Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.

DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IT? – During President Trump’s press conference Sunday morning to announce the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi during a Special Forces raid on his Syrian compound, he spoke of all the people involved in the mission, in Syria and in his situation room.  When a reporter asked if he had given Nancy Pelosi a heads-up on the raid, he responded, “No, I didn’t do that.  I wanted to make sure the kept secret (sic). I don’t (sic) want to have people lost.”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence, ever the political gentleman, said he was sure the president didn’t mean that he couldn’t trust Pelosi.  Nice try, Veep.  Maybe next time she will think twice before pointing a finger at the president after being invited to the White House.

INCIDENTALLY – Nancy Pelosi wants you to believe that that the president briefed Russian and Turkish authorities on the raid, but didn’t provide her the same courtesy.   In advance of the raid, the president only cautioned Russia and Turkey not to fire on our helicopters on their mission

SOMETHNG TO PONDER – Could it be that al Baghdadi had a false sense of security with the pull out of our troops and let his guard down?

REMEMBER THOSE KURDISH ALLIES OF OURS, who all the experts said were upset with the U.S. for abandoning them in Syria?  They were involved in the pre-raid intelligence and during the raid itself.  We’ll be there for them no matter what those anti-Trumpers want you to believe.

ALTHOUSE WAS ON THE RAID STORY earlier than most of the media with her blog, revealing how the Washington Post initially published an obituary-like headline – “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48.”   It wasn’t until paragraph 40 that the Post told of his keeping a number of sex slaves, including American hostage Kayla Mueller.  He was also behind numerous beheadings and other torturous deaths of his prisoners.

THE POST OBIT HEADLINE spurred a number of satire headlines: “Adolf Hitler, Austrian vegan activist and landscape painter, dies at 56,” from David Burge  @iowahawkblog.

NOT TO BE LEFT OUT, the New York Times wrote @nytpolitics: “The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, happened largely in spite of President Trump’s actions, not because of them, according to military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials (all anonymous, of course).

AND WEREN’T YOU SO PROUD of the people of the Beltway, many of them government bureaucrats, booing the president when he attended Sunday’s World Series game?   I’m not a big baseball fan, but I’m pulling for the Astros now.

THE VOCABULARY OF THE LEFT – During his appearance on Fox News Sunday,  Rep. Eric Swalwell, failed Democrat candidate for president and left-hand man of Rep. Adam Schiff on his closed-door impeachment interviews, again referred to the president’s “consciousness of guilt” in the Ukraine phone call, and used the words “shakedown scheme” and “extortion.”

Yet, when asked why the president shouldn’t believe you have already presumed his guilt, Swalwell fell back on Trump’s refusal to turn over documents and disallow staff members to be interviewed as a sign of his guilt.

The left coast partners in collusion – Schiff and Swalwell – are an embarrassment to the United States House of Representatives.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS who cannot, or are simply unwilling, to support our duly elected president?  After the president made the decision to change his strategy in Syria, and when he referred to the House’s kangaroo court as a “lynching,” they not only didn’t cover his back, they ran to the microphones as if they were the hanging tree.  You know who they are.

Regular readers will recall that I have frequently referred to “the media, Democrats and some Republicans” who are out to undermine the president.

I noticed that Rush Limbaugh has also brought this to the attention of his audience.  He believes that there are Republicans, too, Swamp dwellers, who don’t want to see Washington changed. “They are willing to cast aside all of the great economic news, the rebounding of America’s middle class, the low unemployment, none of that really matters to them,” said Rush this week.

ONE OF THOSE REPUBLICANS, Mitt Romney, appears to be taking on the RINO role of Jeff “THE” Flake, in his opposition to President Trump.  What the hell is he thinking?  “Even the voters in the heavily Republican, majority Mormon state of Utah have expressed dismay with Romney amid his latest anti-Trump rhetoric, according to Adam Edelman and Jonathan Allen, reporting for NBC News.

MATT TAIBBI contributing editor at Rolling Stone Magazine, no fan of President Trump, who once characterized the president as a “Mad King,” is seemingly changing his view of the president, viewing the Deep State as worse:

“My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump.

“Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not use to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall.  They don’t understand that his predicament is worse than have a bad president,”

Reviewing Taibbi’s words, PJ Media’s Mark Ellis asks whether the Trump campaign should extend a bit of credit to this despiser of the president?  “No,” he answers. “too many of us have known all along that what was being done to the man we voted for was evil.

“But acknowledging a deep-thinker and Trump-hater, who’s honest enough to admit that there are worse things under the sun, than this worst presidential nightmare might be indicated.”

IT’S TOO BAD Bill Kristol still thinks he’s relevant.  Remember his tweet @Bill Kristol: “Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics.  But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.”

ANOTHER GOOD REASON not to vote for Elizabeth Warren surfaced this past weekend.  “Far left billionaire and political donor George Soros has lavished praise on Elizabeth Warren, calling her the ‘most qualified to be president,’ while predicting a Warren presidency,” writes Tyler O’Neil in PJ Media.

In an interview with the leftist New York Times, Soros accused the president of “clearly putting his personal interests ahead of the national interests.”  Of course, the Times didn’t ask for examples of personal interests.  Truly a misguided statement about Trump, who is focused on “America first” and “Keeping America Great,” in 2020.

LAUGH-OF-THE-DAY – Former Obama national security advisor, Susan Rice, appearing on the CBS’s Face the Nation accused the Trump administration of not following normal protocol of informing President Obama about the raid on al-Baghdadi.  Ho hum.

                May God continue to bless the United States of America.