My favorite rendition of Silent Night courtesy of Sinead O'Connor.

Merry Christmas and best wishes to all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87q5dmW6zDg

The radical populists across Europe are wrong about many things, but they are right about this: governments that can’t protect their frontiers aren’t worthy of the name. Effective border control is what states are all about. Ask the Romans or the Chinese.

The failure of the Democratic and Republican establishments to understand that public concern over the security of America’s frontiers opened a pathway to victory for Donald Trump; the failure of European leaders to ‘get’ the vital importance of border control and, yes, immigration limitation is opening the door to massive political change in Europe.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/23/the-amazing-blinkered-european-elites/

Don't draw red lines if you're not willing to enforce them.

The fall of Aleppo just weeks before Barack Obama leaves office is a fitting stamp on his Middle East policy of retreat and withdrawal. The pitiable pictures from the devastated city showed the true cost of Obama’s abdication. For which he seems to have few regrets, however. In his end-of-year news conference, Obama defended U.S. inaction with his familiar false choice: It was either stand aside or order a massive Iraq-style ground invasion.

This is a transparent fiction designed to stifle debate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/aleppo-and-american-decline/2016/12/22/1c025a5a-c877-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html

As Mickey Kaus wrote 25 years ago, lefties decry economic inequality even as they buttress social inequality. Because looking down on the working class is a core tenet of modern liberalism.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/252693/

Merry Christmas from Kamala Harris:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161223/15495736339/merry-christmas-kamala-harris-files-brand-new-criminal-charges-against-backpage-execs-after-last-ones-were-tossed-out.shtml

The science is settled.

http://www.viralthread.com/new-study-suggests-that-men-need-to-get-drunk-with-their-friends-twice-a-week-to-stay-healthy/?afid=ga00014811522

I'll drink to that! Meanwhile:

http://freedomoutpost.com/how-social-media-is-blocking-locking-hacking-alternative-media-to-shut-us-down/