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

THE GREAT TOILET PAPER PANIC – No, I’m not writing about the sudden panic buying of toilet paper brought on, for some unknown belief, that the Coronavirus was going to result in stopping its production.

A week ago, before I had heard of the mad rush for toilet paper, I had just entered my local Costco to shop, and was met by a worker who alerted me that they were all sold out of the toilet paper.  Okaaaaay, I responded.  Was there something I didn’t know?

Since then, stories of the mad rush for toilet paper, Clorox wipes, and face masks became the big news of the day.

A friend brought to my attention the story of the big toilet paper panic of 1973, when late-night comic Johnny Carson told his Tonight Show audience, “You know, we’ve got all sorts of shortages these days.  But have you heard the latest?  I’m not kidding.  I saw it in the papers.  There’s an acute shortage of … of toilet paper!”  The audience roared with laughter.

Apparently, it stemmed from a statement made by a congressman at the time, who said, “We may face a serious shortage of toilet paper with a few months … we hope we don’t have to ration toilet tissue … a toilet paper shortage is no laughing matter.  It is a problem that will potentially touch every American.”

Consumers chose not to hear “may” and “potential” and toilet paper flew off the shelves.  Of course, Johnny Carson saw it as a “laughing matter.”

If you want to see a clip of Carson’s comment, CLICK HERE.

DID YOU HEAR THE MALARKEY Apology Joe Biden spewed out about handling the virus?  “No president can promise to prevent future outbreaks,” he said, “but I can promise you that when I’m president, we will prepare better, respond better, and recover better.”

He doubled down on an op-ed he wrote for CNN online.  He claimed that “our government’s ability to respond effectively has been undermined by the hollowing-out of our agencies and the disparagement of science.”  He said that the Obama administration increased the budgets of the CDC and NIH, but that Trump cut the funding of those agencies.  A fact-check by the Associated Press determined this not to be true, but Biden continues to say so in his campaign.

Shortcomings in the response of the Obama-Biden administration during the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic and the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak were detailed in an eye-opening piece by Matt Margolis in PJ Media.

President Obama was late in declaring an emergency until after millions of people in the United States were already infected, at least 20,000 were hospitalized and over a thousand had died.  Had he not delayed, he could have freed up resources to address the pandemic earlier, and fewer than 12,469 people would have died.

“The CDC, under Obama-Biden, was slow to generate a vaccine for H1N1,” writes Margolis, “yet, Biden has the nerve to claim the CDC was better prepared on his watch that it is currently under Trump.  What a joke.”

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP – “No more subsidies for fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill.  No more. No new fracking.  Period. Ends,” said Apology Joe Biden.  Is he unaware of how widespread fracking is across the country?

During a December debate, Biden was asked if he was willing to cut hundreds of thousands of oil and natural gas jobs.  “The answer is yes,” Biden responded.

On the record as embracing the framework of AOC’s Green New Deal, Biden has called for the elimination of emissions by 2030.  He brags about saving the auto industry, but he supports “taking millions of automobiles off the road.”  That ought to go over well in Detroit and Ohio.

I question if Biden really wants to win in 2020?

THE PANDERING OF BIDEN AND SANDERS continued during the Sunday debate as Apology Joe Biden committed to picking a woman as his running mate. Although Bernie Sanders deflected the question twice, he finally said he would “in all likelihood” pick a woman, too.

BILL KRISTOL, the anti-Trumper who preferred Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, still seems to think he’s relevant, Tweeted @BillKristol: “Biden has the headline from the debate – a woman as his VP – and it’s a headline that will be popular among Democrats, and probably among the electorate as a whole.”

STATISTICS, STATISTICS – With Apology Joe Biden’s claim that 150 million people were killed by guns still in our memories, now we learn from Bernie Sanders’ press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, that “500 million Americans go bankrupt from medical debt every year.”  Sanders, himself, has repeatedly used that number, and was once given three Pinocchios by the fact-checker at The Washington Post.

Of course, informed people realize that bankruptcies typically involve multiple causes, and in some cases, medical bills may be a piece of the pie, notes Tyler O’Neil of PJ Media.

Adding that “we’ve been in a state of emergency.  We need a president who acts like it.”  Kramerontheright suggests that President Trump – who surely knows that the current population of the U.S. is approximately 330 million – has appropriately handled the virus emergency.

            May God continue to bless the United States of America.