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Obama Quotes Alinsky, is Heckled in Israel; Huckabee Says Palestinians Don’t Want Peace

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Photo Credit: AP

Obama Heckled in Israel

By Susan Crabtree. President Obama was heckled Thursday during a speech to an audience that included scores of university students in Jerusalem.

About 15 minutes into his remarks, a man standing in the crowd started shouting in Hebrew. Citing a reliable Hebrew speaker, the White House pool reporter said the shouting was about Jonathan Pollard, an American who was found guilty of spying for Israel and is serving a life sentence for the crime.

Mr. Obama took the interruption in stride.

“This is part of the lively debate we talked about,” he said. “This is good.”

As the shouting continued, Mr. Obama added: “You know, I have to say, we actually arranged for that because it made me feel at home. You know, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least one heckler.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Huckabee to Obama: Palestinians Have ‘Zero Interest’ in Mideast Peace

By Jim Meyers. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Newsmax that President Obama won’t succeed in restarting peace talks in the Middle East because the Palestinians have “zero interest” in negotiations.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate also says the administration’s dealings with Mohammed Morsi and Egypt are “foreign policy gone wild,” and warns that the United States will be viewed as a “toothless tiger” if Obama doesn’t respond as promised to the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Huckabee is now the host of “The Mike Huckabee Show,” broadcast on 227 radio stations in 48 states, and a Fox News contributor. His latest book is “Dear Chandler, Dear Scarlett: A Grandfather’s Thoughts on Faith, Family and the Things That Matter Most.”

President Obama is making his first official trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories this week. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Huckabee was asked if Obama will be able to get the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Quotes Alinsky In Speech To Young Israelis

By Aaron Klein. In his address in Jerusalem today, President Obama channeled Saul Alinsky, citing the radical community organizer’s defining mantra as he urged young Israelis to “create change” to nudge their leadership to act.

Obama told a crowd of college students at Jerusalem’s main convention center that Israel “has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be.”

One of Alinsky’s major themes was working with the world as it “is” to turn it into the world as “it should be.” In his defining work, “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to “the first rebel,” Lucifer, Alinsky used those words to lay out his main agenda. He asserted radical change must be brought about by working within a system instead of attacking it from the outside.

“It is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system,” wrote Alinsky.

Obama related his Alinsky quote to a suggestion that “peace” begins with the people and not just the leadership – a statement some may relate to community organizing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Huckabee 2016: ‘The Honest Answer Is Maybe’

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Photo Credit: KUTVHe was Mitt Romney’s political rival in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. Like Romney, Mike Huckabee lost, but he gained an undeniably strong presence on radio and television.

Huckabee also picked up—among some people—a sense of being anti-Mormon.

“It really hurts me to hear that,” said Huckabee, in an exclusive interview with 2News Thursday. “Anybody who knows me knows the respect I have for the Mormon Church is extraordinary, because there has been moral clarity from the Mormon Church on such issues as Prop 8 in California, and pro-life issues.”

The former Baptist minister, former Governor of Arkansas, was in Salt Lake to speak at a convention for a company known as Express Employment Professionals at the Grand America. He also did his daily radio show from Salt Lake, a program aired on nearly 200 stations around the country.

“So this notion that I am somehow anti-Mormon is absolutely not true, never has been,” said Huckabee, who counts former Utah governors Mike Leavitt and John Huntsman—both LDS—as friends. Huckabee said he supported and campaigned “all over the country” for Romney in 2012, and thought Romney would win.

Romney’s political career seems over, but Huckabee said he might make another run for the White House, as soon as 2016. “I’m not ruling it out. The honest answer is maybe,” he told 2News. “I know a little bit of the depth of the water I’d be diving into, so I’ve got to make that decision very carefully and prayerfully.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mike Huckabee Speaks On The Future Of Conservatism

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Photo Credit:Taylor Baucom Former Arkansas governor, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate and current talk show host Mike Huckabee spoke on campus about his views on conservatism in America.

Mike Huckabee knew plenty of people at Syracuse University would disagree with his views. Yet the well-known conservative figure said that’s the reason he enjoyed speaking not just here, but at all college campuses.

At a past visit to Cornell University, where his hosts said 100 students were against his visit, Huckabee recalled asking to be dropped off in front of the protestors. Much to their surprise, Huckabee thanked them for reminding him why he loves America, and felt the same way when visiting S.U.

“We don’t learn much when the only people we ever talk to are the people we agree with,” Huckabee said, “We learn something when we talk to the people with whom we think we have nothing in common.”

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, 2008 candidate for the republican presidential nomination, and current host of the Sunday talk show “Huckabee” on Fox News, made this a major part of his message for the S.U. campus. Speaking and taking questions about “The Future of Conservatism” on Feb. 7 in an event organized by the SU College Republicans, he stressed while conservatives today should retain their core values, both sides must focus more on solving problems than disagreeing.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Tampa Convention: Huckabee hits it out of the park (+video)

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

I was so very honored to be asked to address one of this week’s themes, “We Can Do Better.” Then I was backstage and I heard some folks say that after hearing me speak, the delegates are going to say, “We sure can do better than Huckabee.” And that’s when they will unanimously nominate Mitt Romney to be the next president of the United States of America.

I want to say that Tampa has been a wonderful and hospitable city. And I’m grateful for all that they’ve done for us. But the only hitch in an otherwise perfect week, was the awful noise coming from the hotel room next door to mine. Turns out it was just Debbie Wasserman Schultz, practicing her speech for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next week. Bless her heart.

Four years ago, Mitt Romney and I were opponents. We still are, but we’re not opposing each other. No, we are mutual opponents of the miserably failed experiments that have put this country in a downward spiral. The United States of America was originally an experiment. But it was an experiment in recognizing God-given individual liberty and creating a government in which we no one is deemed better than another. And in which all of us are equal. Not equal in abilities, but equal in intrinsic worth and value. It is the essence, not just of who we are, but what we are. Now let me just say to those who question how once rivals can be now united, it’s quite simple, we have Barack Obama to thank.

It was Barack Obama who said, “You didn’t build it.” Translation, “It doesn’t belong to you.” Well no small differences among us in our party approximate the vast differences between the liberty limiting, radical left wing, anti-business, reckless spending, tax hiking party of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, versus an energized America who knows we can do better.

For four years, we’ve given a chance to a man with very limited experience in governing, no experience in business whatsoever and since taking office, mostly interested in campaigning, blaming and aiming excuses at his predecessor, the Republicans and people in business. Or as Republicans like to call them, “employers.” We’ve stagnated into an economy that has taken all that hope right down the slope and has left millions without jobs.

Forced out of their homes by foreclosure. Herded into dependency upon a government that promises us candy, but gives us cavities. Barack Obama seems intent on enrolling more people on food-stamps. Mitt Romney’s focus is going to be on generating more jobs that will make food-stamps unnecessary for them. We know full well, we can do better.

Read more from this story and see the video HERE.

Video: Huckabee’s speech at the 2012 GOP Tampa Convention

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Governor Mike Huckabee hits it out of the park with his address to the GOP convention in Tampa Wednesday night. He slams Obama, takes a swipe at Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and tells attendees that he could care less that Romney is a Mormon:

GOP Tampa Convention: Huckabee hits it out of the park-Page 2

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See the video of Huckabee’s speech at the 2012 GOP Tampa Convention HERE.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Mitt Romney turned around companies that were on the skids. He turned around a scandal-ridden Olympics that was deep in the red into a high point of profit and patriotic pride. And he turned around a very liberal state when he erased the deficit and replaced it with a surplus. Do you remember when Barack Obama said that if he couldn’t turn things around in three years, it would be a one term proposition?

Well it’s been almost four years. I say let’s make him a proposition he can’t refuse. Let’s vote him out. I understand that the job of the president is admittedly tougher than running a company, an Olympic contest or a commonwealth. But when one sees what even Bill Clinton noted as a sterling record of problem-solving that has marked the life of Mitt Romney, we are confident that we will do better.

I am thrilled to say Mitt Romney has been loyal to his lovely wife who knocked it out of the park last night in this arena.

He’s been loyal to his sons, to his country, to his employees and to his church. Well I’m sure now that the press is going to tell you he isn’t perfect. Now my friends for the past four years, we’ve tried the one that the press thought was perfect and that hasn’t worked out all that well for us.

That’s why tonight I tell you, we can do better. Our founding fathers left taxation and tyranny seeking religious liberty and a society of meritocracy rather than aristocracy. What they created was a bold experiment in government believing that God gave us unalienable rights. And that the role of the government is simply to make sure that those rights are protected. So fearful were they that the government would grow beyond their intention, that even after crafting our magnificent Constitution, they said, we can do even better. They added amendments. We call them The Bill of Rights. Those Bill of Rights limit what the government can do and they guarantee what we, the people have the unimpeded right to do. Whether to speak, assemble, worship, pray, publish, or even refuse intrusions into our homes. Many of those founders died to pass on that heritage. They had lived under the boot of big government And what they said was, we can do better.

As a kid growing up in a household, my dad never finished high school. I grew up in a family in which no male upstream from me had ever finished high school, much less gone to college. But I was taught that even though there was nothing I could do about what was behind me, I could change everything about what was in front of me. My working poor parents told me that I could do better. They taught me that I was as good as anybody else. And it never occurred to them to tell me that I could just rest comfortably and wait for good old Uncle Sugar to feed me, lead me and then bleed me.

Read the next page of Gov. Huckabee’s speech HERE.

GOP Tampa Convention: Huckabee hits it out of the park-Page 3

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

They told me to get off my backside, work hard, take risks and treat people honestly and honorably. And look at me today. I have become as the press like to label me, a failed candidate. Oh, it’s true. I have fallen from the high perch of politics and now I wallow in the mud of the media. But I still know that as a country, we can do better. And with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, we will do better.

I want to clear the air about something that has been said. People wonder whether guys like me, an evangelical, would only support a fellow evangelical? Well my friends I want to tell you something, of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama. And he supports changing the definition of marriage. Believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the wound, even beyond the womb. And he tells people of faith that they have to bow their knees to the God of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls, health care. Friends I know we can do better.

Let me say it as clearly as possible, that the attack on my Catholic brothers and sisters is an attack on me. The Democrats have brought back that old dance, the limbo. To see how low they can go in attempting to limit our ability to practice our faith. But this isn’t a battle about contraceptives and Catholics, but about conscience and the Creator. Let me say to you tonight, I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church, than I do about where he takes this country.

Joe Biden said, “Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.” Well in the Senate Joe’s party hasn’t produced a budget in three years. What does that say about their values? And by the way, speaking of budgets, Joe Biden’s budget shows that while he wants to be very generous with your money through higher taxes and government spending, for years he gave less than two-tenths of one percent of his own money to charity. He just wants you to give the government more so he and the Democrats can feel better about themselves. Mitt Romney has given over 16 percent of his income to church and charity.

And my friend, I feel a lot better about having a president who will give generously of his own money instead of mine or yours.

My concern is not Barack Obama’s past, but my concern is for the future. Not his future, but for the future of my grandchildren, little Chandler and Scarlet. And under this president we have burdened each of them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and a system that will collapse upon itself because he thinks that we can prosper by punishing productivity and rewarding reckless irresponsibility. The Democrats say we ought to give Barack Obama credit for trying. Folks that sounds like the nonsense of giving every kid a trophy for showing up.

Read the last page of Governor Huckabee’s speech HERE.

GOP Tampa Convention: Huckabee hits it out of the park-Page 4

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Let’s be clear, we’re talking about leading the country. Not playing on a third grade soccer team. Look, I realize this is a man who got a Nobel Peace Prize for what he would potentially do. But in the real world, you get the prize for producing something, not just promising something.

Sometimes we get so close to the picture, we really can’t see it clearly. I’ve had the privilege of working with Bono for the past few years in the One Campaign to fight AIDS and hunger and disease around the world. Bono is an Irishman and a great humanitarian. And I remember him telling me of his admiration for America. He said, “America’s more than just a country. We are an idea.” And he reminded me that we are an exceptional nation with an extraordinary history who owes it to the generations who are coming after us to leave them with an extraordinary legacy. But if we don’t change the direction of our nation now, our bequest will be nothing but an extraordinary shame. But dear friends, we can do better.

President Obama is out of gas and Americans are out of patience. And our great republic is almost out of time. It’s time that we no longer lead from behind, but that we get off our behinds and leave something lasting for those who came after us instead of a mountain of debt and a pile of excuses. Tonight, it’s not because we’re Republicans, it’s because we are Americans that we proudly stand with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we say, “We will do better.” God bless you. Thank you. God bless.

See the video of Huckabee’s speech at the 2012 GOP Tampa Convention HERE.

Huckabee is right to condemn GOP for leaving wounded on battlefield

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As a former Navy enlisted man, West Point graduate, and former Army officer, I appreciate what Governor Mike Huckabee wrote to his supporters this past week. Military men never leave their wounded on the battlefield. And that is what has happened with the embattled Congressman Todd Akin, running for a Senate seat against Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

The Republican establishment joined the Democrat Party and the media in relentless attacks over Congressman Akin’s misstatement about abortion and rape during the past few days.

As Governor Huckabee wrote, Congressman Akin has apologized for his inappropriate remarks and he has resoundingly rejected what he said. He is guilty only of wanting to see every living being protected. However, many of the establishment in the Republican Party, who do not agree with his pro-life views, joined the Democrat firing squad against the congressman.

Democrats never form circular firing squads when one of their own, such as Bill Clinton, make mistakes. The Republican establishment, on the other hand, gladly form such firing squads against their own elected officials when they are frightened. This needs to stop. Indeed, an apology is owed by many of them to this distinguished Member of Congress, Todd Akin.

[To see the email which former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wrote to his supporters on August 23, 2012, click HERE.]

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Jim Backlin, is a former Reagan administration official and congressional chief of staff after a career in business. A West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, Jim is chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition of America.

Huckabee today compares GOP Senatorial Committee to “union goons” who “kneecap” their enemies

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Mike Huckabee participated in a conference call Friday night with hundreds of Baptist pastors and Christian talk radio hosts in Missouri that was organized to coordinate a robust defense of Rep. Todd Akin as he faces pressure from Washington Republicans to drop his Senate bid against Democrat Claire McCaskill. Akin told reporters in St. Louis today that he would not quit the race.

Speaking harshly about establishment Republicans who have tried to force Akin from the Missouri race, Huckabee at one point compared the National Republican Senatorial Committee to “union goons” who “kneecap” their enemies.

The former Arkansas governor said party bosses were “opening up rounds and rounds” of ammunition on Akin and “then running over with tanks and trucks and leaving him to be ravaged by the other side.”

“This is unprecedented, to see to this orchestrated attempt to humiliate and devastate a fellow Republican,” Huckabee said of Akin, who has deep ties to the Christian conservative movement. Akin spent Thursday in Florida meeting with evangelical leaders and evaluating his political future.

Huckabee said he spoke directly with NRSC officials this week and was assured that they would begin to dial back their offensive against Akin. He said party officials specifically told him they would stop pressuring Akin’s consultants and campaign vendors to drop the congressman as a client.

Read more from this story HERE.