Here are my observations and opinions on some of the news of the day.

JAMES CLAPPER: MEET MARK TWAIN, who is credited with saying, “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” In other words, if you tell a lie you have to remember the lie you told and to whom; meaning it takes more effort to lie than it does to tell the truth.

In the former director of national intelligence’s new book, Clapper says, “of course” Russian activity swung the election to Donald Trump, reports Paul Mirengoff. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow’s show, she highlights his intelligence career while reiterating that Clapper “has no doubt that the Russian attack swung the election to a Trump win.”

Mirengoff, however, recalls an exchange between Clapper and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on January 6, 2017.

SEN. COTTON: Director Clapper, you said to Senator McCain earlier “the intelligence community cannot gauge the impact” on the election (of Russian activity). Is that because that kind of electoral analysis is not a task within the traditional responsibility and skill sets of the intelligence services?”

CLAPPER: That’s correct.

SEN COTTON: That’s something more suited for someone like Sean Trende or Michael Barone or Nate Silver – election analysts that have written extensively on the election.

CLAPPER: Well, it certainly isn’t within the purview of the intelligence community.

“Thus, Clapper admitted that the intelligence services he oversaw were in no position to assess the impact of Russian activity on the 2016 election,” says Mirengoff.

CNN’s Jake Tapper, perhaps with Mark Twain’s quote in mind, reminded Clapper in his interview that the conclusion on Russian activity was not in his agency’s report. As a private citizen now, Clapper claims to have learned a great deal and states that the Russians swung 80,000 votes in three states.

“It’s what I would call an informed opinion,” Clapper tells Tapper, “I don’t have the empirical evidence to go with it, but just thinking about it and seeing and understanding better since I left the government that the full magnitude of what they did, in my mind and in my opinion, they did affect the election.” (PJMedia)

WASHINGTON’S “GLEEFUL CHOIR,” under the direction of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), added several new members this week to gleefully sing about anything that makes President Trump look bad.

After Pelosi intimated that Kim Jung Un was giggling with his successful roadblock of President Trump’s path to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) came forth as a likely tenor for the choir.

“The art of diplomacy is a lot harder than the art of the deal,” said Menendez with a smirk, adding that the summit cancellation was “a failure of the Trump administration’s approach, its impulsive actions.”

THEY’RE AT IT AGAIN – I’m referring to the Washington bureaucratic wordsmiths who take pleasure in manipulating the vocabulary to suit their needs.

In March, I wrote of disgraced former FBI Director James Comey’s use of “extremely careless” rather than the more criminal “grossly negligent” when he referred to Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents.

Then there was former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s instruction to Comey to refer to the FBI “investigation” of Clinton as a “matter.”

Planned Parenthood would prefer the use of “reproductive health care” to a procedure that is clearly an “abortion.”

THIS WEEK, Democrats and their complicit media, were critical of President Trump’s use of “spy” when speaking of the revelation that the FBI had spied on his campaign. Of course, anything to gin-up another negative story about the president.

The Obama holdovers in the Deep State prefer the use of “informant” rather than “spy.” According to the dictionary, an informant is “one who gives information to another.”

A “spy” is “one who secretly collects and reports information; one who works for a government or other organization to secretly collect information about enemies (Trump) or competitors.”

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX), who has an impressive background in law, commented that “Comey helped create a culture at the FBI that they were accountable to no one.”

THE FLAKE, with his usual sh*t-eating grin, spoke to Harvard Law School graduates this week and again attacked President Trump, if not by name by insinuation, saying, “Our presidency has been debased by a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division. And only a passing familiarity with how the Constitution works.”

But Arizona’s junior senator, Jeff Flake, didn’t escape criticism at home. “Too bad he didn’t decide to fight and give Republicans who agree with him a candidate for senate who has the integrity to speak truth to powerful bullies,” wrote Arizona Republic columnist Linda Valdez.

When asked to comment on the Flake’s speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kindly responded that he wished that Flake would have decided to stay around and fight for his issues.

GIVE ME A BREAK – While I decided last year that I would no longer watch NFL football, I will continue to write about its actions, its overindulged players and goofball commissioner.

Left-leaning editorial columnist Elvia Diaz sought to add her two cents worth on the NFL in her Arizona Republic piece Saturday, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to refer to President Trump as a racist.

“There is something seriously wrong with mostly white NFL team owners ordering their mostly black players to stand up during the national anthem to show “respect” or else.

A new NFL policy that slaps players with hefty fines for taking a knee (not true) is even worse because it stems from the behest of a president with white supremacy tendencies.

It plunges the dagger into the open wound of a “servitude” mentality where the owner orders and the player obeys.

Can you see the slavery overtone here? “

OMG!   Liberal progressivism run amok.

The NFL’s former policy stated that players would stand and show respect for the national anthem. That has been deleted with a new set of guidelines giving players and owners choices on whether or not a player wishes to show respect or stay in the locker room until game time. How sad.

                   God bless the United States of America.