Beck's 3-day haul: $20 million to rescue captives
The Friday Letter / No. 455 / Orlando, Florida
While Fox News celebrities were busy promoting their books and paid subscription TV programs, Glen Beck's rescue fund raised more than $20 million in three days from his radio audience, most of it, he says, “in tens and twenties.”
Donations to the Nazarene Fund, which Beck founded about five years ago, are used to hire operatives to rescue Christians and other religious people from countries where they are held captive. On Tucker Carlson's FNC program Thursday night, Beck said the organization so far has rescued 5,100 Americans from behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.
Beck is planted at an undisclosed location near Afghanistan that he won't reveal because he fears the State Department will try to sabotage the organization's work.
The Nazarene Fund uses 100 percent of donations in its mission, Beck says, raising money for administrative costs only through an annual fundraiser. Its public report says its only paid executive earns $113,000 a year. Beck said he borrowed a friend's plane and is working in the area at his own expense.
The fund has received some large donations. After Beck pleaded with his audience to “give till it hurts” and kicked in $100,000 of his own money, he said his wife Tanya told him that amount doesn't hurt, and she gave another $100,000. Online donations can be made at the Nazarene Fund website.
Meanwhile, President Biden had nothing to say about the first suicide explosion outside the airport at Kabul, until after 13 Americans were killed in a second bombing. Biden's only statement during the day was to celebrate “Women's Equality Day.”
“Today, we celebrate Women’s Equality Day, a reminder not only of the progress women have won through the years, but of the important work that remains to be done,” he said in a statement, while captive Americans hid in fear for their lives.
After the Americans and 90 Afghans died in the second bombing, Biden said “We will make you pay,” without explaining how. Under tough questioning by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy, Biden struggled and at one point buried his face in his hands. Here is how a Daily Mail headline describes it:
“Nowhere to hide, Joe: President adopts fetal position pose as he crumbles under questioning from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy and tries to blame Trump for the catastrophe in Afghanistan.”
Identity of Ashli Babbitt's killer is confirmed
We reported July 30 in Friday Letter #451 that Ashli Babbitt's killer is a Capitol Police lieutenant by the name of Michael Byrd. In an interview last night with Lester Holt at NBC-TV, Byrd confirmed that he is the one who shot Babbitt through a window inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Babbitt, 35 and an Air Force veteran, was unarmed and as video shows, posed no threat to Byrd.
In the interview, Byrd told Holt that he was not concerned about whether Babbitt was armed or not. Byrd is black. Babbitt was white. He has not been charged with her killing and remains on the Capitol Police force. It is the first known incidence of a police department not revealing the name of an officer involved in a police-action shooting.
Short takes on the news
On Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Afghan women will enjoy full rights as citizens – as defined by sharia law. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is ready to provide women with environment to work and study, and the presence of women in different (government) structures according to Islamic law and in accordance with our cultural values,” he said. To mark the occasion, Afghanistan's new rulers shot and killed a woman on the street in Takhar province for not wearing a burqa. Also on Tuesday, Taliban fighters were reported patrolling streets and neighborhoods in search of government loyalists, Fox News and the New York Post reported. . . .
Rashida Tlaib is a big shot in Marxist Democrat politics, but the Palestinian Authority has declared her a persona no grata because she criticized its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, for cracking down on protesters against “not only the Israeli apartheid government but from your corrupt leadership.” – from a story at the Jerusalem Post.
Election fraud update
Palm Beach is the last Florida county to return money to a Zuckerberg organization that sought to influence the 2020 election with grants to mostly Democrat-run jurisdictions. The county returned $612,089.24 to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) after Gov. DeSantis signed an election integrity bill and following a lawsuit from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).
PILF is a public interest law firm that works exclusively on election integrity cases. “Zuckbucks were the biggest factor, juicing blue areas in 2020,” PILF president J. Christian Adams told The Epoch Times. “A private citizen should not be allowed to influence how our elections are run. . . . We are proud to have played a role in ensuring that this money will not be spent to influence the Florida elections in 2022.”
Great moments in circular reasoning. A Obama-appointed federal judge in Michigan has fired the latest shot at attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood for challenging the state's election results. If successful, Judge Linda V. Parker's sanctions could lead to disbarment. The judge reasoned that Powell's claims of voter fraud were false because they were patently untrue. – from a story at the Daily Mail . Voices of dissent must be silenced.
25th Amendment watch
The former medical advisor to Obama and Trump believes it's no longer necessary to give Biden a cognitive test except to “confirm what everybody in this country already knows . . . that he doesn't have the competency and the cognitive ability to be our commander-in-chief and lead this country.”
Jackson, Republican of Texas, sits on the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and is a retired Navy rear admiral. He speculates that Biden isn't being briefed fully because aides know he is incapable of processing complex information. Biden's statement that Al-Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan, even after Congress received an intelligence briefing confirming the opposite, suggests that Biden is unaware of events, Jackson said, noting that the situation is making the chaos in Afghanistan worse. – from a story at Just the News.
Today’s quotes
“Through their actions, these state legislators have disqualified themselves from holding office
and ought to be replaced with public servants who better understand the fundamentals of governance,
and who are prepared to represent the voice of their constituents and the sovereignty of their state.”
– Jim Kallinger, president of the National Association of Former State Legislators, on the mass exodus of Texas Democrats trying to prevent passage of a Republican-backed election integrity bill
“First of all, I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home. We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.”
– Jen Psaki, Biden's press secretary, responding to Peter Doocy's question about Americans trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, after an American woman's desperate plea to be rescued.
"We are actually overperforming in terms of the evacuation numbers.”
– National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to reporters on Monday, before a leaked State Department memo revealed that untold thousands of Americans remain trapped in theater, and the administration has no idea of how many, reported at Politico.
“Over here we are watching the clock ticking down to Departure Day. It looks worse than Saigon and I fear it may be a repeat of the Alamo.”
– Dr. X, our correspondent in Wales