By Mike Huckabee
September 3, 2021
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Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!
Today's newsletter includes:
- Bible Verse of the Day - Job 12:9
- Podcast: My interview with the Navy Seal who killed Osama Bin Laden!
- 9/11: Twin lights had BETTER blaze for 20th anniversary
- Update on the Kabul airport suicide bomber
- Ida death toll rises
- America The Beautiful
- Zero time
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
9 Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
Job 12:9
Podcast: My interview with the Navy Seal who killed Osama Bin Laden!
By Mike Huckabee
As the United States completes its catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, leaving hundreds of Americans and countless Afghan allies behind, Governor Huckabee talks about what this all means for the 20 years spent fighting terror and those we lost doing so, and the safety and security of America moving forward. He continues the discussion with retired Navy SEAL and former special operator Rob O'Neill, (the man who shot and killed Bin Laden!), who weighs in on the frightening state of American military leadership and what that means for American safety from terror today and into the future.
TO LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE, GO HERE>>>
9/11: Twin lights had BETTER blaze for 20th anniversary
By Mike Huckabee
In just over a week, we’ll mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Manhattan’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as on United Airlines Flight 93, a plane that was crashed in a Pennsylvania field by its heroic passengers to protect its likely target, the White House. I wish people who aren’t old enough to remember all this or who chose to block it out could know what it was like and feel the raw emotion of that time. Other than the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan that took us into World War II 80 years ago, there’s been nothing remotely comparable to it in our history.
Almost 3,000 people were killed, most of them in the fall of the Twin Towers, and thousands more –- particularly first responders and clean-up crews –- have suffered lifelong disability resulting from conditions on the ground there.
When planes flew into both towers on that bright and beautiful fall morning, and the towers collapsed upon themselves, it was a demolition of indescribable magnitude. A huge portion of Manhattan, 14 million square feet of downtown –- was turned into rubble. And it was a massacre. Video that is seldom played today showed human beings jumping a thousand feet to their deaths rather than be burned alive. Virtually everyone in New York knew someone who had perished. Many thousands of people lost spouses, brothers, sisters, dear friends and colleagues. Children lost parents. Parents lost children.
Literally tons of debris filled the atmosphere. The air was thick with toxic substances that ravaged the lungs of those who managed to live through the day. For first responders, it was like a war zone.
Every year on September 11, except for a modified pre-recorded version last year because of COVID, a ceremony has been held at the memorial in which all the names of those lost were read aloud by family members to a wide audience that included the families, police, firefighters, other first responders and emergency workers. Then, throughout that night, the twin beams of the “Tribute In Light” blazed straight up into the sky, as a statement of power and resilience against our evil terrorist enemies.
So what about this year? Regarding the reading of the names, there’s been so much back-and-forth about it that it's hard to know what they’ve finally decided to do. On August 15, it was announced that the Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation would hold an “alternative” ceremony, just south of the memorial, for the names because the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, citing covid again, wouldn’t be having one this year. (It's not clear to us whether they've changed their mind and are doing it after all or if Tunnel 2 Towers is still the sponsor.) Masks will be required, and the podium will be sanitized after every speaker.
Apparently, only 9/11 family members are invited this year, as officials want to discourage large crowds. It's a shame to see this moving ceremony diminished in any way --- especially for covid, since this event takes place outdoors, everyone will be masked, and most will likely be vaccinated. If another concern is budget, that really shouldn’t be an issue, either. They might need extra security for the larger crowd, but I’ll bet a lot of New York’s Finest would proudly volunteer for that job.
Believe it or not, for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the museum had decided not to have the “Tribute In Light.” They said they didn’t have the funds for it. They said that last year, too, but Gov. Cuomo contributed enough state resources to make it happen. Fortunately, the “Tribute In Light” is back on this year, too.
You can see how confusing this got when you add in this report from RedState.com, which says a group called the Sergeants Benevolent Association has stepped up to provide the beams of light. We're not sure now if the museum (with or without state funds) is doing it or the SBA is, but at least SOMEBODY is. Those lights had better be blazing. They need to be seen from space, till dawn breaks on September 12.
Fortunately, New York Public Radio is doing quite a bit of special programming, which started September 1.
https://nypublicradio.org/2021/09/01/wnyc-wqxr-mark-the-20th-anniversary-of-9-11/
Here’s a list of the in-person events planned for that day.
https://911groundzero.com/blog/commemorating-the-20th-anniversary-of-9-11-nyc-events-and-legacies/
For a time, it looked as though this year’s memorial would be scaled way down, and that would not have been acceptable. As Steve Cuozzo wrote in the NEW YORK POST on August 14 –- the day before it was announced the “Tribute In Light” would light up after all –- “Today, many younger and newly arrived New Yorkers have little idea what 9/11 meant. To treat the 20th anniversary as business as usual threatens to consign the memory to just another unpleasant hiccup of history such as the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles or the 1965 power blackout.” Perhaps his commentary is what convinced officials to light up the night sky after all.
Yes, the museum has a budget crunch, he said, but “the catastrophe’s 20th anniversary should not be allowed to become a shadow of its past commemorations.”
What a disgrace it would be to play down 9/11 on the 20th anniversary of that carnage. It also occurs to me that such a disgrace would compound the epic national disgrace going on right now: our botched exit from Afghanistan and the abandoning of U.S. citizens, Afghan friends and cutting-edge military equipment to the terrorists who have overrun the place and made it once again a haven for themselves. How ironic it would be for us now to diminish the 9/11 ceremony on the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history. Look at us now, with our own President putting himself in the position of having to negotiate with the Taliban. Sadly, this time, as we memorialize our lost and honor our brave, the terrorists will be celebrating just as they did 20 years ago. Except now when they wave their guns in the air, they'll have much better guns. Thank you, Mr. President.
……………………...
Michael Arad, the young architect (an Israeli citizen born in London who has since obtained dual citizenship here) whose design was chosen for the 9/11 memorial, was living in Manhattan at the time of the attack and said 9/11 had made him a New Yorker. He said he “would never forget how people poured into Union Square, Times Square, Washington Square, needing to be together, to stand side by side with strangers, bearing individual pain but sharing collective grief.”
“If the terrorists thought they’d sow fear and division,” he said, “they did not succeed.”
If you’ve never been to the memorial, stood at the edge of the waterfalls and looked at some of the names of all 2,983 who lost their lives that day, I urge you do make the trip and do it. (One of my writers said the moment during this experience that hit her the hardest was seeing a square simply carved with the words “Unborn Baby.”)
For when you have time, here’s a detailed article about Arad and the meaning behind the memorial he designed.
Update on the Kabul airport suicide bomber
By Mike Huckabee
Roger Pardo-Maurer, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told Univision that a Predator drone operator knew the identity of the Kabul airport bomber who killed 13 of our troops and many more Afghan civilians and was ready to strike him and prevent the bombing, but was ordered to stand down.
The alleged reason was that it might complicate negotiations with the Taliban. So in order to mollify the terrorists we were handing Afghanistan over to, we let a terrorist go on his way to kill 13 of our troops and many more Afghan civilians.
Now, before all the social media fact-checkers start typing “Actually…”, I’ll point out that Maurer didn’t name his source for this story, and not surprisingly, it’s not officially verified (i.e., admitted to.) But forgive me if I find it easy to believe, considering Joe Biden’s unbroken 40-year record of being wrong on every foreign policy decision, including being the only official in the room to advise Obama not to order the strike that took out Osama bin Laden.
Ida death toll rises
By Mike Huckabee
The death toll from Hurricane Ida is up to 50 so far, and even though the worst weather has passed, officials in the Northeast are warning that more flooding could be ahead due to rivers rising from all the runoff. Up to a million people are still without power in Louisiana, and some could be waiting weeks for it to come back on.
Ida is now ranked as the fifth-strongest recorded storm ever to hit the US mainland, and it left behind a path of massive destruction that crosses half the nation. If you are in a position to help the victims, any donations to Samaritan’s Purse are greatly appreciated and will go a long way. They are already moving in with aid to the hardest-hit areas.
http://www.samaritanspurse.org
America The Beautiful
God's creation is all around us. To learn more about Petrified Forest National Park, visit its website here.
Zero time
By Mike Huckabee
The Media Research Center reports that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC News devoted zero time to the revelation that President Biden pressured Afghanistan’s President on a phone call to help change the perception that the Taliban might take over, whether it's true or not. As noted here before, if an innocuous phone call from Trump to Ukraine’s President was grounds for impeachment, then this is, to use a phrase Biden should appreciate, impeachment grounds on steroids. Yet the media are doing their best to hide it and protect Biden.
Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki is obviously counting on them to memory-hole Biden’s Afghanistan catastrophe and start acting like palace guards again. You can see here how she tried to spin it away and said she wouldn’t go into the details of a “private conservation.”
Unfortunately for her, the Internet is forever, and conservative commentator Jack Posobiec unearthed an old tweet from Psaki about Trump’s Ukraine phone call:
“It is not just the call transcript. The whistleblower complaint would likely have more details. And we need both. And not just the call.”
Sounds as if she thought that Presidential phone call was public business, and if the President did anything illegal on it, it should be exposed and the President held to account. Gee, I wonder what changed her attitude?...
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