Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff! These are the top stories that ran this week on our website.
Today's newsletter includes:
- Maricopa County canvassing uncovers huge discrepancies
- Important follow-up: Maricopa County "discrepancies"
- Where The Blame For Vaccine Hesitancy Really Lies
- Report: On Americans held by Taliban, Biden tells "boldfaced lie."
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee
Important follow-up: Maricopa County "discrepancies"
By Mike Huckabee
A reader of our newsletter, to be identified for our purpose here merely as Carl, left us a phone message after reading Thursday’s story, “Maricopa County canvassing uncovers huge discrepancies.” This reader had called with firsthand knowledge of the same type of ballot “discrepancies” in Maricopa County that canvassers had found.
To set the scene for what he told us, we’d first like to call attention to an interview on Stephen Colbert’s late-night “comedy” show –- not so much what Colbert had to say (no surprises there) as what guest Chris Wallace contributed to the discussion. The interview was part of the promotion for Chris’ new book on 9/11, which I’m sure is a great read. To be clear, I bring attention to this not to single out Chris Wallace specifically, but rather to highlight the dismissal with which legitimate concerns about the election are typically received.
Let's start with how Colbert phrases his question: “I’m wondering whether you and your fellow Sunday morning guys out there who are doin’ the Sunday shows, talkin’ about the week, if you ever feel like you shouldn’t have on people who have the irrational belief that the last election...” (Pause for predictable applause from Colbert’s audience.) “...the people who are cynically –- and I know you’ve held these guys’ feet to the fire; I don’t want to suggest that you haven’t pushed back; you have, quite famously –- but have you ever seen anything so cynical in Washington, DC, than...people saying things they know aren’t true, uh, that they KNOW has to have lasting damage on our democracy, coming on TV and saying these things with a straight face?”
This is where Perry Mason would rise and say “Objection, leading the witness.” But leading questions ARE asked in court, at least whenever opposing counsel is asleep and they can be gotten away with, because they work. The same holds true in TV studios, and this one worked here, setting the tone for the whole exchange. If you have a strong stomach, hear it all at the link.
I debated whether or not to provide a full transcript of the conversation, since the video is available, but I think it’s instructive to see at least a part of it in print. So here’s a condensed version, starting where Chris answers the above question from Colbert:
“I have never seen this...I’ve been in Washington 40 years, so I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff [chuckle], but nothing like this, where --- and, you know, someone would say to me, ‘Well, are they delusional?’ No --- well, maybe some of them are --- but what’s worse, I think some of them have cynically decided, because of the Trump base, because they don’t want to get crosswise with the former President, they’re gonna say something they know is not true. Now, I don’t believe you’re just gonna sit there and say, ‘I’m not gonna have them on. But if I’m gonna have them on, I’m gonna hold them to account, over and over, about, you know, ‘what about, you know, this election, what about --- I’ve said this to many of them, ‘Is Joe Biden the duly-elected President of the United States, and they’ll say ‘Well, he’s the President,’ and I’ll say ‘No, no, was he elected fair and square?’ So, we go back on this, and I don’t let it pass...”
More: “There are plenty of people who were the leaders in the Congress who were challenging [the election] that I just have not had on the show ever since then, and have purposefully not had on the show, because I frankly don’t wanna hear their crap. But having said that, there are some leaders that you have to ask them questions. There are people in leadership and the Senate and I won’t let them come on without putting them through the wringer.”
Colbert interjects at this point, referring to such concerns as ‘garbage.” Wallace segues into January 6, “one of the worst days,” as he watched “this mob coming to the cathedral of our democracy.” “I was sickened,” he says, to applause. Colbert goes on to say that anyone who isn’t “wiling to stand up for that truth” –- I guess he means the “truth” that Biden was duly elected –- should be “DISQUALIFIED to be in the public sphere.” (!!!) He says that appearing on those Sunday shows is of value to such people because it helps them “promulgate that lie.”
“Does it worry you,” he asks Chris, “that you have given legitimacy to people who have abdicated all public responsibility?” (Again, where's Perry Mason when you need him?)
Chris responds that there are members of Congress who have been the leaders on that argument whom he just has deliberately not had on the show, “ever since then.” He says it was because he “frankly, didn’t want to hear their crap.” (This is followed by predictable audience cheers and applause.)
He goes on to say there are certain ones you have to have on, “but I won’t let ‘em come on without putting ‘em through the wringer.” That was pretty much the end of the interview, except for a book plug, and then on to the commercial break, which should have been for Pepto-Bismol.
So, Chris Wallace said he essentially gives his guests a litmus test, and it’s not enough for them to say, “Biden is the President.” It SHOULD be enough, but no –- the guest has to say that, yes, Biden was elected “fair and square,” even though it’s not known for sure that he was. We do not have definitive proof that the election was “stolen,” either, but after known problems with mass mail-in balloting in 2020, we have good reason to call for audits, and this does not make us “cynical,” "irrational" or “delusional.” It certainly does not mean that we "lie." Likewise, fact-based observations that there were problems with the last election that need to be fixed or that elections need to be more transparent are not “garbage” or “crap,” and to suggest this is offensive and insulting to millions of intelligent and informed people.
Such observations are not made to stay in good with “Trump’s base.” They are made because there are valid reasons for concern. Concerned Americans want to make sure we can TRUST the system, and maintaining that trust is PRO-democracy --- much more pro-democracy than pulling the curtain over the election and saying, “You have to talk about this in a certain way or you can’t participate in public life.”
Indeed, though I strongly and repeatedly condemned the breach of the Capitol Building, it's easy to understand why it happened. People were fed up because no one, not even the courts, would take their concerns seriously, saying that whatever the truth, the issue was "moot."
So, back to Carl. (Remember Carl?) Our commentary on Maricopa County sparked him to call and tell us about his niece, who moved from Maricopa County to Florida ten years ago. She found out something very interesting this year when a jury summons from Maricopa County was forwarded to her. She received this because they still had her on the Maricopa County voter rolls.
And the records showed her as having “voted” in the 2020 election.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT ON MY WEBSITE, I READ THEM!
Maricopa County canvassing uncovers huge discrepancies
By Mike Huckabee
We interrupt this newsletter, of necessity focused recently on the international threat created by Biden’s tragically inept pull-out from Afghanistan, to bring you some long-awaited 2020 election news.
It’s been ages since we’ve heard anything about the audit that’s been taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona. That’s the Phoenix area, one of the largest counties in the United States. (Keep in mind that Biden “won” the ENTIRE STATE of Arizona with only a 10,457-vote margin.) We’re still waiting for results of the official audit –- as we’ve reported, the auditors have run into snags in getting material they say they need to complete their work –- but canvassing efforts by a separate group have apparently been completed and what they reveal is stunning.
Of course, few news outlets will report this at all; we’ve gone to Joe Hoft at THE GATEWAY PUNDIT for his story. The headline from Wednesday says ‘ELECTION STEAL IS NOW CONFIRMED.” Let me make it clear, that’s their headline, not ours, but we are eager to take a look at what the results of this canvass tell us, and then we can all make up our own minds.
Again, this is not the official Maricopa County audit report, which is still going on and has no hard-and-fast deadline. It’s an independent effort conducted by Liz Harris and a group of volunteers, a “separate exercise” sponsored by the Arizona State Senate Republicans. That alone will give the Democrats the excuse they desperately need to dismiss this canvassing as partisan. But the methodology is transparent; volunteers went door to door, verifying the registration and voting information of thousands of voters, who make up a large statistical sample. And Democrats who scream “Partisanship!” need to understand something: this, I’m sure, is documented right down the line and can be verified for you, every bit of it. (You, on the other hand, still work tirelessly to avoid election transparency.) So read it and weep
Liz Harris tweeted this morning, “For all of those who knew the election was stolen, those who were ridiculed or labeled conspiracy theorists, you have been vindicated.”
First, let’s look at “lost votes.” These are votes that were discarded and never counted even though people actually cast them. They were cast, primarily by mail, by American citizens living in Maricopa County, and yet there is no record of them at all. This canvass brought to light 173,104 lost votes.
Then, there are “ghost votes.” These are votes cast by someone other than the voter who was assigned that ballot. The example everyone knows is a vote cast for someone who is dead and should have been dropped off the voter rolls. Someone else had to cast that vote, but who? The number of ghost votes uncovered in this canvas was 96,389.
There were other irregularities as well, though not as many, including votes cast from addresses that turned out to be vacant lots and votes recorded from people who it turned out hadn’t actually voted. And when they went door to door to gather data on 2,897 mail-in voters, 98 of those people said they’d actually voted in person.
According to their Election Summary, “Two primary categories of ineligible ballots and election mishandling, encompassing hundreds of thousands of votes, render the 2020 General Election in Maricopa County UNCERTIFIABLE.”
The report talked as well about smaller, local elections that would have been impacted by this sort of inaccuracy. Ironically, those include the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (which oversees elections, haha), which, in District 1, was decided by a mere 403 votes. Their election for U.S. Senate was decided by 78,886 votes, still well within the margin here.
The Election Summary proposes a solution with which we wholeheartedly agree: BAN VOTE-BY-MAIL. “The U.S. Mail is not meant to be a secure transactional system,” they say. This is why we don’t send cash through the mail. How much is your vote worth to you? With that in mind, do you really want to send it through the mail, knowing all the things that can happen to it? They mention that “most first-world democracies, such as Germany, either ban Vote-by-Mail outright or place very heavy restrictions on its use.”
They also provide some historical perspective: “Until the late 1800s, all votes in all states were public information.” Our country went to secret ballot to stop a tremendous problem with voter fraud. (Before then, many people had been paid to vote a certain way, and it could be checked.) History is repeating itself now with mail-in balloting, “and again we have ridiculous and frivolous arguments being put forth against common-sense legislation to secure the rights of honest American citizens to vote and have their vote count.”
For more details on why and how this canvass was conducted, be sure and go to the link provided above and read “Canvass Overview.” All the issues they uncovered impacted an estimated 5.18 percent of mail-in votes, or about 88,215.
In a presidential election where statewide, the margin of “victory” was only a little over 10,000, it’s clear that reforms are necessary if we’re ever going to trust our system again. (In such a close race, with these discrepancies, I don’t think I need to tell you what the real outcome in Arizona likely was.) But, when Texas addresses the same issues with solid legislation, the bill is condemned by the left as racist and “anti-democracy.” It is nothing of the sort. (I would say that “anti-democracy” should apply to any policy that makes cheating easier or less detectable, because cheating causes real disenfranchisement.) Here's what is really in the new Texas law, just signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-election-law-what-is-in-it
This is all totally common sense, to make the voting process easier to monitor.
Of course, the new law will face legal challenges, but it should be looking pretty good when it gets to the Supreme Court. Let’s hope more states follow Texas’ lead and adopt election integrity legislation, not be bullied out of it.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM>>>
Where The Blame For Vaccine Hesitancy Really Lies
By Mike Huckabee
Thanks to Instapundit for directing readers to this article by George Korda of the Knoxville News Sentinel, who shows where much of the blame for vaccine hesitancy really lies. Maybe Biden doesn’t remember 2020 (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t), but he, his running mate, other top Democrats, their lackeys in the media from CNN to Newsweek, and even their godhead Dr. Fauci, all spent last year casting doubt on the safety and effectiveness of any vaccine developed under President Trump. Mr. Korda went through the archives and dug up some of their scare quotes about the unlikelihood of a vaccine being developed that quickly, and the safety risks if it were.
Biden seems to have forgotten that he was at the forefront of a Democratic Party/liberal media PR push to convince Americans that any vaccine that didn’t take years to test and wasn’t fully FDA-approved might be dangerous. Biden would like us to forget, too, since he and Harris got themselves jabbed with the Trump vaccine before they even took office, and then promptly started taking credit for it. Now, they’re demonizing anyone who might have the same doubts they were promoting less than a year ago.
Instead of attacking people who are skeptical of the vaccines, Biden might be more effective, and certainly more believable, if he’d come clean and say, “Look, I was just playing a cynical political game with the lives of 320 million Americans. So don’t distrust the vaccines. Just distrust anything I say.”
Report: On Americans held by Taliban, Biden tells "boldfaced lie."
By Mike Huckabee
It’s been challenging, to say the least, to find out what’s really going on in Afghanistan concerning the evacuation of Americans and our friends.
Unlike President Trump, who used to enjoy hanging out on the White House lawn and speaking off the cuff to answer reporters’ questions --- not that he got the credit he deserved for that --- President Biden’s White House prefers to “put a lid” on their commentary. If Biden doesn’t have it on a teleprompter to read, he simply shuffles off, stage left, if he can remember which way is left.
When that happens, it’s up to the Pentagon and the State Department to speak for him. But they’ve abdicated their responsibility as well. As Kyle Becker reported on Sunday, the White House has implemented a virtual news blackout. Good luck finding out anything from them.
“There is zero chatter in the White House about getting American citizens out of Afghanistan,” tweeted Jack Posobiec, senior editor at HUMAN EVENTS. A White House official told him that “they’re acting like they’re not even there.”
Why would that be? Multiple Pentagon sources independently confirm that “the White House counsel (through the National Security Council’s legal department) told multiple federal agencies and departments NOT to respond to Afghanistan correspondence, with more guidance to follow.” In other words, “ghost” any media outlet seeking information.
Of course, the mainstream media are showing no curiosity. When White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain appeared Sunday on CNN, he was never asked one question about the planes on the ground, not even if Americans were among those being held on airplanes at Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport. He did say that “about 100” Americans remain in Afghanistan and the administration is working on getting them out.
On FOX NEWS SUNDAY, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul surprised host Chris Wallace by revealing that six planes, loaded with Americans and Afghan interpreters and other helpers, had been sitting for at least a couple of days on the tarmac at that airport, prevented by the Taliban from taking off. He said the Taliban wanted “something in exchange.”
Here’s the story from THE DAILY CALLER.
https://dailycaller.com/2021/09/05/michael-mccaul-taliban-hostage-mazar-i-sharif/
And here's the full interview with Rep. McCaul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqiXgaZnuKg
“The airplanes are there,” Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson had said Friday on NEWSMAX. “Everything is ready to go, They can’t get out...because the Taliban won’t release the flight until September 9 because they want to be recognized as an official government.” McCaul said it was guaranteed these hostages would be held until the U.S. recognized the Taliban as a government.
As for Ron Klain’s assertion that “about 100” Americans are being held, California Rep. Darrell Issa says it’s a vast understatement. He told the AP it’s likely that “about 500 Americans” remain stranded (yes, Jen Psaki, STRANDED) in Afghanistan. That’s not including their family members, which would bring the number up to as high as 1,000. By not including the families, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said, “they’re lowballing the numbers.”
Jack Phillips of THE EPOCH TIMES reports that according to Mike Jason, who runs a rescue operation called Allied Airlift 21, the figure quoted could be far higher.
Alex Plitsas, an Iraq War veteran and former intel officer who is part of a rescue mission called Digital Dunkirk, said that in just one day, he’d received six calls from Americans who weren’t registered with the U.S.Embassy (which is abandoned now, I might add). “Those names are starting to trickle out now,” he said. “I expect that number to rise significantly.”
Be sure and read Rebecca Downs’ account in TOWNHALL of Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin’s attempt to help Americans who were still trapped there, as told to FOX NEWS’ Bret Baier on Friday.
“A congressman can sponsor a flight going in,” Mullin explained, “and it gives one of these other departments cover because it’s kind of, no one wants to touch it because I personally believe it was because they knew it was a hot mess.”
Even though they had obtained a humanitarian flight plan from the FAA, he said, they had to keep circling the Kabul airport because requests to land were repeatedly denied. Mullin believes this was “100 percent directed from the State Department.”
As he would be coming in with a large amount of money, Mullin had sought help from the U.S. ambassador, who told him he’d have to go through 16 Afghan checkpoints and at each one “would be charged to get through.” (Good thinking to bring cash!) Tellingly, the ambassador also told him that he’d been instructed not to help.
Mullin said that when President Biden, the State Department and others said they’d get everyone out of there who wanted out, it was “a boldfaced, 100 percent lie.”
“...We’re not handling our mess,” he said. “...It’s our mess. The United States created this vacuum to allow the Taliban to come in. President Biden and his horrific withdrawal has caused this to happen.” He said that even if we got more Americans out, others would die “because of the failure of President Biden.” He said Biden would have blood on his hands.
Indeed, this so bad that some are speculating it was done on purpose to divert attention from something even worse. “What could be worse than this?” one might wonder. Tucker Carlson, on his show TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT, and guest Glenn Greenwald speculated about that on Friday.
https://royalpatriot.com/tucker-carlson-says-afghanistan-screwup-may-have-been-planned/
Carlson said he didn’t want to enter “the realm of conspiracy” but thought it was “at least worth wondering.” Could it be that someone wants to maintain future engagement in Afghanistan, or might someone have some other reason? I have to say, that idea DOES sound a little out-there, but it tells us HOW BAD the situation in Afghanistan really is: bad enough to take our minds to some crazy possible explanations.
Even though Greenwald has seen no evidence of such a conspiracy, he said, it is “fully within the character of the deep state operatives” to deliberately engineer something like this. Sadly, he is correct. Certainly I’m not saying they did this, but who can trust them not to?
Another question: did the Taliban necessarily have to overrun Afghanistan at all? According to retired U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Anthony Tata, the answer is NO. Details here.
https://conservativebrief.com/just-shameful-50608/
“We have utterly abandoned this country,” he said. “We have abandoned Americans within this country. It is just shameful what has happened...They chose to let it happen, they facilitated it happening, and now what you’ve got is a terror superstore there in Afghanistan.”
Finally, Piers Morgan wrote searingly about the “bitter shame and humiliation” America is experiencing as we near the 20th anniversary of 9/11 “thanks to Biden’s appalling mishandling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and abject surrender to the very people who helped commit the attacks by harbouring the terrorists who carried them out.”
“America’s defeat to just 75,000 murderous medieval thugs is thus complete,” he wrote. He went on to talk about what is most certainly a hostage situation. Read it all, and get angry. Angry enough to reject whatever this government tells you. The turn we've taken is so bad --- and so unnecessary --- that it’s easy to speculate along with Glenn Greenwald that something even larger is afoot.
For more news, visit my website here.
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