By Mike Huckabee

I hesitate even to comment on this story because it strikes me as yet another anti-Trump attack by the New York Times that falls apart even as you read it.

The “shocking revelation” this time: that during the campaign, Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties who claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr’s response: The woman requested a meeting, which she started by making vague and nonsensical claims of having damaging info on Hillary that they quickly surmised weren’t true. Then she started lobbying them on an unrelated issue, about overturning an Obama-era law denying visas to Russians suspected of human rights violations. Trump said they wrapped up the meeting in 20 minutes, and no action was taken.

That’s it? That’s the big scandal? First of all, as Prof. Alan Dershowitz might note, there’s nothing illegal about that. Secondly, as Michael Walsh of the New York Post asks, does anyone believe that if the woman the Times wanted to make President got an offer of damaging information on Trump, she would have refused to hear it? Her supporters leaned on Tom Arnold to release alleged embarrassing outtakes from “The Apprentice,” and reportedly financed that notorious “Russian dossier” on Trump that was filled with bogus scandal stories. On top of that: News flash, New York Times, the election was eight months ago. Trump won. Most Americans are getting awfully weary of your endless attempts to undo the results. I don’t know about you, but the rest of us have lives, and we’d really like to get on with them.

This story isn’t even big enough to be a nothing burger. It’s more like a nothing slider.

By Mike Huckabee

If you don’t know Linda Sarsour, she’s a major name in the “progressive” movement, and at the forefront of the strange bedfellow alliance of hard leftists and Islamists. She’s the former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and a hijab-wearing, Palestinian-supporting Muslim activist as well as a Bernie Sanders-supporting co-chair of both the Women’s March and the Day Without A Woman protest. She’s been accused of supporting Hamas and bringing Sharia law to the US, although she denies those accusations. She and her supporters claim that rightwing sources misrepresented her by circulating “fake news” to make her look bad.

Okay, I did the disclaimer. Now, here’s what Linda Sarsour just said, quoted directly in her own words. If this is someone whom the “progressive” movement is willing to embrace as a leader and spokesperson, then decide for yourself whether these are people who should be entrusted within a thousand yards of the levers of US government power.

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By Mike Huckabee

Happy Independence Day! That’s the official name of the Fourth of July holiday, although you don’t hear it too often in these days of people wishing for more dependence on government. Today is when we celebrate America, hold picnics and watch fireworks. But most importantly, it’s a day when Americans celebrate our freedoms.

Sadly, too many today think it’s smart and sophisticated to give up freedom in exchange for government promises of security. As the great philosopher Joni Mitchell once said, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.” That’s why the Founding Fathers took such care to lock our most important rights safely within the First Amendment to the Constitution. There are more freedoms guaranteed in that one short sentence than people in most nations can even dream of. That’s why for centuries now, so many people around the world have risked their lives to come to America. The Founders understood that freedom really is that precious.

When the framers of the Constitution first met in 1787, many were afraid that if they created a strong federal government, it would soon be trampling the rights of the people, just like the British king they’d recently fought to break free of. So to make sure the people’s rights would always be protected, they added 10 amendments …although George Mason thought they were so important, they should come first, as the preface to the Constitution. And now, in case, you’ve never heard it, or maybe just forgotten, here is the First Amendment in its entirety:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And that’s it. This was back before government needed 2,000 pages just to screw up health care. Just 45 simple words protect your freedom to speak freely without fear of government retribution. Your freedom to publish those words so that other Americans can read and debate them (even on college campuses). Your freedom to band together with like-thinking Americans, and protest peacefully without fear of arrest. Your freedom to petition your leaders to complain about their policies, and your right to be free from having an official state religion forced on you, but also from government interference with the expression of your personal religious beliefs. A lot of people celebrate the first half of that last right and pretend the second half doesn’t exist.

The First Amendment is almost like a gift bag crammed full of rights that together make up the foundation of what it means to be an American. The Founders thought those rights were all so important that they found a way to list every single one of them first.

And then, they made sure the right to bear arms was listed second, just in case anyone ever tried to steal the First Amendment.

By Mike Huckabee

Three of the most liberal state leaders in America (from California, New York and Virginia) are refusing to turn over all “publicly-available voter roll data” to President Trump’s bipartisan Election Integrity Commission. They claim they will not help perpetuate the “myth” of widespread voter fraud by showing the commission the records that, if they are correct, would disprove that there’s widespread voter fraud. Ooooookay. Sounds about as convincing as buying a used car from a particular dealer because he calls himself “Honest John.”

More details at the link on why people who care about honest elections should be outraged that anyone wants to see the voter records to verify that.

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By Mike Huckabee

We’ve lost another of those familiar TV faces that baby boomers grew up with: Bill Dana passed away last week at his Nashville home at 92. Dana was both a familiar comic character actor and a writer who helped create some of the most beloved comedy bits of the past half-century-plus. He’s best known for a character that became a phenomenon in the ‘60s but could never exist in today’s PC age: Jose Jimenez.

Jose was a nervous Mexican immigrant with a humorously tenuous grasp of English who started every bit by declaring, “My name Jose Jimenez!” While Jose might be considered a dialect humor stereotype now, at the time, Latino groups honored Dana for creating a positive portrayal of a patriotic Mexican immigrant, and he was careful not to do any jokes he thought would seem offensive.

Beginning with his first appearance on the classic Steve Allen show (where Dana was head writer), his catchphrase swept the country. The Mercury 7 astronauts played his records so much that the first words spoken to an American in space came in 1961 when Deke Slayton told Alan Shepherd on blast-off, “Okay, Jose, you’re on your way!” Dana became friends with the astronauts, made a comedy record called “Jose the Astronaut” that was later included in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and he was named the first “honorary astronaut.”

But while Jose Jimenez was his most famous creation, it was only a tiny part of Bill Dana’s career. He played many roles, such as Sophia’s brother Angelo on “Golden Girls,” but stage fright made him prefer writing. He created many classic jokes for “Get Smart” star Don Adams (the “Would you believe?... bit was Dana’s) and wrote the most famous episode ever of “All in the Family,” where Archie Bunker meets Sammy Davis Jr. Surprisingly for someone who made millions laugh for over seven decades, Dana suffered from severe depression, and he wrote a book about the curative powers of laughter.

All this is only scratching the surface of his astonishing career. If you’d like to see an obituary that reads like a crash course in comedy history over the second half of the 20th century, click the link. I guarantee that if you don’t know Bill Dana, after you read about his life and see his face, you’ll say, “Oh, THAT guy! I loved him!”

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By Mike Huckabee

The Profiling Project, an independent investigation into the death last July of DNC staffer Seth Rich, has been released. The investigators, largely volunteer graduate students and professors from George Washington University, believe it’s unlikely that Rich was the victim of a random attempted robbery.

Raging political seas inevitably threaten to splinter and swallow up this story, so I thought it might be a good idea to pass along a link to the complete report, unfiltered through Newsweek or any other alleged news organization. We’ll talk later about it and get into the details, to be sure. And a year after Seth Rich’s death, we should thank the Profiling Project for keeping this cold case warm, when there are others who’d prefer it be kept on ice.

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By Mike Huckabee

In case you had more important things to do on Thursday than watch the James Comey Senate testimony (say, if unlike practically everyone in Washington, you actually had a job to go to), here’s the full video and transcript. It’s good to see or read the whole thing, because both sides are cherry-picking the parts that make them look good and the other side look bad.

I’d point out, though, that you can sense a difference even in the carefully-edited excerpts some people are citing. The anti-Trump crowd is pulling out Comey’s negative comments about Trump – that he found what he said about the Flynn investigation inappropriate; that he accused Trump of lying about FBI staffers having lost confidence in him; etc. – but notice that they tend to be Comey’s personal feelings or interpretations of what Trump said or intended. And even Comey admitted that none of them are incriminating or amount to obstruction of justice.

But the things Trump supporters are pulling out – that Comey hid behind a professor friend to leak a private conversation with the President to the New York Times; that he did tell Trump on three occasions that he was not the target of an investigation, just as Trump claimed; that many news stories based on anonymous sources were wrong, like a Times story claiming that Trump’s campaign aides “had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence;” that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch interfered in the Hillary Clinton investigation (telling him to call it a “matter,” not an investigation, which it plainly was); that Trump didn’t try to kill the Russia investigation but just wanted it finished up soon because it’s distracting him from doing what Americans elected him to do, etc. – all are revelations of fact, not personal opinions.

Also worth noting is that Comey’s own testimony cast doubt on his veracity on several occasions. For instance, his defenders would have us believe that his note to himself about what Trump said in their private meeting is somehow believable because he claims to have written it down right away. But it’s still just “he said/he said” hearsay. I could write down the lyrics of “Sweet Home Alabama” and claim it’s a transcript of a conversation I had with Chuck Schumer. That doesn’t magically turn it into proof. And considering Comey admitted he did it so that he could secretly leak it to the media via a third party and force the appointment of a special prosecutor is manipulation piled on top of dishonesty. Frankly, it taints all his testimony. It does prove one thing, though: Donald Trump’s instincts about whom to fire are still right on the money.

Finally, my favorite comment on the whole liberal narrative implosion came not from a pundit or politician but from an anonymous poster on an Internet comment board, who asked this: So Comey could tell that Hillary wasn’t trying to obstruct justice when she used hammers and Bleach Bit software to scrub her email server, but he couldn’t tell that Trump wasn't trying to obstruct justice when he used the word “hope" to express that he was just hoping for something?