The Huckster Returns

With Trump now the presumptive nominee, his former opponents have of course been on his side against the Republican establishment since the beginning, right?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said in a radio interview on Friday that establishment Republicans should be happy that they are not being executed by angry voters.

“Who made it possible for Obama to have the Iranian deal, full funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood funding? Republicans did that,” Huckabee, a Trump surrogate, said on the Sean Hannity Show.

“And they’re getting what they justly deserve, they’re getting spanked,” he continued. “And they need to be happy they’re only getting spanked and not executed because there is seething rage out in country for those who have fought to help some of these guys get elected. And they get there and they surrendered to Obama and people are sick of it. And I think that’s why we’ve seen the spirit of this election, and frankly Donald Trump gives me great comfort. I tell people, ‘I don’t have any hesitation going out there and genuinely supporting Donald Trump.’”

Now you can say Huckabee realized early on that Trump was going to win, backing The Donald well before he packed his own campaign in, appearing at Trump events as early as January, taking on the role of Trump surrogate.

The problem is of course that The Huckster's not a very good surrogate.

KELLY: When did he repeatedly disavow the Klan?

HUCKABEE: Well, he did it in his Twitter account. He did it on Friday --

KELLY: The Klan or David Duke?

HUCKABEE: Well, both. And I don't know of anybody who has ever suggested that Donald Trump is a racist. I'm not speaking as somebody who's out there advocating for Trump. I just want to say that I just don't think that Donald Trump has given any indication that he's supportive of the Ku Klux Klan. My gosh, who would be? --

KELLY: None except in that interview, is what his critics say. None except in that interview, is what his critics say. Because it was so strange that he would say on Friday, "I disavow David Duke," and then when specifically asked on Sunday, act like he didn't know who David Duke was.

HUCKABEE: You know, I can't answer that. You know, I really can't. You'll have to ask Donald Trump because I haven't talked to him about it. But the fact is --

KELLY: How do you explain that? What his critics say is the explanation is he heard very well and he was trying to give some sort of a dog whistle to people in the South who don't want to hear David Duke disavowed. That's what Mitt Romney is suggesting right there.

HUCKABEE: Sure. Mitt Romney wasn't on the ear piece. Neither was Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. And I wasn't either.

KELLY: But Trump heard, Trump heard David Duke in that ear piece. You know that. Because he repeated back David Duke to Jake Tapper.

HUCKABEE: Yeah. Look, here's the one thing I think is important. Is Donald Trump a racist? I don't think he is. Does Donald Trump support the KKK? Heavens no. I don't think anybody seriously is suggesting that he is giving a wink and a nod at the KKK. They're a deplorable, disgusting, abominable entity. Sometimes I'm amazed that they even still exist. I just don't know of anybody who embraces them anymore except a handful of crazy people.

KELLY: The very point you're making, that it's such a no-brainer, is what makes his response to Jake Tapper so confusing to many.

Of course, now we know that there's plenty of support among white supremacist groups like the KKK for Don The Con.  And Huckabee has backed him for months anyway.

Remember, the GOP establishment is "the enemy" because they haven't stopped the first black president.

Cleveland is going to be mighty fun in a few weeks, huh?

Jailhouse Rockhead

Judge David Bunning has released Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from jail for contempt with the instructions that she no longer interfere with her deputy secretaries in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Guess who's bad at instructions?

Just minutes after a judge ordered Kim Davis released from jail on Tuesday, her lawyers told CNN that she would violate a court order by forcing her clerks to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

An order from U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning said on Tuesday that Davis would be released after serving six days in jail on the condition that she “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.”

CNN correspondent Martin Savidge, who was at the jail, explained following the order that her attorney, Harry Mihet, said that the judge had ordered the release because her office had satisfied the court by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she was behind bars.

“The problem here is that the attorney says she has not changed her mind, that Kim Davis is adamant that as long as her name appears on those marriage licenses, she objects and she will attempt to stop those licenses from being distributed,” Savidge reported. “Which means if she goes back on the job as is expected, she will bring the process to a halt. That’s what her attorneys believe.”

“They have said they expect her to go by her conscience which means we may go through this all again,” the CNN correspondent noted.

If that actually happens, well, we'll find out pretty soon should Davis burst forth from her office like the evil Kool-Aid Man and tackle the next same-sex couple that comes in the door.

Which necessitates the question being asked: if it's so obvious to Davis's lawyers that she'll violate the court order, how did she get released in the first place?

Won't last long, I'm thinking.

Meanwhile both Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz showed up at the County jail, and Huckabee especially went on with dangerous rhetoric about openly defying the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage.

"We do not want this country to become the smoldering remains of what was once a great republic, where the people rule," the former Arkansas governor told the crowd. That vision of America should not be "exchanged for a place where five unelected lawyers think that they can rule," he said.

"We're here to say, 'No, they cannot,'" Huckabee declared.

Once again, Republican running for President openly saying that Supreme Court rulings he doesn't like are simply invalid.  Somehow, it's  Democrats who are the extremists.  Probably something about Black Lives Matter, I'm sure.

Nodding to the separation of powers and "the genius of our Constitution," Huckabee told Davis supporters on Tuesday that the Supreme Court's power is "limited" and that it "can only review a law." Reasonably true.

But then came his warning that "the founders never gave that one branch of government the power to make a law."

Huckabee added, "That is reserved for the representatives of the people. Our founders were so concerned that they said that should we ever come to the place that we allow a court to run amok of its purpose, then we would be living under what is no less than judicial tyranny."

That's not how it works, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter over what is Constitutional or not, and they have found that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.  What Huckabee is proposing, that the Executive Branch can simply ignore the Judicial Branch, is actual tyranny.

And yet, he's still considered a serious candidate for the GOP nomination rather than a dangerous lunatic.

Spoilers: he's not alone in this view, either.

The Huckster Hucks Up Big TIme

The best part of Donald Trump's continued rise in the GOP polls (by showing America just how terrible the GOP base is when they respond positively to him) is that the rest of the pack wants in on the action too.  Behold, Mike Huckabee on the Iran deal:

Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee blasted President Barack Obama on Saturday over the nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers, saying that by trusting the Iranians, the president "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven."

Nothing is out of bounds anymore.  Everything is permitted.

In an interview with Breitbart, the 59-year-old conservative television personality called Obama's foreign policy "the most feckless in American history" and dubbed the Iran deal "the most idiotic thing." "It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people," he said.

Huckabee entered the race for his party's 2016 presidential nomination last May, vowing strong U.S. support for Israel and declaring "Hell will freeze over" before Iran gets a nuclear weapon.

In Saturday's interview, Huckabee urged the GOP presidential hopefuls to simplify their message to the American people, and focus on "conservatism, limited government, more local government, lower taxes, and less regulation to people who sweat through their clothes every day and have to lift heavy things to make a living.”

Watch Huckabee's number rise sharply.  Watch the rest of the pack keep reminding America just what the GOP stands for in 2015.  He won't pay a price for accusing a sitting President of another Jewish Holocaust.  He will only benefit, because Republicans are awful, awful people.

Suddenly Republicans Want The Power Of Executive Orders Again

With the Supreme Court expected to issue a ruling on same-sex marriage in the next several days, the reactionary right-wing GOP 2016 candidates like Mike Huckabee are looking to reverse everything President Obama has done on same-sex marriage at the federal level.

He said that if elected president, he would simply ignore any Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality until Congress passed legislation legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide…which he would then veto.

“Until the Congress of the United States puts on my desk a bill that basically defies the laws of Nature and Nature’s God and defies the longstanding tradition of marriage, the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriage because there is no law that requires it and that would be true for the military and it would be true for all federal institutions,” Huckabee said. “If the Congress decides that they want to pass enabling legislation, they could put it on my desk and I would veto it, and they can attempt to override it. That’s the process.”

Huckabee said that even his detractors should sympathize with his anti-gay-marriage stance: “If liberals were subjected to a conservative court that forced them to tithe their income to scripture or forced them to go to church or forced them to believe something that they don’t want to believe, they would say, ‘We can’t do that, that would go against our conscience.’ And I would say, ‘You are exactly right and we can’t have such a ruling. This is why I find this very unsettling is because liberals will rue the day when the sword they use to enact their agenda is the sword of the court rather than to do it by way of the people’s elected representatives.”

Understand that any Republican candidate in 2016 is going to be under tremendous pressure to do this on day one.  Huckabee will brag about being willing to do it, and the bigoted Republican base will demand it from anyone they nominate.

Democrats are running in 2016 to make America a better place.  Republicans are running to punish liberals and the people who voted for Obama.

But tell me again how there's no difference in the two parties, and that you will make things better by not voting.

Last Call For Ugly Duggars

The Duggar family, stars of "19 Kids And Counting", recently taken off the air by TLC after admitted sexual abuse of some of his own sisters by oldest son Josh Duggar, have a lot of allies in their home state of Arkansas. Former GOP governor and 2016 candidate Mike Huckabee defended Josh's sexual abuse last week, calling it "inexcusable but not unforgivable".

Since the GOP's large pro-child molester base wants somebody to pay who's not Josh Duggar, that somebody looks like it will be the police chief who complied with the Freedom of Information request for Josh's record.

A state senator from Northwest Arkansas is calling for the Springdale police chief to be fired over the recent release of a 2006 police report detailing accusations that Josh Duggar as a teenager molested five underage girls.

Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said the girls have been re-victimized now that the report is public. He said Police Chief Kathy O’Kelley acted recklessly in releasing the report and should be held accountable.

“The law to protect minors’ identities is not a suggestion,” Hester, pictured, said Saturday (May 23). “So sad to see the person charged with protecting the community being so reckless and irresponsible. I believe it is unavoidable that the Springdale police chief should be terminated. She has re-victimized these young ladies.”

Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said O’Kelley and Springdale City Attorney Ernest Cate determined after researching the matter that the report had to be released under law.

“From every indication I have the chief and city attorney reluctantly did what they had to do to comply with the state FOI (freedom of information) law,” Sprouse said Saturday (May 23).

The Springdale police report was obtained by In Touch Weekly magazine and posted on the magazine’s website this week. The names are redacted in the report. On May 21, Washington County Juvenile Judge Stacey Zimmerman issued a court order that the police report be destroyed and expunged from the public record.

So, to recap, following the law should cost Chief O'Kelley her job, but not following the law should not cost Judge Zimmerman her job.

Oh, but Chief O'Kelley was going to retire at the end of the month anyway.  If she's fired however, she gets no pension.  That's the real issue: punishing her, but not Josh child rapist Dugger.

That's how Republicans roll.

Onward Christian Tin Soldiers

A group of far-right Republican "Christians" plan to martyr themselves by being mean to gay people.

No really, that's the plan.

“We will not obey.” 

That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage. 

“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.” 

“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states…. 

“Yes, I’m talking about civil disobedience,” Staver said. “I’m talking about resistance and I’m talking about peaceful resistance against unjust laws and unjust rulings.” 

That’s quite a shocking statement. So I asked Mr. Staver to clarify his remarks. 

“I’m calling for people to not recognize the legitimacy of that ruling because it’s not grounded in the Rule of Law,” he told me. “They need to resist that ruling in every way possible. In a peaceful way - they need to resist it as much as Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted unjust laws in his time.”

So I guess this means they're going to what, disobey a Supreme Court order?  We'll see how far that gets. 

In all seriousness however, there remain a number of states where firing someone for being gay is 100% legal, so I guess they'll encourage that, I guess?  That should look really good on TV, a national pogrom against the LGBT community.  I'm sure that will persuade Americans to join them, right?

Good luck with that, bigots.  Bonus points for completely co-opting Dr. King's message of tolerance.
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Not Fitting The Narrative

Apparently the whole CLINTON E-MAIL SCANDAL isn't something that the "liberal media" has been screaming about enough, because the latest CNN poll finds Hillary Clinton handily beating all GOP challengers by double digits in a 2016 matchup.

Hillary Clinton continues to be a dominant force heading into the 2016 presidential election, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The former secretary of state maintains a broad lead over the field of potential Democratic challengers she could face in a nomination contest and sizable advantages over the leading contenders from the Republican side in general election match-ups. 

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tops the possible field for the Republican Party's nomination race, followed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson all in a tight cluster. 

But none of the top candidates in this field gets within 10 points of Hillary Clinton in a series of hypothetical general election matchups. 

Rand Paul comes closest, with 43% saying they'd be more likely to back him while 54% choose Clinton. 

The two candidates who currently top the GOP field, Bush and Walker, match up equally against Clinton, with each carrying 40% to her 55%. Huckabee gets 41% to Clinton's 55% and Carson has 40% to Clinton's 56%.

Checking out the complete poll info,  Clinton is the only candidate with above 50% favorability rating (53% to 44%) while Jeb Bush is underwater by 16 points (31-47%) and Chris Christie is the least liked candidate in either party at minus 19 (25-44%).

I'm not super thrilled about a Hillary Clinton presidency, but I promise I'd vote for her in a heartbeat against any of these GOP clowns.  Seems many Americans agree with me.

The Huckster Is In

And I get to use The Huckster tag for another two years at least.  Former GOP Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has quit his FOX News show to mull over a run for the Clown Car 2016 ticket.

"I won't make a decision about running until late in the spring of 2015, but the continued chatter has put Fox News into a position that is not fair to them," Huckabee wrote in a letter to supporters Saturday evening released before his show started airing.

"The honorable thing to do at this point is to end my tenure here at Fox so I can openly talk with potential donors and supporters and gauge support," he added....

As Steve M puts it, that places The Huckster in the Jesus Bracket.

I think the GOP would benefit from brackets or division play for 2016. Jesus Division: Huckabee, Carson, Santorum. Establishment Division: Bush, Christie, maybe Romney. Midwest/South Governor Division: Walker, Jindal, maybe Kasich and Pence. Ambitious Fortysomethings Going Through the Motions of Being First-Term Senators So They Can Run for President Division: Cruz, Paul, Rubio. Pick the division champions and then start the playoffs.

That's not going to happen, so the likely survivor of the scrum is going to be whichever top-tier candidate has the fewest similar candidates running in his implicit bracket. It might be Rand Paul -- the Republican financiers seem terrified of his foreign policy ideas, but their response has been to offer money to anyone and everyone who's conventionally neoconservative. (That includes Huckabee, who's a Christian Zionist and has won Sheldon Adelson's Defender of Israel award.) But that means the pro-neocon vote will be split so many different ways that Paul might actually benefit from being out of step.

On the other hand, Jeb Bush might be the guy without competition -- maybe he'll get just enough votes by being out of step on immigration and education (there are still some moderate Republicans, after all) that he'll take the nomination.

Until now, it was looking as if Ben Carson might clear the Jesus field -- the religious right loves him, and he's a fresher face than Santorum -- which could have made him the last guy standing in addition to the front-runner. But Huckabee is so well liked that he and Carson will compete for votes.

Personally, I think this is going to be the nastiest bracket to watch too...or at least the most entertaining.

[UPDATE] On the other hand, Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice reminds us that the second Huckabee does actually run, his campaign instantly runs into a massive problem from 2009:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on Tuesday defended his decision to commute the prison sentence years ago of the man who allegedly killed four police officers Sunday near Tacoma, Wash., saying the defendant had received an unfairly harsh sentence because he was young and black.

That "cop killer pardon" is what kept him out of 2012, but in 2016 that represents the end of his political career among the GOP primary ghouls. 

The Huckster Emerges, Refuses To "Evolve"

Mike Huckabee came out of political irrelevance Tuesday morning to scream how he'll throw himself into political irrelevance unless the GOP gets busy hating LGBTQ Americans, stat.  Speaking on the American Family Association's daily broadcast, The Huckster demanded that the GOP stop same-sex marriages or else.

Incensed by the decision, Huckabee declared that "I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans who have abdicated on this issue," warning that by doing so the GOP will "guarantee they're going to lose every election in the future."

"Guarantee it," he said before proclaiming that the Republicans are going to "lose guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing, Bible-believing people" if the party does not stand and fight on the issues of gay marriage and abortion.

"I'm gone," Huckabee warned. "I'll become an independent. I'll start finding people that have guts to stand. I'm tired of this."

Oh by all means Huckster, take your wing of the Bigoted Old Party and form a third party, splitting the Republican vote nationally heading into 2016.  Please do that.  I'm all for it.  Put your money where your mouth is and do it already.  Pick up your ball and leave, you bleating simpleton.

I couldn't be happier with that as a Democrat and a liberal.  Make it happen, Mike.

The Huckster Never Changes

Headlines like "Huckabee: Abortion is a winning issue for GOP" will never change, folks.  Neither will the GOP.

Former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee spoke out against abortion on Wednesday, but he said the issue can help Republicans win elections.

“If we teach the generation coming after us that it’s okay to terminate a human life because it represents a financial hardship or social disruption, what are we telling them?” Huckabee said at a gala put on by Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, according to Politico. Huckabee also reportedly suggested that the same justification that is used to terminate a pregnancy could be applied to end-of-life decisions about the elderly.

Liberal abortionists are going to Death Panel(tm) Grandma!  We got 2014 sewn up for sure!

Huckabee – who has hinted that he may run for president in 2016 and who has shown some promise in polls – urged Republicans to focus on abortion during the midterm elections.

“This is not an issue that we should abandon,” he said, according to the Hill, adding that opposing abortion is a way the GOP can “win elections.”

Actually, the only way the GOP wins elections is if Democrats don't show up to the polls.  But the GOP has that covered, too by going after voting laws in 2012 swing states:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) wants a voter ID law in place in his state “before the next election,” even if his state’s supreme court strikes down the specific voter ID law that he signed in 2011. Walker will also be a candidate for reelection in the next election, so he has a personal stake in whether such a law is in place this November. In 2012, numbers guru Nate Silver estimated that a strict voter ID law could “reduce President Obama’s margin against Mitt Romney by a net of 1.2 percentage points.”

Do that in enough swing states, and suddenly they aren't swing states anymore, but red ones.

Early Bird Special

Will the Romney campaign name a Veep earlier rather than later?  Reuters asks the question and finds the Romney camp is considering it, at least.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney acknowledged on Tuesday he is considering naming his choice to serve as vice presidential running mate earlier than usual to better compete with President Barack Obama.

As they work from a short list of leading Republicans, Romney and his advisers say they are weighing whether he should announce his choice some weeks earlier than the traditional time of around the Republican National Convention, which is to be held in Tampa in late August.

The reasoning, advisers say, is that two candidates would be able to raise more money and engage Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in battle with polls showing Americans closely divided on whether to pick the Republican challenger or Democratic incumbent in the November 6 election.

But here's the real reason why naming a Veep before the RNC convention will happen, and soon:

Picking the choice early could also serve to guarantee some positive news coverage at a time when Romney is under fire from Obama over whether he should release more financial information about his wealth.

The offshoring thing is really starting to score hits on Team Romney.  They're on the defensive, and a Veep pick now will get them back on offense and shift the news narrative, at least for a while.

The names I keep hearing now are Mike Huckabee, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Rob Portman, aka The Huckster, Zombie-eyed Granny Starver, and The Most Boring Man On Earth.  My money's on the safe, boring, dull Portman.  Huckabee won't help Romney, and Ryan would hurt him.

We'll see.

The Paranoid Huckster Style

Mike Huckabee really does need to check his water because there's something in it.

Fox News host Mike Huckabee, who is an ordained Southern Baptist Minister, recently warned that President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could force his religion to begin using less water to baptize believers.

During a Tuesday evening interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Huckabee worried that if president could mandate that Catholic institutions’ health insurance cover birth control for women then what would be next?

“It’s becoming increasingly clear to a lot of believers that this administration is not just indifferent to people of faith, it’s hostile,” the Fox News host explained. “And that’s not something I say lightly. I say that with a great burden in my heart to even have uttered the words. But how else can you look at it?”

“If the government can tell the Catholic Church what it must do, how it must practice, what it must do to accommodate the government mandate then the next time the government may say that Baptists can’t — maybe the Baptist won’t be able to immerse because the EPA will determine that’s using too much water,” he added.

How long before the House GOP passes legislation exempting all religious institutions from EPA regulations?  I mean at this point we already have the Conference of Catholic Bishops directing parishioners to go after Democrats.

On Thursday (June 21), Catholics across the country will amplify what is an already loud outcry from the hierarchy over the federal government’s so-called contraception mandate.

With rallies, marches, lectures and special publications, the U.S. Catholic Bishop’s Fortnight for Freedom campaign will seek to galvanize Catholic opposition to President Obama’s proposed mandate to require employers — including religious institutions — to provide free contraception insurance coverage to employees.

But while Catholic leaders frame the events as a fight for religious liberty, critics see signs of political partisanship and electioneering. Questions over the financing of the bishops’ campaign have caused those suspicions to multiply.

“The activities around the Fortnight for Freedom cost money,” said Steve Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington. “What groups are paying for this, and what’s the accountability for that money?”

Those kinds of questions were asked of key Catholic leaders like Baltimore Archbishop William Lori last week as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Atlanta.

Lori, who heads the bishops’ committee on religious liberty, told reporters that gifts “from Catholic groups and foundations” would help sustain the campaign. “The generosity we’ve experienced has been heartening,” he said.

The campaign, Lori said, “is not in any way partisan, either in its spirit or in its funding.”

Sure it's not.  They're just dedicated to the defeat of a sitting President through cynical manipulation of their congregations and taking in millions in order to do it, in direct violation of their tax exempt status because making contraception available to their employees for religiously affiliated institutions that aren't actual churches is intolerable violation of religious freedom.

Technically other religions besides Catholicism being allowed by the US government to exist in the country is violating the religious freedom rights of Catholics under this inane logic.

So glad I'm agnostic these days.  These people are crazy.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Since it's a day that ends in "y", it's got to be Republicans playing the Birther angle.  This time it's Mike Huckabee on Billo's show and naturally the conversation went to how Romney's refusal to release his tax returns is just like the completely made-up tinfoil hat conspiracy about President Obama's "foreign student scholarship".

O'REILLY: Because of the media, the perception is if you don't release [your tax returns], you're trying to hide something. Look, Romney doesn't want his tax returns in the hands of The New York Times because they're going to cherry-pick it and make him look like a greedhead and he doesn't want to give them any more ammo. You know what this is all about.

HUCKABEE: Absolutely. And the thing is you get zero credit from the media for releasing them and then you buy yourselves a lot of grief. The question is, why would you help load a gun that's pointed at your own head?

O'REILLY: Because the people, the folks, most of them, want you to. I think that's the answer to your question.

HUCKABEE: Well, but he has to forcefully tell it why he's not going to, why it's irrelevant, say, "Look, I've disclosed more than I need to." Let him make this challenge: "I'll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student. When he releases that, talk to me about my tax returns."

It's funny that the Huckster complains that Romney wouldn't get "credit" for releasing his tax returns, because that's the exact situation the President is in now, considering he's not only released his birth certificate, but his college records as well.

This is not the first time Huckabee has promoted falsehoods about Obama's background. During a February 2011 radio interview, he repeatedly claimed that Obama had grown up "in Kenya." Huckabee drew heavy criticism for his comments from the media and offered an evolving series of explanations for his comments, eventually blaming Media Matters for bringing his remarks to light and falsely claiming he had been taken out of context.

It would be truly hysterical, if the fate of the country wasn't at stake.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

David Kurtz on T-Paw's departure (emphasis mine):

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty could not survive a poor third-place showing in the Ames straw pool or the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry into the race -- but if those were the immediate causes of his collapse, the root causes had been evident for quite some time: anemic fundraising, a weak campaigner, and a guy who couldn't throw enough red meat to GOP primary voters. 

Theory:  The Tea Party rid the GOP of T-Paw.  They claimed their third head this weekend, the first two being Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels.  They will not be the last.  The survivors are already shifting further to the right.  Whoever's left standing will be so far to the right that they cannot possibly win the general.

If we're going by positions, the next person on the list to go is Romney.  Now that Rick Perry is in the race, the moneyed interests may in fact dump the guy.  I'm not sure.

Sherman, Set The Wayback Machine For September 2001

Mike Huckabee's wacky Harry Turtledove-like alternate American history rewrite cartoons take on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

In a new "history" cartoon aimed at children, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News personality, spins an animated, less-than-nuanced retelling of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., with a distinctly pro-Bush, pro-torture spin.

In his "Learn Our History," the former Republican presidential candidate puts forward a version of 9/11 that depicts America "coming together" in the wake of the attacks and rallying behind their leader's plan to "take down al Qaeda."

It closes with a montage showing alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- who was waterboarded 183 times in a single month -- an image of Osama bin Laden with the word "deceased" superimposed over his FBI profile, and former President George W. Bush telling U.S. first responders at the World Trade Center site that the terrorists would soon be punished.

Huckabee's "Learn Our History" series faced its first controversy after he blasted public schools for allegedly teaching children political bias in history class, only to release an episode which glamorized President Ronald Reagan and his anti-labor economic policies.

"In this important film, the time traveling teenagers learn about America’s heroic response to the tragic events of 9/11," Huckabee's website explains. "They strive to understand why Al-Qaeda attacked us and how the ongoing War on Terror protects Americans at home and American ideals abroad."

Cause you know in the rest of the cartoon Bush heroically captured Khalid Sheik Muhammad with his bullhorn's sonic stun attack in order to get information out of him in the Justice Chair Of Truth, with the assist from Starry The Talking Bald Eagle and Friendly Robot Dick Cheney.  Then once Dubya and Robot Cheney knew where Bin Laden was, they busted in with their Awesome Team Six buddies and Bush knocked out Bin Laden with DUBYA PUNCH(tm).  That whole invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq?  Eh, somebody else was responsible for that, I'm sure.  Probably that black guy.

What, Mike Huckabee has a cartoon time machine, how are you going to beat that with your slimy liberal facts.

Huckabee Or Not To Huckabee, That Is The Question, Part 2

Nope.  I was wrong.  He's not running.  The one guy that actually could have survived the primary and beaten Obama (granted, he had the best chance of the various snowballs in hell) is not going to run after all.

Yay.

Huckabee Or Not To Huckabee, That Is The Question

The Huckster will be announcing whether or not he makes another run at the brass ring tonight on his FOX News show.  Emails sent out suggest he's going to go for it.

Although Huckabee did not tip his hand as to his final decision, an email obtained by Time's Mark Halperin asked his friends: "Please be patient if I don't respond immediately to an email because I expect that once I pull the trigger Saturday night, things will get even crazier, as if that's possible."

The former Arkansas governor frequently leads in national polls of Republican primary voters and, with Haley Barbour not running, would be the only candidate with a strong claim to the Southern voters that form the backbone of the party. Despite being significantly outspent in 2008, he won an upset victory in the Iowa caucuses and won large shares of the vote in a number of other states, including South Carolina.

Huckabee's top advisor, Ed Rollins, told ABC News that he does not believe he Huckabee will enter the race. But he added that "if he announced tomorrow night, on Monday I could push the button and the campaign would start to unfold."

In his e-mail, Huckabee said that he had only come to his final decision, whatever it may be, at the last minute.

LeBron Huckabee?  Really?   He's not fooling anyone of course he's going to run.  All he has to do is keep his mouth shut until the competition self-immolates, and he wins by default.  Of course that won't be hard with Newt Gingrich immediately blowing himself up by calling Obama "the most successful food stamp President ever" competing with Ron Paul for the title of "biggest racist asshole in the Republican Party".  Mitt will get zapped for MassCare, and that pretty much leaves Huckabee by default.

Scary thought, huh?

New tag, The Huckster.