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

“HEADS ARE EXPLODING all over the beltway, as the unraveling of the biggest political scandal in American history enters a new stage,” writes Thomas Lifson in American Thinker. “Make no mistake, there is a plan and a timetable for maximum dramatic impact.”

The fact that the president, in a memorandum to the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security and the directors National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency, by the authority vested in him as president, has directed their cooperation with the review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 presidential election, he is determined to get full transparency. And, I might add, accountability.

Referencing 50 U.S.C. 3003(4), he informed them that they shall promptly provide such assistance as the attorney general may request in connection with the review.

Appearing on MSNBC, former CIA director John Brennan, who has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, voiced outrage and called the move to declassify documents as “unprecedented.” “My former colleagues in the intelligence community are looking upon his investigation with great concern and worry,” Brennan said. Maybe they should.

AS THE BARR INVESTIGATION proceeds, and we await information on the role of the Obama administration in the effort to prevent the election of Donald Trump and later, to bring down his presidency, a new report of Obama spying on the press has come to light.

“In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom,” the Columbia Journalism Review reports, “issuing sweeping subpoenas for the phone records of the Associated Press and several of its reporters and editors as part of a leak investigation.

At the time, the subpoenas were widely seen as a massive intrusion into newsgathering operations. Last month, we learned that they only told part of the story.”

In John Merline’s Issues & Insights article, “Obama’s Spying On The Press Was Far More Extensive Than Previously Thought,” he reflects, not only on the intrusion on the AP, but also the spying on James Rosen of Fox and James Risen of the New York Times.

Since the Obama administration so boldly spied on the press, it doesn’t stretch the disbelief that it was spying on the Trump team.

AS A FOLLOW-UP to my piece yesterday in which I stated that former UN Ambassador Samantha Power had sought inside information on more than 200 occasions, Debra Heine, PJ Media, writes of claims that Power “moved at such a rapid pace that she ended up averaging more than one request for every working day in 2016.”

PJ Media, in September of 2017, stated Power was unmasking people at “freakishly rapid rate,” as she sought identifying information about Americans caught up in incidental surveillance right up to President Trump’s inauguration.

Investigative reporter Sara A. Carter noted, “That’s unheard of,” as she pointed out that former UN Ambassador John Bolton indicated that he had unmasked just three people during his UN stint.

Power is believed to have notified acting attorney general Sally Yates about Michael Flynn’s contacts with Israel, which raised a red flag because of the Obama White House’s hostility toward Israel. You may recall that the Obama administration was caught spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government in December 2015 in a blatant move to examine the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers.

HAVE YOU HEARD that the judge who said President Trump must comply with congressional subpoenas for financial records – U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos- was appointed by former President Obama, and that new information suggests that Ramos had a conflict of interest and shouldn’t have presided over the case?

Ramos has donated in the past to a number of big-name Democrats, including two who currently sit on the committees serving the subpoenas, according to FEC filings. He has also contributed thousands of dollars to Obama’s presidential campaign over the years and $1,000 to the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2009, according to Matt Margolis, PJ Media.

THERE’S MORE – Haywood Gilliam, the U.S. District Court judge who issue a preliminary injunction on Friday partially blocking the president’s proposed border wall construction, once donated close to $30,000 to Democrats, much of it to Obama’s campaigns.

MEANWHILE, the Supreme Court of Utah upheld a six-month suspension without pay for a municipal judge – Michael Kwan – who disparaged President Trump on social media and during official judicial proceedings.

ATTENTION DEMOCRAT CANDIDATES – A further rise in wages is forecast by John Aldan Byrne in his New York Post article, “Average US salaries on the rise thanks to booming economy.”

“For the typical American worker, pay increases could soon surge past 4 percent to 5 percent for the year,” according to labor exports, reports Byrne.

Hourly wages for truck drivers now range from $10 to nearly $40 as average trucker salaries have risen 30 percent in the past four years. But MG Global Logistics told the Post that it’s tough finding drivers. “We had a load delivery for New York City from the Midwest for $7,000 gross, and one driver we asked just did not want to take it.”

“Wage growth for those who are great at what they do is only going to accelerate,” said James Phillip, CEO of JMJ Phillip Executive Search. Reportedly, register nurses and production managers have seen 10 percent salary growth over the past four years.

NEWS VS OPINION – Regular readers of this blog understand that they are reading my observations and opinions of the news. And, if you are a viewer of Fox News Channel, you understand that Bret Baier reports the news, while Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity voice their opinions.

You may recall my frequent mentions of newspapers, like the New York Times, that allows opinion to slip into its news pages. Here’s an example from the Sunday Arizona Republic in an article about personnel changes in the Department of Homeland Security by Colleen Long of the Associated Press: “Cissna had been on the chopping block last month amid a White House-orchestrated bloodbath …”

Did the editor miss this, or did he or she allow it to go to print?

ANN ALTHOUSE, who touches on a variety of subject in her blog, Althouse, writes: “I’m tired – and was tired long ago – of the Hillary Clinton theory that every attack on a woman is ‘sexist.’ Women in high positions need to be attackable or I don’t want them in high positions. That theory will perversely push me into the sexist position that women should not hold high positions.”

She writes of being free to mock President Trump, adding “To vote for someone deemed unmockable would sacrifice a highly valuable freedom – the freedom to mock the president.”

WE NOW HAVE FIVE YEARS LEFT, according to a piece written by Victor Tango Kilo in Ricochet, “AOC Was Wrong, We Actually Have Only 5 Years Left.” He references a 2004 article that stated, “Climate change over the next 20 years (2024) could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.”

The 2004 article predicted “catastrophic” shortages of water and energy supply by 2020 “that will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war.”

Beware of those doomsayers who claim that the flooding and tornadoes being experienced in the plains and Midwest are the result of climate change.

LAUGH-OF-THE-DAY – Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Democrat Eric Swalwell, desperate for attention in the presidential race, said he still believes the president colluded with Russia.

    May God bless the United States of America.