TURKEY:

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spent the better part of this year driving tensions between Turks and Kurds higher and higher in a bid to win elections and accrue to himself even more power. In doing so, he undid his own previous achievements in forging a measure of peace between the two groups. Erdogan is not the only cause of the phenomenon described in the FT; the story also points to developments elsewhere, like Syria, as contributing to the extremism. But Erdogan could have gone down in history as a man who helped heal one of Turkey’s most doleful divisions. Instead, he may be the man who helped radicalized another generation, led to more war, and drove the two sides further apart.

Luckily, America would never elect a President like that.

QUESTION ASKED AND DEFINITIVELY ANSWERED:

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety Fifth Street

Read the whole thing — Virginia definitely picked the right New York newspaper to submit her query.

NORAD: The real story of the military’s Santa Tracker isn’t what you’ve heard—it’s even better.

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IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Roger Simon: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love The Donald for Xmas:

All the Republican candidates have their flaws, as does, in spades, the woman far at the front of the Democratic pack, described almost twenty years ago by William Safire in one of the most prescient op-eds ever as a “congenital liar.”

But my interest here is not in detailing everyone’s weaknesses – I like to remain friends with people – but, as a Christmas present to the angst-ridden, to try to explain how Trump’s flaws can be turned to the advantage of Republicans and conservatives.  This is particularly important if, as appears highly possible, he wins the nomination.  What do we do about it?

The answer is obvious.  The solution to conservative angst over Trump is simple: stop criticizing him,  co-opt him.

Read the whole thing,

FIVE MOST MEMORABLE AMERICAN MILITARY CHRISTMAS MOMENTS: Remembering when the greatest generations were far from home.

IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, I’M GIVING THE GIFT OF TRAFFIC TO OUR FRIENDS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE AT SALON, despite this being an obvious example of “hate clickbait.” But chances are, you’ll likely love scrolling through it: “’Verbal waterboarding’ — Vitriol, contempt, dishonesty: Remembering the worst of right-wing Twitter in 2015.”

WHY ’90S-ERA BILL CLINTON WOULD FAIL TO WIN THE 2016 DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION:

Democrats often say the modern GOP has lurched so far right that a time-traveling Ronald Reagan couldn’t win the party’s presidential nomination today. What Democrats fail to say is this: ’90s-era Bill Clinton would have an equally difficult challenge if he could somehow run for a third term today.

Even Slick Willie at his best probably couldn’t talk his way to the nomination. Not only did he deregulate Wall Street, he also cut investment taxes for the rich, and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. Income inequality soared. Imagine the negative ads Sanders would run against him using Clinton’s famous State of the Union quote: “The era of big government is over.” If the Democratic debates had “a kiddie table” like the GOP debates do, Bill Clinton might be stuck there like Rick Santorum and George Pataki.

All this puts Hillary Clinton in the weird position of saying she’s a student of “the Clinton school of economics” while also disavowing its main lessons.

Because it took a Republican Congress and Senate to push Clinton grudgingly to the right starting in 1995, after he violated so many of his campaign promises in his disastrous Obama-esque first two years of office. And it took 12 years of Presidents Reagan and Bush #41 to create an environment in which Clinton felt obliged to run to the right in the first place. But as I’ve written before, it’s interesting watching Hillary run simultaneously on nostalgia for her husband’s two terms, while disavowing all of his policies.

SINCE I DON’T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT PRO SPORTS ANYWAY, I GUESS I CAN’T BOYCOTT THEM NOW: The NBA Joins Team Gun Control. But have you noticed that as the players get more and more thuggish and felonious, the leagues and announcers become more and more PC and wussified?

THE FIRST RULE OF SHRIMP FIGHT CLUB… “The Government Wasted Money on ‘Shrimp Fight Club’ and a Million Other Things.”

ENDORSED. Christie: Clinton Should Suspend Campaign After ISIS Comments.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS, as charted by Jonah Goldberg:

[T]he Left has always loved its metaphorical wars, ever since William James announced the pressing need for the “moral equivalent” of war. President Obama has kept that tradition alive, routinely calling for warlike unity in his effort to pour money down any number of rat holes. But the moment when the tail-chasing dog ate himself came when Obama declared a lexicological war on war, changing the “war on terror” to “overseas contingency operations.” Terrorist attacks became “man-caused disasters,” and American reprisals were euphemized as “kinetic military operations.” It was, to borrow a phrase, a metaphorical war to end all literal wars. We’ll know that battle has been won when we start talking about the Domestic Contingency Operation against Christmas.

The merits of these metaphorical wars vary widely. War on cancer? Worth fighting. War on science? Mostly a bogus PR campaign to bully conservatives into silence. But the war on Christmas represents a special kind of passive-aggressive jackassery because the aggressors deny they have declared a war. They simply take offense at Christmas cheer. They cancel Christmas pageants. They leave baby Jesus in a cardboard box in the church basement, but see nothing wrong with celebrating the Winter Solstice as if that’s a more rational thing to do. And then, when people complain about this undeclared war on Christmas, the aggressors mock and ridicule them for paranoia and hyperbole.

Read the whole thing. I haven’t blogged much about the War on Christmas recently, as the news cycle didn’t seem to take much of a holiday slowdown this month — and was full of headlines of real, not metaphorical war, among other breaking stories. But I appreciate the efforts of those who have continued to push back against the humbug left.

Merry Christmas!

WALTER HUDSON: Star Wars’ Rey Emerges as a Great Feminist, Because She’s Not One.

INSOMNIA THEATER (CHRISTMAS EDITION): In case you didn’t see it yet in The Wall Street Journal or in George Will’s recent column in The Washington Post, FIRE recently released its 2016 Spotlight on Speech Codes report, just in time for the holidays. The biggest news is that for the first time in FIRE’s history, the number of schools maintaining red light speech codes has fallen below 50%, to 49.3%. That’s down from 75% eight years ago. Moreover, not only have the red light numbers gone down, the number of green light schools have gone up, from eight institutions (2%) in 2007 to 22 institutions (5%) this year.

To give you a better visual of our progress, FIRE’s talented media team along with our speech codes expert, Samantha Harris, put together this terrific, short video.

https://youtu.be/fCJujctqJeY

But despite this progress, 49% of schools is 49% too many, and between the federal government and student demands for speech codes, 2016 is likely to be a big year in the fight for free speech on campus.

A CHRISTMAS SALE:  Yeah, I know I’m late with pretty much everything, though I have a book coming out from Baen in May.  Health turmoil does that, but hopefully it’s over.  Meanwhile I decided to run a Christmas sale on a bunch of novels and a collection.  Hopefully by next year this time they’ll all have sequels. So, on sale for 99c are  Death of a Musketeer, Ill Met By Moonlight, No Will But His, and my first short story collection, published almost fifteen years ago, Crawling Between Heaven and Earth.

A NEW MEANING TO SHOTGUN WEDDING: Florida Jewelry Store Gives Away a Shotgun With Wedding Jewelry.  (Video.)

WONDER IF IT WOULD WORK: Retraining Your Hands to Stay Warm?

OF COURSE THE QUESTION IS DOES IT HAVE COOKIES: Most Sensitive Search For Dark Matter Ever Has Begun.

WITHOUT DOUBLE STANDARDS THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL:  Oh, the hypocrisy!

THAT INK IS POISONED: The Perils of Buying Your Own Hype.

SPEAKING OF SCROOGE: Get Over the Guilt and Celebrate Giving—and Getting—This Christmas.

WELL, DICKENS WAS A SOCIALIST: In Defense of Ebenezer Scrooge.  Granted he was a socialist in more innocent times, but still some of it must leak through.

WHICH IS A RELIEF: Yes, Virginia, Santa is not a socialist.  Besides, socialist Santa just somehow would end up taking away all the toys and selling them for his blow and hookers habit, all the while proclaiming the highest devotion to an abstract “people” and its interests.

WE’LL START WITH MY SHOCKED FACE: Washington is closing its eyes to Iran’s persecution of Christians.