Here are my thoughts and opinions on items in the news.

I WAS WONDERING when the media would go to Bill Richardson for his comments on the proposed talks between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. Richardson, a former UN ambassador and self-styled expert on North Korea, has been sent there on numerous occasions to negotiate the release of the remains of our victims of the Korean War and political prisoners.

While the president will be the first president to meet with a North Korean leader in three decades, I was embarrassed for Richardson after reading his recommendations for President Trump as if he was sending his first child off to college.

“He needs to quickly assemble a negotiating team of U.S. diplomats and develop a coherent strategy. Duh.

“He needs to consult with his predecessors. Why? They were failures.

“And he needs to reach out to lawmakers on what’s achievable.” In his first year in office he has already achieved more than any of those lawmakers would have imagined in their wildest dreams, Mr. Richardson.

His advice didn’t stop there. Richardson felt the need to remind readers of the president’s style, “which is not to consult anyone and to shoot from the hip.”

EVEN LINDA VALDEZ, a lightweight columnist with the left-leaning Arizona Republic, felt no compunction in straying from her usual commentary on immigration matters and social justice issues to opine, “Trump and Kim?  This meeting of great egos won’t end well.” She incorrectly states that President Trump “is already crowing about his diplomatic victory” and foresees the “danger of being played sky-high.” She chooses to misrepresent his remarks of the opening for negotiations on a denuclearized Korean peninsula as “crowing” even though he certainly would have the right to do so.   After all, the anti-Trumpers were quick to conclude that his “fire and fury” statement and his negative characterization of Kim Jong Un precludes any hope of talks. But let’s not forget that Kim insulted Trump when he called him a “mentally deranged dotard.”

Laughingly, Valdez says “the goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula has eluded more sophisticated, focused negotiators than Trump.”  Well, Ms. Valdez, where did it get us with those “sophisticated” and “focused” negotiators for Democrat and Republican administrations over the past several decades? Nicholas Burns, a 27-year veteran of both administrations, recently admitted, “They (North Korea) burned us.”

I recommend that Valdez stick to issues more in her realm of experience.

BOB WOODWARD, now an associate editor at the Washington Post, recently criticized reporters on the right and left, who were becoming too emotionally invested in their coverage of Donald Trump, calling them “unhinged.”

That’s odd. The reporters he’s talking about regularly use that word to describe the president. Carl Bernstein, his partner in the Watergate investigation, has called upon journalists to commit to a “different kind of reporting” in response to a “malignant presidency” unlike any the country has seen before.

Woodward could easily be referring to Bernstein when he recently said, “there’s a kind of self-righteousness and smugness in ridiculing the president.”

THE DEMOCRAT PLAN, should they regain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, is to raise taxes. This is terrific. First, there wasn’t a single Democrat vote for the GOP pay cut. Then, when over 400 companies announced bonuses, raises, 401(k) match increases and other benefits for more than four million workers, Democrat Nancy Pelosi referred to them as “crumbs.” Just recently, Cox Enterprises announced bonuses of up to $2,000 for 55,000 of their workers.

Now the Dems have announced that they plan to increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 to 39.6 percent. This is also a direct tax increase on some 30 million small and mid-sized businesses.

They also plan to increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 to 25 percent after lawmakers boldly reduced the rate from 35 to 21 to make U.S. companies more competitive in the world.

Pundits have been speculating on how the Democrats can hope to win in 2018 when their entire campaign seemed to be an exclusively anti-Trump strategy. Now they have come out with a tax cut “takeaway” plan. On top of that, they are rejecting the president’s offer to aid the DACA illegals.

TO TOP IT OFF, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who will certainly follow through with her threat to introduce impeachment legislation against President Trump if the Dems take back the House, also says she will seek reparations for Black Americans. Those are two vote winners.

THE HIGH COST OF COLLEGE continues to be a subject getting a lot of attention as student loans skyrocket. I recently came across a piece by Lauren Krouse in the News&Observer, a Raleigh, North Carolina paper, “As academics struggle, UNC chancellors prosper,” in which she relates a situation at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington that is no doubt repeated at most colleges and universities.

“While students are easily ensnared by tuition and fees and leave the university saddled in debt, while adjuncts and grad students work for next to nothing and professors lose their jobs to floundering newbies like me, administrator pay continues to skyrocket, exacerbating an already dire higher-ed wealth gap,” she writes.

She noted that she was shocked to discover that Chancellor Jose Sartarelli made over $355,000 a year, plus perks and benefits, including a university house and car allowance.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, president Margaret Spellings started with a base salary of $775,000 and is eligible for incentive bonuses based on performance goals, while Chancellor Carol Folt is paid $570,000.

Spellings says salaries are based on what it takes to be competitive to fill these positions, but Krouse noted that UC-Berkeley, one of the most competitive universities in the nation, pays its chancellor much less.

Krouse, who has yet to graduate, is already receiving e-mails asking her to join the “Chancellor’s Challenge,” a special giving opportunity, but she has no money to give.

“UNC and other universities must enact serious reforms, as administrative bloat sincerely threatens the university as a genuinely benevolent and beneficial institution. The reputation of the University of North Carolina is at stake,” Krouse concludes.