The Hugh Hewitt Show

…my mind keeps returning to the abducted Assyrian Christians that I wrote about Thursday.   The good news is, in what looks like the first humanitarian act by ISIS to date, some are reporting that a few of the abductees are to be released.

CPAC, Club for Growth – the race for the GOP nomination in 2016 is now in full swing and Scott Walker seems to be the pretty clear frontrunner at this early and premature moment.  When I sat down to write this post I collected roughly a dozen pieces to demonstrate how well Walker is doing and how afraid of him the left seems to be.  (It is really not surprising.  I was told by an RNC operative in December that if Walker got in people would line up to support him very quickly.)  But as I was reading through piece after piece on CPAC, one small piece by Cortney O’Brien on Townhall caught my eye:

Bakers are being forced to bake wedding cakes for gay couples, students are being punished for speaking up for their faith in schools and our soldiers are even being denied the opportunity to read their bibles. Is the kind of freedom loving culture our Founding Fathers envisioned?

Cal Thomas, who moderated the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Saturday morning panel entitled “Religious Freedom in America: Would the Pilgrims Still Be Welcome Here?,” greeted the crowd as “fundamental bigots.” Why? Because that’s how the media often refers to anyone who believes in religious freedom, he explained. Included on the panel were radio host Dana Loesch, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Representative Randy Neugebauer (TX-19).

Thomas asked the panelists to pinpoint the biggest threats to religious freedom.

Continue Reading

Off to D.C. tonight after the show for a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press.  Taking with me galleys of C. J. Box’s Endangered and of Guy P. Benson’s and Mary Katharine Ham’s End of Discussion to pass the red eye hours.

Tune in Sunday morning as Chuck Todd will be quizzing Dr. Ben Carson and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.  And if you are here because of seeing the program, the links to the key interviews of this week including Jeb Bush and Donald Trump are all here.  Here is the link to Friday’s interview with LDS Elder Jeffrey Holland.

Meet The Press host Chuck Todd joined me for his regular Friday spot and we talked through what CPAC has shown (and not shown) about the state of the GOP race for the 2016 nomination:

Audio:

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transcript:

HH: Of course, it is bitterly cold in the nation’s capital, so of course Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet The Press has invited me back to the panel this weekend. Chuck, good to have you on, thank you for the invitation, I understand bring a sweater.

CT: Yeah, well, it’s a little bit chilly. It’s a little bit chilly, and the politics here is getting chillier and chillier, so you know…

HH: Oh, I’m going to talk about Homeland Security in a second, but first, I’ve got to ask you about the big story of the day. Is the dress white and gold or is it black and blue?

CT: Okay, so I saw it as blue and gold. I didn’t see, I thought it was blue and gold. I didn’t see the blue and black aspect of it. But I thought it was blue and gold. It’s funny, we broke down in the Meet the Press shop, we broke down along gender lines on that. The women saw it as white and gold. Continue Reading

United States Senator Lindsey Graham joined me on Friday’s show to talk about the spreading menace of the Islamic State and Iran’s path to near-nuclear status:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: I’m joined now by United States Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham, great to have you back, welcome.

LG: I did not know Leonard Nimoy died until you just mentioned that.

HH: Yes, he did. He slipped the mortal coil today, and the blue and the gold today is for the Star Trek colors. He was 83 years old. He had a great life. Were you a Trekker?

JG: Yeah, I mean, anybody our age grew up with the show. Yeah, absolutely.

HH: Yeah, he’s part of the cultural furniture, you betcha. Senator, well, so is the white and gold versus blue and black dress. Have you had a chance to look at that, yet?

JG: No, I missed that one. You can’t be everything to everybody, so I’m trying not to be. Continue Reading