Mike Huckabee

I don’t often recommend watching speeches in Congress these days, but Wednesday brought one by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that is a must-hear for Christian conservatives. It concerns the outrageous Supreme Court ruling, joined by alleged conservative Justices Roberts and Gorsuch (Gorsuch even wrote it) that refines the ban on “sex” discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include “gender identity,” a concept that wasn’t even contemplated until decades after the law was written.

It is effectively a surrender to the left, since if judges can interpret the plain language of laws to mean anything they choose, then we no longer have a representative republic, we have rule by unelected judges and bureaucrats. Outrageously, Senate Republican leaders seem to be fine with that, brushing off the ruling as “the law of the land” (say, aren’t YOU supposed to make those?) and showing no interest in passing legislation to correct it. The Chamber of Commerce/Wall Street branch of the GOP is also fine with that, since they don’t care about social values issues anyway, and find them a bit of an embarrassment among their liberal country club friends. Hawley has some important words that they need to hear, and that Christian conservatives and other social values voters really need to hear.

Incidentally, since I think it’s suicidal to ignore your opponents, I also read this take on the same subject by a liberal Washington Post editor.

It’s infuriating because it makes the lazy and bigoted assumption that being opposed to letting the LGBTQ agenda steamroll religious rights, the law, the Constitution and basic biology is born purely out of personal animus toward gay people. But it’s worth reading to hear the arrogant attitude of the left toward millions of people they know nothing about and never even talk to. It boils down to “Why can’t you just take the crumbs we throw you and shut up?” Remember this the next time WaPo runs an article lamenting how some people just don’t recognize when they’re “speaking from a place of privilege.”

Mike Huckabee

CELEBRATING FLAG DAY

Sunday, June 14th, was Flag Day, which commemorates the date in 1777 when the Second Continental Congress adopted the US flag, with 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 white stars on a blue background. But if you missed Flag Day, don’t worry: it’s the first day of National Flag Week, so you can feel free to fly your flag all week. In fact, feel free to fly it every day of the year, and don’t let anyone tell you that doing so makes you a racist, fascist, xenophobe or any other word that certain college graduates who can’t even spell those words like to call people.

Mostly, feel free to fly the American flag because it is the symbol of everything that makes you feel free. Although, sadly, these days, simply flying the American flag may be seen as a brave act that will require vigilance.

But then, keeping the American flag flying has always required vigilance against America’s enemies, which is why it’s so appropriate that Flag Day and the birthday of the US Army fall on the same date. June 14th, 1775, was the date when the Continental Congress officially adopted “the American Continental Army.”

And by coincidence (or maybe not), it was also President Donald Trump’s 74th birthday. Trump issued his Flag Day Proclamation, which this year honored the flag, the military and also health care workers for their sacrifices in fighting the coronavirus. Trump said that the flag represents the unity of our country and its people, and the sacrifices made by patriots from generation to generation to preserve our freedoms, and that “today, and every day, I am proud to join my fellow Americans in standing tall and saluting our great American flag.”

Did you ever think a day would come when it would be considered by some to be “controversial” to talk about American unity, honoring previous generations who fought for America, and standing and saluting the flag?

NEW ATLANTA PROTESTS

A new round of violent protests broke out in Atlanta over the weekend, following the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks, a black man who was asleep in his car in a Wendy’s parking lot when police were called to investigate. Body cam video shows that the questioning of Brooks was polite and professional. But after he failed a breathalyzer test (his BAC was nearly .11%, and he didn’t even know what county he was in), they attempted to cuff him and he suddenly began fighting them.

Police say that Brooks grabbed a stun gun from one of the officers and ran, and while chasing him, he turned and pointed something at them, and they fired and killed him. He had reportedly been pointing the stun gun, but the officers say they couldn’t tell that in the dark. In such a situation, police have a split second to decide whether to fire or risk death by hesitating. (Warning: the police video at this link is very disturbing and contains foul language.)

The police chief has already resigned, and an investigation is underway, but that didn’t prevent both peaceful protests and violent rioting. Someone even burned down the Wendy’s, which had nothing to do with it. There’s a $10,000 reward for the arson suspect, who is reportedly a white female, most likely part of the radical left agitators who claim to be seeking justice for black people. Except now the black neighborhood has lost both a business and eating place, and the employees have lost their jobs.

It’s terrible that such a thing happened, and at such a sensitive time. Our prayers for Mr. Brooks and his family (he mentioned having young daughters in the police video, which is heartbreaking) and for justice to prevail. But this is what I warned about recently when I said that the rush to indict the cops in Minnesota due to mob violence was a worrisome trend since a similar situation was bound to arise, but not so clear-cut. Now the mob will demand instant retribution. But a careful, thorough investigation doesn’t just protect the cops’ due process rights. It also protects the integrity of the system and prevents acquittal by sloppy prosecutorial work.

Burning down a Wendy’s is bad enough. Let’s not burn down the entire justice system while we’re at it.

MONOLOGUE FROM SATURDAY'S "HUCKABEE" ON TBN 

(I think this is a very important message, so I want to share it with you in every way that I can, and I hope you will share it, too.)

Maybe the only news you’ve heard this week is bad news about armed Antifa terrorists taking over six blocks of Seattle with the local government standing around with their hands in their pockets. Or the disgusting video of some classless hooligans re-enacting the death of George Floyd by having a guy standing on the neck of another as the funeral procession passed by. Or the sheer stupid stuff such as HBO not airing “Gone With the Wind” anymore because it depicted a dark time in our history when the scourge of slavery still existed. Or taking the children’s TV show “Paw Patrol” off because one of the dogs was a police dog.

But getting less attention is the powerful story of a young white man in of all places, Selma, Alabama, who was randomly targeted as he was out for a run and was shot by a black man who had announced earlier that he was going out to kill some white people. As the young white man was taken into the Emergency Room, he told the medical staff that he hoped that his being shot would not lead to more violence or hate and that he was praying for the person who shot him to find forgiveness and God’s grace. That young man, who I talked to on the phone Wednesday night as he recovered in a Birmingham hospital awaiting another surgery to heal his wounds, showed that the battle in America right now is not political, economic, or racial. It’s spiritual.

There’s even more to the story to reveal that God was working in the midst of an evil, Satanic attack. Two men who happened to be nearby in a pickup truck witnessed the shooting and hurried to assist the victim. One had been given a tourniquet three days before, from a friend who told him he ought to keep it in his truck in case he ever needed it. At the time, he just thought it a strange gift. Three days later, his having it saved a man’s life - a man who would be more concerned about the soul of the one who tried to murder him than for his own life.

Selma didn’t erupt in violence or riots as it had in the 60’s. It erupted in prayer and forgiveness. It was not led by a politician or an activist, but by a man in his 20’s who ironically is adopting a non-white child.

It reminds me of what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, when a crazed white man went to the historic Emmanuel AME church on prayer meeting night and, after being asked to be part of the gathering, took out a gun and murdered nine black people in cold blood as they were in the act of praying for him. Yet riots, mobs or mass violent demonstrations didn’t materialize in Charleston because the people of the church and even the families of those slain said they didn’t want violence but forgiveness and reconciliation. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who lives in Charleston, was on our show to discuss how God intervened to help heal the community. And a daughter of one of the black murder victims was also on our show and described how she came to forgive the evil white man who shot and killed her father. I sat in awe of her as she spoke of God’s grace in her life.

Neither of those stories from Charleston or Selma led to hate-filled mobs burning businesses, looting stores or increased violence. They led to Godly people leading their communities to ask God to intervene with grace and forgiveness. The solution wasn’t a racial re-alignment or “social justice” or economic intervention or political change. It was divine intervention in which healing came from hurt.

I’ve not shared the young man’s name from Selma out of respect for his family and his privacy, but I have his permission to tell his story and to urge people to not be angry or bitter, but to love, forgive, and exemplify the love of Christ.

So if America survives these difficult days, it likely won’t be because of the familiar faces of famous people who lead, but rather because loving, Godly people whose names and faces are not familiar to most of us led us by example. And we should all surrender to being THAT kind of Christian.

TODAY'S MUST-READ

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen the results of giving in to the rabid, Twitter-bred “social justice warrior” cancel culture. They have people so terrified of being branded as racist and cast out of society that it’s emboldened them to the fever pitch of medieval witch burners. Sometimes, it seems as if they’re just closing their eyes, throwing a dart, and whatever it hits gets mauled. They’ve attacked everything from statues of prominent abolitionists to the 33-year-old TV show “Cops” and the British sitcom “Fawlty Towers” to “Gone With The Wind” to Hawaiian shirts (yes, Hawaiian shirts.) And as I wrote last week, one of the top SJWs recently targeted Cracker Barrel restaurants, saying that something about the name just “feels racist.”

Well, here’s a story that happened in a Cracker Barrel restaurant. I’m sure that the SJWs won’t like it because it upends every divisive narrative that they’re trying to promote.

I suppose I should point out that this moving story of racial harmony and mutual respect between the police and the citizens did not take place in a big city run for decades by “progressive” Democrats. It took place in Moody, Alabama, so that makes it a lot less surprising to me.

If you’d like to see the fundraising page for the family of the slain police officer whose sacrifice prompted the act of generosity by the black citizen (and maybe to donate), it’s right here:

I have to warn you, though, before you read his obituary, to watch out for shattered pieces of liberal media narratives about evil cops.

Mike Huckabee

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LEFT-WING NUTJOBS

There’s one thing you can always count on with the left, and that is that when they have a political advantage, they will grab it and run so far with it that they quickly alienate the rest of society, resulting in the pendulum swinging back harder than a wrecking ball. I think we’re already beginning to see signs of that after legitimate protests of the shocking murder of George Floyd (which EVERYONE across the political spectrum condemned) quickly spiraled into lunatic fringe madness: from rioting, looting and assaulting and murdering police officers and demanding that police departments be defunded and dismantled, to “canceling,” shaming and firing anyone who even suggested that not all cops are racist monsters; to panicked corporations showering hundreds of millions of dollars onto far-left organizations, some of which are openly anti-capitalist (so I assume they’ll return the money? No?...)

…and finally degenerating into the ridiculous, like letting communist nutjobs with automatic weapons take over six blocks of Seattle, canceling “Cops” after 32 years on TV (and attacking all other cop shows, even shows as benign as “Paw Patrol”), yanking “Gone With The Wind" from HBO Max, and finally, and possibly the dumbest yet (although I have faith that this can get dumber), the insinuation that Cracker Barrel restaurants are racist and are a throwback to the Jim Crow era.

Not that anyone cares about facts anymore, but: the chain is named after the barrel of crackers that used to be in every general store, which symbolized the place where people would gather to talk and socialize. They existed everywhere, not just in the South (the general store cracker barrel is mentioned in “The Music Man,” which was set in Iowa.)

Finally, and I can’t remind you of this enough, Jim Crow laws were inventions of the Democrats. They started to arise in the 1870s, when Reconstruction ended and Democrats started replacing Republicans in Southern offices. From Wikipedia: “In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures, after having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate blacks to suppress their voting. Extensive voter fraud was also used.” No wonder Democrats don’t want your kids to be taught accurate American history!

We all agree that Floyd’s murderers should face justice and that racism cannot be tolerated in any institution, especially policing, where one side has the right to use force against citizens. But hysteria can run rampant only so long before the inevitable backlash arrives, and Americans of all races know crazy when they hear it. They are starting to rouse themselves and say, “Enough is enough,” in a variety of ways. They don’t want free speech limited only to what the most far-left radicals agree with. They don’t want their cities taken over by lawless anarchists. And they know it’s entirely possible to disagree with the political agenda of Black Lives Matter without thinking that black lives don’t matter.

Surveys show that at least 85% of Americans oppose defunding the police (a 2015 Roper poll showed that blacks were twice as likely as whites to want more police in their neighborhoods.) 58 percent support using the military if necessary to stop violent riots and looting (an opinion that the New York Times will not allow into their formerly respectable parrot cage liner.)

An NYPD cop who took a knee at the mob’s demand to try to deescalate the situation now realizes that giving in to the mob only encouraged more violence and lawlessness. He’s written a letter renouncing his “wrong” decision and saying he will be shamed and humiliated about it for the rest of his life. Someone please force the mayor of Seattle to read that letter.

Prof. Walter Jacobson of the Legal Insurrection blog was targeted for “canceling” by Cornell University for criticizing the BLM organization. But instead of donning sackcloth and ashes, he’s forcing them to back down by challenging them to prove in open debate that his posts were in any way racist or inaccurate.

A rising number of commentators are starting to see the danger to their profession of allowing all speech to be censored by the most hysterical partisans around and are beginning to say “no.” As usual, Kurt Schichter was among the first.

NASCAR driver and team owner Ray Ciccarelli says he’s leaving over NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag. Ciccarelli says he couldn’t care less about the flag himself, but NASCAR shouldn’t be getting political and telling people what flag they’re allowed to wave and “(bleeping) one group to cater to another.”

And as Americans vote with their wallets, not only are gun sales through the roof, but so are DVD sales of “Gone With The Wind.”

As physicist Sir Isaac Newton taught us, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The left didn’t learn its lesson when it went full-on radical/riot in 1968 and helped elect “law and order” candidate Richard Nixon in a landslide. Now, they’re surprised that an equal and opposite reaction to their national fit of public insanity is already starting to form? They should’ve taken Physics instead of all those useless courses that their overly indulgent parents wasted their money on.

FAKE NEWS FRIDAY

Here’s a Journalism 101 tip for CNN’s Chris Cuomo. If you’re going to try to slam President Trump for “systemic racism” under his economy, don’t use statistics from when Obama was President.

CLEANING OUT THE CAPITOL

Nancy Pelosi is demanding that all Confederate statues be removed from the Capitol and all military bases named after Confederate officers be renamed because they glorify white supremacy. The Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee voted to rename the bases as well, but President Trump says absolutely not: those bases have become part of a great American military tradition where soldiers were trained who won two World Wars.

I don’t know what the eventual resolution of this will be, but it seems that if they’re determined to scrub away the names of anyone ever associated with the Southern White supremacist movement from taxpayer-paid structures, they might start with all lthe things named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, a one-time KKK “Exalted Cyclops.”

I know, you’ll say I’m only saying that to stir up trouble because Robert Byrd was a Democrat. News flash: so were all those Confederate generals.

As a reminder that despite what we’re being told by the media gatekeepers, not all black Americans agree with the racially-divisive identity politics of the far left, here are five books by conservative African-American authors that take a very different approach to solving racial inequality in the US.

Part II: JUDGE GLEESON'S ATROCITY OF AN "AMICUS" BRIEF

Yesterday, I critiqued Judge John Gleeson’s “friend of the court” brief in support of Judge Emmet Sullivan’s bizarre refusal to allow Attorney General Bill Barr to drop the case against Michael Flynn.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but since yesterday, other articles have appeared that agree with what I had to say and go on to explain with much more specificity the ridiculousness contained in Gleeson’s brief. One very fine article by Andrea Widburg, an attorney in addition to being an editor at AMERICAN THINKER, goes into great, lawyerly detail, but I can boil down the basic arguments.

Widburg titles her piece “From the First Page, Judge Gleeson’s Brief Against Flynn Is A Travesty” and then goes on to tell exactly why.

Widburg accuses Judge Gleeson of LYING, in part by using “fake citations,” cases that don’t really stand for the principles asserted. This is typical of dishonest attorneys, she says, as they think they can get away with it because it’s not likely anyone will check. She checked. And, wouldn't you know, he lies right out of the gate: “Every one of his 14 citations in footnote 2 is a lie,” she says. “That’s all you need to know about his brief.”

She goes through all the case citations included by Gleeson as he tries lamely to argue that it was normal behavior for a judge to call in a third-party (him) to attack the defendant (Flynn) at the trial court level in a criminal case. The examples he cites deal with appellate courts, not trial-level courts like his. Inviting an “amicus” brief, she says, is “standard practice” at the appellate level, but this case is still at trial, where Sullivan is currently presiding. Also, he cites rules and cases that apply to civil litigation; this is a criminal trial.

Gleeson has also been dishonest about the evidence in the case. Widburg quotes someone on Twitter who found that Gleeson had said of Papadopoulos that he “divulged that Russia contacted the campaign.” Really? This judge hasn’t been keeping up very well with the exculpatory evidence that has emerged in the “Russia” probe.

If you’d like to know more about Judge Gleeson and how he came to be involved in this bizarre case, Paul Mirengoff has a piece in the PowerLine blog that tells all, and in more layman’s terms than Widburg uses.

To understand Judge Gleeson, Mirengoff says, you have to know that he sees himself as more of an advocate than a judge. He is by no means neutral. If he wants a particular outcome, he will wage a personal campaign to make that happen. The Flynn case isn’t the first time he's done it. This piece on him is a very interesting read.

While the Flynn case continues, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Ron Johnson, and now the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Lindsay Graham, are now both using subpoena power to call a large number of witnesses involved in “Crossfire Hurricane” and find out what those people knew about the sham “evidence” in the case. Former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein has already covered himself with shame by not-so-artfully dodging questions about how much he knew about the problems with the Steele “dossier” when he signed the warrant renewal application to keep spying.

Don't expect much media coverage of this as it's going on, as journalists are feasting on public unrest, left-wing craziness and disgusting racial politics that will intensify as we near the election (and likely afterwards). Lindsay Graham, on HANNITY Thursday night, pointed out that the Mueller investigation received round-the-clock coverage for two-and-a-half years. (I would add that this was followed by the media frenzy over the impeachment hearings.) But I'm telling you, have confidence --- just know that the stunning truth is going to come out anyway.

As Graham tells it, there were a couple of FBI agents who were skeptical of the “dossier” and its origins, and they apparently took the initiative to track down Steele’s Russian sub-source. These two agents were the ones who said it came across to them as not real, more like Russian disinformation. There’s a January memo documenting an interview with this sub-source, “basically shredding the reliability of the ‘dossier.’” Surely one or both of these agents went to Comey, McCabe or some other supervisor to advise them the “dossier” was not verified.

"I find it hard to believe that nobody at the top was told by the professionals in the organization, ‘Our case fell apart,” Graham says. “….I don’t believe McCabe and Comey could have possibly not known that the “dossier” had been rejected by the sub-source. I can’t believe the FBI is that poorly run –- that [in] the most important investigation in 30 years of a sitting President, that NOBODY told the top of the FBI, ‘Oh, by the way, our case fell apart.’”

Graham also vows not to let the lower-level agents who interviewed the sub-source take the blame. We shall see; the reluctance expressed by investigators to look at the actions of those at the VERY top is disheartening, to say the least. After all, this is serious criminal misconduct; by August of 2017, right after Rosenstein signed the final FISA renewal application and was writing Mueller's "scope" memo, there was apparently no evidence against anyone named in that memo --- not one bit.

I’ll leave you with a good suggestion for additional reading: Margot Cleveland’s excellent in-depth analysis of Sullivan’s behavior in the Flynn case and Gleeson’s outrageous “friend of the court” brief. As she puts it, “Gleeson more than gave the longtime federal judge exactly what he wanted: a hit job on Donald Trump that the press could parlay into a new faux scandal.” Highly recommended for when you have some time. This looks like a great weekend to turn off the TV.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE

Mike Huckabee

Last week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell joined in the rush to take a knee by declaring that "we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier” when they enraged many fans by kneeling during the National Anthem. He said he would be "reaching out" to players who have "raised their voices," and the NFL will "encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest...Without black players, there would be no National Football League and the protests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality, and oppression of black players, coaches, fans, and staff."

Predictably, that was not good enough for the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is turning his funeral eulogies for George Floyd into political attacks on President Trump, and in Houston, into a demand that the NFL rehire quarterback Colin Kaepernick. This conveniently overlooks the fact that Kaepernick has had multiple opportunities to play and blown them with his own behavior. Last year, he was given an unprecedented private tryout for all 32 NFL teams, on a Saturday when the teams are normally busy preparing for games. But after the scouts showed up, Kaepernick moved it to another venue on 30 minutes’ notice. He also spoke to the XFL and AAF, but demanded a guaranteed paycheck 80 times larger than their normal salaries.

I’d be interested to hear if Goodell is equally apologetic about the league’s oppression of players who wanted to express their deep feelings about other issues, like the ban on the Cowboys wearing stickers honoring five Dallas Police officers who were murdered by a sniper during a protest of the treatment of blacks by police in Louisiana and (again) Minneapolis. Five Dallas cops died and nine others were injured as they heroically tried to protect the lives of the people who came to denounce them. But that doesn’t fit the current media narrative, so I’ll note that the NFL has also banned expressions of support for a number of other causes, including religion, mental health, and fighting domestic violence and breast cancer. That’s because they all violate the league’s ban on using uniforms to convey any unapproved messages on game day:

This stems from the original concept that’s gotten lost in all the fury and finger-pointing: when players are in the stadium, they’re in their workplace, representing their employers. Contrary to claims, Kaepernick never had his First Amendment rights taken away. That only prevents the government from censoring you. He was free to speak out on any subject on his own time, on radio, TV or a soapbox in the park. But he wasn’t allowed to stage divisive political protests that alienated customers while he was at work.

If the NFL is forced to take back Kaepernick, then does that rule apply everywhere now? Say you work at a car dealership, and you have some controversial opinions on social issues that you’re so passionate about, you feel you must force customers to listen to them before they can test drive a car, or make your colleagues sit through them every time they come into work. So now, you no longer have to worry about being sent to HR or fired with cause, you can just keep on doing it? How long do you think that dealership will remain in business?

Allowing these divisive protests in a place where fans traditionally came to escape from politics, put aside differences and root for their teams cratered NFL TV ratings. In the past few seasons, ratings have crept up again, largely because of the divisive politics finally receding. Goodell now wants to bring it all back with a vengeance.

This brings up another question, asked countless times by former NFL fans: How has Roger Goodell kept his job? He normally makes about $40 million a year; although during the pandemic shutdown, he agreed to reduce his salary to zero, and many of us think he’s finally being paid what he’s worth. His admitted wrong decisions (which he’s now been on both sides of) have cost the league billions, driven away fans and seriously harmed its reputation. He even admits he was in charge during years of “oppression of black players, coaches, fans and staff." If you did that to your employer’s business, would you still be employed?

Several prominent business leaders, such as the CEO of the Second City comedy troupe, have found themselves so wracked with white guilt that they’ve resigned their own jobs so they can be replaced by a black applicant. In that spirit, Goodell should step down to be replaced by a black former NFL player.

I nominate Burgess Owens.

Mike Huckabee

Right now, the media are dominated by voices claiming that America is a land of racism and hatred, built on oppression and slavery and white supremacy. Well, pardon my language, but they are full of bull flop. There are a handful of bad apples, but it’s a very big barrel, and if we really were to do as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed and judge each other by the content of our characters rather than the color of our skin, I bet we’d mostly find a lot of good, caring people of every shade. If you don’t believe me, turn off all the hyperventilating hate merchants for a moment and look at this story:

Last Thursday, there was a car crash in Indianapolis, and a woman was trapped under an overturned van. Nearby resident Laurie Collins reported on Facebook that she heard the crash and ran to the scene. She said that suddenly, many people “came out of nowhere” to help. Some comforted and reassured the woman and tried to assess her condition while the others determined to lift the van off her somehow. They gathered around, called out, “1...2…3!” But they couldn’t move it. So more guys joined in, and the second time, they did the seemingly impossible: they lifted the van and pushed it off of her.

As you can tell from the photo, and from Collins’ description, there were “all kinds of different people and they were all trying to help together.” Please note that the people who rushed to help were men and women, and all different races. I’m sure many of them didn’t know the race of the victim, and couldn’t care less. When they heard someone was in need, and rushed in, joined together, and all lifted in the same direction to help.

That is the America I love and the American people I know. No matter how many buildings are set on fire or statues are vandalized or phony history books are forced onto students, you will never convince me otherwise.

Mike Huckabee

The radical elements that have hijacked the recent protests, and those in power who are supporting/trying to placate them, are no longer even pretending that this is about the killing of George Floyd or reforming police procedures. They hate America and want to go back to our very beginnings, destroy everything that was ever revered, and rewrite our history, “1619 Project” style, into a litany of evils with no positives, progress or heroes allowed to be mentioned.

What better illustrations of that could there be than protesters targeting California homeowners for arson simply for flying American flags…

Or vandalizing, setting on fire, then tearing down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, and throwing it into a lake, while carrying signs reading, “This land is Powhatan land” and “Columbus represents genocide”? I wonder how many of them have signed over the deeds to their homes to the Powhatan tribe?

The greatness of America has never been that it was perfect from the start, but that the Founders created an unprecedented system in which power derived from the consent of the governed, and every citizen has God-given rights that cannot be taken away by government. They created a Constitution designed to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Note that it doesn’t say everything is perfect, but that we are trying to “form a more perfect union.” They knew that human nature being what it was, there would always be problems and injustices, but they bequeathed to us the tools to keep making things better. We even fought a bloody Civil War to end one of those injustices. But racism remained, so we fought on to desegregation and the Civil Rights Act and other efforts to “form a more perfect union.” We didn’t always take the right steps, but Americans of good faith have worked together to keep us heading in the right direction, and we have come a long, long way.

Now, we’re under assault by a small, hateful minority who want us to throw away centuries of progress. To do that, they have to convince us that there has been no progress, that America has always been totally evil and still is. That we were born in sin, and there has been no attempt at atonement and no redemption possible. Don’t listen to that, and don’t be afraid to call it what it is: a poisonous lie.

We may never have a “perfect union,” because perfection doesn’t exist on this Earth. We must always keep working to “form a more perfect union,” that is, one that moves ever closer to the goal. But we will never get closer to perfection by attacking each other and tearing down our own history. What the proponents of that path want is anarchy, and they make no secret of it.

If there are injustices that need to be remedied, then Americans must do what we have always done: we’ll listen, we’ll debate, we’ll compromise, and we will work to fix the problems TOGETHER. But we’ll never get closer to the goal if we let our enemies panic us into running in the opposite direction.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee

I’ve already written about the attempts by so-called “health professionals” to explain why it’s fine for masses of people to gather for anti-racism protests, but it’s a deadly coronavirus superspreader event when people protest endless lockdowns.

That Mt. Everest of hypocrisy is getting so much furious blowback that some of them are trying to rationalize it by claiming that the racism protests have aspects that mitigate the spread, such as being outdoors with more space between people.

Like this protest in London, supported by the mayor and hilariously juxtaposed with his warnings to stay home and keep two meters apart from others if you go out. I’ve seen canned sardines that weren’t packed as tight as the people in that protest photo.

But here’s the stunning quote that really gave away the game, and no, it’s not from the Babylon Bee. It’s real:

Apparently, “health professionals” have decided that if they strongly approve of an issue, it’s okay to rally for it, but if they disapprove, then it’s too dangerous to allow because it might spread the coronavirus. Did the virus post a “Black Lives Matter” logo on its Facebook page and agree not to infect anyone at an anti-racism rally?

Or is this just, as I’ve written previously, irrefutable proof that the only “science” the alleged “party of science” really cares about is political science? Since they believe that life begins when the mother and the abortionist decide to let a baby live that’s already been born, or that climate science is “settled” no matter how many times the computer models are wrong, then I’d say they have no more inkling of what “science” is than they do of what common sense is.

Mike Huckabee

It’s understandable, considering the level of threats, slander and vitriol being hurled, but still disappointing to see so many people folding and groveling for saying things that we should all agree with, but that far-left radical activists have declared to be double-plus ungood wrongthink. It is entirely possible to condemn racism and want reform of police corruption (particularly in long-time one-party Democratic cities/states, where the racism and corruption have been deeply entrenched for up to half a century, even though they blame it on Donald Trump) and still oppose rioting, looting, vandalism, violence and threatening, racially-divisive, anti-American rhetoric. This is the time for the silent majority to stop being silent and speak up for racial unity, not race war. Don’t wait until November to make yourselves heard, although I expect there will be quite a roar unleashed at the ballot box

There were a number of sobering opinion pieces this weekend, warning that the attempted purges we’re seeing now, including the push to do away with police, aided and abetted by powerful political and media/social media forces, are not an honest reaction to the murder of George Floyd but long-planned actions of radical elements exploiting Floyd’s killing as a fuse for the bomb they’ve spent years building.

Here’s Roger L. Simon on the Mao-ing of America

The difference between the ‘60s radical rioters and today’s…

And a timely message to celebrities who are knuckling under to criticism of comments that were not really offensive…

Here’s a quote from the third article

“The left has graduated to literal struggle sessions. They are intent on forcing us all, through shame and abuse, to bow to an ideology that is demonstrably toxic and divisive instead of allowing us to pursue, of our own free will, a common-humanity politics that will actually lead to a more just society. If you are a creative, don't bend. Don't apologize to these people -- ever. Because they will never be satisfied. As soon as you show your belly, they will continue to harass you for every tiny imperfection they can perceive. And you don't deserve that. Hardly anyone does.”

Laura Ainsworth, Staff Writer

THIS IS SATIRE

Most Unsurprising News Of The Day: Former FBI deputy counsel Lisa Page has been hired as a “national security and legal analyst” by MSNBC.

Best known for her anti-Trump texting in late summer 2016 with then-lover Peter Strzok while he was leading the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of Trump and for helping him rewrite Michael Flynn's "302" interview notes, she ended up resigning from the FBI. She filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI in December of last year for violating her right to privacy by illegally leaking the text messages.

What Ms. Page doesn’t know is that something else leaked: her job interview with the HR department at MSNBC. Don’t ask us how, but we managed to get the transcript…

HR: Well, Ms. Page, have a seat. We’ve been over your resume, and your work at the FBI is quite impressive.

PAGE: Thank you. As you can see, I REALLY loathe President Trump and will do anything I can to damage him politically. It’s there in my mission statement.

HR: Yes, yes, that is what particularly stood out here. Most impressive. In fact, I’d say it’s the Number One prerequisite for working here.

PAGE: Well, I really, really do. Really.

HR: I see here that you were Andy McCabe’s top legal counsel at the FBI.

PAGE: That’s right. Andy’s a great guy! He really can’t stand Trump, either. Oh, man.

HR: Right. McCabe's over at CNN now. We tried to get him, because he hates Trump SO MUCH, but I guess there was a lot of competition for him and we missed out.

PAGE: They love him over there.

HR: Understandably.

PAGE: They’ve hired ten of my old colleagues over there at CNN, can you believe it? There’s Andy, of course...Mr. Clapper; he was our Director of National Intelligence...James Baker; he was our general counsel and I knew him very well…one of Director Comey’s aides, I believe, Josh Campbell…and some others I know who really hate Trump, too. It’s like the glue that holds them all together.

But you’ve recently hired several people I know here at MSNBC, too. Wow, you’ve got Director Brennan; NOBODY hates Trump more than he does. Head of the CIA, what a catch! And I understand our assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, works here now; he used numerology to tie President Trump to the white supremacy movement while we were at the FBI. Fun times. It would also be really nice to work with my old colleague Chuck Rosenberg, Mr. Comey’s chief of staff; he really supported the Steele dossier when we were having trouble passing that off. Oh, and there are others I know who are working here, and they all hate Trump with every fiber of their being. I would feel right at home here.

HR: You’d fit in very nicely. And you’re certainly very qualified, although I see you’ve never worked as a journalist. Fortunately, that doesn’t matter! Even our journalists don’t work as journalists. There’s just one rather sensitive issue…

PAGE: Yes?

HR: We understand that at your previous job, you had an affair with a married co-worker. Is that correct?

PAGE: Well, yes.

HR: We just wanted to make it clear to you that this is not a problem at all. In fact, I think you’ll find that here in the media, people are still having affairs all the time, just like at the FBI. Have as many as you like. The #MeToo Movement applies only to nonconsensual sex involving conservatives.

PAGE: That’s a relief.

HR: So, that said, what do you think is your greatest attribute?

PAGE (smiling brightly): That I hate President Trump?

UPDATE:

LETTER FROM READER ON “LISA PAGE GETS A NEW JOB”

From reader John H:

This is a joke, right? How could this be real?

From Laura:

Hi, John. The “transcript” of Lisa Page’s job interview is indeed a joke --- but I assure you that the underlying news story, Page’s new job at MSNBC, is very real. (The story is at the link I included.)

I imagine that she, as their new legal analyst, might even be reporting on developments regarding the investigation of the FBI. We shall see if they have her cover those stories or pass them to someone else who is just as biased but perhaps not directly involved! She might be "recused" from talking about those on-air, not because of her bias but to shield her from getting into even more legal hot water than she's already in. Unbelievable but true.

All the mentions in the "transcript" of others who have been hired by CNN (such as Andrew McCabe) and MSNBC (such as John Brennan) are real as well. I’m a big believer in the principle that comedy should be based on truth, even if it makes you laugh until you cry.

IF YOU MISSED LAURA'S STORY CLICK HERE>>>

Mike Huckabee

As always happens after a bender, the leaders of blue cities who allowed rioters and looters to “vent” are waking up with a big headache and realizing just how much longterm damage has been inflicted – in this case, on the very people the protesters claimed to be championing.

After previous riots in cities like Watts and Detroit, the damage to the economy and quality of life lingered on for years, even decades. Once again, the victims taking the brunt of it are the law-abiding black residents of the neighborhoods that were trashed, burned and looted. They lost friends and family members killed and injured while trying to defend the businesses they’d spent their lives building, lost their homes, and lost jobs they needed in order to take care of their families.

And now comes the secondary pain: the stores that were burned and looted closed, many, possibly for good. The residents depended on those stores for food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities. Now, they’ll have to travel long distances for basic needs. Liberals used to decry what they called “food deserts.” President Trump promoted tax breaks and other incentives to get businesses into these neighborhoods to provide goods, jobs, and services. Now, liberals, in the name of “helping” those communities, are driving the businesses out, leaving the mayors to plead with them not to leave for good.

It’s going to take a lot of convincing to get businesses to stay after this. It will require a leader who knows how to talk to business people, who understands their needs and has experience negotiating deals that will entice reluctant investors to sign. If only someone like that were running for President in 2020!

Mike Huckabee

Congratulations to Larry Elder for joining the elite club of conservatives who get branded by Politifact as saying something that’s “Mostly False,” even though it’s 100% accurate.

I had that honor once. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember that the story was, but I do seem to recall that the facts I quoted were not only accurate, they also came out of the Washington Post. I don’t remember Politifact’s reasoning, but I recall thinking at the time that it amounted to, “What he said is true, but if the facts were different, it would be false.” I think my missing “context” was that I failed to include hypothetical situations in which things were different from what they actually were.

More recently (like in the past three days), we’ve had several web pages at mikehuckabee.com be flagged and blocked by Google. These pages contained no commentary whatsoever: they were just reposts of news videos of comments by people such as the White House press secretary and the Minnesota attorney general. We had to appeal to get them reinstated. Is posting video of prominent people’s own words a thought crime now?

Anyway, when I put quotation marks around the phrase “fact-checker,” these are just a few of the many, many reasons why.

Mike Huckabee

A 75% majority of the Minneapolis City Council wants to dismantle the city’s police department - not "reform," but dismantle -- a move so insane that even the far-left mayor opposes it. But the council has the votes to override his veto.

Seems like a better solution would be for all the far-left city officials who’ve had a one-party lock on power for over half a century, and created what they admit is a corrupt, racist system, to resign en masse and let someone competent take over. But instead, they want to dismantle the police department amid widespread rioting, vandalism and looting, which is like dealing with wildfires by dismantling the fire department. It's official: Rose Nyland of "The Golden Girls" is no longer the dumbest person ever to come out of Minnesota. At least Rose was smart enough to move to Florida, and I bet a lot of Minneapolis residents will follow her lead.

If you live in Minneapolis, you might want to consider getting out while the getting is good, before you have burglars breaking down your door, and you call the city for help and get a lecture about your “privilege” – I guess in owning something the poor burglar doesn’t own. But with these morons in charge, he soon will. Does that "privilege" claim also apply to black homeowners who are burglarized by white criminals?

Please note, that comment about the desire for the cops to remove burglars from your house coming from a place of "privilege" is not a joke. It's an actual quote from the city council president. But at least she admits it will take years before the utopian "police-free future" arrives and police are no longer necessary. Liberals just have to find a way to perfect human nature and rid it of sin by throwing enough tax money at it.

Mike Huckabee

In the obituaries today, let’s all bid a sad farewell to the New York Times. It has been very sick for a long time, barely surviving on the tattered remnants of its long-decayed reputation. But this weekend will be carved into granite as the date when it finally expired. Not that it won’t continue staggering on, a zombie-like shell of its former self, but it’s now just a dead paper walking and anyone who isn't also braindead should know it.

This weekend, the Times tossed its last remaining shard of journalistic integrity onto the Antifa-lit bonfire by announcing that James Bennet, its editorial page editor, would resign, and Jim Dao, his deputy, would be reassigned. Why? Because they had the temerity to print Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s op-ed, endorsing the use of US troops to quell the violent riots destroying American cities.

That’s an opinion shared by 58% of Americans, according to recent polls. But not by the young snowflake staffers of the Times, the generation taught that words they disagree with are violence and must be silenced. And the paper’s upper management, who used to claim to be liberals who believe in free speech, capitulated to their own internal mob. It’s now official: there is no place for any dissenting opinion on the New York Times’ opinion page. And you certainly won’t find any in the opinion pieces they run as news articles.

(If I linked to the Fox News write-up of this, you might think I was being biased, so I’ll let this former Times reporter who disagreed with Sen. Cotton’s op-ed tell you how awful this is).

And I’ll let John Lennon’s son Sean, who’s surprisingly become a rare voice of reason in the music industry, also provide an appropriate eulogy for the Times…

And lest you think I’m overstating the depths of rabid partisanship to which the Times has sunk, New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones (who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for “the 1619 Project,” a widely-debunked slice of historical propaganda claiming America was founded on nothing but slavery) told CNN that the Republican Party is a “rogue” organization, and the media should not treat it fairly by letting its opinions be heard because that would be “picking sides.” So it must pick one side and silence any dissent to avoid picking sides? So much for the value of a Pulitzer Prize.

And what does the New York Times think is “fit to print”? How about an op-ed telling people to stop talking to their relatives unless they publicly support Black Lives Matter? They say “love requires sacrifice.” As Ed Driscoll at Instapundit notes, this demand that you cut your friends or parents out of your life if they don’t accept your extreme beliefs is the standard operating procedure of cults.

The Times has ceased even to pretend being a legitimate newspaper. It’s now an oversized propaganda leaflet, and you should expect no more journalist integrity, objectivity or fairness from it than you would from a Xeroxed manifesto handed out on a street corner by some hairy guy who smells like a cat litter box.

Mike Huckabee

Comic/podcaster Adam Carolla is blasting Walmart for its decision not to carry the DVD of “No Safe Spaces,” the excellent and chilling documentary that he and Dennis Prager created about the efforts to silence free speech, particularly by the left on college campuses. Carolla pointed out the irony that Walmart won’t carry a movie "about the importance of allowing Americans to share ideas freely.” He said, “You can't make this stuff up. It's a free country, and Walmart is free to ban our movie, but our fans are also free to let Walmart know how they feel about that."

In its defense, Walmart says they’re carrying the book based on the film, but DVD space is based off “data-driven customer insights” and its $1.3 million box office shows it doesn’t have enough commercial appeal. However, most documentaries don’t make nearly that much (“No Safe Spaces” was the top-earning political documentary of last year), and since it’s hard for them to find theater screens, they depend on DVDs and streaming to reach an audience.

I hope Walmart will reconsider this decision. In light of what we are seeing now across the country – the burning and looting instigated by some of the same radical elements discussed in the film, who are expanding from campuses to entire cities, and, yes, looting big box stores – it’s imperative that everyone in America see this documentary to learn who and what we’re dealing with, how we allowed it to get to this point, and why it must be stopped before free speech is silenced permanently.

To learn more about the film, stream it now or order the DVD online, go to https://nosafespaces.com

Mike Huckabee

Tuesday evening, I posted my promised “20 ‘Just for Fun’ Questions for Rod Rosenstein” in anticipation of his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled for Wednesday at 10AM Eastern Time.

John Solomon had a similar idea for a list of questions, though his list is the FOR REAL "Ten Most Important Questions for Rod Rosenstein." Let’s see how much overlap we have.

Solomon includes the full quote I referenced in one of my "fun" questions (asking RR if he was joking): “There’s a lot of talk about FISA applications. Many people I’ve seen talk about it seem not to recognize that a FISA application is actually a warrant, just like a search warrant. In order to get a FISA warrant, you need an affidavit signed by a career law enforcement officer who swears the information is true...And if it is wrong, that person is going to face consequences. If we’re going to accuse someone of wrongdoing, we have to have admissible evidence, credible witnesses; we have to prove our case in court. We have to affix our signature to the charging document.”

This little lecture, highly amusing today in light of what we know, is from two years ago. You can see why I would have loved to ask him if he was joking (as he reportedly said he was about wearing a wire to secretly record the President). Rosenstein did affix his own personal signature to the final renewal of the FISA application to spy on Carter Page, in 2017. Nothing incriminating was ever found on Page, nothing to charge him with and nothing on which to base a renewal of the original application. Not even the original warrant application was based on verified evidence or a credible witness.

The Justice Department had to withdraw the very FISA warrant renewal that Rosenstein supposedly reviewed and personally signed after it was determined to be “inaccurate, undocumented, and FALSIFIED [emphasis mine] evidence.”

Rosenstein is (or should be) in a heap of trouble. He has asserted that even “the best” law enforcement officials make mistakes and that some of them are even involved in “willful misconduct.” If this is the sort of thing done by “the best” of them, then our whole justice system is in a heap of trouble.

Here, briefly paraphrased, are Solomon’s suggested questions, along with the gist of what I predict Rosenstein’s slippery answers will be...

1. Did you read the warrant against Page, review any evidence or ask questions before you signed the renewal?

RR: “THIS WARRANT HAD ALREADY BEEN INITIALLY APPROVED AND RENEWED TWO MORE TIMES AFTER THAT. BY THE FOURTH TIME, I NATURALLY ASSUMED ALL THE EVIDENCE AGAINST MR. PAGE HAD BEEN VERY WELL ESTABLISHED, SO I JUST WENT AHEAD AND SIGNED IT. HAVING TO TAKE OVER SO MANY OF MR. SESSIONS’ DUTIES AS ATTORNEY GENERAL, I WAS A VERY BUSY MAN AND SIMPLY DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO READ THE PAPERWORK OR REVIEW EVIDENCE THAT I TRUSTED.”

2. Do you now realize the application was flawed and regret signing it?

RR: “WELL, OF COURSE, I WOULDN’T HAVE SIGNED IT HAD I BEEN AWARE OF ANY PROBLEMS, BUT I HONESTLY SAW NOTHING WRONG AT THE TIME. I STRONGLY FELT IT WAS MY PATRIOTIC DUTY TO INVESTIGATE WHAT I SAW AS RUSSIA’S ATTEMPT TO HELP TRUMP BECOME PRESIDENT IN 2016, WHICH, OF COURSE, THEY DID.”

3. Given what we now know, would you still appoint Mueller as a special counsel if you had a do-over?

RR: “I REALLY FELT AT THE TIME THAT MR. MUELLER WAS THE MOST QUALIFIED PERSON FOR THE JOB. ROBERT MUELLER IS THE KINDEST, BRAVEST, WARMEST, MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING I'VE EVER KNOWN IN MY LIFE. I WAS NOT ALONE IN THAT ASSESSMENT; THERE WAS AGREEMENT ACROSS THE BOARD AT THE TIME, AMONG BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, INCLUDING SOME OF THE REPUBLICANS ON THIS COMMITTEE, SEN. GRAHAM. AS FOR WHETHER I’D DO IT AGAIN, I’D RATHER NOT ANSWER A HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION.”

4. Did you talk with Andy McCabe in 2017 about wearing a wire on President Trump as part of a plot to remove him under the 25th Amendment?

RR: “WE REALLY WERE JUST KIDDING AROUND. THERE WAS NOTHING TO THAT AT ALL. NEXT QUESTION, PLEASE.”

5. Who drafted and provided the supporting materials you used to put together the “scope” memo for Mueller’s team?

RR: “OH, ALL THAT STUFF CAME FROM PETER STRZOK, SOMEONE I TRUSTED AS A FINE CAREER BUREAU OFFICIAL. PETER STRZOK IS THE KINDEST, BRAVEST, WARMEST, MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING I’VE EVER KNOWN IN MY LIFE. YOU SHOULD PROBABLY TALK TO HIM.”

6. In light of new evidence, do you have any concerns about the conduct of James Comey and Andy McCabe?

RR: “I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT THESE MEN WERE FINE CAREER BUREAU OFFICIALS. JAMES COMEY AND ANDREW McCABE ARE THE KINDEST, BRAVEST, WARMEST, MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN BEINGS I’VE EVER KNOWN IN MY LIFE. THAT’S WHY I ALWAYS RELIED ON THEIR JUDGEMENT. I TRUSTED EVERYTHING THEY BROUGHT ME.”

7. When did you learn that Carter Page had actually been an asset for the CIA (not a Russian spy), and that the Steele “dossier” had been debunked or linked to Russian disinformation?

RR: (after leaning over and huddling with lawyers) “I DON’T RECALL.”

8. Do you think the FISA court was intentionally misled, or that it was just a case of bureaucratic bungling?

RR: “IT WAS DEFINITELY THAT LAST THING YOU SAID, ‘BUREAUCRATIC BUNGLING.’”

9. What blame do you place on yourself for the failures in the case you supervised? Who else do you blame?

RR: “I BLAME MYSELF FOR CARING SO MUCH ABOUT MY COUNTRY AND OUR SYSTEM OF JUSTICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND FOR TRUSTING MY TOP OFFICIALS TO CARRY OUT A FAIR INVESTIGATION. WHO ELSE DO I BLAME? WHY, TRUMP, OF COURSE.”

10. Do you think anyone in the Russia investigation should face criminal charges?

RR: “IT’S MY OPINION THAT NO REASONABLE PROSECUTOR WOULD TAKE SUCH A CASE.”

That’s pretty much how I think it will go. To round out the discussion, here’s a link to an excellent piece from last October that appeared in THE AMERICAN THINKER. It’s about all the information we’d amassed on the whole “Russia hoax” that was still being ignored by most in the media. Half a year later, we know even more and have much more evidence, and it’s still being ignored. Rosenstein’s testimony on Wednesday will be ignored, too. But John Durham isn’t ignoring it, and is putting his criminal case together.

The Russia hoax: The Left's willful ignorance and denial

Mike Huckabee

In case you missed the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday morning, in which former deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was questioned, here’s Jonathan Turley’s real-time account. It’s necessarily brief, as he had to keep up with the proceedings, but you’ll get the idea of how this went down.

You’ll see that I was mostly on-target in my tongue-in-cheek forecast of what he would say to try to wriggle out of legal consequences. For example, he said he wouldn’t have signed the FISA warrant renewal if he had known about the false statements and underlying misconduct, implying he was misguided by his trust in the people responsible.

He said he didn’t know about the discrediting of the Steele “dossier” and that it had come from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Well, of course, he didn't!

He said that four judges had already signed off on this material as if that were a defense. By the time it GETS to the judges, it’s supposed to be signed off as verified information. One of those times, the last one, that was supposed to be done by HIM. It's the judges who get to take this for granted, not him.

He also said he couldn’t recall if he read “every page” of the document he signed. Just what we thought he would say.

If he threw anyone under the bus, even a little, it appears to have been Andrew McCabe, for not being “forthcoming” and instead withholding important information, “for whatever reason." ("Whatever reason"??) Not that he’s accusing McCabe of “misrepresentations.” Huh?

We’ll have much more detail on this tomorrow morning.

Mike Huckabee

I’m getting tired of people claiming that if you criticize the violent rioters and looters, you’re denigrating the value of black lives, the civil rights movement or the legitimate protests over the death of George Floyd. I’m seeing a lot of misplaced sympathy expressed for violent agitators who have hijacked the protests to stir up violence and racial hatred, and who are actually destroying black neighborhoods, homes and businesses, setting the protesters’ cause back, and harming the very people they falsely claim to be helping.

But since nobody wants to hear that message from a white male Republican, maybe it will make more of an impact coming from this lady. She’s an elderly African-American woman in New York City whose small shop is something she’s worked for years to build, only to come in and find the windows smashed, the stock looted and the fixtures demolished, leaving it to her to clean up their mess.

In the great tradition of no-nonsense grandmothers, she very appropriately reads these rioters the Riot Act:

“Tell me Black Lives Matter. You lied. You wanted to loot the store. You needed money? Get a job -- like I do. Stop stealing. This is a neighborhood. We’re trying to build it up, and you’re tearing it down.”

God bless this lady. Click the link to see the rest, and it’s a must-see. Rudy Giuliani is calling for Bill DeBlasio to be removed immediately as Mayor of New York. Can this lady take his place?

Mike Huckabee

Having given the “leaders” of blue states and cities ample time to stop the rioting, arson and looting that’s being ginned up to exploit and dishonor the death of George Floyd, President Trump ordered riot teams from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to Washington, DC, and Miami, and more could be forthcoming if Governors don’t take action. That could include mobilizing thousands of soldiers, which the President has the power to do under the Insurrection Act of 1807.

Naturally, the media are hysterically painting this as an unprecedented abuse of tyrannical power and a declaration of war on the First Amendment (we have a right to riot, burn and loot?) But in fact, the Insurrection Act has been invoked over a dozen times, most recently in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to stop the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

Sadly, that may be necessary because so many Democratic officials are refusing to do their #1 job of protecting public safety. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is so addlepated with Trump Derangement Syndrome, she actually admitted she refuses to do what’s necessary because “TRUUUUMP!!” She said at a press conference, “Having soldiers on the streets across America is exactly what President Trump wants...Trump wants Governors to deploy the National Guard as a show of force to intimidate the public.”

Monday night, Trump said, “I swore an oath to uphold the laws of our nation and that is exactly what I will do. I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters.” He said we cannot allow their righteous cries to be drowned out by an angry mob. But, “a number of state and local governments have failed to take necessary action to safeguard their residents. I am taking immediate presidential action to stop the violence and restore security and safety in America. I am mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.”

Speaking of Second Amendment rights, a lot of people, especially in blue states, are waking up to the scary reality that their leaders will do very little to protect them, so they have to protect themselves. Gun sales are exploding, and the price of gun stocks is booming. Former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright (@BryanDeanWright) tweeted that he talked to a major “Progressive” Democratic fundraiser in Colorado who was spooked by rioters getting near his house, and nobody he knew owned a gun, so he was buying one today (hope there’s not a 10-day waiting period!) Wright said, “The left is losing their base, folks. People prefer order over anarchy.”

I’m sure that many of the people buying guns to protect their homes, families and businesses are African-American, and contrary to the false media stereotype, conservatives are perfectly fine with that, it’s the liberals who are expressing alarm. That’s no surprise: many years ago, when the KKK was terrorizing blacks in the South by burning down their neighborhoods, the NRA was the only constitutional rights organization that defended their right to buy guns to protect themselves. History is merely repeating itself.

Meanwhile, word on social media is that Antifa, having helped torch blue cities, now thinks they’ll move into the suburbs and terrorize people there. That would be the dumbest idea they’ve come up with yet, and that covers a lot of territory. Many people live in the suburbs after fleeing cities because they were sick of depending on noodle-spined leftist mayors who order the police to stand down and who sympathize with criminals over victims. Instead, for protection, they have guns.

Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd put it succinctly, when he warned, "The people in Polk County like guns, they have guns, I encourage them to own guns. If you try to break into their homes to steal, to set fires, I'm highly recommending they blow you back out of the house with their guns."

Mike Huckabee

There’s no shortage of wealthy celebrities hiding out in their mansions inside walled and gated communities while cheering on and financially supporting violent rioters who are burning down and looting other people’s neighborhoods. But if you had to pick a poster child for liberal hypocrisy, former NBA and ESPN star Chris Palmer might have just taken the prize. (Warning: link includes foul language.)

Palmer started off by cheering on the burning of an affordable housing unit in Minneapolis (he later claimed he didn’t know what it was, but considering he tweeted, “Burn it all down,” it apparently didn’t matter that much to him what it was.) Just 24 hours later, the mobs were trying to breach the walls of his gated community in Los Angeles, and it was a very different story. Palmer was frantically tweeting, “Get these animals tha (bleep) out of my neighborhood. Go back to where you live.”

Later, he reported with relief that the hated police showed up and chased them away, and the only loss was a Starbucks (possibly some small business owner’s franchise, maybe even a black small business owner, but if you just want to “burn it all down,” then what difference does that make? But I digress.) Palmer tweet-ranted about the protesters who’d dared to threaten his property, “Tear up your own (bleep). Don’t come to where we live at and tear our neighborhood up. We care about our community. If you don’t care about yours I don’t give a (bleep.)”

I wonder if it occurred to him that some of the “protesters” in Minneapolis, the ones smashing property and setting fires, were also attacking someone else’s neighborhood, and the people who actually lived there didn’t want their homes and businesses burned down and looted any more than he did?

Mike Huckabee

Here’s an example of the kind of “peaceful protester” that Hollywood celebrities are giving millions of dollars to bail out of jail. Note that he is an outsider who traveled to Minneapolis purely to riot, burn and loot and has no noble motives whatsoever, not even a pretense of any.

The media are trying desperately to push the narrative that the rioting and violence are not being instigated by leftwing agitators, but by rightwing white supremacist groups. This claim is as evidence-free as “Russian collusion.”

Officials in Minneapolis have reported that they have seen no substantial presence of any right-wing groups, but they have arrested plenty of white, leftwing outsiders who push to the front of protests and try to stir up violence. Peaceful protesters are starting to realize how they’re being used, and there have been several reports of protesters stopping agitators who began acting violently and handing them over to police.

I hope those who are legitimately concerned and protesting peacefully for change are now seeing how the violence and vandalism of groups like Antifa is setting back their own cause and harming the people they claim to want to help. If that’s not clear yet, then read this article. The title should tell you why it’s a must-read:

“A Plea from an Inner-City African-American to Stop the Madness, Looting and Rioting.”

Mike Huckabee

This is a developing story that could have major implications; we’ll have more soon. On Friday, FBI general counsel Dana Boente, a career FBI/DOJ official who as acting deputy attorney general signed at least one of the FISA warrant renewals on former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, turned in his resignation letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

This occurs just as Lindsey Graham is getting ready to start Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the “Trump/Russia” investigation. (Opening salvo: Wednesday, with Rod Rosenstein.) And in May, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that there would be an internal “after-action” review of the FBI’s handling of the Michael Flynn case to determine whether current FBI employees “engaged in misconduct.”

Boente remains on the job for now; June 30 is the date being given for his departure. That seems odd; if he sees the last-minute need to delete/shred/eat any evidence of wrongdoing before heading out the door, it would seem this is his chance. So, until he leaves, will he still be considered a current employee and therefore subject to Wray’s internal review? Not that we'd have confidence in Wray to DO a thorough internal review...

Before his stint as FBI general counsel, Boente served as acting attorney general, acting deputy attorney general, acting assistant attorney general of the National Security Division at the Justice Department (try fitting that on a business card), and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Director Wray offered a heartfelt if not downright flowery going-away statement.

Mainstream news outlets are spinning this with phrases such as “FOX NEWS criticism” and “pressure from Trump.” But TheConservativeTreehouse.com has a different take in their extremely comprehensive report, saying, “Finally, the DOJ has moved to remove one of the biggest background corrupt officials within the FBI...finally sunlight has removed a very corrupt player.”

We have yet to wade through the whole thing, but Boente, according to this report, was “at the epicenter of corrupt intent and malign activity toward the Trump administration.” The piece offers several instances of Boente’s questionable actions, including his coordination with Wray to block release of documents on the Flynn case until Attorney General Bill Barr intervened. This implies nothing but the worst about Wray as well. AG Barr, not Wray, reportedly was the one who wanted Boente “retired.”

As infrequently as we’ve heard his name, Boente reportedly was the official to whom all the corrupt players on Robert Mueller’s team reported. And according to this report, “Boente’s role as a manipulative fixer to protect the ongoing corrupt action of the Mueller probe was exactly why FBI Director Chris Wray hired him.”

Boente is apparently the one who kept State Department official Kathleen Kavelec’s notes expressing concerns about Christopher Steele and the “dossier” hidden from both the FISA court and Congress. His job seems to have been to bury information and protect the team while they went about their nefarious business. As another example of protection, recall all those redactions that turned out to have nothing to do with national security, simply to cover up what would otherwise reveal what certain FBI officials were up to.

What we learn here about Boente’s apparent behind-the-scenes role as an “embed” covering for his colleagues might answer a lot of nagging questions, such as how certain anti-Trump people got their jobs in the first place. This piece even offers, perhaps unwittingly, what is to me, the perfect formal definition of “the D.C. swamp” in recent years: “a matrix of broad interests positioned only to benefit and sustain the status quo of the administrative state and protect the larger D.C. community from the Trump disruption.”

There’s also a story here about Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and the so-called "Russian hack” of the DNC servers. Much more to come. It looks as though Durham is getting close on a lot of this.

Mike Huckabee

Today, President Trump reportedly plans to issue an as-yet undisclosed executive order aimed at ending political bias in the “fact-checking” and censoring of conservative posts on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

This has been brewing for a long time, but it came to a head when Twitter, for the first time, branded one of Trump’s tweets as substantially false and linked to CNN and Washington Post articles “debunking” it. Problem was, the tweet was about mail-in voting being an invitation to voter fraud, something that’s been widely established around the country, even as liberal media outlets continue to don blindfolds and deny it exists, in the same way that social media giants deny that bias exists in their ranks, no matter how obvious it is or how many former employees blow the whistle about it.

For instance, take a look at the past comments of Twitter’s “Head of Site Integrity,” the person tasked with insuring that posts are “just the facts, ma’am,” with no political partisanship:

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook tried to distance his company from this stench, saying, "We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that."

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wasn’t thrilled with that, responding: "Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make. This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions."

First of all, I think criticizing an employee is fair game when that employee’s job is to prevent partisanship on Twitter and his history of radical leftwing partisanship on Twitter includes denigrating “flyover country” for electing a “racist tangerine” and putting “actual Nazis in the White House.” Seriously, did NOBODY else apply for that job?

Secondly, the problem arose when these social media platforms started yielding to the left’s demands to brand anything that they disagree with as a “lie.” I’m hard pressed to think of a single leftist policy of the past hundred years that hasn’t been a complete disaster, but I don’t accuse them of lying when they claim they work. I just assume they’re deluded and say, “Bless their hearts.”

These platforms have grown into the equivalent of America’s town square, a place where free speech should reign supreme. But they’ve been threatened with lawsuits because of what users post on them. They’ve enjoyed legal immunity because they’re classified as a "platform" (merely a conduit for other people’s comments), not a “publisher” (which implies that they control what is or isn’t posted.) Publishers can be sued. This is why they need to back off the editing and censoring of posts if they don’t want to worry about losing their immunity from lawsuits.

On the other hand, in our lawsuit-happy world, if Trump declares them publishers, that will practically force them to start exerting even more control over speech on all sides. They’ll no longer let radical leftists post threats against people they disagree with, but they’ll also edit and censor any remotely “controversial” posts by conservatives. That could easily include many of Trump’s own tweets.

As much as I hate the one-sided politics of the social media giants, I’d hate to see them replaced with even heavier censorship of both sides. How about returning to the idea of the Internet as the 21st century version of the Founders’ vision of a free marketplace of ideas, where bad ideas weren’t declared bad by self-appointed gatekeepers but by the wisdom of the people in shooting them full of holes and discarding them?

Now, I hope I don’t get banned from Facebook and Twitter for using the phrase “shooting them full of holes.”

Mike Huckabee

South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been saying for months that he would hold hearings on the “Trump/Russia” investigation and FISA abuse by the FBI. I know, I know –- more hearings, lots of oratory, lots of lawyerly evasion, maybe little to come of it all. On the other hand, it might actually be pretty darn productive; the first witness scheduled is former deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Rosenstein released a statement saying how “grateful” he is to Sen. Graham for the “opportunity” to testify. I'm not kidding; he actually said that. Personally, I’m “grateful” for the “opportunity” to see this guy squirm under oath before the committee. What he has previously said under oath sounds utterly ridiculous in light of what we now know about the Carter Page FISA warrant, so this might really be amusing. I might even write up my own list of “just for fun” questions for Mr. Rosenstein.

"During my three decades of service in law enforcement,” his statement reads in part, “I learned firsthand that most local, state and federal law enforcement officers deserve the high confidence people place in them, but that even the best law enforcement officers sometimes make mistakes and that some engage in willful misconduct.” Well, he would know! Also, I’d want him to define the word “best.”

Here’s Rosenstein’s entire statement.

Recall that Rosenstein signed off on the last renewal of the FISA warrant against Carter Page, well after it was known they'd turned up no real evidence. He also wrote the “scope” memo (first and second versions) for Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, tasking Mueller in August of 2017 with investigating allegations against Carter Page (innocent), Michael Flynn (innocent), George Papadopoulos (innocent) and Paul Manafort (innocent of anything having anything to do with the campaign).

There’s yet a third Mueller “scope” memo that hasn’t been declassified yet; Rosenstein wrote it in October of 2017, long after they knew the "Trump-Russia" evidence was fiction.

No doubt Rosenstein will be asked about reports that he talked with other agents about wearing a wire into the Oval Office as part of a plan to use the 25th Amendment to get Trump removed from office. Sources told NBC NEWS that he was only “joking” about recording the President. Maybe he’ll regale us with a few more hilarious jokes while he’s under oath in Senate chambers.

Mark your calendars; the Senate’s “Oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation: Day 1” will be June 3.

Speaking of the Mueller investigation, John Dowd, President Trump’s lead attorney during that time, spoke out on Tuesday in an interview with Gregg Jarrett, saying the special counsel engineered a perjury trap for the President in the exact same way that James Comey’s FBI set a trap for then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

"Mueller’s scheme was the same one captured in the FBI set-up notes pertaining to Flynn,” Dowd told Jarrett. “They knew they had nothing, but using their official power they created and perpetuated the fraud of an investigation.”

Dowd said that his transparency with the special counsel team was turned against the President and that Trump’s legal counsel was “misled.” According to Dowd, they deliberately exploited what they knew to be untrue and discredited information (I assume he meant the Steele “dossier,” which was still kicking around after being debunked as fiction).

Stunningly, Mueller ADMITTED during a meeting with the President’s lawyers on March 5, 2018, that there was no evidence of Trump-Russia “collusion” to influence the 2016 election. But remember how they still tried to push Trump to testify? Dowd said he thought they had a “trusting” relationship with Mueller, “based on his word and handshake.” (Are you kidding me?) The special counsel had received “everything” they asked for, “including the most intimate notes of conversations.” Dowd didn’t see how there could be a “whisper” of obstruction under these circumstances.

As Mueller kept pushing for Trump to testify, Dowd realized it was a perjury trap, as this was the only thing they could possibly get. “Robert Mueller --- ‘D.C.’s great man’ --- completely and deliberately misled us in order to set up a perjury/false statement trap for POTUS," Dowd said. "It was a monstrous lie and scheme to defraud.”

This isn’t just Dowd's word; he came to the interview supplied with documents and letters supporting his accusations. Jay Sekulow, another of Trump’s lawyers, confirmed some of his accounts as well. As Jarrett says of the documents, “They paint a vivid picture of a special counsel determined to damage the President with an investigation bereft of any credible evidence.”

I hope you’ll read Jarrett’s piece in full; it goes into more detail about what Mueller was up to, particularly in trying to “get” Trump on obstruction simply for firing FBI Director James Comey. (No one has ever more richly deserved to be fired than Comey.) Mueller even said that Trump’s criticism of the special counsel might be construed as obstruction. Trump wasn’t even supposed to say anything in his own defense.

Quoting Jarrett: “Dowd felt that Mueller and his subordinates were now living in an alternate universe where their version of the law bore no resemblance to statutes, Supreme Court decisions, and accepted constitutional law.”

I hope John Durham has been talking with Dowd in his investigation of the “Russia” case. Sounds as if Dowd could tell him a thing or two about how that was really conducted. He told Jarrett he wants them all to be held to account for their corruption and dishonesty and their phony three-year investigation. NONE of them should walk, he said. “They knew there was nothing to investigate. People subverted the system of justice...It’s staggering. The lies were monstrous. It was all pretense and fraud.”

Finally, in breaking news announced Wednesday by the Justice Department, Attorney General Bill Barr has tapped Western Texas U.S. Attorney John Bash to look specifically into the issue of unmasking, as a support to the investigation being conducted by Durham.

Unmasking, when done for an appropriate reason, is not illegal, but it's a big deal, and there are many questions about why so many unmaskings took place, especially during Obama’s second term. Of course, there’s also the rapt attention that was being paid to Mike Flynn’s phone calls.

Incidentally, U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who was assigned by Barr to review the Flynn case, told Barr that based on what we now know, he doesn’t believe that ANY ONE of the 93 U.S. attorneys in the country would have continued to prosecute Flynn. So the mystery deepens as to why Judge Emmet Sullivan so bizarrely insists on doing it.

Mike Huckabee

House Democrats were all set to vote on reauthorizing the use of advanced surveillance tools under the FISA court system, but they adjourned last night without voting after President Trump threatened to veto it. He tweeted, "Our Country has just suffered through the greatest political crime in its history. The massive abuse of FISA was a big part of it!"

Trump also urged Republicans to vote no "until such time as our Country is able to determine how and why the greatest political, criminal, and subversive scandal in USA history took place!”

Supporters of the FISA system argue that it’s needed to give intelligence agencies the tools they need to secretly intercept threats such as terrorist plots. However, as we’re learning more every day, when the people in charge don’t follow the rules, it can quickly become an unconstitutional, Soviet-style “secret court” system targeting US citizens without them even knowing it. We were assured that safeguards had been built in to prevent that, but they’re only as secure as the people entrusted to follow them – people like Peter Strzok, need I say more? I’m reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s comment on due process rights, that it’s better that 100 guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should suffer.

My “Huck’s Profiles in Cluelessness Award” goes to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who declared that we need to extend the FISA system because “if we don't have a bill, our civil liberties are less protected." Tell it to Michael Flynn! Come up with a bill that protects our civil liberties from the people running the FISA courts and then we’ll talk.

PS - Big props to Newsmax for picking the perfect photo to illustrate the story of Trump’s veto threat stopping this bill. I’ll bet when Nancy Pelosi pulled this little stunt for the cameras, she never imagined it being used to illustrate her own loss to Trump.

Mike Huckabee

While the New York Times and other liberal media outlets are ghoulishly marking the 100,000th US death from the COVID-19 (Chinese) coronavirus and attempting to blame them on all President Trump (is he also responsible for all the deaths in other nations from the same worldwide pandemic unleashed by China?), questions are being raised about whether that number is remotely reliable.

There have already been criticisms that a number of deaths attributed to the virus were just people who happened to be carrying the virus, even if they died of something else and just picked up the virus when they were brought to the hospital. Some whistleblowers have also claimed that because of extra funding for those handling virus cases, there’s a financial incentive to label a death as being from COVID-19, even if it wasn’t, or if the victim had multiple co-morbidities such as old age, heart disease, diabetes or obesity. But this is definitely taking it too far.

A study by the Freedom Foundation of the official COVID-19 death toll from the Washington State Department of Health found that 82% of deaths “list some variation of ‘COVID-19’ in one of the causes of death” on the death certificate; 5% of the death certificates do not list COVID-19 as a cause of death, but as a “significant condition contributing to death;” and 13% involve persons who “had previously tested positive for COVID-19 but did not have the virus listed anywhere on their death certificate as either causing or contributing to death.”

Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee assailed the report as “dangerous,” “disgusting” and “malarkey” (man, Democrats love that word!) He also accused the Freedom Foundation of “fanning these conspiracy claims from the planet Pluto” and not caring about lives lost to the virus, even though the numbers came straight from his own Health Department.

And a spokeswoman for the DOH (or “D’oh!” as Homer Simpson would appropriately say) admitted that five people on the virus death list appear to have actually died from gunshot wounds. Oh, well, liberals blame of all those on Trump, too.

On the subject of malarkey that endangers public health, here’s another study showing that because of all the endless lockdowns and canceling of “non-essential” non-coronavirus medical procedures ordered by liberal Governors such as Inslee, nearly half of Americans have delayed getting needed medical care. This has resulted in serious outcomes, such as suffering strokes or heart attacks at home.

Maybe people should claim they’re having a heart attack because of the coronavirus, and then they’d actually be able to get into a hospital.

Mike Huckabee

More Michael Flynn news? Yes, and I hope I don’t have to tell you how important this ongoing story is. I know it's frustrating to you that the information continues to come to us in dribs and drabs, because it is to me. But this story, from its beginning –- as far back as 2014 –- is emblematic of a law enforcement/intel bureaucracy gone horribly wrong. I hope you’ll bear with me, as we’re finally getting to the most important part of all: discovering how involved President Obama was in this travesty of “justice.” Deductive reasoning tells us he knew all about it; evidence starting to come in now likely will show he was running it.

And John Solomon has done it again. He’s examined more text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, these from January 3, 2017. That date falls just the day before FBI investigators informed Strzok that they were ready to close the case against Flynn, having found precisely nothing, and just two days before the big Oval Office meeting with Obama, Biden, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Yates and Rice. It was 17 days before President-elect Trump would take office.

In these texts, Strrok and Page are discussing the White House attempting to obtain some Flynn transcripts. They know the investigation has turned up nothing on Flynn, and there has been concern from...someone...that the White House will politicize the transcripts, that they will be “politically weaponized.” Given what we know, and with the timing of the text exchange –- just after Strzok has had a conversation with Priestap –- it seems probable that it was Priestap who has expressed this concern. Apparently, Priestap is concerned that James Clapper will share the conversations with President Obama.

"He, like us, is concerned with oversharing,” Strzok texts Page. “Doesn’t want Clapper giving CR cuts [“Crossfire Razor,” meaning Flynn; “cuts” meaning excerpts from phone calls] to WH. All political, just shows our hand and potentially makes enemies.”

ALL POLITICAL..JUST SHOWS OUR HAND??

Strzok later texts Page: “The question [presumably from Priestap] is should we [provide them], particularly to the entirety of the lame duck [U.S. Intelligence Community] with partisan axes to grind.”

PARTISAN AXES TO GRIND??

Then Strzok and Page talk about Presidential Daily Briefings, and that’s where this gets really interesting and shows how much more we need to find out. “Did you follow the drama of the PDB last week?” Strzok texts Page. “Yup, don’t know how it ended though,” Page responds. “”They didn’t include any of it,” Strzok texts, and Bill [Priestap] didn’t want to dissent.” Page answers, “Wow, Bill should make sure Andy [McCabe] knows about [this] since he was consulted numerous times about whether to include the reporting.”

Solomon says he's had these texts since September 2018; apparently he couldn’t publicize them because they hadn't been declassified. In the meantime, however, he's had “interviews with officials familiar with the conversations,” so what sounds cryptic to us is probably well understood by him. Here are the texts themselves.

The investigations going on now are trying to determine whether Obama’s longstanding distaste for Flynn, which we’ve detailed here, influenced the FBI’s decision to reject the recommendation by its own agent, Joe Pientka, to shut down the Flynn investigation in early January 2017 and instead work up a plan to set him up to “lie” to the FBI. Solomon says that one investigator “with direct knowledge” told him that “the evidence connecting President Obama to the Flynn operation is getting stronger.”

According to that investigator, “The Bureau knew it did not have evidence to justify that Flynn was either a criminal or counterintelligence threat and should have shut the case down. But the perception that Obama and his team would not be happy with that outcome may have driven the FBI to keep the probe open without justification and to pivot to an interview that left some agents worried involved entrapment or a perjury trap.”

As Solomon said to Sean Hannity Tuesday night, “It gives us a state of mind that the White House was driving the Flynn decisions in this very critical time leading up to…Trump taking office.”

Also on Tuesday, acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell turned the office over to new DNI John Ratcliffe, just after declassifying MORE phone calls between then-national security adviser Michael Flynn and then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It’ll be up to Ratcliffe if and how soon the transcripts of those calls will be made public.

According to a FOX NEWS report Tuesday night, a senior intelligence official said that key documents will provide “a very significant understanding of how intelligence was manipulated to support the launch of the Russia investigation.” Much more to come on that.

Also, Andrew C. McCarthy has a must-read column about Judge Emmet Sullivan and the role politics is playing right now to deprive Flynn of his due process rights.

As McCarthy told Shannon Bream on FOX NEWS Tuesday night, “I think the problem Judge Sullivan has is the same problem a lot of people analyzing this have, which is that the political dimension of it has in some ways, I think, paralyzed people’s way to look at what is really a very simple legal equation.”

As McCarthy explains, only the Justice Department --- the prosecution, which is part of the Executive Branch --- has the power either to open a case or to continue it. “A judge has no power to force the government either to bring charges or to continue charges."

Bream read from the Fokker case, which has been cited as precedent by Flynn attorney Sidney Powell: “It has long been settled that the Judiciary generally lacks authority to second-guess those Executive determinations, much less to impose its own charging preferences.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

The judge was given an opportunity to fix this; the three-judge appeals panel gave him 10 days. He still could do this, but considering that he has dug in and hired his own attorney, it doesn’t seem likely.

Finally, Margot Cleveland has another great column on Judge Sullivan, also focusing on the politics. She does say it’s appropriate for a judge to hire a lawyer in a mandamus petition such as this. (McCarthy, in contrast, called Sullivan's decision to do this “jaw-dropping,” and Powell has raised numerous questions about it, particularly about who is paying the lawyer.) But Cleveland reveals something new about Sullivan’s choice of attorney, Beth Wilkinson: she happens to be the lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton during the FBI’s “investigation” of her mishandling of classified information in 2016. Hey, it’s real cozy down there in the swamp.

Mike Huckabee

After the long Memorial Day weekend, there’s so much news about the Michael Flynn case that we needed a second commentary for the overflow.

First of all, you must be aware by now that Flynn’s name in the conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak wasn't masked in the first place --- we’ve talked about the fact that it couldn’t have been because there was no unmasking request for the day of that call --- but there’s more:

President Obama himself ordered the surveillance.

He must have. As Dan Bongino has pointed out, we know this because (here's the new part) Andrew McCabe, right in his own book, says he was ordered by the Presidential Daily Brief staff to find that phone call. Flynn’s call with Kislyak didn’t just happen to be caught in the routine surveillance on the ambassador. It wasn’t just “incidental.” In Bongino’s words, “Flynn was hunted down and targeted by the Obama administration, period.”

That's why Flynn's name wasn't masked in that particular phone call. So, does that mean it was legal to leak Flynn’s name? Heck, no. Andrew McCarthy has pointed out that, oh, by the way, the leak to the media is STILL A FELONY, as the surveilled conversation was classified. It doesn’t matter if Flynn’s name was intended to be hidden or not.

In other news, Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell is no doubt heartened by the action taken by the D.C. Court of Appeals. In what Margot Cleveland calls “a rare move,” a three-judge panel has ordered Judge (“Judge”) Emmet Sullivan to respond to Powell’s petition for a writ of mandamus.

This is an appeal to the appellate court to order Judge Sullivan to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. A writ of mandamus is rarely granted, so Cleveland says that for the panel to order the judge to respond, rather than just denying the petition as is usually done, is a good sign. And they issued the order expeditiously, in just two days. Likewise, they're expecting Sullivan to answer promptly, giving him just 10 days to respond. So Powell’s petition isn’t just languishing on somebody’s desk.

There’s legal precedent to dismiss the case against Flynn: the Fokker case, in which the court held that “decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges --- no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring –- lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion.” In this case, that would be the attorney general’s office.

Another good sign: the panel did not order the government to respond, simply allowing the DOJ to respond at its own discretion, or not at all. Apparently, these judges don’t see the necessity of hearing additional arguments from the government.

The fine source “Undercover Huber” has identified the three judges on the panel: Karen Henderson, a Reagan-Bush appointee; Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee; and Neomi Rao, nominated by Trump to take Brett Kavanaugh’s place on the D.C. Circuit Court when Kavanaugh went to the Supreme Court. Powell does not see politics playing into this decision too much, as Sullivan’s refusal to dismiss the charge is “in violation of clear precedent from the circuit and Supreme Court.”

Cleveland agrees with Powell that “The Department of Justice should weigh in and soon because this case is no longer just about Flynn. It is about separation of powers and the executive branch. Unfortunately, it is also now about Judge Sullivan.”

Funny she should say that. The latest weirdness from Judge Sullivan is that he has gone out and hired himself a lawyer.

In a highly unusual step, Judge Sullivan has lawyered up, with Beth Wilkinson, reportedly “a go-to for high-profile officials in difficult situations.” It’s hard to know what role politics might play; Wilkinson represented Brett Kavanaugh while he was fighting sexual misconduct allegations on his way to Supreme Court confirmation. On the other hand, she’s also a close friend of Obama “fixer” Kathryn Ruemmler.

Flynn’s attorneys are arguing that Judge Sullivan “has no authority to adopt the role of prosecutor or change the issues in the case.” As they observe, “This is an umpire who has decided to steal public attention from the players and focus it on himself. He wants to pitch, bat, run bases and play shortstop. In truth, he is way out in left field.”

I think with that metaphor, Flynn’s lawyers hit it out of the park. It’s hard to know why Sullivan is SO bent on prosecuting Flynn. Maybe he’s just a political hack, but at this point his behavior is downright pathological. Why is he so “dug in,” and what does he need an attorney for? Once again, when something doesn’t seem to make sense, it’s because there’s a piece we don’t have. There’s something going on with Judge Sullivan that we...just don’t know.

Mike Huckabee

Opening an FBI investigation into a presidential campaign is supposed to be a huge deal. If government officials are going to allege that members of a campaign --- maybe even the candidate --- are in cahoots with Russia (!), they'd better have the goods.

But a newly declassified memo (another one!) makes it clear that the Papadopoulos “evidence” used to justify “Crossfire Hurricane” was really just flimsy hearsay. They had to be looking for any pretext they could put together. Since they had no evidence of criminality, they turned to Downer’s “suggestion” that Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos might be talking with Russia on the release of Hillary’s emails. As John Solomon writes, “[Alexander] Downer had heard the information about the Russians during a bar conversation in May 2016 from Papadopoulos, who had heard it two months earlier from a European professor who had heard it from Russians allegedly.”

The investigation, he says, was opened based on a “third-hand ‘suggestion’ of wrongdoing and the thinnest of suspicions that illegal foreign lobbying had occurred.” It’s clear from the memo that the criminal basis for opening “Hurricane” was suspected violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but the memo does not mention a single incidence of violating FARA.

Peter Strzok expressed reservations about the evidence he had, yet he pressed forward. Sometimes, as they say, you’ve “gotta go with what you got.” Strzok both drafted the memo and approved the investigation himself, keeping the memo away from interagency oversight.

Kevin Brock, former head of counterintelligence for the FBI, told Solomon, “There is nothing in the [electronic communication] that meets the traditional thresholds for opening up a [Foreign Agents Registration Act] or [counterintellgence] investigation. It appears hastily constructed.”

When asked if he would’ve approved this, Brock said, “Not in a million years. I wouldn’t have approved it as a squad supervisor, either. This would have set off alarm bells in any FBI field for not meeting our standards for a predicate.”

All this is consistent with what Robert Ray said on WITCH HUNT, a FOX NEWS special on Sunday night hosted by Gregg Jarrett. He believes the Durham investigation likely will lead to indictments of Bureau officials.

"It is a criminal investigation with grand-jury authority, and I don’t think the attorney general expects this is going to be just be left to the side of history without actual prosecutions being brought to hold those responsible accountable,” he said. “Even if no felony prosecution is ever brought as a result of this, this is a political scandal of the highest order and the American people should be paying attention.”

I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Ray that if no felony prosecution is ever brought, too many American people will NOT pay attention and it WILL be left to the side of history, thanks to media spin and leftist historians. Laws have been broken, and there must be accountability if we’re ever going to fix this.

Speaking specifically on the Flynn prosecution, Ray said he trusted Durham to get to the bottom of the mishandling of his case. Ray showed his mastery for understatement when he said, “I imagine there are people in the know who may well have knowingly withheld information from the court and from defense counsel in connection with the Michael Flynn prosecution.” Mr. Ray, we KNOW they did that. “Knowingly” is tough to prove, but we know they knew. They know we know they knew.

"If it turns out that that can be proved,” he continued, “then there are going to be referrals and potential false statements and/or perjury prosecutions to hold those, particularly those in positions of authority, accountable.”

Speaking of Flynn, a new article dropped over the weekend that shines the harsh light of truth on what was done to him. Eli Lake’s comprehensive piece in COMMENTARY magazine fleshes out the story so thoroughly that I’d say “THE RAILROADING OF MICHAEL FLYNN, How It Happened And Why It Matters” is an absolute must-read.

Still, there’s something Lake says upfront that I disagree with: that “they suspected he [Flynn] was a Russian agent.” Based on the attempts to set him up starting in 2014, I don’t think they EVER really believed it. I think it was a story they created. Anyway…

Lake writes, “According to both Rice’s memoir and a memo memorializing the meeting (dated January 20, 2017), the President stressed that everything the FBI did in this sensitive matter should be “by the book.” In fact, nothing was done by the book –- not by Obama’s deputies and not by Obama.”

We see from this article how furiously Strzok and Comey worked to keep the investigation alive through the only means they had: the ridiculously antiquated Logan Act. Rosenstein’s recently declassified scope memo authorized Mueller to investigate whether Flynn had “committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian officials during the period of the Trump transition.” The only crimes that could possibly have been found would’ve been either outright espionage (for which the FBI had found no evidence) or a Logan Act violation.

Lake points out what we’ve been said all along, that Flynn was not a private citizen conducting foreign policy, as is prohibited by the Logan Act, but rather acting in his official capacity as the incoming national security adviser. “The idea that Flynn was behaving illegally, let alone unethically or immorally or unconventionally, in discussing U.S. foreign policy with the Russians during the transition is beyond absurd,” he writes.

Joe Pientka had written a memo to close the original Flynn investigation but had slipped up and not actually filed it. Strzok, obviously delighted, was able to keep the case open. The only reason Pientka's memo has emerged now is that U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen completed the review Barr had ordered and declassified documents in the case. We get to read about Stefan Halper being paid as a “confidential human source” (SPY) and the concocted story of Flynn’s affair (not) with Russian-born Svetlana Lokhova, described by Lake as a “smear.” Pientka’s memo says the investigation yielded so little that senior management had recommended closing the case before even interviewing Flynn.

The whole shameful process of determining how they would set Flynn up in his White House interview is discussed in detail. Lake also explains why Flynn was NOT LYING when he said sanctions weren’t discussed. As Flynn told the DAILY CALLER, “It wasn’t about sanctions. It was about the 35 guys [Russian diplomats] who were thrown out.”

The memo said Fynn’s “false statements and omissions impeded...the FBI’s ongoing investigation.” Lake shows that “Given what we know now, those words are more of a lie than anything Flynn said to the FBI agents who interviewed him.”

This was not only injustice against Flynn but also an assault on the peaceful transition of presidential power. Shameful, and dangerous.

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Postscript: Lake bookends his commentary with the story about Flynn joining in the “Lock her up! Lock her up!” chant at a Trump rally, attempting to show irony. This falls flat to me. The cases are not equivalent; we know beyond any doubt that Hillary actually did the things she was NOT prosecuted for.