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

DEMOCRATS DESPAIR – A new USA Today/Ipsos poll reveals that Democrats still cannot get over the fact that Donald Trump won over Hillary Clinton as just 61 percent of them compared to the 90 percent of Republicans claim to be proud of being an American. The despair shows up when just 22 percent of Democrats say they are “proud of America right now.”

“This is a very difficult time,” says Daniel Kugler, 66, a federal worker from Washington, while Tracy Lish, 54, a truck driver from Pocatello, Idaho, says the threat is from liberals. “They’ve twisted American values … a lot of them are anti-God, anti-religion and anti-military.”

LIBERALS TRASH ONE OF THEIR OWN – I have long admired the objectivity of former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton for president.

Dershowitz is a frequent guest on Fox News Channel’s various news shows where he cites his views succinctly, occasionally siding with the president. A recent piece in the Boston Globe tells of his former friends turning against him and no longer look forward to exchanging views while vacationing at the Martha’s Vineyard, a liberal enclave that has “great antipathy for Trump,” writes Mark Shanahan.

Walter Teller, a prominent Los Angeles entertainment lawyer and longtime Vineyard resident, sent Dershowitz and others in their circle and e-mail explaining his displeasure and estrangement.

“You admire my stance on civil liberties when it supports your politics,” responded Dershowitz, “but now that my consistent position may help a president we all oppose, you shun me. Please.”

In another response to Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab and creator of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, who accused him of being complicit with the president, he reminded Negroponte that One Laptop Per Child had received at least $2.5 million from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox and a “major Trump facilitator.” “Please don’t lecture me about complicity,” Dershowitz wrote.

I’VE SAID IT AND SO HAVE YOU – I’m referring to the use of words “cotton pickin.” I’m not a racist and never viewed it as a racist slur, but former Trump campaign supporter David Bossie was suspended for two weeks by Fox after telling Joel Payne, a black guest, “you’re out of your cotton-picking mind” during a heated debate.

After a little research, I found that the use of “cotton pickin” or “cotton picking” was considered politer than “damned.” “Now wait just a “cotton picking” minute” was one example cited.

Again, political correctness run amok.

THE MISGUIDED MINORITY representing the Resistance movement against the Trump administration was the subject of a piece by Roger Kimball in PJ Media, “As Trump Builds, the Resistance Shouts Destroy!”

Commenting on a Daily Beast article, “We Need Nonstop Protests Against Trump – and Here are 20 New Ways to Do it,” Kimball opines that “like so many anti-Trump fusillades, it cloaks itself in the mantle of “democracy.” “But the dirty little secret of The Resistance is that what it is ‘resisting’ are the results of a free, open and democratic election Donald Trump won in 2016. Hillary Clinton lost,” Kimball writes.

In reality, Kimball states that The Resistance, while claiming Trump is dismantling democracy, is actually on the side of the enemies of democracy. “They don’t like the results of the election. They don’t like Trump’s pro-American, pro-growth policies; most people do.”

“The ‘dissenters,’ far from being a ‘majority,’ are in fact a tiny minority cloistered mostly in three protected menageries,” says Kimball, “the universities, Hollywood, and the media.”

As one might expect, the Daily Beast list of 20 ways to protest, was conceived by Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, and a social justice fanatic.

GONE OVER THE EDGE – Arizona Republic editorial columnist Phil Boas never ceases to amaze. Obviously searching for another way to attack Donald Trump, he reminds his readers of a warning that we not make the same mistake made in Venezuela. Yes. Venezuela.

It comes from an op-ed written by Andres Miguel Rondon, a Venezuelan economist, 18 months ago, just a week after Trump became president. While citing the differences between Trump and Hugo Chavez, he said “they are both masters of populism.”

Rondon weaves a fanciful tale of populism leading to anger and ending in vengeance, a vengeance in which the people can participate. “And because anger soothes,” Boas comments, “it’s easy to embrace when fighting back against a White House that loves to bait and batter its opponents.”

“We’re probably watching the beginning of that will be a far more strident counter-resistance to Trump,” Boas believes.

The challenge to anti-Trumpers, according to Rondon is “to prove that you belong to the same tribe as them – that you are Americans in exactly the same way they are.” To which, Boas suggests “that’s a big ask of liberals who detest Trump and his policies.”

“It is astounding to watch them (the left) become that which they claim to despise about the president.” – Gary Abernathy, The Washington Post

WORKERS ARE QUITTING THEIR JOBS again, cites Axios PM, a sign of confidence in the economy and a very good reason to feel optimistic.

Job-hopping is happening across industries, including retail, food service and construction, a sign of broad-based market dynamism, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Today, as the U.S. has more available jobs than people looking for jobs, job-switchers reportedly saw roughly 30 percent larger annual pay increases in May than those who stayed put over the past 12 months.

I wonder how Minority Leader Nancy “Crumbs” Pelosi will turn this into bad news.

       May God bless the United States of America.