Huckabee shameful record

Huckabee confict of Interest

226 Comments

Huckabee stands to gain from deal

He’s director at firm in merger


June 28, 2006

BY JAKE BLEED

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

The New York-based com­pany that counts Gov. Mike Huckabee among its
directors began merging Tuesday with a separate shell company, a cheap and fast
way to go pub­lic.

With a complex series of stock transactions, Park Ave­nue’s Flagship
Patient Advo­cates Inc. will become part of Finity Holdings Inc., an Ohio-based shell company whose shares were
recently traded for a penny and whose ma­jor shareholders include two men who
were convicted last year of bank fraud and other charges in Colorado.

The resulting company will be renamed Patients &
Physi­cians Inc., said Fred Nazem,


chairman and chief executive officer of both Flagship and Finity. The
new company will specialize in providing mem­bers-only medical services, in­cluding
referrals to a network of top medical and surgical specialists around the
world.

Nazem said Finity and Flag­ship will officially merge to­day, with the
filing of a restat­ed certificate of incorporation. Finity shareholders
authorized the transaction at a meeting at Flagship’s offices Tuesday.

Huckabee was traveling in Japan on Tuesday. He said he did not
participate in the merger decision. He said his involvement with the company is
limited and that he wasn’t sure if he would benefit from his involvement with
Flag-See MERGER,Page 2B

Merger

• Continued from
Page 1B ship.

“Obviously, he doesn’t have me on there because I’m one
of the world’s richest men,” Huckabee said.

Nazem asked Huckabee to
join the company after reading
the governor’s book, Quit Dig­
ging Your Grave with a Knife
and Fork, and hearing some of
his lectures on health.           ._

Shell company transactions
can be hugely profitable. Re­
publican candidate for governor
AsaHutchinson saw a $2,800
“initial investment in Fortress
America Acquisition Corp.
grow to more than $1 million
on paper after the shell com­-
pany acquired another business,
earlier this month.               

Finity isn’t much of a compa­ny, with no assets
reported on the company’s balance sheet, according to filings with the
Securities and Exchange Com­mission.

However, the company does have regulatory approval to be traded
publicly, which makes it an attractive partner for pri­vately held companies
that are looking to go public, said Bob Williams, managing director of Little
Rock-based Delta Trust.

Finity’s shares are traded un­der the ticker symbol FNTY on
the Over the Counter Bulletin Board, a market used primarily by small companies
with low-value, “penny” stocks, includ­ing Fortress America.

Finity’s shares ended Tues­day trading at eight cents a
share, up from one cent on June 13.

Going public is expensive,
Williams said, and is an option
usually reserved for large and
growing companies. For smaller
outfits, it’s easier and cheaper
to take over a shell company
and its publicly traded stock,
what Williams call “a back­
wards acquisition of a public
 shell
company.”_____________


the governor.

Nazem said only Finity shares will be affected by the combination.
Flagship share­holders, including Huckabee, will retain the same number of
shares, Nazem said.

Flagship and Finity have the same officers and directors, ac­cording to
Finity’s proxy, and Huckabee will remain a direc­tor of Patients &
Physicians Inc.

Huckabee is one of 10 of-
ficers and directors listed in
Finity’s proxy statement filed
with the SEC on June 15. The
25,000 shares that Huckabee
has the option to exercise rep-­
resent less than one-tenth of
one percent of the Flagship’s
outstanding shares.               _

Tuesday’s decision by the Finity shareholders will
see the company execute a series of transactions designed to bring the value of
shares in Finity in line with Flagship. That in­cluded a 125-to-l reverse stock
split, and the authorization of tens of millions of additional shares.

“The reverse stock split is really just getting
the numbers of the stock right,” Nazem said, adding that the transactions
didn’t change the actual value of either company.

It was part of what Nazem called a
“housecleaning” of Finity. The shell company was originally founded
as Colum­bia Capital Corp. in 1993, and partnered with Boulder, Colo.-based
BestBank, in processing credit cards.

BestBank was later declared insolvent, and two men involved with both companies, Glenn
Gallant and Douglas Baetz of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were later found guilty by
a federal jury on 63 counts, including bank fraud, and continuing a finan­cial
crimes enterprise.

Although a federal judge lat­er dismissed 27 of those
counts, the pair still face a minimum sentence of 10 years on some counts,
said Jeff Dorschner, a

Huckabee shameful record

Huckabee confict of Interest?

6 Comments

Health
company recruits governor for board of directors



 

June 13, 2006

BY BRIAN BASHN

ARKANSAS
DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Fred Nazem, the investor behind several multibillion-dol-lar health-care
companies, has tapped Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve on the board of directors for
his latest project — a
physi­cian referral service. The com­pany,
Flagship Patient Advocates, will go public later this month.

Flagship Patient Advocates connects subscribing patients to
top doctors in more than 150 specialties. For $750 a year, a member can receive
health-care advice from high-profile
medical professionals in the United
States and abroad, Nazem said.

The company had $7,000 in revenue and $3 million in losses for the
quarter ending March 31. But Nazem —
who helped cre­ate the Oxford Health Plan and a forerunner to the Tenet Health­care Corp. hospital chain — says



he has
“tens of millions of dol­lars” in deals that will be rolled out over
the next year.

Huckabee, who joined the board in September, won’t ben­efit much
immediately from the company’s growth. He receives no pay for his seat on the
board, but instead was granted 25,000 shares in Finity Holding Inc., a related
company trading over-the-counter at just over one cent.

Following a shareholder vote later this month, shares in Fin­ity Holding will convert in a “re­verse
stock split” into shares of Flagship Patient Advocates, at a rate of 125 to 1. That would leave Huckabee with 200 shares, which could
increase in value if inves­tors buy into Nazem’s plan.

After that, Huckabee and other board members will likely
receive additional shares in ex­change for their expertise, Na-



zem said.

Huckabee’s involvement
with Flagship Patient Advocates grew out
of the release of his 2005 book, Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and
Fork, as well as lectures on health policy he gave last year, said Alice Stewart, a spokesman for the governor,
a story that Nazem confirmed.

“I read his book, and a friend of a friend says he knew
him,” Nazem said. “I like … what he stands for.”

A sitting governor who is
also a member of the board of a pub­licly
traded company might raise eyebrows — if it
weren’t so close to
the end of Huckabee’s term, said Jay Barth, a professor of politics at Hendrix
College and a member of the Democratic Party’s State Committee.

“It’s not unusual at all for former elected officials to [join
corporate boards],” Barth said.



“It would not be happening if he had
longer left in his term.”

Graham Sloan, head of the
Ar­kansas Ethics Commission, said Huckabee’s board seat shouldn’t pose a
problem as long as his business associates aren’t given any special treatment

“I don’t think it’s that uncom­mon,”
he said. “A lot of members of the General Assembly sit on the
boards of corporations or bank boards.”

Nazem said he had an easy
an­swer for potential ethical issues.

“I told the governor
we’d nev­er do any deal with the state of Arkansas,” he said.

\ Flagship Patient Advocates has its eye on more far-flung territory — namely China and India.

“We’re hoping to become one of
the health-care companies of choice for the
2008 Olympics” in Beijing, Nazem said.

Huckabee shameful record, State government offenses

Huckabee crushes hard drives (including his use of State plane) & Guts emergency fund

316 Comments


div>

 

 

 

 (NOTE: INCLUDED IN THE CRUSHED HARD
DRIVES WERE ALL THE RECORDS OF HUCKABEE’S USE/ABUSE OF THE STATE POLICE KING
AIRPLANE)

 

Huckabee
left computers, fund gutted

BY SETH BLOMELEY AND MICHAEL R.
WICKLINE

Posted on Friday, January 19, 2007

URL:
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee depleted
the governor’s office emergency fund in the final weeks of his administration
in part to pay for the destruction of computer hard drives in his office.

That left Gov. Mike Beebe, who
replaced Huckabee on Jan. 9, with no emergency funds for the last half of
fiscal 2007.

Documents that the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, describe the destruction
of the computer drives, as ordered by Huckabee’s office, and Huckabee
complaining strongly about his cell phone and Blackberry not working.

A memo dated Jan. 9 from a state
Department of Information Systems official to Huckabee told of the “disposition
of data maintained” by the department “for the office of the governor” during
Huckabee’s tenure.

“All drives have been subsequently
crushed under the supervision of a designee of your office,” wrote Gary
Underwood, the agency’s chief technology officer and a former Huckabee staff
member.

Beebe has asked the Legislature to
replenish the $ 500, 000 emergency fund, but a legislative committee has so far
rejected his request.

On Jan. 3, the Department of
Information Systems requested $ 25, 000 from the governor’s office “for the
closeout of information systems for the office of the governor.”

Huckabee on Jan. 5 sent the
department the last $ 13, 000 in the emergency fund, leaving an outstanding
balance of $ 12, 000. The $ 13, 000 would be used to help pay for crushing the
hard drives.

Department of Information Systems
Director Claire Bailey said hard drives for 83 computers and four servers were
destroyed, or “crushed,” after information was downloaded onto backup tapes.
Underwood supervised it and delivered the backup tapes to Huckabee Chief of
Staff Brenda Turner, who had ordered the hard drives crushed, Bailey said.

She said the computers were located
in the state Capitol; the state’s Washington, D. C., office; the state police
airport hangar; the Governor’s Mansion; and the Arkansas State Police drug
office.

In 2003, Huckabee announced that
after he left office, his official gubernatorial papers would be stored at his
alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University, a private institution in Arkadelphia.
He said at the time that the college would decide which documents would be
released to the public.

A Nov. 20, 2006, e-mail from
Huckabee’s director of media operations, Kerry Rodnick, to Turner asked, “Is
there someone at OBU that could tell me how they’d like to receive our digital
files ?”

With the emergency fund empty just
before he took office, Beebe asked the Joint Budget Committee to put another $
500, 000 in it. On Thursday, the committee rejected Beebe’s request.

An alternate resolution for $ 250,
000 to meet Beebe’s request halfway also failed.

Lawmakers said they wanted to know
why Huckabee had spent it all and where it went.

Beebe said he’s not sure what to
make of the committee’s rejection of his request.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Beebe
said. “I hope that it’s not an inside political issue at the expense of taking
care of emergencies and taking care of our people. The emergency fund is there
for a reason. We just had seven counties declared disaster areas. We may have
more. We’re coming into tornado season. That fund they usually try to keep, if
at all possible, at $ 500, 000 at all times so that money is there for counties
and cities and people if there is a disaster. I don’t know what they’re doing,
but I’m going to have a visit with a few legislators and I’ll find out.”

Beebe said he didn’t know whether it
was normal for the governor’s office computer hard drives to be destroyed.

“It certainly removes any
opportunity to have any information,” he said.

Beebe has just finished a four-year
term as attorney general. He said he knows of no hard drives being destroyed
there in advance of his successor, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, taking
office.

“Certainly [there were ] no orders
for that by me,” Beebe said.

He said he did tell his attorney
general staff to delete e-mails and other files from office computers in
preparation for the new staff in McDaniel’s office.

Asked whether “crushing” hard drives
should be considered a criminal offense of destroying state property, Beebe
said he didn’t know.

Bailey said the Department of
Information Systems arranged to handle computers during the transition in
administration in the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s offices, but not the
attorney general’s or treasurer’s offices, which are the other constitutional
offices that changed hands in January as a result of the November election.

She said the Department of
Information Systems didn’t crush hard drives in the lieutenant governor’s
office.

“Some of our customers do crush and
/ or overwrite their hard drives themselves, and some of our customers ask for
our assistance,” she said. “We, as an agency, always overwrite or physically
crush our internal hard drives depending on the sensitivity of the data.”

A Huckabee spokesman didn’t return a
message Thursday, and Huckabee didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking his response
to questions about the computers and his use of the emergency fund.

Beebe said he wasn’t aware until
recently that Huckabee had used the last of the emergency fund to pay costs
associated with the governor’s office file purge.

Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample said
Beebe’s office now has 22 “updated” computers with new hard drives, 27 new
desk-top computers, and 22 new laptops. He said the computers and other
equipment were purchased with money from the governor’s office operational
fund.

“We are operational,” he said. “We
are not lacking in computers right now. We couldn’t run the office without
computers, and we couldn’t make the request [to the Legislature for the
computers ] until we were in office.”

He said that forced Beebe to dip
into the operational fund for $ 335, 000 to buy the computers.

Bailey said the computers would
likely have been replaced even if the hard drives weren’t crushed. She said that
her department had replaced the computers at the governor’s office the day
before Beebe took office and Beebe had to reimburse the department.

HUCKABEE EXPENSES According to the
Bureau of Legislative Research, Huckabee spent the $ 500, 000 on 22 things, the
most being $ 100, 000 for a group called Play It Again Arkansas “to purchase
[musical ] instruments and provide operational funding.” Huckabee has been
supportive of that group, which distributes used musical instruments to
children. Among other things, he gave $ 10, 000 to the Hot Springs Documentary
Film Institute to buy a car; $ 97, 000 to the Game and Fish Commission’s
“Hooked on Fishing, Not Drugs” program; $ 10, 000 to the city of Little Rock to
help in “the development of the Mexican Consulate” office; $ 15, 000 for the
Arkansas chapter of the American Red Cross to help “prepare young people to
deal with disaster situations.” Huckabee’s wife, Janet, works for the Red
Cross.

Sen. Percy Malone, D-Arkadelphia,
made the request at the Joint Budget Committee for a list of everything
Huckabee has used the emergency fund for.

“I want to make sure it’s not a fund
the governor has to use however they want,” Malone said. “If that’s what we’re
going to do, we don’t need to call it an emergency fund.”

Kim Arnall, assistant director of
the Bureau of Legislative Research, said the fund has traditionally been used
by governors for “emergency type situations or maybe not emergency type
situations.”

Arnall said the governor has another
fund at his disposal, the Governor’s Disaster Fund, which amounts to $ 9. 5
million each year for things such aid during natural catastrophes.

Beebe’s request to replace the $
500, 000 failed with 22 votes in favor, seven votes short of the 29 needed to
pass. The alternate motion for $ 250, 000 failed with 25 votes.

Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, said
he voted against the $ 250, 000 in hopes that his colleagues later would
approve the $ 500, 000.

Rep. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia,
offered the motion to give Beebe half of what he requested. He said later that
it was not legislators’ attempt to send a “message” to Beebe as some at the
Capitol thought.

He said he and other legislators
thought that the emergency fund being depleted “really isn’t our problem.” But
he said he also thought that it “isn’t Gov. Beebe’s fault either.” He said he
wanted to “be fair” to Beebe, but he and other legislators want more
information about the fund. He said Beebe may end up getting the entire $ 500,
000.

Richard Weiss, director of the state
Department of Finance and Administration, said the emergency fund is typically
replenished during changes of administrations.

Rep. Rick Saunders, D-Hot Springs,
wondered in the committee whether Beebe wanted more emergency money to buy
lighting for news conferences in the governor’s conference room. He noted that
he had read in the Democrat-Gazette that Huckabee’s staff removed lighting
which wasn’t state property.

A Dec. 28 e-mail from Rodnick,
Huckabee’s director of media operations, to Huckabee chief of staff Turner
detailed some last-minute sorting out of state property and private property.

“Gary Underwood and I met this
morning and went through all equipment and communications related material to
determine what belongs to the state and what did not,” Rodnick wrote. “We were
able to define what was his, mine and the Republican Party’s.”

Rodnick noted that the
conference-room podium was bought with party funds but “retrofitted with state
money.” He wrote that one option would be deconstructing the podium to give the
proper parts to the state and the party.

“The concern comes when the new
administration comes in and notices the podium gone and the guts on the floor,”
he wrote. “I feel it would be better to avoid potentially negative press by
leaving the podium asis.”

Clint Reed, executive director of
the state GOP, said he had no knowledge of the party buying items for the
governor’s office.

As for the Department of Information
Systems billing, Beebe said, “What I do know is apparently DIS never charged
the governor’s office what they were supposed to over the last several years
for the governor’s office proportional share of [information technology ]
services.”

He noted that the state continues to
have “big problems” with the way the Department of Information Systems has
billed state agencies for computer services.

Last fall, Huckabee recommended that
the state set aside $ 37 million of the expected $ 843 million state surplus to
pay the federal government in case the state loses a lawsuit related to
Department of Information Systems’ billing.

The federal government has
maintained that federal dollars sent to the state wrongly went toward computer
billing at the Department of Information Systems.

Beebe said the governor’s office
owes a “bunch” of money to the Department of Information Systems for services
provided in the past few years, but he wasn’t sure of the exact amount. He said
Bailey would know.

Bailey said the governor’s office
owes $ 33, 302 for services rendered during the Huckabee administration. She
blamed “internal DIS billing process failures” for bills not previously being
sent to the governor’s office. BLACKBERRY AND CELL PHONE

Huckabee also was dealing with other
technological issues in the weeks before he left office.

“WHO THE HECK TURNED OFF MY
BLACKBERRY ?????” Huckabee wrote in a Dec. 23 e-mail.

The Dec. 23 e-mail from Huckabee to
Bailey concerned a disruption in the governor’s communication services during
the transition to Beebe’s administration.

“My Blackberry has been disconnected
by some genius who must have thought I quit being governor Dec. 23,” Huckabee
wrote. “1. Who did this and why ? I’d like an answer now. 2. Get it turned back
on. NOW ! I’ve called Cingular to try to get this fixed. We need to make sure
our computer lines aren’t down. This is beyond excusable.”

Huckabee was one of the first people
at the Capitol to have a Blackberry, a portable email and cell phone device the
he has had since at least 2002.

Bailey quickly responded to
Huckabee’s concern, writing that “I will take care of this now.”

Huckabee then wrote Bailey, saying
that his cell phone wasn’t working either. “I want to know why this happened
and who was responsible. It wasn’t very smart.”

Copyright © 2001-2007 Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com

 

Huckabee shameful record

Huckabee lauds open borders

122 Comments




Huckabee Lauds U.S.’s ‘Open-Door’
Policy



By
Wesley Brown

ARKANSAS NEWS BUREAU WBROWNaARKANSASNEWS.COM



WEB
SITE RANKS HUCKABEE TOP GOP PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL PAGE 1A



 



Little ROCK —
In an impassioned speech before hundreds of influ­ential
Hispanic civil rights leaders from across the nation. Gov. Mike Huckabee
said Wednesday that   America is great because it has always opened its doors
to people seeking a better way of life.

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” Huck­abee said, citing the Golden Rule. “I have tried to govern that way, and
it stands to reason that I re­ally do
believe that what made this great country so great and so unique is that it has always been a place for people to run to — and not run from.

“I would hope that no matter who we are, or where we are from, that America should always be a
place that opens its arms, opens it heart,
opens its spirit to people who come because they want the best for their families _” Huckabee said as the largely
His­panic audience gave him a stand­ing
ovation.

 

Huckabee was
the keynote speaker, along with Tyson Foods, Inc. Chairman and CEO John Tyson at a noon luncheon of The League of United Latin American Citizens, which is holding its 76th annual convention in Little Rock.

About 10,000 political, com­munity and business leaders, along with exhibitors and speakers are attending the convention at the



Statehouse Convention
Center.

In his opening remarks, Huck­abee said the nation will need to address the
concerns of the His­panic community because of its growing influence and population base.

“Pretty soon, Southern white guys like me may be in the mi­nority,” Huckabee said jokingly as the crowd roared in laughter.

Despite several light moments, Huckabee
did not avoid several controversial issues
that made him a target of criticism during the 85th General Assembly. He said Arkansas
needs to make the tran­sition from a traditional Southern state to one
that recognizes and cherishes diversity
“in culture, in language and in population”

During the legislative
session, Huckabee criticized an
immigra­tion bill by Republican Sens.
Jim Holt of Springdale and Denny Altes
of Fort Smith as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life.

Senate Bill 206, which
died in the Senate, would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote and also force state agencies to report suspected cases of peo­ple living in the country illegally. Holt replied later to Huckabee’s comments that Christian charity does
not include turning a blind eye to lawbreaking.

Huckabee also backed
legisla­tion that would have opened
the door for illegal immigrants in Arkansas
to receive college schol­arships.

House
Bill 1525 by Rep. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, was ap­proved by the House but eventu-ally failed in the Senate Huckabee reiterated Wednesday that he believes every child, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, should have an opportunity to re­ceive an education in the United States.

Before
Huckabee spoke, John Tyson thanked the Hispanic com­munity for standing by the Springdale-based food giant during the federal government’s investigation of the company a few years ago. The US.Justice Department investigation alleged that Tyson helped to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States and employed them at various chicken-
processing plants across the Southeast.                      

After a seven-week trial,
Tyson and several managers of
poultry processing plants were
acquitted in March 2003 of those
charges.

Tyson also credited LULAC leaders for pushing the company to add Hispanics to the Tyson board and promote more Latinos to upper management and executive positions.                    

He also said in the last 15 years,
the number of Hispanics who
work for the Arkansas company    
has increased significantly.______

Huckabee shameful record, State government offenses

Free Transport: Huckabee and family (p. 3)

1 Comment

“(a)
No constitutional officer or employee of a constitutional officer shall expend
for personal use any moneys appropriated by the General Assembly for the maintenance and operation
of the office, and the moneys appropriated for the maintenance and operation of the offices of
the constitutional officers shall be expended only for official state business.

(b) This subchapter does not
apply to the purchase, maintenance, and operation of state-owned motor
vehicles.”

In
its 1997 opinion the Ethics Commission noted that “if the State Police
determine that it is in the best interest of the security of the Governor to
transport him in his plane, there are no statutory restrictions preventing the
Governor’s use of the ASP plane, regardless of the nature of the journey.”
However, there was an important caveat:

“That
said, the Commission is not willing to opine that the ASP plane can be used by
the Governor for any reason. In this regard, the Office of the Governor furnished the
Commission with a set of voluntarily adopted internal policies that restrict the use of state-owned airplanes, to wit:

1.  
State airplanes do not transport the Governor on journeys that are
solely political in nature.

2.  
State airplanes do not transport the Governor on journeys that are
solely religious in nature.

3.  
State airplanes do not transport the Governor on non-official,
out-of-state trips or for any personal trips solely related to outside business or investment activities.”

The
part of Arkansas law most closely related to the subject was written before the
state owned an airplane and therefore does not address it, allowing the
governor’s office to utilize the plane without restriction as part of his
security needs. However, neither the State Police nor Huckabee will discuss how
those security needs are determined — even after
travel is completed — so it is impossible to know why the airplane is so
crucial for his personal safety.

In
short, “security” seems to be a magic word that, when uttered,
eliminates the need for the Huckabee administration to account for the
expenditure of public money. Ask Huckabee how he justifies using the
state-owned plane, and he cites “security” and refers additional questions to the State
Police. Ask the State Police how they determine whether the plane is necessary for the
governor’s security, and they cite “security.” Ask in retrospect why
in a particular instance the plane was
necessary for the governor’s security, and they cite “security.”

Most
of Huckabee’s out-of-state travel on the state-owned airplane (as documented
previously in the Times) is connected to his involvement in the National Governors Association and
similar organizations, arguably related to his public office. However, in August the plane
retrieved Huckabee in New Hampshire, where he was making political appearances
before Republican groups. He did fly on from there to a governor’s meeting in
another state so mat Huckabee could
perhaps argue this trip was not “exclusively” for political purposes.

Huckabee shameful record, State government offenses

Free Transport: Huckabee and family (p. 2)

274 Comments

“Any time we’re
spending taxpayers’ dollars in government, we should pay attention to
that,” Republican state Sen. Bill Earley told the Argus Leader. Another Republican
state senator, Bill Napoli, was quoted in the paper supporting the Democrats’ letter to the FAA.

Arkansas
state Sen. Gilbert Baker, who is also the chairman of the state Republican
Party, said he was not familiar with the
situation in South Dakota.

“The
bottom line for me is that obviously we have a governor who has an important
role nationally with the National Governors Association and it is good for Arkansas that
he is in that role,” Baker said. “I don’t know the details regarding the policies on the use
of the State Police plane, but I am confident he is using it
appropriately.”

When
asked if Huckabee should be more transparent about how and why he decides to
utilize the plane, Baker said, “We do live in a new day when it comes to security issues…. If it
is a security issue, there is no way I would want to tread on mat. I would just have to trust the State
Police in that regard.”

A
determination of whether Huckabee’s use of the State Police aircraft is lawful
would likely be conducted by the non­partisan Division of Legislative Audit To start that
process, a member of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee must request a fact-finding report

State
Rep. Tommy Roebuck, who co-chairs the committee with state Sen. Hank Wilkins,
said that no one on the committee has
raised questions about Huckabee’s use of the state-owned plane.

No accountability

A security catch shrouds state plane use.

Warwick
Sabin Updated:
12/22/2005

Gov. Mike Huckabee
will not discuss with the Arkansas Times his use of a state-owned airplane for
out-of-state travel that has little or no connection with his official duties.
He cites security considerations in his refusal to justify personal use of taxpayer equipment and State Police employees.

For
example, Huckabee and three members of his family used the state-owned airplane
in October to fly to and from Washington, D.C., so he and his wife, Janet,
could participate in the Marine Corps marathon. Why did security considerations deem necessary the
use of the plane (rather than a commercial airliner) for Huckabee’s travel to a
place where he and
his wife would run and walk 26.2 miles through the streets of a city with a
high crime rate? The explanation, too, is
protected by “security.” Or so the governor’s staff says.

Left
to guess why Huckabee feels confident mat he is acting within the law, the
Times found an advisory opinion issued Oct 16,1997, by the Arkansas Ethics
Commission in response to a question from Bud Cummins, who was Huckabee’s chief
legal counsel at the time. Cummins asked, “Whether [Arkansas Code]
requiring the Arkansas State Police (ASP) to provide security for the governor
authorizes the use of state-owned vehicles or airplanes to transport the governor to and from any
destination for any purpose when the ASP determines that use of such a
conveyance will optimize security for the
governor?”

The commission’s “brief
response” was, “Yes. There are no statutory restrictions on the use
of state-owned airplanes. Ark. Code Ann. § 19-4-2103
specifically permits the use of state-owned vehicles for personal or
non-official business by state constitutional officers.”

Subsection
19-4-2103 was passed into law in 1991 — before the
State Police owned an airplane — and has not been amended
since. Its full text is:

Huckabee shameful record, State government offenses

Free Transport: Huckabee and family

108 Comments

Updated: 12/1/2005

FREE TRANSPORT: Huckabee and family got it for this
marathon run.

Gov.
Mike Huckabee is still flying high on the taxpayers’ dime and refusing to
provide details about it, claiming security
interests.

The Arkansas Times
first reported Nov. 3 about his use of the State Police’s twin-engine
Beechcraft King Air 200. He has used it
several times since.

From Oct. 22 to
Nov. 10 he used the plane to fly to Atlanta, Charlotte, twice to Dallas and
three times to Washington, D.C. On one of those trips, Huckabee and his wife,
son and daughter-in-law traveled to and from Washington so Gov. and Mrs. Huckabee could participate in the Marine
Corps marathon.

Huckabee
will not answer questions about how or why he decides to use the State Police
plane for almost all of his out-of-state travel, which includes about 40 trips
in 2005. “Whether we are talking in general or about specifics, when it is
a matter of travel
it is a security issue and we’re not going to comment,” said Huckabee
press secretary Alice Stewart. It is
unclear what security concerns exist after a trip, but Stewart won’t discuss
that either.

State Police spokesman Bill
Sadler said the department has “no recollection or record” of
Huckabee ever reimbursing the department
for his use of its aircraft

A
schedule released by Huckabee’s office says he is to be in Carlsbad, Calif.,
for a Republican Governors Association meeting from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2, New York City to receive
an award on Dec. 5 and Greensboro, N.C., to deliver a speech on Dec. 6. His
office would not say if Huckabee will use the State Police plane for those
trips.

Sadler
said Huckabee’s use of the plane is governed by Section 12-8-108(a) of the
Arkansas Code, which says, “The Department of Arkansas State Police shall be responsible
for the safety and security of the: (1) Governor and his or her family.” It makes no
specific provision for use of the plane to transport the governor, an expense
worth thousands of dollars for every trip
at private industry prices.

Also,
Chapter 17 of the State Police Field Operations Policy and Procedure Manual
refers to the department’s aircraft. Among the approved uses other than for law enforcement
operations is “transportation of other state officials in the performance of official state business.”

The
same chapter stipulates “the determination of whether a situation warrants
the use of ASP aircraft shall be made by ASP field supervisors. (The Commander of the Executive
Protection Unit may also schedule and request ASP aircraft for use by the Governor.)”

According
to the manual, State Police flights must adhere to Federal Aviation
Regulations, which in the case of the King
Air 200 are found in Part 91.

In South Dakota,
Democratic state legislators have asked the Federal Aviation Administration
whether their governor’s use of a King
Air 200 complies with Part 91.

The
Argus Leader, South Dakota’s largest newspaper, reported in September that Gov.
Mike Rounds “sometimes uses the state airplane to travel to high school athletic
contests and other non-public events, often taking family members and friends along. Rounds said
state law allows him to pay for nonpublic use of the state-owned airplanes. He
said he usually uses
either his campaign fund or a Governor’s Club fund created by donors to the
state Republican Party to reimburse the
state for those trips.”

In
a survey of public aircraft policies in 49 states, the Argus Leader found mat
most states clearly prohibit use of state-owned planes for personal or political travel. For
Arkansas the newspaper quoted Rex Nelson, Huckabee’s former communications director, as
saying, “He doesn’t use the airplane for personal trips. Occasionally,
there’s a day when official business
travel is mixed with politics.”

There is bi-partisan
support among South Dakota lawmakers for examination of the use of the state
airplane by Rounds, who is a Republican.

Huckabee illegal Consulate, Huckabee shameful record

Governor Huckabee’s radio address re his trip to Mexico/Consulate (p.1)

307 Comments


Governor Huckabee’s
Radio Address November 8, 2003

Subj: Mexico



Hello, this is Governor Mike Huckabee with this week’s
comment from my corner of the Capitol.

One
of the highlights of the year occurred for me when I led a delegation of
elected officials from across the country on a trade mission to Mexico. I
headed the delegation in my capacity as the president of the Council of State
Governments. The CSG is the nation’s only organization serving every elected
and appointed official in all three branches of state government. Founded in
1933 on the premise that states are the best sources of insight and innovation, the CSG provides a network for state
leaders to share ideas. I also was honored to lead the CSG’s annual
State Trends and Leadership Forum last month in Pittsburgh.

On the trip to Mexico, I was accompanied by Jim Pickens,
the director of our state Department of Economic Development. Our visit reminded
us that the American dream is alive and well. I spent time in places ranging
from Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, to tiny Mexican villages. Everywhere I went, I was
reminded that people around the world still look to this country as a
place of great opportunity. They understand it’s possible to come to the United States with little more than the clothes
on your back and build a better life through hard work. They appreciate the
things for which our nation stands. In many ways, these people are like
our own ancestors, who came to America in search of a better life.

Since I became governor
more than seven years ago, I’ve meet hundreds of Mexican natives
who’ve
migrated to Arkansas towns such as Danville, Decatur and De Queen.
Percentagewise,  Arkansas has the fastest-growing Hispanic
population in the country.

Arkansas
industries, especially our burgeoning poultry industry, have offered jobs that often
are filled by immigrants from Mexico. The rapid growth of our state’s
Hispanic population has “ledTo complex social issues. Heavy migration
can increase the demand for state services. But most of   those who’ve moved to the state in recent years
are hard-working people with strong family ties. They’ve made a contribution to
our economy and revitalized parts of numerous Arkansas towns that previously
were dying. I was reminded again during the trip to Mexico of how proud I am of
the way the majority of Arkansans have received these Hispanic immigrants. We
respect hard work in Arkansas. We respect those who want to provide a better life
for their children and grandchildren. For decades, we treated our state’s
African-America population poorly. The Hispanic influx gives us a second chance
to prove what kind of people we really are.

I looked into the eyes of rural Mexican children, and my
heart was moved. These children often don’t have enough to eat, don’t have good
clothes and don’t have a dry place to sleep at night. They have little
chance of ever breaking out of the cycle of poverty. I was humbled at the
thought of how much Americans have. And I was reminded we can give something
back by



http://www.arkansas.gov/govemor/media/radio/text/rl 1082003.html



01/28/2005

 

Huckabee shameful record

Huckabee’s ongoing abuse of taxpayer plane

199 Comments

Frequent flier

Max
Brantley Updated:
2/16/2006

The
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Seth Blomeley wrote a lengthy report in Sunday’s
newspaper on Gov. Mike Huckabee’s heavy use of the State Police airplane for travels that have
often included stops that enhance his national political profile.

The
article added details to Warwick Sabin’s earlier reporting in the Times on the
use of the twin-engine King Air. According to the D-G account, the governor has racked up
nearly a half-million bucks in private plane costs since 2002 alone. He could have saved plenty flying commercial or
taking a car in-state.

Sabin
had reported earlier on reporting by a South Dakota newspaper that found few
governors with the unfettered access to state-funded air transport that Huckabee enjoys. The D-G
reported that Republican governors in Texas and Missouri rarely use a state
plane, preferring not to charge taxpayers. Other governors who use state planes
maintain detailed public records.

The legislature seems to have no
problem with treating Huckabee like a corporate exec, with unlimited use of a
private plane to go
along with a mansion, free utilities, servants, a vehicle fleet and other
freebies.

We
aren’t so sanguine. Should taxpayers be paying to fly the governor to
Republican meetings and Christian Coalition confabs? Worse still are many flights to Nashville,
Ark., which suspiciously suggest he uses the plane (and, in one case, a state helicopter) to get to his
Lake Greeson house on weekends. This is “official business”?

We’d settle for accountability, a
concept that makes The Huckster churlish.

He
would take no questions from the Democrat-Gazette, saying, through a spokesman,
that its reporter and political editor have “edited, twisted and
distorted” his remarks. He won’t talk to us either. He simply doesn’t do
interviews with people
who ask tough questions, follow them up and refuse to be snookered by a corny
joke and a sound bite. He’ll talk on TV
and radio, where he controls the message.

So
this is for the TV reporters, should you get a chance. What security interest
demands private plane travel for Huckabee (and his family) rather than a cheaper
Southwest Airlines flight to Washington? Why was he choppered to Lake Greeson? Why, in fact, can’t he drive himself to
his weekend retreat?

Then
there’s accountability. State employees must justify every single mile for
which they are reimbursed. Why should it be any different for The Huckster. If
he cranks up the State Police plane, taxpayers are entitled to know the times, dates, destinations and passengers. “Official
business” is not sufficient documentation.

Sen.
Dave Bisbee, a Rogers Republican, put it squarely to Reporter Blomeley, as Bisbee
often does. “Where do you draw the line between campaign and official business? The questions
shouldn’t be whether Huckabee is benefiting. The question should be whether the state is
benefiting. The governor ought to be able to answer those questions.”

Huckabee
won’t answer those questions because he can’t. And the answers might prove a
problem in his 2008 presidential
campaign.

Bill
Clinton didn’t have to answer questions about the State Police plane when he
ran in 1992 because there was no state King Air then. Clinton’s questions concerned the
free rides he bummed on corporate aircraft, duly reported in his financial disclosure forms.
Amazing, isn’t it, that no similar accountability is required when the governor
uses OUR airplane.

Huckabee illegal Consulate, Huckabee shameful record

Governor Huckabee’s radio address re his trip to Mexico/Consulate (p.2)

204 Comments


offering a helping hand to those who follow the American
dream along Interstate 30 and Interstate 40 into Arkansas. I also was reminded
of the global impact our small state and the companies based
here have had. I was traveling with our delegation along a dusty road in the
state of Hidalgo when we suddenly came upon a new Wal-Mart Supercenter. There
are almost 150 Arkansas companies now exporting $250 million worth
of goods annually to Mexico. Arkansas’ exports to Mexico have almost tripled
since before the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in
1994. Wal-Mart entered into a joint venture with Cifra with the opening
of a Sam’s Club in Mexico City in 1991. Mexico became the first country in the
company’s international division. Wal-Mart acquired a majority position in
Cifra in 1997. In February 2000, the name of the company was changed to
Wal-Mart de Mexico. Wal-Mart now operates more than 600
units with annual sales of $10.1 billion. The Wal-Mart stock is the second
most traded stock on the Mexican stock exchange. The Bentonville Company is
represented in 31 of the 36 Mexican states. Tyson Foods of Springdale,
meanwhile, began operating in Mexico in 1994 through a joint venture.-
Tyson now processes millions of chickens and turkeys annually in
the country. The company has almost 4,900 employees in Mexico and has invested more
than $50 million there during the past three years.

Companies such as Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods
cause Mexicans and others around the world to realize Arkansas
truly is the Land of Opportunity. These companies began in small Arkansas
towns and became global leaders in changing how people shop, eat and live. I
also had a chance to spend time with representatives from a
number of smaller Arkansas-based businesses that sell
their products and services in Mexico. We’re doing everything possible to expand the market for
Arkansas products in other countries.

Until next week, this
is Gov. Mike Huckabee.



http://www.arkansas.gOv/governor/media/radio/text/r 11082003 .html



01/28/2005

Expose, Rebuke, Return