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

PRESIDENTIAL PATIENCE – I told a friend today, that I hoped people, who are confining themselves to their homes during the nationwide effort to keep from the being infected with the Chinese Virus, are taking advantage of the opportunity to see President Trump’s daily task force conference.

This is important because there is so much misinformation and myths being spread by the former mainstream press, social media and the Internet.  The president made a point of calling out members of the media who continue to produce fake news.

It’s important, too, that the public recognizes the patience President Trump is exhibiting as he takes inane questions, many of them repeated over and over.  In an effort to provide full transparency, he and the members of his task force appeared before the media for an hour and a half on Friday, a practice that has been taking place daily.

All of the task force members deserve kudos for the long hours they are working, and, yes, for their patience with the media, too.

MEDIA COMMENTS – The Flip Side blog, which attempts daily to publish views from both the left and right on the issues, sought comments on the plan to send checks to Americans.

Michael Grunwald of Politico remarked that “Republicans would have screamed bloody murder if Obama had written $500 billion worth of checks and simply added the cost the federal deficit, but under Trump, they’ve stopped warning about the debt crisis or national bankruptcy or runs on the dollar.”

Grunwald is probably right, except Obama did nothing during the H1N1 crisis. Several Republican lawmakers, and the president himself, have not avoided discussion of the debt in negotiations and during press conference.  This president has made it clear that the health and safety of the public is his priority.

Narayana Kocherlakota, a University of Rochester economists and Bloomberg News contributor, argued for a much bigger fiscal stimulus, suggesting “the government should pay $10,000 to every adult and child (child?) younger than 40. The government should pay a bonus to each person who gets tested for the Coronavirus (as long as they haven’t been tested in the prior week).  Finally … the government should both increase and extend unemployment-insurance benefits beyond the normal 26 weeks.”

MIDNIGHT DEADLINE – To enable the Senate to vote Monday on a stimulus package, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set a deadline of midnight for bipartisan negotiators to reach agreements on a sweeping stimulus package that could top $1 trillion and give direct payments to U.S. households. One issue is “need” and there is disagreement over how much the payments should be and who should qualify.

WILL POLITICIZATION OF VIRUS COST DEMS THE HOUSE?  “It’s clear that the Democrats see the Coronavirus (Chinese Virus) outbreak as an opportunity rather than an epidemic (now a pandemic),” writes David Catron in The American Spectator.

“Having failed to bring down President Trump with ridiculous conspiracy theories involving Russia and Ukraine, they are desperately attempting to convince the public that he is somehow exacerbating the COVID-19 crisis,” Catron believes.

“President Trump continues to manufacture needless chaos with his administration and it is hampering the government’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak,” Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said in a jointly-issued press release, writes Catron.

While pointing out that “this is just the latest in a series of irresponsible assertions by the Democrats,” Catron reminds his readers of the Joe Biden’s false claim that Trump had cut funding for the CDC and NIH, as I reported here recently.

As Election Day nears, Catron believes the voters will be aware that the Democrat rhetoric was a grotesquely cynical ploy to mislead and frighten the public, and “will render Democrats clinging to House seats in ‘Trump districts’ even more vulnerable than they are at present.”

“There are 31 Democrat representatives who occupy seats in districts that Trump won in 2016.  Of the 18 districts the Republicans need to flip in order to regain their House majority, the president won 16 by five points or more,” says Catron.

If voters aren’t already revulsed with the Democrat-controlled House after Russia, Russia, Russia, the defaming of Judge Kavanaugh, the Ukraine and the costly impeachment trial, this latest attempt to damage his chances of reelection will not succeed.

OUR DEPENDENCY ON CHINA has been on the minds of our lawmakers for some time now, especially that of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has been talking about a “buy American” executive order.

On Thursday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced legislation to repatriate pharmaceutical manufacturing from China top America, aiming to reduce a dependency that could seriously limit the U.S. Coronavirus response.

The primary aim is to severely curtail the volume of Chinese active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from the U.S. medical drug supply.  The bill would bolster domestic pharmaceutical production capacity.

DRUGS USED TO TREAT MALARIA AND ARTHRITIS, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, may soon be available for treatment of Chinese Virus, after testing in clinical trials have been satisfied.  FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn indicates that it is being limited at present to compassionate use while clinical data is compiled.

AS COLLEGE AND UNIVERISTIES have decided to move their students to online courses with concern over the Chinese Virus, those leftist professors are getting nervous about their lectures getting exposed to “right wing sites,” according to Jon Street, Managing Editor of Campus Reform.

Emily Farris, Texas Christian University Associate Professor of Political Science, tweeted @emayfarris, “If you are recording a lecture on anything controversial, be prepared for right wing sites to ask students to share it.”

Weighing in, Stephanie Shady, a political science graduate student at the University of North Carolina, said, “I just realized that the second half of my course focuses on public opinion towards and politicization of immigration.  This will be interesting.”

Another user with the Twitter name “Prof CWO” replied, “Sigh, I teach about white nationalism and this has been my biggest fear since we began transitioning to online instruction.”

                          May God continue to bless the United Sates of America.