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

I’VE MISSED A FEW DEADLINES this week while I was forced to deal with eyelid surgery post-op instructions, and the simple fact that my eye sight wouldn’t permit me to either research or write.

OBSTRUCTION AT ALL COST – Have you heard that Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admonished her members for not standing together during recent votes. “Let’s make life easy: Just vote against them,” she told her flock.

I wonder how that’s going to go over with those newly-elected “ladies in white,” who came to Washington to make a difference?

YOU ASK WHY the media would raise the question of Kim Jung Un’s role in the two-year old death of Otto Warmbier during the president’s Hanoi press conference. I saw it as still another attempt to attack President Trump for not discussing it along with North Korea’s human rights failures, but continues to flatter its leader.

Otto’s parents, who once praised the president for negotiating their son’s release when President Obama failed them, never publicly questioned their own decision to allow their son to travel there, nor did they, or anyone else question how the Obama/Kerry State Department allowed him to go there. Was he at least warned not to go there?

How soon they have forgotten that it was President Trump who convinced Kim to release their son, even if he was near death. Would they have preferred never to see their son again, or have this modicum of closure?

The Hanoi media inquiry gave the Warmbier’s an opportunity to open the wound, and shamefully, they were critical of the president’s statement in Hanoi, saying he heaped “lavish praise” on Kim.

Certainly, the Warmbier’s aren’t suggesting that negotiations with Kim should hinge on his knowledge and apology of Otto’s cruel treatment and eventual death. That’s never going to happen. Presidents have long been forced to deal with unsavory characters around the world.

President Trump invited the Warmbier’s to his 2018 State of the Union address, when he spoke kindly of their son and his brutal imprisonment. Earlier, appearing with the president, they were grateful of the president’s effort to have their son released.

Yes, I believe the North Korean leader is a thug and had to know what his henchmen were capable of doing as captors. And I have no doubt the president is aware of that, too.

Bill Chappell and Laurel Wamsley, of the left-leaning NPR, took the opportunity to write the president “seemingly absolved” Kim of Otto’s death. Ridiculous.

Obviously, the president has the more globally important issue of denuclearization as a priority. Human rights will follow.

Despite the Warmbier’s remark, the president warmly reiterated his love for the Warmbier family during his CPAC speech on Saturday.

Does the media need to be reminded of the lack of success in freeing oppressed Cubans by President Obama, “Mr. Human Rights,” while in Cuba attending a baseball game with President Castro?

President Trump’s negotiating methods are under constant scrutiny by “old Washington” pols, who conveniently forget their past liberal failures while negotiating their way.

WHO WOULD’VE THOUGHT that a patriotic slogan like Make America Great Again would stoke violence and hate in this country? Some people even see it as modern day KKK hood. How ludicrous.

Of course, most of you understand that it is because of the man behind it – President Trump, but that hate is being transferred to anyone who supports him. Supporters across the country have been assaulted for wearing the cap.

It was a fitting campaign slogan in 2016. Trump was putting America first. The nation had tired of the status quo in Washington, and 17 Republican candidates of “old Washington” talked a good game, but failed to excite.

Voters became excited and elected the straight-talking businessman who vowed to change Washington and drain the swamp.

That doesn’t sit well with Democrats, and strangely, some members of his own party, who have become comfortable – too comfortable – and change is not in their DNA.

THE ARIZONA LONG KNIVES ARE STILL AFTER MCSALLY – Regular readers will recall my previous pieces on how the leftist Arizona Republic is out to sabotage Sen. Martha McSally at every turn.

There were those “hit” pieces during her campaign against Krysten Sinema, followed by the way she was named by the governor to fill the vacancy of the late John McCain with the tepid approval by Cindy McCain.

When Mark Kelly threw his hat into the ring to oppose McSally in 2020, the Republic gave his announcement prominent coverage.

With the Senate soon to vote on the president’s emergency declaration on the border situation, Republic liberal columnist Laurie Roberts was giddy over the prospect of how McSally will vote. With the headline, “Vote about emergency puts McSally in hot seat,” you just know the words in her lead – “It’s getting hotter and hotter on that hot seat where Sen. Martha McSally abides of late” – just leaped off her keyboard.

With the Republic’s open disdain for President Trump, the paper would like nothing better than for her to side with him. “Side with Trump and she loses a prime opportunity to convince Arizona moderates that she’s more than just a member of the president’s choir, singing amen on every cue,” writes Roberts.

“Or, she can do the right thing (according to Roberts) and look at the facts behind this dire emergency that warrants an end run on checks and balances built into our system of government.”

How she ever imagined McSally would take her advice, Roberts offered it anyway: “This is McSally’s chance to put a few degrees of separation between herself and the president she applauded at every turn in 2018.”

Have you noticed that Democrats are always required to vote with their leaders, but for McSally to vote with her president would make her a member of his choir.

MORE FAKE NEWS – The left-leaning Arizona Republic continued its quest to insult President Trump with the provocative headline, “Cohen: Trump had disdain for vets.”

The paper, with its ties to the USA Today network, normally relegates national news to inside pages with as brief notes, fillers. However, this story, carried above-the-fold, had a four-column banner headline in a bold 42pt font, normally reserved for serious news.

The story was fabricated from Michael Cohen’s tale of the president’s attempt to avoid military service as a means to again surface the president’s insult and feud over the late John McCain.

In fact, President Trump has made more improvements to benefit vets than previous presidents, chief of which was his Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. This act allows senior VA officials to fire employees who fail to properly serve our vets.

The result was the firing of 1,298 employees, suspending another 425, and demoting another 73. The act was written to avoid needless veteran deaths while awaiting appointments.

Among other benefits signed by the president was an order permitting vets to get care outside of the VA medical system.

Regardless of whether or not the president attempted to avoid military service, he has been a stalwart supporter of the military and our vets.

Shame on the Arizona Republic for manipulating their story to proselytize their anti-Trump behavior.

OH MY, the silly only get sillier. Washington state’s Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee has announced that he will run for president. Who? You ask. He’s another “sky is falling” wacko who states that he will “make defeating climate change our nation’s No. 1 priority.” Debate question #1: Exactly how do you intend to defeat climate change, Governor Inslee?’

Inslee couldn’t even convince voters in his own state of the seriousness of climate change. Twice, they rejected his idea of a carbon tax.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in a recent Morning Consult poll of potential primary voters, Inslee registered zero percent, while “someone else” captured 3 percent.

THERE’S ONE ON THE GOP SIDE TOO – Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld has announced his plana to challenge President Trump. You remember Bill. He ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket with Gary Johnson. C’mon, you remember those guys.

As governor in the 1990s, Weld supported legal abortions, but I haven’t heard if he has changed his view on that issue.

FINALLY – If you didn’t have the opportunity to hear Michele Malkin’s speech on our immigration failures – Democrat and Republican – at the CPAC convention, you should take the time to watch it by CLICKING HERE.

            May God bless the United States of America.