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

JOHN MC CAIN’S HOMETOWN PAPER, the Arizona Republic, finally, published a story on his involvement in leaking the Russian dossier to a host of media operatives, five days after it was covered by this blog and by most of the media. And the Republic calls itself a “newspaper.”  The fact is they could no longer ignore it. When it did appear, it was a short, one column piece, below the fold, continued inside; as if they were hoping it would not be seen.

Then, with President Trump reiterating his opinion of McCain yesterday, it was another opportunity for the Republic to leap to McCain’s defense. “Attacks and Rebukes,” headlined a front-page story picturing a defiant Trump over a photo of McCain’s gravesite at Annapolis.

How do you think they began the piece? With still another attack on Sen. Martha McSally, of course. The Republic didn’t like her tweet: “John McCain is an American hero and I am thankful for his life of service and legacy to our country and Arizona. Everyone should give him and his family the respect, admiration, and peace they deserve.”

Not good enough. They reported it a “veiled rebuke of President Trump.”

While President Trump is being berated by the media and a few of McCain’s former colleagues for his continued remarks about the senator, they choose not to consider McCain’s vengeance to undermine the Trump presidency by covertly obtaining the Steele dossier.

Just when it was thought that McCain had delivered the coup de gras with his “nay” vote on ObamaCare, effectively killing the effort to repeal it, McCain disinvited the participation of the president in the memorial service he personally orchestrated.

Few people know that President Trump authorized the use of Air Force Two to fly McCain’s body and his family from Arizona to Washington, and to return the family back to Phoenix. He also approved the use of military band support, military pallbearers and the horse-drawn caisson at Annapolis.  Meaghan McCain certainly knows, but it hasn’t stopped her from criticizing the president.

While the president is criticized for his unwillingness to bury the hatchet on his feelings for McCain, critics don’t seem to see the difference between McCain’s ability to let bygones be bygones with his return to Vietnam, the site of his five years of torture, yet he is unable to forgive his president for his insulting comment about being captured.

Unfortunately, McCain died a bitter old man.

OTHERS COMMENT – Liz Sheld, PJMedia: “Why are people being shushed and bullied out of talking about McCain’s actions? I’m not denigrating his service to his country, but those who give him a free pass on anything else he has ever done that influences our political industry?”

Julie Kelly, American Greatness: “Many people now insist that is somehow unfair or disrespectful to examine McCain’s role in the biggest political scandal in American history because he gone. Although the president has a valid reason to be angry about Mc Cain’s role in the scandal, Trump’s impetuous remarks obscure the more serious charges about the late senator’s complicity in fomenting the destructive Russia hysteria.

“Sadly, rather than use his stature and leadership skills to soothe a nation rocked by the surprise election of Donald Trump, John McCain instead poured rhetorical gasoline on a smoldering body politic.”

WHAT NEXT FROM THE LEFTIST Democrat candidates for president? They want to eliminate the Electoral Congress, stack the Supreme Court, universal healthcare, universal basic income, free college tuition, and higher taxes to pay for climate control activities.

There’s more. So far, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julian Castro have indicated they have an interest in pushing for slavery reparations for blacks. It’s not new. Michigan Rep. John Conyers has introduced a reparations bill in Congress for as many years as he has been in office. Too many.

In a Wall Street Journal column by Jason L. Riley, “The Illogic of Slavery Reparations at This Late Date,” he quotes Harris from an interview with National Public Radio saying, the “trauma” experienced by blacks today stems from their slave past. “There was never any real intervention to break up what had been generations of people experiencing the highest forms of trauma.”

“Ms. Harris wants to hold slavery responsible for black America’s contemporary problems,” writes Riley, “but that requires ignoring the progress made by blacks – both in absolute terms and relative to whites – who lived closer to the era of slavery.

“For example, the soaring violent-crime rates that produce so much “trauma” in poor black communities today did not exist in those communities in the first 100 years after emancipation, even though poverty rates at the time were much higher and racism was still legal and widespread.”

THE NEW KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND – Just ten years ago, the New York senator was considered an immigration hawk, voting to increase funding for ICE and a stated believer that English should be the official language of the United States.

Appearing at a recent campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, she said, “If you are in this country now you must have the right to pay into Social Security, to pay your taxes, to pay into the local school system and … wait for it … have a pathway to citizenship. That must happen.”

Another flip-flopper who will say her position has “evolved.”

          May God bless the United States of America.