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

NO SURPRISE, but did you hear that Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times from 1997 to 2014, notes in her upcoming book that The Times has an unmistakably anti-Trump agenda, and that it extends from the editorial pages to the news pages.

NBC NEWS VETERAN WILLIAM ARKIN announced his resignation in a memo to his colleagues Wednesday. Arkin, who is staunchly anti-war and far from being a supporter of President Trump, said in part of his reason for leaving NBC was the network’s obsession with opposing the president at every turn.

Mitt Romney seems to think that the mantle of the presidency differs from that of a senator in the world’s most deliberative body.

In yesterday’s edition, I wrote of Mitt Romney’s op-ed, in which he attacked the president for dividing the nation, and questioned his presidential leadership and character.

What are we to think of a man who further divides his party even before he is officially sworn-in? And in the process, he attacks the leader of the National Republican Committee, Ronna McDaniel, who happens to be his niece.

How thoughtless of him.

When Romney writes, “A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect,” he seems to be telling us that those same qualities don’t apply to a senator?  Writing a dissent of the president who endorsed him for senate in an opposition newspaper is evidence of his lack of integrity.

Frankly, I didn’t expect McDaniel to respond to her uncle’s cheap shot in the Washington Post, but she did @GOPChairwoman: “For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack Donald Trump as their (sic) first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive.”

Even in Romney’s response to his niece’s tweet, he reveals a flaw in his own character. “She has a responsibility,” Romney said, “I respect her to express that viewpoint. (She is) very loyal to the president and she’s doing what she thinks is best for him and for the party.”

It’s unfortunate that Romney doesn’t view his role in the majority senate as a special responsibility, that calls on him to also be loyal to the president and the party.

Isn’t it interesting that Romney feels comfortable criticizing the president for not having risen to the mantle of the office, while he takes a blatant cheap shot at the president as he joins what is referred to as the world’s most deliberative body?

While President Trump responded by saying that he hoped Romney would be a team player, Julie Kelly wrote @julie_kelly2: “It’s hard to estimate or gauge how much the rank-and-file GOP feels betrayed by traitors like Kristol, Kasich, the Bushes, and Romney. This is another smack in the face to the people who do the grunt work in this party. And all it does is drive more loyalists to Trump.”

THE HILL noted @thehill: Kasich praises Romney for op-ed bashing Trump. Welcome to the fray.”  Kasich is done.

BUCK SEXTON wrote @BuckSexton: “Say what you will about Democrats … they don’t needlessly shank each other in editorials or on tv for a few scraps of short lived praise from a media that despises them.”

THOSE DEMOCRAT ELITES continue to give us humor. Did you see Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s New Year’s Eve foray into Instagram livestream? From the kitchen of her humble three-story Victorian home, she endeavored to tell her supporters about her day.

“I’m here in my kitchen, uh, and um, … it’s been kind of an amazing day … I got up early this morning, and, uh, talked to a bunch of folks on the phone … went outside and talked the press … and Bailey (her dog) went out – it was his first press conference … hold on a second, I’m going to get me a beer.” She returned, opening the beer, and continued.

It was the staged phraseology of “I’m going to get me a beer,” that got me. She so obviously tried to forget her elite east coast status to appear like one of us deplorables.  While she returned with a beer, I have a feeling she was more a Chardonnay person.

JOHN KERRY, a fellow Massachusetts elite, tried this in 2004 when he wanted to impress the “Joe-six-packs” of rural Ohio. Followed by his entourage and the press, Kerry went into a grocery store and asked, “Can I get me a hunting license here?” trying to sound like someone from rural Ohio.

After the hunt, while others in his party carried the geese they had shot, Kerry was careful not to do so, for fear that the photos would upset his animal rights supporters.

IN ANOTHER ATTEMPT to be one of us, while campaigning in Philadelphia he made the obligatory stop in a place specializing in Philly Cheesesteaks. He ordered his with …. wait for it … Swiss cheese. Horrors.

CHRIS STIGALL writes @ChrisStigall: “An Iowa friend of mine points out that Elizabeth Warren is stopping in Storm Lake, Iowa this weekend. That’s in the country of Buena Vista. Wanna guess the neighboring counties? … Wait for it … Cherokee and Pocahontas.”

ALEXANDRA PELOSI, the film director/producer daughter of Nancy Pelosi, was reluctant to comment on how her mother would handle meeting with President Trump, according to CNN, but eventually responded with, “She’ll cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding. That’s all you need to know about her.” Nice, eh?

SHE FOLLOWED WITH OUR LAUGH-FOR-THE-DAY – “Everyone can sleep at night knowing at least someone (her mother) in this town knows what they’re doing.”

A PROMISE KEPT – President Trump has made good and then some on his pledge to slash costly federal regulations, issuing the fewest new rules in recorded history in his first two years, reports Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner.

A year-end review by the Competitive Enterprise Institute revealed that Trump ended the year with 3,367 new regulations, the lowest since records were first kept in the 1970s. The government requires a regulation to kill a regulation, and Trump is continuing on his promise to kill two regulations for each new one he proposes.

As I have previously pointed out here, Bedard reminds readers that unelected personnel of agencies do the bulk of lawmaking in America, not Congress, no matter the party in power.

MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, who lost her bid to become a Republican Hispanic in the House during the 2018 midterms, appeared on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Wednesday evening providing her insight on the immigration issue.

With a BA in journalism from the University of Miami and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s JFK School of Government, she is a five-time Emmy award-winning broadcaster and anchor in Miami over the past 30 years.

Salazar knows the Hispanic community well as evidenced in her Fox appearance, which you can see by CLICKING HERE. President Trump could benefit by selecting her to help him with his Hispanic base. Her suggestion of simply “legalizing” undocumented persons, rather than providing a path to citizenship, is route worth consideration.

DEMOCRAT GOV. JAY INSLEE of the left-leaning state of Washington has stated that he plans to be a candidate for president in 2020. Residents of the Evergreen State recently decided, for the second time in two years, that they didn’t want to part with their “green” to pay for the Inslee-backed measure that called for taxing carbon dioxide emissions. It’s a waste of time, Governor.

            May God bless the United States of America.