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FACT CHECK: Shawn Ryan’s Shocking Update on Kamala’s Nat. Guard Photo-Op

We’ve all heard what is happening in the areas hit by Hurricane Helene, particularly in the devastated counties of western North Carolina.  And we’ve heard how bad the Federal Government’s response has been.

I’m going to spill some of the beans up front, and tell you – it has been bad.  There are confirmed reports from all over of people going 8+ days without seeing a single response, and there are confirmed reports of civilian and local authorities being hindered directly by Federal Authorities from doing all they could do to respond to those in desperate need of help.

And I can tell you from my own experiences in disaster zones — that is how it goes.  I don’t know if you can remember, but back in 2010 when Haiti was struck with an enormous earthquake… Red Cross commercials begging for donations exploded on TV and the internet.  I was on the ground in Port-au-Prince for 2 weeks (week 3 & 4 after the earthquake), in and out of the international hub set up for NGO’s at the airport… up and down the streets of the city… and I can tell you – not one time did I run across a single Red Cross anything.

That, unfortunately, is the NORM in disaster response; a lot of opportunities to fill the payroll coffers… a lot of bureaucratic slowdowns… and very little “response” to the actual disaster.  That’s government for you.

But that doesn’t mean every snippet of bad press that springs up is accurate.  And in today’s landscape of weaponized misinformation — it is very important to walk the straight and narrow whenever possible.  Enter Shawn Ryan, one of the good guys, and he is doing exactly that.

So here’s the story in question.  Word started to spread like wildfire after a guest on his massively popular podcast told the following story when discussing their time in the hurricane zone working to rescue and respond to victims:

Of course, the blow back was instant and fierce.  That was the beginning of the story about Kamala’s Photo-Op, and the ill-fated C-17.

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As normal, every report (regardless of how credible) of slow response time, or even blockages to delivering desperately needed materials was met with defiance from the Federal Government.  How dare we question them!?  Firstly, it is our DUTY to question them.  Secondly, in many of the instances… the proof of Federal ineptitude and negligence (to put it lightly) was obvious.

This case is a little more complicated.  But I believe we have some answers.  And if you’re like me, you want the truth — no matter what it is.  God forbid I end up like those folks on the other side of the aisle that blindly tote the party line and attack those of us who don’t without a single moment wasted on critical thinking between them.

So here’s what I’ve found.  First… Shawn Ryan just dropped a video bringing attention to the fact that apparently the story isn’t fully true (I’ll embed the full-screen player below for easier viewing):

Shawn didn’t go into exact details of the story — at least, not enough to satisfy my curiosity.  I’ve been a Shawn Ryan podcast listener since day 1, so I feel very comfortable summing up what I believe his intent was with this video.  He simply wanted to bring awareness to the fact that apparently there was more to the story.

I suspect he may not even know the full story, which I believe I have discovered and am sharing with you now.

I have to give credit to the website Checkyourfact.com for the bulk of digging through the complications this story presented.  Here’s what happened…

It appears (at least to me) that Shawn Ryan’s guest was not lying — let’s make that perfectly clear to begin with.  I believe this happened to be the perfect storm of circumstances to cause confusion.

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Keep in mind, this was the story as everyone heard it:

Here’s what I think is the full story, from Check Your Fact:

The claim stems from Jonathan Howard, a member of the non-profit Aerial Recovery, which has been assisting in relief efforts in North Carolina. He made the claim on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan, a former U.S. Navy Seal.

Harris visited North Carolina on Oct. 5 and met with local and state officials and pledged further federal support for the state, which was wrecked by Hurricane Helene, according to the Associated Press.

The video referenced in the podcast appears to be this one, which was shared by Harris on social media on Oct. 7. She appears in front of a C-17, which is being loaded. Check Your Fact found the C-17 being loaded through images published by Reuters and DVIDS. It has a register number of 01-01907, per Air History.

This is the video in question, uploaded to Kamala Harris’s Instagram account:

 

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A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris)

This is where the story gets confusing, but remember Check Your Fact had discovered the register number of that particular C-17 to track the history on FlightRadar24.  (Which is a really cool app to use, if you’re into that sort of thing!)

They checked the flight history of the C-17 in question, and the aircraft shows to have landed in Charlotte, North Carolina on October 3rd — until loaded as shown in the video, and reported in the media.

At first, it seemed to me that the supplies indeed were not delivered — it was all for show!  After all, the C-17 didn’t go anywhere else until Oct. 9th, when it flew straight from Charlotte to Germany!

Except… there’s more to this story.

Lt. Col. Ellis Parks, director of Public Affairs for the North Carolina National Guard, told Check Your Fact in a phone interview that there was a “maintenance issue” which is why it didn’t fly out that night with those supplies.

“They moved all those commodities to another aircraft, and when they moved into that aircraft, believe it or not, there was a maintenance issue with that aircraft as well,” Parks said. So the [supplies] made it to Asheville on the 6th.”

Parks provided Check Your Fact with the other aircraft’s registry number, which was 93-0602. That aircraft flew out to Asheville on Oct. 6 and returned to Charlotte the same day, according to FlightRadar24. It also flew to Asheville on Oct. 8 and Oct. 10, per FlightRadar24.

Parks stressed that the supplies “made it to Asheville.”

“They were delivered. They were delivered. Those commodities made it to Asheville,” Parks said. “They did not make it to Asheville on the plane that originally the commodities were originally put on. That was because of a maintenance issue. It was a fuel fuel system malfunction, as far as the word is.”

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As for Howard, who made the original story known on the Shawn Ryan Show, he claimed that the info came from an officer with the National Guard unit that was in charge of the supplies — who (according to Howard) later re-corroborated his earlier story.

So… here’s what I think.  I think, like the North Carolina National Guard Lt. Col. Ellis Parks told Check Your Facts, that material actually did make it to Ashville, contrary to Howard’s assertion that it did not.  But do I believe Howard or his contact in the National Guard was lying?  No.  Not with so many load, unload, load, unload scenarios playing out between planes with maintenance issues. (That’s an entirely different story altogether!)

Is there the possibility that those carrying that story forward didn’t do their full due-diligence?  Yeah, maybe.  Maybe they even got caught up in the emotionalism of the situation.  People were in trouble.  People were dying.  And there were (and still are) factual accounts coming out of the Federal Government hindering rescue efforts.

But in regards to this story, and this load of supplies, I have to say that the most reasonable reading of the information is that it did, indeed, make it to it’s intended destination.

So… what does that mean?  Does it mean the Biden-Harris regime is off the hook?  God, no.  Does it mean that every future report of horrendous implications should be ignored?  Definitively… NO.  There is evil being perpetrated by our current government on a scale that would astound us at every point, if we knew the full story, I firmly believe.

But it does mean we need to be cautious.  We need to leave room for mix-ups.  We need to remember that stories which seem very true… may not be.  And we need to remember that people make honest mistakes — including me, and you.

That said, good on Shawn Ryan for doing what he did.  For a man who has literally one of the largest podcast audiences in the world, and quiet a bit of sway in many influential circles… today’s video was surely not an easy thing for him to do.  But he did it anyway.

Because that’s what you do — the best you can, no matter what.

Me, too… Kevin.  Now let’s get right back to exposing the corruption, negligence, and intentional harm coming from our out of control Federal Government, shall we?


 

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