, while also contributing to thousands of early deaths and health flare-ups,” including “7,500 excess deaths, 410,000 asthma attacks, and 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma across the U.S. in 2016.”
It pushes the argument that climate action hurts the U.S. and is useless because big polluters like China and India are not taking action to curb their emissions: “While the United States and Western Europe sacrifice our economies and quality of life to cut carbon emissions, huge industrial nations like China and India continue to emit massive amounts of carbon dioxide by comparison, as well as tons of other pollutants.”
These are long-held climate denier talking points. Climate change, not climate action, will devastate our economy because the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action. In 2022, the White House Office of Management and Budget provided the first accounting of how much unchecked global warming could impact the U.S. federal government alone and concluded that failure to act would cost $2 trillion annually in lost revenue. Pretending that U.S. action is futile if other big polluters don’t curb their carbon emissions is another way to give license to industry and policymakers to kick the can down the road on fighting climate change.
The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change champions the dangerous idea that “things are getting better”
The Kids Guide highlights four examples to suggest that the current level of climate action is sufficiently reversing our impacts and “we are already making progress toward protecting the Earth for future generations to enjoy.” In fact, the examples used in the guide are anomalies that don’t disprove the larger warming trend:
“Throughout the winter of 2021, the British Antarctic Survey recorded the lowest Antarctic temperatures in over 60 years.” As The Washington Post wrote in October 2021, “Scientists stressed that the record cold over the South Pole in no way refutes or lessens the seriousness of global warming. Antarctica is notorious for its wild swings in weather and climate, which can run counter to global trends.” The Post cited a range of experts including Eric Steig, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, who said, “One cold winter is interesting but doesn’t change the long term trend, which is warming.”
“According to NASA, Greenland’s largest and most important glacier, Jakobshavn, has been gaining ice for several years.” This example is also intended to suggest that warming is either not happening or not having serious consequences, but as CNN reported in March 2019, “the melting from that single glacier alone contributed to global oceans rising an average of 1 millimeter between 2000 and 2010. And even though Jakobshavn has gained ice at lowest levels where it enters the sea, it has still been contributing to sea level rise because the rate it is melting into the ocean is still greater than the rate that ice is accumulating higher up on the glacier, according to the researchers.”
“While some claim the change is temporary, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that global warming has slowed.” The origin of this claim is unclear.The IPCC has repeatedly warned that we are increasing warming at an alarming rate. In an email exchange with Media Matters, climate scientist Michael E. Mann called the claim “absurd and dishonest,” adding: “The assertion that the IPCC ‘noted that global warming has slowed’ is simply a lie. The IPCC has made no such assertion. The planet continues to warm at a rate of roughly 0.2C per decade and the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) recently predicted that global surface temperatures will (briefly) cross the 1.5C warming threshold for the first time in history within the next couple years.”
“Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, predicted to be dead by now, recently recorded its most significant growth ever.” The news in 2021 that the Great Barrier Reef was in recovery was weaponized by bad actors to claim that those urging climate action were alarmists. But as ABC News reported, the recovery in 2021 was aided by a break in climate-related disturbance and experts believe the progress to be short-lived.
Kids are the obvious next front in climate deniers' misinformation campaign
Today’s climate movement is primarily youth-driven — in the last several years, young climate activists have demanded greater action from global leaders by getting out to the streets, online, and into the voting booth. In part, they are the face of the movement because they have the most to lose, and the relentless mockery and attacks by right-wing media in response to the wave of youth activism has not been a strategy aiming to recruit a new generation of climate deniers. Disinformation disguised as educational material on climate change for children is, however.
The Kids Guide’s efforts to push climate denial on children may not undermine the momentum of today’s climate activists, but it certainly appears designed to stunt the next would-be wave of young people ready to demand a livable future.
Related
With Canadian wildfires, Fox News follows its COVID playbook
06/08/23 12:19 PM EDT
Led by Fox, “hard news” anchors on cable injected opinion into Schiavo coverage
03/22/05 6:46 PM EST
How Tucker Carlson was a terrible and effective megaphone for climate misinformation
05/03/23 12:39 PM EDT
===
an 200
===
==
trms
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/too-much-right-sees-conservative-base-marks-n1237637
the conservative group called We Build the Wall presented donors with a relatively straightforward idea: it would collect private donations and use the money to build barriers along the U.S./Mexico border. On the surface, the pitch was effective: the outfit raised $25 million for the venture, and donors were assured that every penny would go toward wall construction.
Below the surface, according to federal prosecutors, the operation was a scam. As part of a broad criminal indictment, which included charges against former White House strategist Steve Bannon, prosecutors alleged money was used to pay for "home renovations, payments towards a boat, a luxury S.U.V., a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, personal tax payments and credit card debt."
As jarring as these accusations are, there's also a degree of familiarity to the circumstances. As the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg noted in her new column:
Bannon's arrest comes just two weeks after New York's attorney general sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association, claiming that its leadership "looted" it. On Thursday, Politico reported that Jerry Falwell Jr., recently suspended as president of Liberty University, has "repeatedly used a 164-foot yacht owned by NASCAR mogul Rick Hendrick for family vacations after the university committed to a lucrative sponsorship deal with Hendrick Motorsports."
The trifecta is neatly tied together with a common thread: the NRA, Jerry Falwell, and We Build The Wall each stand accused of, among other things, swindling unsuspecting conservatives who put their trust in powerful political voices on the right.
But if the allegations prove true, the perpetrators are hardly the first to try to fleece their own base. It was seven years ago when MSNBC's Chris Hayes wrote, "Much of movement conservatism is a con and the base are the marks."
The observation was true at the time, but it's even more important now.
As regular readers know, many prominent Republican voices -- Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, et al. -- have created lucrative mailing lists used for highly dubious purposes. Similarly, the rise of the Tea Party in the Obama era led to the creation of "scam PAC**s" that targeted conservative donors, but existed "mostly to pad the pockets" of the consultants who ran them.
Donald Trump, not surprisingly, was similarly eager to separate those he perceived as fools from their money, running a fraudulent charitable foundation and creating a fraudulent "university," which was designed to do little more than rip off its "students."
If the latest criminal indictments are accurate, groups like the NRA and We Build The Wall also saw conservatives as suckers.
The Washington Post's Paul Waldman added yesterday, "Conservative operatives such as Bannon have always viewed the right's rank-and-file with utter contempt, as little more than a collection of fools to be taken advantage of."
Similarly, Amanda Carpenter, a conservative who's worked with GOP leaders such as Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz, delivered an important message to the right yesterday: "Conservatives should be very angry. You got used.
===
===
ref
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/conservative-circles-scams-abound
former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) has used his mailing list as a lucrative tool for many years, and it’s a habit he’s apparently reluctant to break. Even after the Arkansas Republican gave up his Fox News program, apparently to pursue another White House campaign, Huckabee continued to send out emails with “really questionable ads.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) isn’t running for anything, but as discovered last week, he’s also using his list to send out spam-like messages that appear to be scams.
It’s against this backdrop that Kenneth P. Vogel had a great piece this week on the rise of “scam PACs” that target conservative donors.
Since the tea party burst onto the political landscape in 2009, the conservative movement has been plagued by an explosion of PACs that critics say exist mostly to pad the pockets of the consultants who run them. Combining sophisticated targeting techniques with fundraising appeals that resonate deeply among grass-roots activists, they collect large piles of small checks that, taken together, add up to enough money to potentially sway a Senate race. But the PACs plow most of their cash back into payments to consulting firms for additional fundraising efforts.
A POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covering the 2014 cycle found that 33 PACs that court small donors with tea party-oriented email and direct-mail appeals raised $43 million – 74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs.
I’m reminded of a line Chris Hayes used a couple of years ago, which continues to ring true: “[M]uch of movement conservatism is a con and the base are the marks.”
Eric Hananoki added soon after, “Media Matters has previously documented how conservatives have scammed their followers. [Erick Erickson], for example, was caught sending a plagiarized email (from Ann Coulter) endorsing a newsletter which purported to reveal a ‘secret’ system to become ‘instant millionaires.’”
And just yesterday, Ben Dimiero noted, “Erick Erickson’s email list subscribers have received a bizarre array of pitches from conspiracy theorists and dubious practitioners warning of the impending death of millions of Americans and promising ‘cures’ to cancer, Alzheimer’s, and aging.”
To be sure, there are some specific differences among these dubious appeals. The Politico piece, for example, highlighted the activities of suspicious political action committees, while the Huckabee, Gingrich, and Erickson examples focus on use of regular ol’ email lists, outside of PAC control.
But the bottom line remains the same: a dynamic now exists in which many conservatives are receiving dubious messages through lists operated by Republican leaders they trust.
The basic idea isn’t entirely new – for decades, groups and political figures sent out direct-mail letters, which regularly included unsavory appeals for cash – but the old model relied on slow and expensive distribution through the mail. It’s cheaper, faster, and easier for these unsavory schemes to be put in motion electronically.
Kevin Drum, meanwhile, asked the question that was on my mind:
So here’s my question: why is this so much more common on the right than on the left? It would be nice to chalk it up to the superior intelligence of liberal audiences and call it a day, but that won’t wash…. One possibility is that a lot of this stuff is aimed at the elderly, and conservatives tend to skew older than liberals. And while that’s probably part of the answer, it’s hardly satisfying. There are plenty of elderly liberals, after all – certainly enough to make them worth targeting with the same kind of fraudulent appeals that infest the right.
Another possibility is that it’s basically a supply-side phenomenon. Maybe liberal outlets simply tend to be less ruthless, less willing to set up scam fundraising organizations than conservative outlets. In fact, that actually does seem to be the case. But again: why?
I honestly have no idea, so let’s open it up to some discussion. Why do these scams seem so much more common on the right than the left?
Explore:
The MaddowBlog, Elections, Erick Erickson, Fundraising, Mike Huckabee, Money in Politics and Newt Gingrich
==
===
https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/how-a-behind-the-scenes-bare-knuckle-brawl-shaped-us-foreign-policy-under-trump/
It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, D.C., and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The losers? Us. And odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened. Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of howSaudi, Emirati, and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.
The fight began three years ago this month. Sure, the pugilists hadn’t really liked each other that much before then, but what happened in 2017 was the foreign-policy equivalent of a sucker punch. On the morning of June 5th, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain announced that they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf, and establishing a land, air, and sea blockade of their regional rival, purportedly because of its ties to terrorism.
The move stunned the Qataris, who responded in ways that would later become familiar during the Covid-19 pandemic — by emptying supermarket shelves and hoarding essentials they worried would quickly run out. Their initial fears were not unwarranted, as their neighbors,Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were even reported to be planning to launch a military invasion of Qatar in the weeks to come (one that would be thwarted only by the strong objections of Donald Trump’s then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson).
To make sense of this now three-year-old conflict, which turned aspects of American policy in the Middle East ranging from the war in Yemen to the more than 10,000 American military personnel stationed in Qatar into political footballs, means refocusing on Washington and the extraordinary influence operations the Saudis, Emiratis, and Qataris ran there. That, in turn, means analyzing Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documents filed by firms representing all three countries since the spat began. Do that and you’ll come across a no-punches-barred bout of lobbying in the U.S. capital that would have made Rocky envious.
The Saudis Come Out Swinging
The stage had been set for the blockade of Qatar seven months before it began when Donald Trump was elected president. Just as his victory shocked the American public, so it caught many foreign governments off guard. In response, they quickly sought out the services of anyone with ties to the incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. The Saudis and Emiratis were no exception. In 2016, both countries had reported spending a little more than $10 million on FARA registered lobbying firms. By the end of 2017, UAE spending had nearly doubled to $19.5 million, while the Saudi’s had soared to $27.3 million.
In the months following Donald Trump’s November triumph, the Saudis, for instance, added several firms with ties to him or the Republicans to an already sizeable list of companies registered under FARA as representing their interests. For example, they brought on the CGCN Group whose president and chief policy officer, Michael Catanzaro, was on Trump’s transition team and then served in his administration. To court the Republican Congress, they hired the McKeon Group, run by former Republican Representative Buck McKeon, who had previously served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
And that was just registered foreign agents. A number of actors who had not registered under FARA were actively pushing the Saudi and Emirati agendas, chief among them Elliott Broidy and George Nader. Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump’s campaign, and Nader, his business partner, already had a wide range of interests in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To help secure them, the two men embarked on a campaign to turn the new president and the Republican establishment against Qatar. One result was a Broidy-inspired, UAE-funded anti-Qatar conference hosted in May 2017 by a prominent Washington think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It conveniently offered Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) a platform to discuss his plans to introduce a bill, HR 2712, that would label Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism. It was to be introduced in the House of Representatives just two days after the conference ended.
Qatar, mind you, had been a U.S. ally in the Middle East and was the home of Al Udeid Air Base, where more than 10,000 American soldiers are still stationed. So that bill represented a striking development in American-Qatari relations and was a clearly traceable result of Saudi and UAE lobbying efforts.
The unregistered influence of players like Broidy and Nader was evidently backed by other FARA-registered Saudi and UAE foreign agents actively pushing the bill. For example, Qorvis Communications, a long-time public relations mouthpiece for the Saudis, circulated a document titled “Qatar’s History of Funding Terrorism and Extremism,” claiming that country was funding Al-Nusra, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other groups. (Not surprisingly, it included a supportive quote from David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.)
While that anti-Qatar crusade was ramping up in Washington, the president himself was being wooed by the Saudi royals in Riyadh on his first official trip abroad. They gave him the literal royal treatment and their efforts appeared to pay off when, just a day after the blockade began, Trump tweeted, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”
A week after the imposition of the blockade, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Al Udeid Air Base to be moved to the UAE, a development the Qataris feared could open the door for an eventual invasion of their country.
However, this Saudi and Emirati onslaught did not go unanswered.
Qatar Strikes Back
Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, was caught flat-footed by the influence operations of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. The year before Donald Trump became president, the Qataris had spent just $2.7 million on lobbying and public relations firms, less than a third of what the Saudis and UAE paid out, according to FARA records. But they now moved swiftly to shore up their country’s image as a crucial American ally. They went on an instant hiring spree, scooping up lobbying and public-relations firms with close ties to Trump and congressional Republicans.Just two days after the blockade began, for instance, they inked adeal with the law firm of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, paying $2.5 million for just its first 90 days of work.
They also quickly obtained the services of Stonington Strategies. Headed by Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s election campaign, the firm promptly set out to court 250 Trump “influencers,” as Julie Bykowicz of theWall Street Journal reported. Among others, Stonington’s campaign sought to woo prominent Fox News personalities Trump paid special attention to like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He was paid $50,000 to travel to Qatar just months later.
In September 2017, the Qataris also hired Bluefront Strategies to craft a comprehensive multimedia operation, which was to include commercials on all the major news networks, as well as digital and printed ads in an array of prominent publications, and a “Lift the Blockade” campaign on social media. Meanwhile, ads on Google and YouTube were to highlight the illegality of the blockade and the country’s contributions to fighting terrorism. Bluefront Strategies was to influence public opinion before the next session of the U.N. General Assembly that month. Qatar and its proxies then used the campaign “to target key decision-makers attending the General Assembly, including Trump” to gain support on that most global of stages.
Its agents weren’t just playing defense, either. They actively attacked the Saudi lobby. For example, Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies, a PR firm they hired, sent a letter to the assistant attorney general for national security accusing Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC) of FARA violations in their funding of an expensive media campaign meant to connect Qatar’s leaders with violent extremism and acts of terror.
Such counterpunches proved remarkably successful. SAPRAC eventually felt obliged to register with FARA. Meanwhile, Huckabee tweeted, “Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar.” Finally, at that U.N. meeting, President Trump actually sat:{ down with Emir al-Thani of Qatar and }
:{, “We’ve been friends a long time… I have a very strong feeling [the Qatar diplomatic crisis] will be solved quickly.” They both then emphasized the “tremendous” and “strong” relationship between their countries.}:
The Qataris next mounted a concerted defense against HR 2712. Lobbying firms they hired, particularly Avenue Strategies and Husch Blackwell, launched a multifaceted campaign to prevent that legislation from passing. Elliott Broidy even claimed in a lawsuit that the Qatari government and several of its lobbyists had hacked his email account and distributed private emails of his to members of Congress in an attempt to discredit his work for the Saudis.
In November 2017, Barry Bennett from Avenue Strategies went on the attack, using a powerful weapon in Washington politics: Israel. He distributed aletter to members of Congress written by a former high-ranking official in the Israeli national security establishment explicitly stating that Qatar had not provided military support to Hamas, as HR 2712 claimed it had.
Three months later, Husch Blackwell all but threatened Congress and the Trump administration with the cancellation of a $6.2 billion Boeing contract to sell F-15 fighters to the Qatari military (and the potential loss of thousands of associated jobs) if the bill passed and sanctions were imposed on that country. All of this was linked to a concerted effort by Qatari agents to contact “nearly two dozen House offices, including then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy,” to prevent the bill’s passage, according to a report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy where we work. Ultimately, HR 2712 died a slow death in Congress and never became law.
The Saudi Bloc’s Battle for the War in Yemen
Just as Qatar started to turn the tide in the fight for influence in Washington, the Saudis and their allies faced another problem: Congress began moving to sever support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. On February 28, 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a joint resolution to withdraw U.S. support for that war. According to FARA filings,Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, representing the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs,contacted several members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly Democrats, presumably to persuade them to vote against the measure.
That March, the firm sent out dozens of emails to members of Congress inviting them to a gala dinner with the key Saudi royal, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself. According to the invitation from the CGCN Group, another FARA-registered firm representing the Saudis, the “KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]-USA Partnership Gala Dinner” was to emphasize the “enduring defense and counter-terrorism cooperation” and “historic alliance” between the two countries. It would end up taking place just two days after the Senate voted to table Sanders’s bill.
Emirati lobbyists similarly reached out to Congress to maintain support for their role in that war. Hagir Elawad & Associates, for example, distributed an op-ed written by the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs justifying the war, as well as a letter written by that country’s ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, to 50 congressional contacts defending the Saudi-led coalition’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties and arguing that “the United States has a clear stake in the coalition’s success in Yemen.”
When that conflict began, Qatar was still a member of the coalition, but the imposition of the blockade led it to withdraw its forces from Yemen. Qatari officials then used the country’s media empire, centered on the broadcaster Al Jazeera, to highlight the disastrous aspects of the ongoing war. In doing so, they provided the Saudis and Emiratis with yet another reason to focus their own influence machines on both Qatar’s and Al Jazeera’s destruction. (That network’s closure was, in fact, one of the original 13 demands the Saudis and Emiratis had made for lifting the blockade.)
From the moment it was founded in 1996, Al Jazeerahad been an instrument of Qatari soft power, so it was hardly surprising that the UAE had long pressured members of Congress to force the network to register under FARA as a foreign agent. And Emirati lobbying efforts were not in vain. In early March 2018, 19 members of Congress signed and sent aletter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging the Justice Department to demand that Al Jazeera be registered under FARA. Another such letter sent to the Justice Department in June 2019 by six senators and two representatives asked “why Al Jazeera and its employees have not been required to register.” According to FARA filings, all but one of those representatives had either received campaign contributions from or been contacted by a Saudi or Emirati lobbying firm. Al Jazeera, however, has yet to register.
The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi
Despite the efforts of Saudi and Emirati lobbyists in the early months of 2018, the emir of Qatar still managed to land an invitation to the Oval Office. At their meeting that April 10th, President Trump again described al-Thani as a “friend” and a “great gentleman” as well. The emir, in turn, thanked the president for “supporting us during this blockade.”
If Trump’s cozying up to him was a setback for the Saudis, the murder of critic and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly did in the Saudi lobbying juggernaut as well. The CIA later confirmed that the crown prince himself had ordered that Saudi citizen’s assassination at the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
As a result, some lobbying firmscut ties with the kingdom and its influence on Capitol Hill waned, as did positive public opinion about Saudi Arabia. In December 2018, the Senate passed the Sanders bill to end support for the war in Yemen. Both houses of Congress also passed a War Powers resolution to end involvement in that conflict, a historic congressional move in this century, even if later vetoed by President Trump (as were a series of attempts to block his treasured arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).
Given the president’s unyielding support for the Saudis and Emiratis as especially lucrative customers for this country’s defense industry, the Qataris have clearly decided to crib the Saudi playbook. In May, that country purchased 24 Apache helicopters for $3 billion and, a few months later, agreed to pay for and manage a $1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base to ensure the American military’s continued presence for the foreseeable future. In doing so, Qatar was visibly at work coopting two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the military and the weapons makers.
And the Winners Are…
Though Qatar faced a near-existential threat to its survival when the blockade began, three years later it’s not only surviving, but thriving thanks significantly to its influence operations in Washington. They have helped immeasurably to deepen economic, diplomatic, and military relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the emir’s rivals in Riyadh not only failed to make their blockade a success, but saw their influence wane appreciably in the U.S. as they stumbled from one public relations fiasco to the next. Even their staunchest defender, Donald Trump, recently threatened to sever U.S. military support for the Kingdom if the Saudi royals didn’t end their oil war with Russia (which they promptly did).
In truth, however, the real loser in this struggle for influence hasn’t been Saudi Arabia or the Emiratis, it’s been America. After all, the efforts of both sides to deepen their ties with the military-industrial complex (reinforcing the hyper-militarization of U.S. foreign policy) and increase their sway in Congress have ensured that the real interests of this country played second fiddle to those of Middle Eastern despots. Certainly, their acts helped ensure near historic levels of arms sales to the region, while prolonging the wars in Yemen andSyria, and so contributing to death and devastation on an almost unimaginable scale.
None of this had anything to do with the real interests of Americans, unless you mean the arms industry and K Street lobbyists who have been the only clear American winners in this never-ending PR war in Washington. In the process, those three Persian Gulf states have delivered a genuine knockout blow to the very idea that U.S. foreign policy should be driven by national — not special — interests.
Morgan Palumbo is a researcher with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.
Jessica Draper is a researcher with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative and Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.
==
==
posner
...To Values Voter Summit attendees, however, this tumble of calamitous news was only evidence of a partisan attack against a divinely anointed president. Carly Eli, an attendee from Atlanta, said in an interview that God has told her that Trump is “chosen” and “anointed,” and that she believes God has placed a “hedge of protection” around Trump. Eli claims to have received visions of God placing a crown on Trump’s head twice — something she interprets as a prophecy that Trump will serve two terms.
Another attendee, Jason Farris, came from Colorado, where he is a volunteer with the Truth & Liberty Coalition, a new political advocacy group that is based on 7 Mountains theology, which holds that Christians must take control of the seven major spheres of society — religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business. When Farris read the July 25 call summary, he said it was “easy for me to see he [Trump] didn’t do anything wrong.” Echoing an increasingly common GOP talking point, Farris claimed that the impeachment proceedings were instigated by Democrats who are disappointed that “the Mueller report didn’t give them what they wanted. ... Even since before the inauguration, the progressive left has wanted to undermine and remove him from office,” he said.
Another attendee, Eric Swanson, a graduate of Liberty University and host of a podcast called All-In America, called the impeachment probe “disgusting” and “the biggest witch hunt in American history.” Instead, he insisted, Joe Biden should be investigated for bribery, echoing a widespread conspiracy theory that Biden “confessed” to bribery in a 2018 appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.
In this evangelical bubble, the Republican lawmakers who disrupt the impeachment investigation and confuse the public about both the process and the facts of the case are heroes. On Oct. 23, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and other Republican lawmakers stormed the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility where a closed-door deposition was about to take place. That same day, former Arkansas Gov. andonetime Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was taping his flagship weekly television program for Trinity Broadcasting Network. In a segment Huckabee calls “Facts of the Matter,”during which he tries “to make sense of some of the certified Washington, D.C., insanity,” a viewer named Carlos asked whether Gaetz had accomplished anything with his stunt.
In response, Huckabee, who is the father of former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, proceeded to spout disinformation about what had happened. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Huckabee claimed, “was so frightened by” the Republicans’ entry “that he shut the meeting down, got up and he walked out.” (In fact, the room had to be swept for security reasons after the Republican lawmakers broke security rules by bringing their cellphones inside.) Huckabee further misled his audience that “this was all happening behind closed doors, where only one side even got to call witnesses, one side got to hear the full testimony.” (This also was not true; Republicans could and did attend the depositions and ask questions.) To applause, Huckabee declared that such proceedings might take place “in North Korea, maybe in China, maybe in Iran, but not in America.”
==
Ted Suhl was serving his third year of a seven-year sentence for bribery and Medicaid fraud when Trump commuted his sentence and sprung him,at the request of Mike Huckabee; the White House released a statement explaining Trump's reasoning for the commutation, and, as Propublica documents, it is full of "half-truths and omissions" about Trump's new grifter pal. Propublica did the hard work of annotating the Trump statement to remove the bullshit and tell the true tale. Read the rest
==
Fox's Huckabee calls Trump/Russia investigation an "attempted coup d'etat" and demands Republicans investigate the Justice Department and FBI
also bash gillibrand on soc sec ofr immigrants
==
Mike Huckabee: Having blasted Florida Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich for not endorsing Trump and saying they don’t deserve a microphone, the former Arkansas governor would in some ways seem ripe to be rewarded with a cabinet slot in the new administration.
Not surprisingly, Huckabee has also advocated for
the Affordable Care Act, calling for an expansion in the employer-based healthcare system instead.
OpenSecrets Blog could not obtain campaign finance information from Huckabee’s first gubernatorial election in 1998 (it was not available electronically). But for his re-election campaign in 2002, Huckabee collected about $2.5 million in contributions, including $267,380 from the health sector. Nursing care provider NHS Management LLC and the Arkansas Hospital Association were among his biggest health sector donors, giving $5,000 and $4,000 each.
The Arkansas Republican raised $16 million and $4.3 million respectively in his unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2016. He received the biggest support from the finance sector in both years, though the health sector also was among his big contributors.
Outside groups including Pursuing America’s Greatness raised about $6 million to support of Huckabee in this election, including $3 million from Ronald Cameron, a big political donor in Arkansas and the owner of poultry giant Mountainaire Corp.
Cameron donated a total of $6.7 million this election cycle, including direct contributions of $2,700 to Huckabee, $5,400 to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and — yes! — $8,100 to Donald Trump.
Huckabee and his wife Janet personally have given more than $61,050 to a number of candidates over the years, including $2,700 to Republican Mark Harris this cycle, who didn’t make it past the primary in North Carolina’s 9th District.
Categories: Campaign finance Congress Election Overview Health professionals Health services/HMOsHospitals/nursing homes Outside Money Personal Finances Pharmaceutical/Health products Politicians & Elections Presidential Presidential Election
Tags: Affordable Care Act, Bobby Jindal, health, Health and Human Services, health professionals, hospitals, Mike Huckabee, pharmaceutical, Rick Scott, Tom Price, Trump cabinet
==
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/mike-huckabee-has-milked-almost-3-million-christian-organizations-past-two-years
==
5/15
Mike Huckabee, an evangelical pastor, was the most religiously radical candidate during his first presidential run in 2008, although eight years later, his views barely distinguish him from the rest of the field. He declared his candidacy today in Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Arkansas, highlighting his claim that he is best equipped to fight what he calls the “Clinton machine.”
In a speech in January, Huckabee belittled the idea that climate change was a threat, saying that middle eastern radicals ISIS pose a greater threat to Americans, although they pose no threat on U.S. soil at all. He referred to President Obama’s remark in his State of the Union Address that the greatest threat the U.S. faces in climate change,” saying, “Not to diminish anything about the climate at all, but Mr. President, I believe that most of us would think that a beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn.” In other words, he diminished climate change to a triviality.
But Huckabee’s wavering positions on climate change are interesting in that they track the Republican Party’s rightward move in the last decade. At a conference in 2007,
, “One thing that all of us have a responsibility to do is recognize that climate change is here, it’s real. That what we have to do is quit pointing fingers as to who’s at fault and recognize that it’s all our fault and it’s all our responsibility to fix it. I also support cap and trade of carbon emissions. And I was disappointed that the Senate rejected a carbon counting system to measure the sources of emissions, because that would have been the first and the most important step toward implementing true cap and trade.”
That wasn’t his position just a few years later. In 2010, he denied he had ever supported cap and trade, even though it’s. According to NPR, Huckabee wrote a Facebook post in 2013 claiming that climate change predictions had proved inaccurate. That post has now disappeared.
===
huffpo
Mike Huckabee, Jim Inhofe Give How-To On Denying Climate Change Without Any Concern For Facts
Posted: 08/19/2013
The Senate's most prominent climate change skeptic, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), called in to Mike Huckabee's radio show on Monday to discuss conspiracy theories on global warming and the Obama administration's plans to deal with it.
In the segment, both Inhofe and Huckabee accuse the Obama administration and Organizing for Action -- the nonprofit created out of the Obama campaign to stump for the president's agenda -- of violating federal law in their push to combat climate change. Inhofe has called for an investigation into whether the administration is coordinating with OFA on political activities in violation of the Hatch Act. He claims that because the Environmental Protection Agency is working on climate rules and OFA is working to promote climate action, there must be some manner of illegal interaction.
Last week OFA delivered "Climate Denier Awards" in the shape of unicorns to members of Congress. Inhofe was on the list.
The senator's appearance on Huckabee's show was mostly a chance for him to rehash bad science on global warming, including claims such as:
- "We go through these 30-year cycles." (The planet doesn't warm on its own; something has to force it, and scientists have found that the current warming is being driven by the build-up of human-produced greenhouse gases.)
- "We went into a leveling-out period about eight years ago." (Nope. Sorry.)
- "You have to have CO2. It's a form of fertilizer to grow things. It's actually sought after in many cases." (There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.)
Huckabee also threw in a few of his own theories:
- "When I was in college, all the literature at that time from the scientific community said that we were going to freeze to death." (No, it didn't.)
- "The volcano that erupted over in Northern Europe actually poured more CO2 into the air in that single act of nature than all of humans have in something like the past 100 years." (Even when it was erupting, the European aviation industry's emissions alone dwarfed the volcano's daily emissions.)
Back when he was running in the 2007 Republican presidential primary, Huckabee was much more open to the idea that climate change was an issue that needed to be addressed. He supported a cap-and-trade plan to cut emissions before flipping his position a few years later.
==
==
Mike Huckabee is the only Fox candidate with a regularly
scheduled show, the weekend talker Huckabee. Huckabee's
show has always been closely tied to his political
machine: the show was first announced in a statement
posted on his political action committee and, according
to the New York Post (via Nexis), "not, as is customary,
from the network."
Since then, Huckabee has unsurprisingly used his program
to position himself for a potential political run. The
former Arkansas governor has used Fox News' airwaves to
grow his PAC and email lists directly (he touted the
address of an email catcher website run by his PAC) and
indirectly, through regular solicitations to give
"feedback" to MikeHuckabee.com, which conveniently links
to his PAC and an email signup page. Huckabee has also
used his program's guest list as an extension of his
PAC.
But why wouldn't Huckabee run? Again, Fox News'
influence comes into play.
In November 2009, Huckabee remarked on Fox News Sunday
that if he doesn't run for president, it's because "this
Fox gig I got right now" is "really, really wonderful."
Last month, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote
that there's "growing buzz" that Huckabee "may not run
because he's got a big new contract with Fox News in the
works" (a Huckabee aide responded that there were no Fox
talks). Financial considerations could also come into
play for Palin, who reportedly makes $1 million a year
with Fox News.
According to Politico, Fox "indicated that once any of
the candidates declares for the presidency he or she
will have to sever the deal with the network." ABC's
George Stephanopoulos noted that the Fox candidates may
actually delay their announcements to reap the benefits
of the Fox cocoon for as long as possible. Reporter
Claire Shipman replied that Fox's "very healthy
platform" allows the Fox candidates to keep visible
without spending money early.
The potential delay of their "official" announcements
means that the Fox candidates can also compile staff and
resources while still cashing a paycheck.
Huckabee, Palin and Gingrich have Fox-promoted groups
ready to convert to campaign mode if each chooses to
run. Santorum has already hired a staff member (for his
PAC) in the important primary state of New Hampshire
and, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader, is
"expected to formally" announce "in the spring." And
Bolton is reportedly "very serious about a presidential
bid and has begun to speak with potential staff."
During this non-"official" period, the Fox candidates
can also cite their Fox contract as a reason to decline
appearances on other news organizations who may offer a
tougher environment than Fox (a low bar). Indeed,
Politico reported that "C-SPAN Political Editor Steve
Scully said that when C-SPAN tried to have Palin on for
an interview, he was told he had to first get Fox's
permission -- which the network, citing her contract,
ultimately denied. Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and
MSNBC all report similar experiences."
Fox's 2012 situation has a parallel in something that
happened in the 2010 midterms with former Fox News host
and contributor John Kasich.
After leaving Congress in 2001, Kasich openly considered
running for higher public office and joined Fox News to
keep himself in public view. A former Kasich pollster
told the Columbus Dispatch in 2002 that Kasich was
"leaving himself in a position so that if something
happens, he is as well-situated as somebody else."
On March 27, 2008, the Dispatch reported that Kasich
announced "he is paving the way now for a gubernatorial
bid" and quoted Kasich stating: "I'm going to go forward
even more aggressively, and we're going to continue to
ramp it up (for a gubernatorial run)." But Fox News
didn't take him off the air -- presumably because he
still hadn't "officially" announced his candidacy -- and
by the time he formally announced his bid on June 1,
2009, Kasich had logged more than 100 Fox News segments
as a guest host or contributor.
In a column last November, Condi vs. Hillary: The Next
Great Presidential Race author Dick Morris wrote that
the "GOP primaries of 12 will be held on Fox News. ...
we will see all the candidates on Fox News. Not just in
debates, but in frequent appearances on the opinion and
news shows on the network." For once, it seems Morris is
right.
January 07, 2011