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

REMEMBER SUSAN RICE?  Sure you do.  As Obama’s UN Ambassador in 2012, she took the fall for Hillary Clinton and lied about what happened in Benghazi on five Sunday news shows as she used prepared talking points that the attack was because of an offensive anti-Muslim video.

Hillary’s excuse was that “going on the Sunday news shows is not my favorite thing to do.” National Security Advisor Tom Donilon was next on the list, but he deferred to Rice.

Rice’s performance was “met with shock and disbelief by State Department employees,” who worried about White House involvement in the way the attack was characterized to the American public, according to the Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi.

“I think Rice was off the reservation on this one,” the senior Libya desk officer for the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs wrote in an e-mail to colleagues.

“My jaw hit the floor as I watched,” said Gregory Hicks, who was deputy chief of mission in Tripoli. “I have been a professional diplomat for 22 years, and I have never been as embarrassed in my life in my career as that day.”

Interestingly, Rice was said to be Obama’s choice to replace Hillary as secretary of state when she resigned to run for president.  That plan was scuttled after her Sunday show appearances.

In her CYA memo about Russia, an attempt to cover for Obama, written just minutes before Trump was inaugurated, she noted that Obama wanted intelligence done “by the book.”  No need to explain why she felt the need to write the e-mail.  Loyal to the end.

Just two months after Donald Trump took office, Rice wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post warning his administration about the “profound dangers” in making false statements, and the importance of U.S. credibility.  This from Rice who had been anything but truthful.

NOW GET THIS, with all of her baggage, when asked what she would tell Joe Biden if he asked her to be his running mate in the presidential election, she said she “certainly would say yes.”  Her arrogance reeks in her continuing remark: “I’m humbled and honored to be among the extremely accomplished women being considered in that regard.”  With all of her career missteps, she believes she’s an “extremely accomplished woman.”

THEN THERE’S GRETCHEN WHITMER, the troubled governor of Michigan, who said she was in negotiations with the Biden team to be considered for the vice president nomination.

I can understand why Stacey Abrams would be seeking the job with her weak resume, but Whitmer, it seems, would have a difficult time bringing Michiganders into the Biden fold, considering the daily protests she faces over her draconian virus restrictions.

I’m sure Senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are working behind the scenes for the job, too.  With Biden’s inability to put a sentence together and understand the point he is trying to make, they obviously see a role of “acting president” for them in the White House.

BEWARE THE ADVICE FROM THE LEFT – Ann Althouse, writing in her blog, Althouse, wonders if people who want Trump to fail ever get tired of posing as if they’re offering to help him avoid failure.

Citing a Washington Post column by Eugene Robinson: “President Trump’s increasingly frantic attempts to smear former president Barack Obama reek of panic.  As disgusting as these efforts are, they are likely to backfire, perhaps in spectacular fashion.”

“There’s no way an interpretation like this could influence Trump,” Althouse writes.  Trump’s not going to think, ‘I’d better calm down and realize that attacks on Obama will only hurt me,“ she believes, “It makes more sense for him to interpret a column like that to mean that his attacks are effective.”

In a clever conclusion, Althouse says, “I thought everyone knew you don’t tug on Superman’s cape.”

I WONDER IF ROBINSON will offer his advice to Nancy Pelosi for attempting to smear President Trump.  Appearing on CNN with Anderson Cooper, she spoke of the president in uncomplimentary terms, referring to his “age group and in, shall we say, weight group, morbidly obese.”  Shamefully disrespectful.

Surprisingly, the president refused to return barbs with the Speaker rather than speak of her Botox treatments gone wrong.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY Kayleigh McEnany, however, shot back at “Morning Joe” Scarborough for telling his audience that the president was not taking hydroxychloroquine as he mentioned that he had during a press briefing. In effect, lying.

“Thankfully, President Trump is NOT listening to the fake Dr. Scarborough and instead consulted with a real medical doctor before taking hydroxychloroquine,” she tweeted @PressSec.

I WAS DELIGHTED TO NOTE that the blog Red State also published a story about the number of Treasury Department unmaskings of Michael Flynn.  The story, ignored by the mainstream media, needs to get out to the general public.

IN LINE WITH JOE BIDEN’S unrealistic plan to bring an end to the use of fossil fuels, and the naming of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and John Kerry to chair his environmental task force, he has now announced that he will kill the Keystone XL pipeline project if elected.  It’s a follow on to his announcement during a debate in March that he would end fracking and all drilling in the United States, period.

When somebody briefed him on the states counting on rich oil shale reserves, like Pennsylvania, with the jobs and revenues at stake, he backed off and said his plan was to ban drilling on public lands.

He has also stated that his win at the polls would ensure that the U.S. would again join the Paris Accord.

                  May God continue to bless the United States of America.