Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Huckabee. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Huckabee. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Huckabee A Red Tory



The real conservative, Canadian style, in the Republican Presidential race is Mike Huckabee. He is actually a Red Tory, and has potential to come from behind and be the American 'Everyman' the Republicans say they want to lead them.

He is folksy being called Mike not Michael, and not afraid to lay down some mean riffs. The common man of the party of Abraham Lincoln, not Reagan. And heck he is from Arkansas so even Clinton gives him the thumbs up him, Bill, not Hillary.

It also appears that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee did receive a bounce from his second place finish in Ames. After garnering only 4 percent in the May poll, Huckabee scored 12 percent support in the latest survey, putting him in a race for third place with Giuliani.


Yesterday in the CNBC/MSNBC debate he said something that most pundits missed, while most of the other candidates promoted 'Free Trade' he called for 'Fair Trade'. It passed over all their heads, without a response from them or the pundit questioners.

Fair trade has been actively discussed by exactly two of the GOP Presidential candidates:
Huckabee and Hunter*. The other candidates have expressed only free-trade sentiment, with varying degrees of clarity and stridency. Could this issue also be a part of Huck's climb in the polls? Perhaps.


It didn't even come up on Kudlow's show after the debate interview with him. Though Huckabee got support from an unlikely source Kudlow's guest Democrat Robert Reich.

Aside from a few exceptions last night, there really wasn’t much beef.

Sam Brownback did propose an optional flat tax. And Gov. Huckabee is staying with his fair tax/national sales tax. But none of the big four are touting these ideas.


You see Huckabee supports a Fair Tax and Fair Trade, not Free Trade.



His fair tax is a consumption tax, all other taxes would be eliminated. Thus leveling the playing field for workers with the rich. A plan similar to one I have discussed here. Reich supports Huckabee's Fair Tax idea as well.

Kudlow took him to task over unions as did right wing bloggers. Though Huckabee was not alone, it appeared last night like all the candidates had suddenly discovered Sam Gompers was a libertarian. They were in Michigan, union country on the eve of a pending strike at Chrysler.

Huckabee predicted unions would gain strength in the coming years because of the growing disparity between executive pay and the working class. When people have their pay dramatically cut, they will turn to unions, he said. “That’s when unions are going to come back in roaring form,” Huckabee said.


Later when questioned about this by Kudlow, Huckabee hit back with the line that if the Republicans and CEO's continue to enjoy the spoils of the capitalist boom without sharing it with the rest of America then they will face the largest unionization drive ever. Wow. From a Republican yet.

Huckabee said that ‘unions will become more powerf
ul’ because of wage deflation. Huckabee also promoted the ‘Fair Tax’ because it ‘untaxes productivity’ and ‘levels the playing field” he emphasized that the “The Fair Tax lifts everybody.”

The Fair Tax is a 23% consumption tax proposed to replace the income tax. Huckabee said it would ‘end the underground economy”.


The real problem, Huckabee said, is that American companies have to pay more in taxes on their products than their foreign competitors. That’s why people in the U.S. and Michigan are losing jobs, he said. “This party is going to have to start addressing it or we’re going to get our britches beat next year,” Huckabee said.
Of course he redeemed himself as a Republican by saying he would not tax CEO salary increases, but instead eliminate taxes, especially payroll taxes on the working class. Failure to share the wealth he said, sounding like John Edwards, will lead to further working class unrest and assure the success of unions.

Here’s what the Machinists say:

Mike Huckabee was the only Republican candidate with the guts to meet with our members and the only one willing to figure out where and how we might work together,” said Buffenbarger. “He is entitled to serious consideration from our members voting in the upcoming Republican primaries.”

Mike Huckbee’s campaign fills out a little what they talked about:

Huckabee spoke before over 700 members of the IAM in Orlando, Florida on Monday about jobs, globalization, health care, and other 21st century domestic issues.

What does that mean? Specifically, on trade, or "fair trade" as Huckabee calls it:

Huckabee also said he believes in fair trade. “Free trade has to be fair trade. We are losing jobs because of an unlevel, unfair trading arena that has to be fixed. Behind the statistics, there are real families, real lives, and real pain. I’m running for President because I don’t want people who have worked loyally for a company for 20 or 30 years to walk in one morning and be handed a pink slip and be told, ‘I’m sorry, but everything you spent your life working for is no longer here.’"



And while Fred Thompson did get chuckles for his zingers last night, given the softballs tossed at him by the Hardball crowd, Huckabee was no slouch in the off the cuff humour department.

Funniest Man: Once again, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was the most fluid and humorous communicator. He worked in references to the "Jetsons," the "Flintstones," Gomer Pyle and Goober -- excellent stuff for Baby Boom voters.
HUCKABEE
– He really is an enjoyable presence up there, a very able politician. If Fred’s not the nominee, Huckabee may have earned himself a spot on the ticket.
Wouldn't the American presidential race be interesting if it was a showdown between a Republican and Democrat from Arkansas.

So far of all the candidates who stand a chance of coming from behind, to take on the four front runners it appears that Huckabee stands the best chance. And as a conservative Christian, he can appeal to the evangelical right as well as to the social progressive compassionate Christians at Sojourners. He is not only pro life, unlike Romney, Giuliani and Thompson, but he is Anti-Poverty. Which is unusual for a Republican.
Huckabee says one of his priorities is to address poverty because it's "consistent with me being pro-life." He calls his desire to fight poverty a "faith position" rather than a political position. He says that it is impossible to address poverty without prioritizing stable homes and families, which he sees as "critical economic issues."
Huckabee is the only Republican politician with substance amongst the leading contenders in this race. The others are hacks.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee seems to have slammed Ron Paul yesterday when he defended his Christian Christmas TV Ad.

"I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead,'"


Was that a subliminal smear against Ron Paul? Since the National Journal Poll found Ron Paul was dead last in national polling for Republican candidates.

"Merry Christmas," Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said simply Tuesday in Houston in response to criticism that his latest campaign commercial mixes too much religion with politics.

Huckabee, here to raise campaign money, said the nation is in serious trouble if it is politically incorrect for him to use his TV spot to remind voters about the religious meaning of this holiday season.

Departing from the standard pitches for the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary two weeks from now, the former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist minister appears on television screens in some states with the shape of a cross behind him and Silent Night playing in the background.

"Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don't blame you," he says in the commercial. "At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends."

Subliminal message?

Some political observers see the ad as appealing directly to evangelical voters and tapping into the religious differences between Huckabee and one of his chief rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Others such as candidate Ron Paul, the Republican congressman from Lake Jackson, said the ad goes overboard.

"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross,' " Paul, a Protestant, told Fox News. "Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President Bill Donohue said images of a cross in the commercial are an attempt to send a subliminal message.

"What he's trying to say to the evangelicals in western Iowa (is): 'I'm the real thing,' " Donohue said on the same news network. "You know what? Sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is."

Play it backward

Huckabee said Tuesday that he mentioned Jesus Christ in his unscripted commercial because, considering the meaning of the holiday, "I don't know what else to say about Christmas."

Some people are drawing such wild inferences from the commercial, Huckabee joked, that they might believe the ad says "Paul is dead" when played backward. It was a reference to the myth that the hidden news of Beatle Paul McCartney's "death" was revealed in the backward playing of one of the band's songs.

Really I heard Huckabee's quote and he said Paul is Dead, three times with no reference to McCartney. Now he is claiming he was referring to Paul McCartney but was he really?

After all Huckabee has no money and Ron Paul again broke a record for one day fund raising this week; when he raised over $6 million on internet donations. The previous record had been $4 million, raised by Paul a couple of months ago. And Paul was the first Republican candidate to criticize Huckabee's ad. And both are contenders in New Hampshire as I have pointed out.

Both these guys were once the so called second tier candidates in the Republican race. Huckabee now has the support of the evangelical conservative base in the party and Paul has become the most successful fund raiser, beating out all the front runners.

Huckabee is hated by the Republican establishment, who have abandoned their Moral Majority evangelical base that is the Reagan Republicans that Huckabee is shamelessly appealing to. He has little money or organizational staff with which to beat his opponents so he is doing the next best thing, talking to the folks, the base of the party who are alienated by the the current crop of 'liberals' running as Republicans; in this case the two front runners Mitt and Rudy.

This ad will come back to haunt him of course because he forgot that Hanukkah is also being celebrated this time of the year, and that Jesus was a Jew not a Republican.

In both races, Democrats and Republicans, this is not politics as usual, it is about the politics of change. Making this one of the most interesting U.S. Presidential elections in decades.




SEE:

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics



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Friday, January 04, 2008

Winds of Change

The Iowa Caucuses last night showed that the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign will break the mold of establishment politics. It is after all the fortieth anniversary of the winds of change that blew the establishment apart in 1968. And this Presidential campaign has all the makings of the grass roots rebellion that saw demonstrators take to the streets and activists support Bobby Kennedy in a Power to the People campaign.

Barack Obama has the Kennedy charisma and has captured the new Power to the People campaign. This showed in Iowa, with a massive increase in registered Democratic voters and their showing up at the caucuses, many for the first time. The Democratic Establishment is shaken to its core, for they back Hillary and she came in third. Even her feminist base could not be counted on, for the vast majority of those new voters were older women who supported Obama.

John Edwards whom I predicted would take Iowa, came in second, far ahead of Clinton. His populist message of bashing Wall Street, corporations and the party establishment echoed grass roots sentiments not only in the Democratic Party but in the Republican grass roots. That is why Huckabee won so overwhelmingly. Which I did predict several months ago.

Huckabee gives Kudlow and Co. on CNBC heartburn, they decry his anti-Wall Street message, ironically so does the Conservative establishment Rush Limbaugh was on Fox denouncing Huckabee, as did members of the Christian Coalition leadership. The reason is they are out of touch with their base. The days of the Moral Majority are gone, the vocal power brokers are either discredited like Ralph Reed who was caught up in scandal, or dead like Moral Majority boss Jerry Falwell.

What both Edwards and Huckabee appeal too is blue collar America, main-street. What the establishment appeals to is Wall Street. Sure the investors and bankers and movers and shakers in the marketplace are making money, but to the average American they are facing rising inflation, loss of their homes, increasing debt, lost jobs, frozen wages, lack of medicare, Huckabee and Edwards appealed to these real issues.

Obama does to, in a very personal way, and his message last night was a variation on the old Rastafarian slogan One Love, his statement was about running to unify One People, One America, this goes beyond the two America's Edwards denounces, in providing a more hopeful message. And Huckabee also uses that same language, talking about an inclusive Presidency, one that will not be bi-partisan perse, but anti-partisan. His is a message of hope as well.

The pundits and hacks are scratching their heads this morning, and the powers that be are cringing in their corners wondering how they can rally support behind the establishment candidates; Clinton and Romney. They are out of touch with their base. They are aloof from blue collar/white collar workers in America. This is a working class revolt in both parties.

Sure Republicans are concerned about abortion and gay marriage, but they are also concerned, as Huckabee tells the party bosses, loss of jobs due to globalization, rising interest rates, lack of health care, eduction. Just like their Democratic counterparts do. One listens to Johnny Cash the other listens to Steve Earle, what happened in Ohio last election, where the working class vote, the union vote was mobilized around values issues, abortion and gay marriage, has given way to mobilization around economic bread and butter issues. Fair Trade instead of Free Trade. This is what scares the bejesuzz out of the establishment. It is Pat Buchanan's message eight years later, but delivered by both Democrat and Republican contenders without the jingoistic nativism and isolationist rhetoric.

The pundits were claiming last night that McCain would rise from the dead but in Iowa he ended up tied with a movie star for third place. Sure McCain is a challenger in New Hampshire, but in this he is the establishments fall back candidate. By far the real challenger is Ron Paul. Yes Ron Paul.

His is the under reported story from last night. Until the caucuses his campaign appeared to be internet driven. For instance in a Myspace poll he won overwhelmingly. His messaging and fund raising has all be done on the net. And he showed, as Howard Dean did last round, that the internet is an authentic alternative to corporate fund raising. Paul did what no other Presidential candidate ever did, raise record funds off the internet in one day. Not just once but three times. This is not a mere footnote folks, this is an authentic challenge to the traditional fund raising that has relied on lobbyists and tit for tat promises that Edwards has complained about and McCain tried to change through legislation.

Ron Paul has not been given the credit he is due by the pundit and media establishment. But by coming in fourth with 10% in Iowa he has translated his internet base to a real political force. Now watch him gain even more support as a viable alternative in New Hampshire. Paul appeals directly to the libertarian base that is the New Hampshire voter. Despite the state going Democrat, there is a strong independent base that Paul can and will appeal to. Expect him to come in third there. His libertarian message is appealing to the left and the right, just as a New Left Alliance arose between anarchists of the left and Republican libertarians
forty years ago

Winds of change. Expect the unexpected. And look forward to an amazing set of Presidential conventions where the grass-roots will be out in force as delegates, and they will be challenging the party establishments. Democracy never had it so good in the good old U.S.A.

This is after all the Year of the Rat.


SEE:

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Gravel and Paul on PBS

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Ron Paul

Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater

Liberal Republicans


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Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Biden has given into ‘woke mob’ in hardcore culture war speech

State of the Union GOP Response


Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused President Joe Biden of being a slave to a “woke mob” in the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address that leaned heavily on social conservatism that has animated much of the GOP.

Ms Sanders, who won her election last year, served as former president Donald Trump’s press secretary and touched on her time in that role during her speech. But for the most part, she said Mr Biden was putting America on poor footing.

She noted how she was the youngest governor in the country while Mr Biden was the oldest president in history, a record previously held by Mr Trump.


“I’m the first woman to lead my state,” she said. “He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”

Republicans have frequently pilloried Democrats by asking “what is a woman,” while referencing transgender women as “biological males.”

“Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left,” she said.

“Every day, we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols,” she said. “All while big government colludes with Big Tech to strip away the most American thing there is—your Freedom of speech.”

Ms Huckabee, the daughter of former presidential candidate Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, touted the fact that she banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and the use of the term “Latinx,” a gender neutral term to describe people of Latin American descent that is meant to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ people.

“Americans want common sense from their leaders, but in Washington, the Biden administration is doubling down on crazy,” she said. She accused Mr Biden of wasting the accomplishments of the Trump administration.

“Despite Democrats’ trillions in reckless spending and mountains of debt, we now have the worst border crisis in American history,” she said. Similarly, she criticised Democrats for letting crime run rampant.

““And after years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to ‘defund the police, violent criminals roam free, while law-abiding families live in fear,” she said, despite the fact that Mr Biden and many other Democrats in Congress do not support defunding the police, though some cities and localities have reallocated money from policing to other services.

She also criticised the president for showing weakness on China, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people. He is unfit to serve as commander in chief,” she said.

Ms Huckabee Sanders was one of two addresses that the GOP gave. Representative Juan Ciscomani, a freshman Republican of Arizona and an immigrant from Mexico, delivered the rebuttal to the State of the Union in Spanish.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders' 'Normal Or Crazy' Challenge Backfires Spectacularly

Wed, February 8, 2023 

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and it was loaded with the expected right-wing culture-war grievances.

Sanders’ speech included attacks on LGBTQ rights, critical race theory, the “woke mob” and more.

But it also contained one line that probably didn’t get the reaction she was hoping.

“The choice is no longer between right or left,” declared Sanders, former press secretary to Donald Trump. “The choice is between normal and crazy.”

Many agreed ― just not in the way she was likely expecting as they pointed to her party’s own extremists, and in particular the wild behavior of conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) just minutes earlier during Biden’s speech:

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Huckabee Scabs


Some pundits compare Republican Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee with Democrat Presidential wannabe John Edwards, claiming they both are pandering to blue collar populism. Well no matter what else you say of him Huckabee is definitely a Republican.

Huckabee Will Cross Picket Line
to Appear on Leno



His blue collar populism does not extend to unionized workers just their unborn children.


SEE:

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics


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Thursday, October 05, 2023

A $19,000 lectern for Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders sparks call for legislative audit



LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Sarah Huckabee Sanders rose to national prominence in part during her time at the lectern as White House press secretary, but the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for the Arkansas governor is undergoing scrutiny and prompting claims that records about it have been altered.

A legislative panel next week will take up a lawmaker's request for an audit to review the purchase of the lectern, which was bought in June for $19,029.25 with a state credit card. The Arkansas Republican Party reimbursed the state last month for the wood-paneled and blue lectern, which the state received in August.

“From my experience, where we're at with this particular thing is we need to allow legislative audit go in,” Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey, who requested the audit, said. “Everyone knows them, they do their work, they're very thorough and then they produce a detailed report that comes to the Legislature through an open committee.”

Questions about the lectern, its cost, how it was purchased and even whether it existed has dominated political talk in Arkansas in recent weeks. The state's largest newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, ran a front-page photo of the lectern last week after Sanders' office allowed the paper to view it.

Sanders, who served as press secretary for former President Donald Trump, took office in January. The governor has said she welcomes the audit, but has also dismissed the questions surrounding the lectern's purchase. Sanders' office has said the reimbursement came from money she had raised for her inauguration.

“People want to manufacture a controversy where there isn’t one," Sanders told reporters Tuesday. “But this is something the state’s been reimbursed for, and I think there are some people who are always going to be angry and always looking for something to complain about and that’s what they’re picking for right now.”

The lectern's purchase was first uncovered by Matthew Campbell, an attorney and blogger who has sued State Police for withholding records he had requested about Sanders' travel and security. Days after Campbell filed his initial suit, Sanders called a special legislative session and proposed broad exemptions to the state's open records law.

Sanders signed into law a measure restricting the public's access to her travel and security records after she and lawmakers backed off more widespread exemptions that faced backlash from media groups, transparency advocates and some conservatives.

Campbell has said the concern isn't just about a lectern, but about how Sanders' office is spending state money.

“Without an audit and without some more information, we don't know whether this is a case of they're too incompetent to be trusted with a state credit card because they don't know what things should cost, or there's actual criminality,” Campbell said Wednesday. “Neither is a good answer but it's enough of an issue that has to be answered.”

Tom Mars, an attorney who served as director of the Arkansas State Police under Sanders' father, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, has also said that he has a client with firsthand knowledge that Sanders' office interfered with Campbell's open records requests.

In a letter he sent to Hickey after the lawmaker requested the audit, Mars said the client wishes to remain anonymous and is willing to give a confidential statement to legislative auditors and allow them to review relevant documents in the client's possession. According to Mars' letter, the interference includes the governor's office altering an invoice from Beckett Events LLC, the Virginia firm listed as the seller of the lectern.

Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for Sanders, didn't specifically respond to the allegations in Mars' letter in a statement that nonetheless dismissed them.

“This is nothing more than a manufactured controversy by left-wing activists to distract from the bold conservative reforms the governor has signed into law and is effectively implementing in Arkansas,” Henning said in a statement.

Hickey's request also asks for an audit of all matters regarding security and travel records for the governor or her office that were retroactively made confidential by the law she signed last month. The law covered travel and security records going back to June 2022.

Republican Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, who co-chairs the Legislative Joint Auditing Executive Committee, said he supports Hickey's request.

“Given the fact that this has become a matter of public concern and that the governor says she welcomes an audit and hopes that legislators complete it without delay, yes, I think we should instruct audit staff to handle this matter," Gazaway said.

Andrew Demillo, The Associated Press

'Incompetent' or criminal? Even Republicans are calling for a legislative audit over AK gov’s $19,000 lectern

Story by Elizabeth Preza • ALTERNET

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS - FEBRUARY 07: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders waits to deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union address by President Joe Biden on February 7, 2023 in Little Rock, Arkansas.© provided by AlterNet

ARepublican state senator in Arkansas requested an audit of his own party’s governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, over the purchase of a $19,000 lectern with a state credit card, the Associated Press reports.

“From my experience, where we’re at with this particular thing is we need to allow legislative audit go in,” Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey told the AP. “Everyone knows them, they do their work, they’re very thorough and then they produce a detailed report that comes to the Legislature through an open committee.”

The panel will convene next week to review the “purchase of the lectern,” the AP reports, which was “bought in June for $19,029.25.” In August, the Arkansas Republican Party “reimbursed the state” for the purchase, the report adds.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

According to the AP, Hickey is also asking “for an audit of all matters regarding security and travel records for the governor or her office that were retroactively made confidential by the law she signed last month.”

As ABC News reported last month, Sanders overhauled the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and “[broadened] what security details from the governor's travel and other constitutional officers' are exempt from the law.”

The changes also included “a retroactive clause to June 1, 2022, before Sanders took office” and was signed at the same time “a lawsuit pends against the state for allegedly withholding information related to her travel requested under the FOIA,” ABC News reported.

Little Rock, AR attorney Matt Campbell, who filed the FOIA lawsuit against the state, told the AP the issue is larger than a lectern — and is instead a question of whether Sanders’ office is “incompetent” or engaged in “actual criminality.”

READ MORE: Acting Speaker McHenry did not have authority to evict Pelosi: top Democrat


Related video: Request for legislative audit leads to allegations of altered documents. (40/29 TV Ft Smith-Fayetteville)
Duration 2:23  View on Watch


“Without an audit and without some more information, we don’t know whether this is a case of they’re too incompetent to be trusted with a state credit card because they don’t know what things should cost, or there’s actual criminality,” Campbell said told the AP. “Neither is a good answer but it’s enough of an issue that has to be answered.”

Former Arkansas State Police director Tom Mars — who served under Sanders’ father, former Gov. Mike Huckabee — "has also said that he has a client with firsthand knowledge that Sanders’ office interfered with Campbell’s open records requests,” the AP reports.

Per the AP:

In a letter he sent to Hickey after the lawmaker requested the audit, Mars said the client wishes to remain anonymous and is willing to give a confidential statement to legislative auditors and allow them to review relevant documents in the client’s possession. According to Mars’ letter, the interference includes the governor’s office altering an invoice from Beckett Events LLC, the Virginia firm listed as the seller of the lectern.


Hickey’s request for an audit has support from other state Republicans, including Legislative Joint Auditing Executive Committee co-chair Rep. Jimmy Gazaway.

“Given the fact that this has become a matter of public concern and that the governor says she welcomes an audit and hopes that legislators complete it without delay, yes, I think we should instruct audit staff to handle this matter,” Gazaway told the AP.

Sanders’ office maintains the blowback is “nothing more than a manufactured controversy by left-wing activists to distract from the bold conservative reforms the governor has signed into law,” as Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning told the AP.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Sanders insisted “people want to manufacture a controversy where there isn’t one.”

"This is something the state’s been reimbursed for, and I think there are some people who are always going to be angry and always looking for something to complain about and that’s what they’re picking for right now,” she said.

Read the full report at the Associated Press.


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Monday, March 21, 2022

ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has just 33 words for the largest mass shooting this year
COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
March 21, 2022

Sarah Sanders appears on Fox News (screen grab)

On Saturday night what the State Police described as a “ gunfight” broke out at a car show in Dumas, Arkansas, leaving a 23-year old victim dead and 27 others injured – including six children, 19 months and older. It is the largest mass shooting of the year. Republican gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders had just 33 words to say about the devastating shootout in her state.

Arkansas’s current governor, Republican Asa Hutchinson, issued this statement on Sunday, calling the mass shooting “a total disregard of the value of life.”


The car show is part of an event that “provides family-friendly entertainment and raises money for scholarships and school supplies for underprivileged youths.”














Sarah Huckabee Sanders also issued a statement, on Twitter only, not on any other of the social media accounts listed on her campaign website. “Prayers,” she offered, calling it “senseless and tragic,” and thanking law enforcement. It was just 33 words.


The Gun Violence Archive reports two of the children injured were one-year-olds, one was 8 years old, one 9, and one 11.

Huckabee Sanders just three days earlier, as veteran political commentator Charles Pierce has expertly noted, praised Arkansas as “God’s Country” because “you can get a 12 pack and a 12 gauge shotgun at your neighborhood Edward’s Food Giant!”

The photo she tweeted includes her, her husband, a Huckabee Sanders campaign bus, and signs advertising guns and ammo.

“God’s Country is apparently located somewhere between Deadwood and Tombstone. God should move to a better neighborhood. She’s not safe where She is,” observed Pierce.

Huckabee Sanders has said nothing more about the horrific gun violence, at least nothing on her social media accounts or published in news online.