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

A SCOOP – Journalists are always looking for that scoop that will give them recognition. As a blogger, who informs readers with material written by others, a scoop would be rare.  However, I occasionally take pride in bringing something to your attention before it becomes widespread knowledge.

Such was my March 22, 2020 mention of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s failure to purchase ventilators when the need was presented to him in 2015, a story I credited to Betsy McCaughey’s March 19, 2020 New York Post piece, “”We didn’t have to have a ventilator shortage – leaders chose not to prep for pandemic.”

Then, on Tuesday, during the Fox News Channel virtual townhall on the virus, President Trump seemingly had heard enough of Cuomo’s complaining that Washington was slow in sending him ventilators, and he, too, quoted from McCaughey’s March 19, article.

Not a scoop, but Kramerontheright readers knew all about it before the president talked about it.  I like that.

YESTERDAY, I quoted the president when he said, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” as I wrote in opposition to an order to shelter in place or a nationwide quarantine.  I sensed from his comments during Monday’s briefing that he was anxious to get the country back to work. He reiterated that thought on Tuesday, and I believe that on March 31, he will make a decision to encourage businesses to open in areas of the country where infections are down.

“If you ask the American people to choose between public health and the economy, then it’s no contest,” says New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, “No American is going to say accelerate the economy at the cost of human life.”

But, as Newt Gingrich noted, an “overreaction runs real risk of tipping us not into a recession, but a depression.”  And as Trump, the business man, knows; you don’t just flip a switch to bring businesses back to life with full employment.

While he states that his decision will be based on the status of the health and safety of Americans, he said he hoped that most business could return by Easter.

The media has already begun to attack on the president on his suggestion that sections of America could soon be open for business. They do not want our economy to snap back.

As I write this, word of the struggle over the virus aid bill continues to dribble out. It is obvious that Democrats have become so out of touch with the workings of the private economy that they believe they can ignore the needs of employers without hurting employees.  Clearly, the Republican Party has displaced the Democrat Party as the party of the people, thanks to President Trump.

Kramerontheright views the Democrats and much of the media as pessimists, willing to give in, or accept, a recession.  Two op-eds in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal – “What to Do When You’re Sheltering in Place,” and “For Now, Pay Workers Top Stay Home” – smacks of surrender to me, as does the premature talk of extending unemployment insurance.

JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED the selfless comments of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on the Tucker Carlson show Monday night.  From my years in Texas, I developed an appreciation of Patrick.  I hope you will read this and take it to heart as we experience the virus outbreak and the need to get on with our lives.

Patrick, who turned 70 last week, said he does not want the economy to collapse of the Coronavirus. Here are excerpts from his interview:

“No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance for your survival in exchange for keeping America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?” he said, “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.

“I want to live smart and see this through, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed, and that’s what I see. If restrictions continued for several more months, the economy would collapse.

“The mortality rate is so low; do we have to shut down the whole country for this?  I think we can get back to work.”

I’m 81 years old, vulnerable,  and I agree with Patrick.  I don’t look forward to a life of undetermined shelter in place as we see our economy collapse.

YOU’VE HEARD COMMENTS that we don’t seem to have the same concern or focus on the deaths from shootings that we now have with the Chinese Virus, and I noted on the Internet today that cancer, diabetes and heart disease are bigger killers, yet we don’t close things down for them.  What they fail to realize is that the Coronavirus is not just a flu, and it’s a killer because it, unlike the other diseases, is contagious.

AMID THE RACIST CONTROVERSY over referring to the Coronavirus as the Chinese Virus, Khadar Bin Muhammed, the Imam of the Masjid Bilal Ibn Rabah in Syracuse has found the key; thousands of people are being infected, many are dying, and America is teetering on the edge of economic collapse because American women are showing too much ankle, according to Robert Spencer in PJ Media.

“Don’t laugh,” writes Spencer, “that would be Islamophobic.”

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE DEMS, who are not happy to see that President Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has named Lora Shiao to serve as the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center.  She will be the first woman to head the NCTC.

Democrats frequently paint the president as anti-women in an effort to sway the votes of suburban women away from him.

PONDER THIS – While much of the nation has concern for the rising death rate associated with the Chinese Virus, Democrats seem comfortable with the hundreds of thousands of lives that are taken via abortion every year.  Nancy Pelosi attempted to insert, within the virus aid package, funding for Planned Parenthood as a “small business.”

MEDIA MISINFORMATION on the president’s handling of the Chinese Virus. CNN’s Jake Tapper, during an interview with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, didn’t challenge her when she stated that President Trump called the virus a “hoax,” even though Tapper admitted later that he chose not to correct her.

The president was actually referring to the Democrats decision to aggressively politicize his response to the virus outbreak as a hoax after their impeachment effort had failed.

Surprisingly, Amber Phillips of the Washington Post tweeted @byamberphillips: “My apologies for quoting the president out of context. As the Washington Post’s fact checker makes clear, he called Democrats politicizing coronavirus a hoax.”

Incidentally, Matt Margolis of PJ Media has published his fact-checks of a list of the top 10 lies the media and Democrats are pushing with the hope of damaging Trump politically before the November election.

                   May God continue to bless the United States of America.