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HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY

 
Anonymous Coward
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HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Mike Huckabee's career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity.

By: Kenneth P. Vogel
Updated: November 23, 2007 03:55 PM EST

As Mike Huckabee gains ground on his rivals for the Republican nomination, opponents have quietly begun highlighting the slew of ethics issues the social conservative faced during his political career in Arkansas.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found Huckabee trailing only Mitt Romney — and by less than the margin of error — in Iowa, where the primary season kicks off with Jan. 3 caucuses.

But opposition research files on Huckabee’s ethics stand at the ready, and their contents have begun seeping into press releases.

An ordained Southern Baptist minister known for his charm, Huckabee rose swiftly through Arkansas politics, culminating with his decade-long stint as governor.

But his career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.

Some of the ethics complaints deal with fairly penny ante stuff, and most were dismissed.

They did, however, yield five admonitions and $1,000 in fines from Arkansas' Ethics Commission and, perhaps more significantly, a pattern that strategists for two competing GOP campaigns privately predict could become fodder for attacks playing on the culture-of-corruption theme Democrats used to pound Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections.

In fact, when Huckabee entered the presidential race in January, the Democratic National Committee was quick to highlight a couple of the ethics issues that have dogged him and urged him to “come clean about his … history of ethical lapses."

Huckabee didn’t get many ethics questions — or many tough questions about anything — as he languished at the bottom of the polls and the fundraising race through the summer.

But his surprising second-place finish in the influential August straw poll in Ames, Iowa, and strong debate performances have turned heads and started bringing more scrutiny.

After Huckabee fielded ethics questions last weekend on “Fox News Sunday,” campaign aides for former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who’s competing with Huckabee for socially conservative voters, put out a statement accusing Huckabee of “repeatedly dodg[ing] questions about his ethical problems.”

Huckabee’s campaign, in a statement to Politico, said it was “suspect” that the ethics issues are being raised as Huckabee surges in the polls and said Huckabee repeatedly addressed the issues during his time as governor.

The campaign said the state ethics commission, which Huckabee sued twice, “has been misused as a weapon against Republicans” and that Huckabee “has been unfairly attacked regarding his ethics history while governor of Arkansas.”

On “Fox News Sunday,” Huckabee called the ethics complaints “pure nonsense” — the product of rough-and-tumble Arkansas politics.

And he said they’ll actually make him a stronger presidential candidate.

“The one thing it proves is that I’m prepared for a presidential campaign. I’ve been through this stuff,” he told host Chris Wallace. “I don’t have a glass jaw.”

That jaw will likely continue to be tested as opponents and the national media delve more deeply into these areas:

Campaign cash

The ethics commission fined Huckabee $1,000 for failing to report that he paid himself $14,000 from his 1992 U.S. Senate campaign and $43,000 from his 1994 lieutenant governor's campaign.

The latter payment — for the use of his eight-seat, twin-engine plane — was reported in a cryptic way that didn’t identify Huckabee and his wife as the owners of the plane.

[link to www.politico.com]
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
A Tale of Two Candidates
By Quin Hillyer
Published 10/24/2007 12:08:28 AM

With Sen. Sam Brownback now out of the presidential race, only two candidates in the Republican presidential field -- California's longtime U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- can lay claim both to a high degree of purity on the hot-button issues for social conservatives and to a personal life that seems in keeping with those traditional values.

But only one, Huckabee, seems to be gaining major traction... even though the record in Arkansas suggests that he might be the wrong one to rally around.

Ask lots of folks in Arkansas, including Republicans, and a fair number will probably tell you that Huck is for Huck is for Huck. National media folks like David Brooks, dealing in surface appearances only, rave about what a nice guy Huckabee is, and a moral exemplar to boot. If they only did a little homework, they would discover a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics.

Once, Gov. Huckabee even had the gall to file suit against the state ethics commission. He lost.

Fourteen times, the ethics commission -- a respected body, not a partisan witch-hunt group -- investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And, as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at any real length, there were lots of other mini-scandals and embarrassments along the way.

He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a "charitable" organization he set up while lieutenant governor -- an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious "charity."

Huckabee has been criticized, reasonably so, for misusing the state airplane for personal reasons. And he and his wife, Janet, actually set up a "wedding gift registry" (they had already been married for years) to which people could donate as the Huckabees left the governorship, in order to furnish their new $525,000 home.

According to the Arkansas News Bureau (Feb. 1, 2003), "Huckabee's personal lawyer, Kevin Crass of Little Rock, has said Huckabee believes there should be no limit on gifts short of a bribe." After all, said Janet Huckabee, public officials like her husband should be automatically trusted: "Until you absolutely positively know that the man has outright lied to you, it should be enough that the man's word is that everything was done appropriately, legally, to the best of his knowledge to the letter of the law."

Of course, her reasoning refutes itself: If one is precluded from even questioning "the man's word," how can one possibly find out in the first place whether the official "has outright lied to you"?

It must be said that a fair-minded journalist ought to tread lightly in scrutinizing a candidate's spouse; but in Janet Huckabee's case, she is a politician in her own right, having run unsuccessfully for Arkansas Secretary of State. Voters overwhelmingly rejected her, perhaps because they remembered her propensity for other outrageous statements -- such as the time when she defended secrecy about the donors to her husband's "charity" by saying that a donor's name "wouldn't be enough. [Then] you'd want to know who he was married to, and then his wife would be German descent, and you'd have Mike, you'd have him responsible for 600,000 killings of Jews."

Huh?

Of course, nobody accused Huckabee of genocide. But his skin is so thin that when various underlings in his administration, even for bureaus as small as the state film office, crossed ethical lines (some of them, admittedly, rather minor), the governor consistently and angrily attacked the media for reporting the transgressions rather than demanding that the transgressors make things right.

Finally, Gov. Huckabee had a propensity to be almost as prodigal with pardons as was his famous predecessor by the name of Clinton. Indeed, Hillary Clinton's campaign team is probably licking their chops at the prospect of Huck as the nominee, because one of his pardons, in particular, was so outlandish as to make Willie Horton's case in Massachusetts seem almost child's play by comparison. After Huckabee helped secure the release of already-well-known rapist Wayne Dumond, the released convict sexually assaulted and murdered a woman in Missouri.

All of which leads one to ask two questions: First, how can voters whose primary concerns are moral look beyond so many of a candidate's problems with ethics? And, second, if Republicans in general have concluded, as most of them have, that repeated scandals among Washington GOPers played a huge role in Republican defeats in 2006, how could they possibly nominate somebody who seems to have such big ethical blind spots?

Give this to Huckabee: The man gives a good speech. But so does Duncan Hunter, with the biggest difference being that Hunter's speeches appeal more to the intellect than the heartstrings -- and that Hunter can boast 25 years of leadership for conservative causes, including on taxing and spending issues where Huckabee is notoriously un-conservative.

For that matter, if the question is public ethics, all the other major Republican candidates have rather solid records. With so little scandalous material to look into, why hasn't the usually scandal-ravenous national media delved into the record of the one GOP candidate whose ethics have been repeatedly questioned in his home state?

Has even the cynical big media been fooled by a Huckster?

[link to www.spectator.org]
PACNWguy

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11/26/2007 05:58 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Yep now that Mike is in a tie for winning Iowa,,,everyone is after him. That means he is a huge threat to Mitt and Rudy.

If hardly no one attacks your record, you arent interesting or you are not enough of a threat to even write about.

Thats why you dont hear much of anything negative about Ron Paul from the MSM political correspondents. He isnt a threat to anyone.

No one has taken him to task on anything. They just let him talk and they smile at him like he is a moron and they dont want to laugh.

lol
OBAMA - THE FASTEST FAILED PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY

"I inherated and I am Great!"
Anonymous Coward (OP)
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11/26/2007 06:01 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Thats why you dont hear much of anything negative about Ron Paul from the MSM political correspondents. He isnt a threat to anyone.
 Quoting: PACNWguy

Except you! lol
Anonymous Coward
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11/26/2007 06:27 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
They arent attacking Huckabees record nincompoop... they are airing out his lies and corruption. Huck says taxes are good. WTF kind of Conservative is that? ITS CALLED NEOCON. Warmonger DEMON

Beware of the wolves in sheep's clothing

They being the media you sight CANT attack Dr Pauls record as you know. IT IS ALMOST PERFECT! He does exactly what his voters SAY! Whats to attack about that? Nothin

Nice try PacNfudge... lol
Anonymous Coward
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11/26/2007 06:36 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump
Anonymous Coward
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11/26/2007 07:07 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Yep now that Mike is in a tie for winning Iowa,,,everyone is after him. That means he is a huge threat to Mitt and Rudy.

If hardly no one attacks your record, you arent interesting or you are not enough of a threat to even write about.

Thats why you dont hear much of anything negative about Ron Paul from the MSM political correspondents. He isnt a threat to anyone.

No one has taken him to task on anything. They just let him talk and they smile at him like he is a moron and they dont want to laugh.

lol
 Quoting: PACNWguy

Much the same tactic was used on Lyndon LaRouche as is being used on Ron Paul.

For all that, in order for Americans to get a more honest look at all the skeltons in all of the closets, now would be a good time for the "poll spammers" to start really raking up polling points for both Hunter and Gravel.
PACNWguy

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11/26/2007 07:15 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
They being the media you sight CANT attack Dr Pauls record as you know. IT IS ALMOST PERFECT! He does exactly what his voters SAY! Whats to attack about that? Nothin
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 332009


If he did exactly what his voters say...then why hasnt he ever gotten a bill passed in his 20 year career when he has sponsored more bills than anyone else in Congress?

If you had voted NO on every bill that Ron Paul voted No on, would you be as good a candidate for president as he is?

What makes him a better candidate than you? Has he done anything other than vote no?

Why does that make him a leader? Who has he led in his life? Where did he lead them and to what end?

Is voting NO on bills make you a leader?

A 3rd grader with a rubber stamp can do that.
OBAMA - THE FASTEST FAILED PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY

"I inherated and I am Great!"
Anonymous Coward (OP)
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11/26/2007 08:51 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Anyone who's even thinking about voting for The Huckster needs to read this.
Anonymous Coward
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11/26/2007 09:07 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
They being the media you sight CANT attack Dr Pauls record as you know. IT IS ALMOST PERFECT! He does exactly what his voters SAY! Whats to attack about that? Nothin


If he did exactly what his voters say...then why hasnt he ever gotten a bill passed in his 20 year career when he has sponsored more bills than anyone else in Congress?

If you had voted NO on every bill that Ron Paul voted No on, would you be as good a candidate for president as he is?

What makes him a better candidate than you? Has he done anything other than vote no?

Why does that make him a leader? Who has he led in his life? Where did he lead them and to what end?

Is voting NO on bills make you a leader?

A 3rd grader with a rubber stamp can do that.
 Quoting: PACNWguy


Your boy Huckabee turns out to have serious ethical issues and all you can do is bad mouth Ron Paul?

You are a serious fucking loser.
Anonymous Coward (OP)
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11/27/2007 02:35 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Your boy Huckabee turns out to have serious ethical issues and all you can do is bad mouth Ron Paul?

You are a serious fucking loser.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 332088

Yes and yes.
Anonymous Coward (OP)
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11/27/2007 07:02 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump for the PACNfudge!
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 03:08 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Bump for the integrity-impaired Huckster.
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 03:24 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Was there ever a doubt that this guy has absolutely NO integrity?
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 03:43 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Was there ever a doubt that this guy has absolutely NO integrity?
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 284011

Not to Arkansas residents!
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 03:53 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
No wonder the equally integrity-impaired PACNfudge likes him.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
They being the media you sight CANT attack Dr Pauls record as you know. IT IS ALMOST PERFECT! He does exactly what his voters SAY! Whats to attack about that? Nothin


If he did exactly what his voters say...then why hasnt he ever gotten a bill passed in his 20 year career when he has sponsored more bills than anyone else in Congress?

If you had voted NO on every bill that Ron Paul voted No on, would you be as good a candidate for president as he is?

What makes him a better candidate than you? Has he done anything other than vote no?

Why does that make him a leader? Who has he led in his life? Where did he lead them and to what end?

Is voting NO on bills make you a leader?

A 3rd grader with a rubber stamp can do that.
 Quoting: PACNWguy

Leadership...I saw the video of Huckabee literally saying that however the Arkansas State legislature wanted to raise taxes was fine with him, he didn't care. How is that leadership? A real leader with principals would have stood up and defended his conservative principals. Oh, but I forgot, he doesn't have any principals. Just because Ron Paul can't get 534 liars and thieves to do the right thing doesn't mean he doesn't have leadership qualities.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Was there ever a doubt that this guy has absolutely NO integrity?
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 284011

Maybe he will win. Personally, I don't like him, because I see through him. There is something very insincere about him.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Was there ever a doubt that this guy has absolutely NO integrity?

Not to Arkansas residents!
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 310083

Yes, well HELLO. They voted in Clinton too! Not exactly the pillar of integrity.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Yep now that Mike is in a tie for winning Iowa,,,everyone is after him. That means he is a huge threat to Mitt and Rudy.

If hardly no one attacks your record, you arent interesting or you are not enough of a threat to even write about.

Thats why you dont hear much of anything negative about Ron Paul from the MSM political correspondents. He isnt a threat to anyone.

No one has taken him to task on anything. They just let him talk and they smile at him like he is a moron and they dont want to laugh.

lol
 Quoting: PACNWguy



Thanks for injected Ron Paul into athread about Mike Huckabee, hypocrite.
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 06:32 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump for the lying, cheating Huckster.
Anonymous Coward
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11/28/2007 10:41 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
POLITICS AND LAW HAVE NO ETHICS OR MORALS BECAUSE THE LAW DOES NOT REQUIRE THEM.
Anonymous Coward
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11/29/2007 04:29 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump to learn about The Huckster.
Anonymous Coward
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11/29/2007 04:58 PM
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
Fourteen times, the ethics commission -- a respected body, not a partisan witch-hunt group -- investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And, as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at any real length, there were lots of other mini-scandals and embarrassments along the way.

He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a "charitable" organization he set up while lieutenant governor -- an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious "charity."

Huckabee has been criticized, reasonably so, for misusing the state airplane for personal reasons. And he and his wife, Janet, actually set up a "wedding gift registry" (they had already been married for years) to which people could donate as the Huckabees left the governorship, in order to furnish their new $525,000 home.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 300575
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump

:clinton pa:
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bump for the PACNfudge!
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 300575

bump for the PACNfudge bump. LOL, hilarious.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bash Huckster's just more of the same. NWO trash.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bash Huckster's just more of the same. NWO trash.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 329255


Indeed he is. He is NO conservative.

He's REALLY a LIBERAL.

In the Arkansas legislature, he supported giving drivers licenses to illegals.

[link to www.freerepublic.com]

He also supported giving college aid to children of illegal aliens.

This, in a poor state like Arkansas.

TOTAL NWO.

That's why he's been getting the air time.
Anonymous Coward
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Re: HUCKABEE'S SLEW OF ETHICS COMPLAINTS RAISE DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY
bash Huckster's just more of the same. NWO trash.


Indeed he is. He is NO conservative.

He's REALLY a LIBERAL.

In the Arkansas legislature, he supported giving drivers licenses to illegals.

[link to www.freerepublic.com]

He also supported giving college aid to children of illegal aliens.

This, in a poor state like Arkansas.

TOTAL NWO.

That's why he's been getting the air time.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 333416


Also, over 40% higher overall taxes and corporate welfare for Walmart Corp.





GLP