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

POOR GEORGE – Columnist George Will, an admitted anti-Trumper, travelled to Europe to find someone of a conservative bent and decided that Germany’s Angela Merkel was his new hero, or heroine.  Yes, the same Merkel who said last month that a nation must be prepared to give up its sovereignty.

In his column, “Today’s Germany is the best Germany the world has seen,” he writes of her longevity as chancellor outdistancing that of Franklin D. Roosevelt at president by 378 days. So?

Will recalls a question attributed to Henry Kissinger: ‘If I want to talk to “Europe,” who do I call?’

It’s typical of Will to fall back on characters of “old Washington,” like Kissinger, who had checkered success. I am reminded of Kissinger’s flawed micro-management of our war machine in Vietnam.

Will’s statement that Merkel “has embodied Germany’s primal desire for stability,” flies in the face of her open-arms policy to more than a million migrants from Syria and other Mideast countries that has caused considerable anxiety in Germany.

Couple that with her country’s inability to meet carbon emission goals, requiring her to restrict citizen use of diesel fuel, and you have a chancellor with stability problems.

Merkel’s open disagreements with President Trump during his attempt to get NATO countries to pay their fair share and his retreat from the Paris Accord put her in Will’s plus column.

“No European nation was as enchanted as Germany was by Barack Obama’s studied elegance and one is more repelled by Donald Trump’s visceral vulgarity,” Will writes.

Barack Obama’s “studied elegance?” How ludicrous. That statement comes close to columnist David Brooks’ belief that he could tell Obama would be a tremendous president by the crease in his pants.

Poor George. He found a heroine in Angela Merkel, but his travel to Germany to overcome Trump derangement syndrome apparently wasn’t successful.

HEY, GIT YOUR PROGRAM, you can’t tell the players without a program. Hey! With all of the Democrats deciding to run for president in 2020, you’re going to need a program because it appears now that their line-up will exceed that of the Republicans in 2016.

So much hate, and plenty of liberals who think they can beat President Trump.

Two of the latest to enter the fray are Hawaii’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Texas’  Julian Castro. Neither have a chance of getting the nomination, however, either could be picked as running mate to provide diversity.

Having lived in the San Antonio area for nearly a decade, I became quite familiar with the Castro family, Julian, his twin brother Joaquin, and his radical activist mother. Both Castro boys attended Stanford University through affirmative action.

Julian unsuccessfully ran for mayor at age 30 in 2005, but won when he ran again in 2009. What you have to understand is that San Antonio operates under a city manager system, making Castro a figurehead.

Democrats thought they had a future winner in Julian Castro when he delivered the keynote address during the 2012 convention.

“But the 2020 cycle begins with Castro in much worse position than seemed imaginable then, as the candidate of tomorrow suddenly finds himself the candidate of yesterday without every have been the candidate of today,” Jim Geraghty adroitly opined recently in National Review.

“I’m listening for something enlightening, something arresting, a vision and a vocabulary that will rally and inspire. It never fully manifests.” – Charles Blow, New York Times.

With another Texan, Robert Francis O’Rourke, making noises of running, Castro will have difficulty getting meaningful coverage and enough money to mount a campaign.

SHUTDOWN, WHAT SHUTDOWN – While the president is in Washington prepared to discuss a deal that will include funding for border security, 30 Democrats are spending their time on the beach in Puerto Rico after flying there on a chartered 737. Supposedly, it’s the Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC winter retreat.

There are 109 lobbyists and corporate executives there to make them feel at home; that’s 3.6 lobbyists for each member.

Their message? House Democrats voted to open the government multiple times, but sadly President Trump continues to play partisan politics. Speaking of partisan politics, Cristobal J. Alex, president of Latino Victory, tweeted that “the island is still reeling from Trump’s failures.”

CHRISTIAN VOTES NOT WANTED – You can add California’s Democrat Sen. Kamala Harris to the list of candidates will announce their candidacy for president without any hope of getting Christian votes.

She challenged Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee for district court in Nebraska, for his 26-year membership in the Knights of Columbus an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. Harris suggested that his membership disqualified him for the federal bench.

Hawaii’s Democrat Sen. Mazie Hirono, who also made an absolute fool of herself during the Kavanaugh hearings, joined Harris in her anti-Christian line of questioning of Buescher

You may recall that California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein told nominee Amy Coney Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s a concern.”

Religious liberty is not part of the Democrat agenda. “No longer is the debate over Christianity in the public square,” writes Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon, “It is over Christians in the public square, and people of every faith have a stake in the outcome.”

          May God bless the United State of America.