Free Republic

The Arkansas coordinator for Mike Huckabee's political action committee resigned Tuesday, citing the former Arkansas governor's decision nine years ago to grant clemency to Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected of murdering four police officers in Washington state. Jason Tolbert, who runs a conservative blog, served as Arkansas state coordinator for HuckPAC in a volunteer capacity. "My departure was with a heavy heart but was done after serious prayer and consideration," Tolbert wrote on his Web site. "Some have asked about the timing. As most could imagine, the recent news of the last two days along with the response did play...

There is no need to tiptoe gingerly around this topic: Maurice Clemmons, who was shot and killed as authorities tried to apprehend him for the shooting deaths of four Washington police officers - is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton. Horton, you might recall, is the convicted killer who raped a woman while wrongly released as part of a prison furlough program supported by former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis - thus helping to torpedo the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee's bid for the White House. The Clemmons' story likewise should kill any chance of Huckabee winning, should he run in...

LITTLE ROCK — An alleged accomplice of Maurice Clemmons, suspected of slaying four Washington state police officers before being gunned down himself, served prison time with Clemmons in Arkansas and is a wanted man in his home state. Washington authorities filed rendering criminal assistance charges today against Darcus D. Allen, the alleged getaway driver for Clemmons, who police say shot to death four police officers early Sunday at a Parkland, Wash., coffee shop. A lone police officer shot Clemmons to death early Tuesday in Seattle while investigating a stolen vehicle. Authorities today pressed charges against others accused of aiding Clemmons’...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee struck back against criticism of a commuted sentence that set free a man who allegedly killed four Seattle police offers Sunday. In 2000, Huckabee commuted the life sentence of Maurice Clemmons, 37, who was killed by law enforcement officers in a gun battle on Monday. After the commuted sentence drew political attention, Huckabee, who was widely believed to be considering a 2012 presidential run, said the criticism of his record was "disgusting."

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Gov. Chris Gregoire said the state won't accept any more parolees from Arkansas until she's assured of a better system for sending them back. "If Arkansas doesn't like it, then sue me," she said. "You know, I don't care. My job is to protect the people of the State of Washington first and foremost." http://www.komonews.com/news/local/78347152.html

Huckabee's astounding record of leniency on felons: --1,103 total clemenices in 10 1/2 years as Arkansas Governor --Almost 1 out of every 10 criminals who asked for clemency received it --At least 9% of those who received clemency were later convicted and sentenced for new felonies --12 murderers received reduced sentences.....

Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK — An alleged accomplice of Maurice Clemmons, suspected of slaying four Washington state police officers before being gunned down himself, served prison time with Clemmons in Arkansas and is a wanted man in his home state. Washington authorities filed rendering criminal assistance charges today against Darcus D. Allen, the alleged getaway driver for Clemmons, who police say shot to death four police officers early Sunday at a Parkland, Wash., coffee shop. A lone police officer shot Clemmons to death early Tuesday in Seattle while investigating a stolen vehicle. Authorities today pressed charges against others accused...

The Arkansas coordinator for former governor Mike Huckabee's political action committee, Huck PAC, resigned Tuesday, citing in part the controversy over Huckabee's decision nine years ago to commute the sentence of a man later linked to the shooting deaths of four police officers Sunday. "With a heavy heart - I just resigned as Arkansas coordinator for HuckPAC - one of the toughest things I have ever done in politics," Jason Tolbert tweeted Tuesday morning. "Some have asked about the timing. As most could imagine, the recent news of the last two days along with the response did play a role...

The senseless and savage slaying of 4 police officers in Lakewood, Washington has raised many questions as to why the alleged murderer was even on the streets. My name has figured prominently in many of the stories because I commuted his 108 year sentence to a term of 47 years back in 2000. I take full responsibility for my decision then. Unfortunately, many of my fellow conservatives don’t seem to want to take responsibility for the facts surrounding the case. The Maurice Clemmons presented in a commutation request in the year 2000 was much different than the one who is...

Images of Prosecutor's strongly voiced complaints against Huckabee's clemencies, and a response stating that Huckabee "laughed out loud" upon reading it and suggesting the Prosecutor "cut down on your caffeine consumption". Click to view images of original documents.

Mike Huckabee needs to shut up, for his own good. He cannot stop talking about the Maurice Clemmons case. The more he does, the worse he sounds.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent -- Adam Smith Mike Huckabee is in the news. Back when he was Arkansas governor, his misguided bleeding Christian heart led him to release a criminal who showed his gratitude by killing four police officers in cold blood.  Blame everybody but the criminal... The brutal gang rape last month of a young woman at a high school dance evoked the expected response from the San Fran Sicko Cornicle. It's society's fault, poverty, white people, bla bla bla... Blame everyone and everything but the dirty bastards who committed the crime. Their...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Former Arkansas Governor and Presidental Candidate Mike Huckabee spoke at the Annual Tippecanoe County Right to Life banquet in West Lafayette. Huckabee has been under scrutiny after a man shot and killed four cops in a coffee shop in Seattle. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect, was facing a lifetime in prison in Arkansas when Huckabee was governor. Huckabee shortened Clemmons' sentence. "Here was a kid at age 16 had committed a burgarly and a robbery and got a 108 year sentence," Huckabee said Tuesday night at the Right to Life annual banquet on Purdue's campus. "The...

Governor's gig: Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his rock 'n' roll band, Capitol Offense Washington Times ^ | December 02, 2004 | John McCaslin Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his rock 'n' roll band, Capitol Offense, will headline the Jan. 20 inaugural ball hosted by Free Republic, a grass-roots conservative news, analysis and activism forum, in Washington. It's a repeat performance for the 49-year-old Mr. Huckabee, whose gubernatorial term expires in 2007. Because of the high-spirited show put on by his band at the 2001 Free Republic Inaugural Ball and Count the White House Silverware Party, guests left other inaugural...

Pierce County authorities say a man who served time in an Arkansas prison with Maurice Clemmons has been identified as the getaway driver in the fatal shooting of four Lakewood police officers. Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says Darcus D. Allen is being held in Pierce County for investigation of rendering criminal assistance. Troyer says Allen will be charged on Wednesday in connection with Sunday's police shooting. Allen was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a 1990 double murder at a Little Rock liquor store. He was paroled in 2004. Arkansas prison spokeswoman Dina Tyler says Allen and Clemmons never...

Why do people say, “I hate to say I told you so”? People love to say that. And I did tell you so where Mike Huckabee was concerned. Now that Maurice Clemmons, one of the many criminals whose sentences he commuted as Arkansas governor, has apparently gone on to murder four police officers in Washington State, Huckabee’s political career is finished. He will never be president. He will never be elected to anything. He can keep hosting his show on Fox News – and he’d better – because it’s the closest to politics he’s ever going to come. This is...

Glen Martin Green, who beat an 18-year-old pregnant woman with Chinese martial-arts sticks, raped her as she barely clung to life, ran over her repeatedly with his car, then dumped her in the bayou. He was sentenced to life in prison, but Huckabee was convinced by Rev. Johnny Jackson, who had close ties to Huckabee, that Green had found God and did not mean to kill the woman.

If you liked George W. Bush's brand of big-spending, big-government conservatism, you'll love Mike Huckabee. BY MICHAEL D. TANNER Most of the leading Republicans running for president show some support for Bush's ideology, but no other candidate so completely embodies it. As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee dramatically increased state spending. During his two-term tenure, spending increased by more than 65 percent — at three times the rate of inflation. The number of government workers increased by 20 percent, and the state's debt services increased by nearly $1 billion. Huckabee financed his spending binge with higher taxes. Under his leadership, the...

A man police said drove the getaway car for Maurice Clemmons when Clemmons fatally shot four Lakewood police officer is in custody and was in prison with him in Arkansas, sources told our CNN affilliate station KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. To read KIRO-TV's story click here. A lone Seattle police officer is being credited with finding and shooting suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons. Authorities say the officer spotted a stolen car in front of a house in Seattle, then shot and killed a man he recognized as Clemmons. Clemmons was reportedly approaching and confronting the officer when he was shot....

If clemency for Maurice Clemmons were the only fatal error committed by Mike Huckabee as governor of Arkansas, he might be able to shift blame to the state's law enforcement system and even run for president again in 2012. Yet the Clemmons commutation that he granted nine years ago is only one among several cases that raise serious questions about Huckabee's judgment.

I hope Mike Huckabee meant it when he said recently that he's not sure he wants to make a second run for president. Though he's right up there with Sarah Palin in polls of the prospective Republican field for 2012, his odds of success are suddenly slim to none. You could argue that the former Arkansas governor is a victim of bad luck. You could argue that he's a victim of his own bad judgment. What's inarguable is that Huckabee commuted the prison term of a man killed by police after he allegedly shot and killed four police officers Sunday...

Clemmons is just one of 1,103 criminals who were granted clemency by Huckabee. 163 got out of prison early because of Huckabee's actions. Twelve of them were murderers. Several went back to a life of crime, with at least 9 percent going back to prison. Prosecutors and victims often objected to the clemencies.

Under fire for commuting the sentence of suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Tuesday called some of the criticisms “disgusting” and suggested they were attempts to score political points. “It really does show how sick our society has become that people are more concerned about a campaign three years from now than those grieving families in Washington,” Huckabee said during an interview on Joe Scarborough’s radio show. “It is disgusting, but people use anything as a political weapon.” Huckabee granted Clemmons, a suspect in the killings of four police officers in Washington state over the weekend,...

He quickly pointed the finger at the parole board, the judge, and the prosecutor. He said no one spoke out against granting clemency, which does not square with the prosecutor's recollection.

Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog For the past several years I have written extensively about the deadly problem of repeat violent offenders who are let loose from prison by our political representatives or the institutions for which they are responsible....

The Seattle Times has posted documents from the state parole board that bear on the decision by Gov. Mike Huckabee to commute murder suspect Maurice Clemmons' 108-year-prison sentence to immediate parole eligiblity. He said he'd fallen in with a bad crowd after moving to Arkansas, but had turned his life around. He said he'd prayed Huckabee would help him. Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, who is also a Presbyterian minister, supported the clemency application. Clemmons wrote in an appeal to Huckabee that he'd been sent to prison after an extended crime spree that started in 1989 when he was a teenager — and that he was a different...

The nation was stunned by the senseless and savage cold-blooded murders of 4 young police officers in Lakewood, Washington. Whenever a police officer or soldier is killed, I feel the loss is even more profound for they are the ones who stand between our freedom and anarchy. At the time I write these words, police are still searching for Maurice Clemmons who is believed to be the one committing these unspeakable acts. Nine years ago, that name crossed my desk. I commuted his sentence from 108 years to 47 years. Many news reports, talk show hosts, and bloggers have erroneously...

SEATTLE - A Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman says Seattle police have fatally shot the suspect in the murders of four Lakewood Police officers. Detective Ed Troyer says Seattle police found Clemmons after Pierce County authorities supplied addresses of possible hiding spots. The police confronted Clemmons in the 4400 block of S. Kenyon Street.

SEATTLE — A sheriff's spokesman in Washington state says Seattle police have fatally shot the man suspected of gunning down four police officers.

Seattle, Washington (CNN) -- Investigators searching for the suspected killer of four Seattle-area police officers have rounded up several of his relatives and friends to keep them from helping him escape, a sheriff's spokesman said Monday. Police have brought in five or six relatives and other acquaintances of Maurice Clemmons, "and we expect that number to grow," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. Some of Clemmons' family and friends have been trying to help him elude police and seek treatment for a gunshot wound, and they have tried to divert investigators by calling in false leads, he said....

Song about Huckabee's Clemencies, sung to the beattle's "Yesterday". Made in early 2008.

Bill O'Reilly's reputation as a tough interviewer took a serious hit Monday night, as he helped Fox News cohort Mike Huckabee shift the blame off himself for the Washington State cop killings.

Mike Huckabee was on The O'Reilly Factor tonight and apologized for releasing cop killer Maurice Clemmons from prison as governor in Arkansas.

While 170 or more voters might have been fooled in the 2009 Values Voter Summit straw poll, it wasn’t Mike Huckabee who came out on top in a recent Washington Post poll of the leader who best reflects GOP values. From CNN: According to the poll, 18 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say the former Alaska governor best reflects core GOP values. In second place, 5 points back, is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, last year’s Republican presidential nominee, followed by former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee at 7 percent, former Massachusetts...

Mike Huckabee said today it's "less likely than more likely" that he'll run for president in 2012. Recent polling has shown him to be the most popular candidate among Iowa Republicans, but Huckabee told Chris Wallace on Fox New Sunday today that polling isn't the only factor. "There's a whole different deal of saying some folks take a poll and whether there's the financial support," he said. Huckabee said he's enjoying his current gig as a Fox News host, and wants to see what the political climate is like heading into 2012.

Huckabee portrays himself as a "man of God". Perhaps his Christian beliefs led to granting so many clemencies. However, it is obvious that when Mike Huckabee is wrong, he is unable to admit his culpability. Huckabee has a very non-Christian way of blaming others for his faults.

comments, washington FReepers??

The conservative blogosphere unleashed a torrent of criticism against Mike Huckabee Monday after a man whose sentence he commuted as Arkansas governor was suspected of gunning down four police officers in Washington state over the weekend. Maurice Clemmons, whom Huckabee granted clemency to nine years ago, remained at large after local police in Lakewood, Wash. mistakenly thought they had him trapped in a house early Monday. Clemmons is reported to have shot the officers as they were sitting at a table in a local coffee shop. While many details of the murders were still unclear Monday, leading online conservative voices...

Authorities doggedly chased down one clue after another as they narrowed their search for the suspect in Sunday morning's cold-blooded killings of four Lakewood police officers. In the latest development, investigators said they are trying to find a car that belongs to the wife of Maurice Clemmons, who's suspected of gunning down the four officers at a coffee shop in the Tacoma suburb of Parkland. Police are on the lookout for a green 1997 Mazda Millenia with Washington plate 208-SSX, said Lt. Dave McDonald with the Puyallup Police Department, who is assisting in the investigation. McDonald didn't give any further...

SEATTLE – They were shot execution-style: four police officers starting a shift on Sunday morning at a coffee shop in a suburb of Tacoma. They were parents, each of them, community leaders, veteran officers. Who to blame? The suspect, police say, is Maurice Clemmons, a man with a lengthy criminal record and a pattern of serious mental illness. As of this writing, he’s still on the loose. Trying to explain how such a man could be on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce...

Mike Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas, commuted the 95-year sentence of Maurice Clemmons nearly a decade ago. Clemmons entered a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington on November 9, 2009 and gunned down 4 police officers and is currently on the run from law enforcement. I have had disdain for Mike Huckabee for a long time. His weak kneed faux conservative views are sickening. Now he has had a hand in allowing a killer out on the streets when there was no reason to provide clemency for Clemmons. There were no mistakes in his case, yet Huckabee took it upon himself to free...

I think it is a good Q. Huck was polling at least 8-10% of GOP voters, it's interesting to know whether those votes now go to the other evangelical Sarah, someone else or whether it puts Hucksters in the undecided column!

The key person of interest in the Sunday slayings of four Lakewood police officers is a career criminal with a history of violence against law enforcement officers who compares himself to Jesus and the Messiah, and who once received clemency from then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. “He reportedly thinks he can fly away and at one point was found in the backyard jumping,” a sheriff’s report states. “He says that he is the Messiah and he is going to save the world. He talks about President Obama coming to confirm that he is the Messiah in the flesh.”

When Fox News' Bill O'Reilly hosts former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tonight, O'Reilly might consult the "Arkansas Blog" at the Arkansas Times for some questions to pose to the man who commuted Maurice Clemmons' prison sentence. Don't hold your breath. "What do you think the chances are of a Fox host asking tough questions of another Fox host?" asks Arkansas Blog. Here is what inquiring minds in Clemmons' former home state would like to find out, courtesy of the Blog: "Will Huckabee reveal office memos that led to his recommendation for commutation?" "Will he reveal office communication with the parole...

State of ArkansasExecutive Department PROCOLAMAION TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME.....GREETINGS WHEREAS, Maurice Clemmons, ADC# 92616, has applied for executive clemency, specifically a commutation; and WHEREAS, Maurice Clemmons ADC# 92616 was convicted in the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas on November 15, 1989, of aggravated robbery (Class Y felony) and theft of property (Class C felony) (CR-89-1357);and WHEREAS, Maurie Clemmons, ADC# 92616, was convicted in the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas, on February 23, 1990, of burglary (Class B felony) and theft of property (Class B felony) (CR-89-1624); and WHEREAS, Maurice Clemmons, ADC # 92616, was...

The officers would still be alive today if Huckabee had not intervened in Clemmons' case back in 2000. Over the objections of prosecutors, Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons because he was only 17 when he committed the crime....

Any political ambitions of former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee could be hurt by his role in freeing Maurice Clemmons, the gunman suspected in the execution murders of four police officers in Washington State -- especially since Clemmons would not be the first criminal Huckabee helped to free who later committed murder. Clemmons was serving 95 years when Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, commuted his sentence in 2000. Clemmons is now being sought in the murders of four Lakewood, Wash. police officers, who were ambushed and shot in a coffee shop Sunday morning. Four years earlier, Huckabee also pushed for...

GLENN BECK PROGRAM BEGIN TRANSCRIPT GLENN: Mike Huckabee, I don't even -- I mean, I don't even know what's going on here. First of all, my problem with Mike Huckabee is -- there's a couple of things. One, it's the same kind of problem that I think I have with Mitt Romney but at least Mitt Romney will be square with you. My problem with Mitt Romney is I think there are a lot of people who get themselves wrapped up into the gospel and they find themselves at a place where they think government should be the big babysitter,...

Even before news broke that he had commuted the sentence of suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" he's less than likely to run for president again...Huckabee won the straw poll at the 2009 Value Voters Summit in Washington and had a favorable rating of 70 percent in a recent poll of Iowa Republicans, the highest of all the potential GOP contenders. "The last time out, my biggest challenge was with the establishment Republicans who just never showed their support, and while I think a person can possibly win without them,...

The murder of four police officers in a suburban Seattle coffee shop on Sunday took a decidedly political turn when it was discovered that the prime suspect in the killings was once granted clemency by Mike Huckabee.