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

AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE – Yes, that could apply to what we are experiencing with the virus.  The suggestion that we stay at home, and when we must go out, to wear a mask and practice social distancing.  Use hand sanitizers and wash our hands frequently.

But, I’m referring to the left’s current campaign to remove President Trump, surfaced by F.H. Buckley, of the Scalia Law School, in his opinion piece with that title in American Spectator.

Like me, you’ve probably wondered why mayors and governors are permitting protesting that has gone too far causing vandalism and looting.  Hundreds of businesses have been lost with no police protection.  By now, you realize this is happening in the Democrat controlled cities and states.

Sadly, they’re bowing down to Black Lives Matter, a Marxist movement with an agenda to tear down America’s traditions and institutions.

Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has refused to condemn protestors and when questioned about the destruction of statues, she said, “People will do what they do.”

“We’re in the middle of a chicken game,” writes Buckley, “where the left tells us they’ll let this go on as long as Trump is president. The liberal media will ignore the riots, the liberal mayors will tell police to stand down, the liberal prosecutors will promptly release anyone arrested.”

Now we’re seeing those same Democrats refuse to open their schools, because the president would like to see that happen.

As I have reported recently, the left is doing their best to fabricate negative stories about President Trump, blaming him for anything and everything, hoping that Americans will tire of the Trump presidency.

Their message, says Buckley, “this is what you’ll get, America, if you reelect Trump.  Elect our guy, and the madness will stop, pronto.  Until then we’re held hostage.”

It’s no time to go wobbly folks.  President Joe Biden?  Seriously?

STOP THE HYSTERIA OVER THE VIRUS – Finally, someone is standing up for simply using common sense to cope with the virus. “America Needs to Stop Reacting Like a Bunch of Hysterics,” writes Mollie Hemingway, in The Federalist.

“That doesn’t mean being reckless,” writes Hemingway, “but neither does it mean cowering inside every day of every week and every month unless a vaccine shows up.”

When I saw the headline, I was reminded of a woman telling a reporter in March that she wasn’t leaving the house until there was a vaccine.  I think by now, after months of self-imprisonment, she has probably changed here mind, but there are still a number of worry warts (a term my Mom used to use) out there.

The sad part of that is millions of Americans will opt not to get the vaccine.  Even though the common flu kills millions every year, just 45 percent of Americans availed themselves of flu shots last season.

Recalling when the Asian flu hit the United States in 1957, Hemingway notes that 116,000 Americans were killed at a time when our population was 172 million.  “That would be the equivalent of 222,000 Americans today.  By comparison, the coronavirus has claimed 133,000 American lives so far.  “The (1957) epidemic barely formed a blip in the American consciousness,” said Hemingway, “(and) it didn’t even elicit much of a mention in major biographies of President Eisenhower.”

“We need a steely resolve, not simpering fear.  Nothing is going to stop us.  Not the Nazis, not polio, not gravity!  Nothing.  We’re America.  We can do this,” Hemingway proudly proclaims.

THE MEDIA WAS CRITICAL of President Trump’s early decisions on confronting the coronavirus, even though he consulted the best scientific and medical advice at his disposal.  So we thought.  The same experts who were on board during previous administrations that permitted our nation’s stockpiles to wither.

Ventilators were in insufficient quantities; some were outdated.  There weren’t enough masks either.  The president called upon the private sector to come to our aid, even using his power to invoke the defense production act.

The media repeatedly suggested that the Trump administration wasn’t taking the virus seriously and wasn’t doing enough to address it.

Yet, when CBS Evening News learned that the administration was in the process of stockpiling glass vials in anticipation of a vaccine, they voiced disgust.  The network was unaware that the administration is also funding groundbreaking syringe manufacturing techniques that could eventually eliminate the need for glass vials.

Correspondent Imtiaz Tyab, who had been focused on work being done in India, claims that 7.7 billion glass vials would be needed to treat every single person on the planet, was aghast the President Trump was trying to secure what Americans needed to be safe.

“So, according to CBS, Trump isn’t doing enough for Americans, while at the same time being too nationalistic and not thinking about the rest of the world,” writes Nicholas Fondacaro of MRC’s NewsBusters.  CBS conveniently forgets that we sent ventilators and masks to countries around the world.   Anything to make Trump look bad.

WITHHOLDING FUNDS FOR SCHOOLS was okay in May 2016, when President Obama declared that the Departments of Justice and Education would both “treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of enforcing Title IX,” and issued a directive to all public school districts in the country to allow students to sue the bathrooms matching their gender identity,” Matt Margolis reminds us in PJ Media.

 The New York Times noted at the time that the Obama administration directive “does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or loss of federal aid.”

Now, Democrats are livid that President Trump has alluded to withholding funds to states that do not have a plan to reopen schools, including New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had no problem with Obama’s overreach, and didn’t challenge his authority.

Still another opportunity to stick it to the President Trump.

“TRUMP WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG: the fake news media really is the enemy of the people,” writes Kylee Zempel, an assistant editor at The Federalist.  “When you encounter an entity that repeatedly lies to you, slanders you, mocks you, and hides thing from you, should you conclude it is anything but your enemy?”

In her piece, she cites the examples of the media coverage of President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech, highlighting such descriptors as “dark,” “devisive,” and “exploiting social divisions.”

Mollie Hemingway expanded on Zempel’s piece in her feature “Brazen Lying is Media’s Latest Escalation in Campaign Against Trump,” in The Federalist.

Recounting Sen. Bob Dole’s acceptance of the Republican nomination for president in 1996, when he talked about the GOP being broad and inclusive, “open to citizens of every race and religion.”  It was called “partisan, negative and divisive,” by George Stephanopoulos, then Senior White House Advisor.

Fast forward, Hemingway cites the comments of Martha Raddatz, who was filling in for Stephanopoulos, who now co-hosts This Week on ABC.

Raddatz opined that Trump had delivered “anything but a message of unity” and a “very grim message for America.”  Further, pushing her anti-Trump position, she said, “This speech was not the only time in the past few weeks the president seemed eager to turn the attention back to the issues of race in this country.”

Hemingway offered these words from Trump’s speech as a challenge to Raddatz’s lies of it being “grim” and “racist:’

“We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed.  Every child, of every color – born and unborn – is made in the holy image of God.

“We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. 

“We embrace tolerance, not prejudice.”

PONDER THIS – The word “embarrassed” is not the vocabulary of the media.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.