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Christmas Tag

Under the Obama regime, the VA underwent major restrictive changes in terms of religion and Christmas, with various VA's around the country instituting a range of bans.  Bibles, high school Christmas carolers, gifts in wrapping paper with the words "Merry Christmas" or "God Bless You," Christmas trees and decorations, and even Christmas cards for hospitalized veterans were all banned.  It was an appalling overreach that is now, at long last, being corrected under the Trump administration. Vice President Mike Pence has announced changes in VA rules, and religious items, including those related to Christmas, are again allowed in our nation's VA hospitals.

Every year, at Christmas, Palestinian officials, activists, and a host of virulently anti-Israel groups exploit the holiday season for political purposes. As we’ve documented in several prior posts, for years Christmas holiday themes, symbols, and rituals have been continuously appropriated and put into service for anti-Israel propaganda:

This is an adorable rendition of the nativity story as told by kids. Southland Christian Church asked kids to tell the story of Jesus' birth and then reenacted the story as told by the littles.

This is the time of the year when certain Jews (thinking of you, Julia Ioffe) like to complain about feeling left out of the general merriment. Me, I went to Target a couple of days ago, to return the defective skateboard I'd given my son for Hanukkah.  Having driven in circles looking for parking, I don't feel left out at all.

Chinese authorities are cracking down on Christmas celebrations. Several Chinese cities have banned Christmas decorations, with government officials ordering the removal of Christmas trees, lights and bells from shopping malls and offices.

The ethnic cleansing of Christians in areas of the Middle East controlled by Islamists continues. The Gaza strip, under the control of Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, has seen its Christian population dwindle under relentless discrimination. We wrote about the plight of Gaza Christians in August 2014, Gaza ethnic cleansing of Christians:

President Trump has an amazing knack for pushing leftist buttons.  His trolling of the media is epic; they always bite, chasing his squirrels and making genuine donkeys of themselves in the process. The latest example of this involves a "saying 'Merry Christmas' again" tweet and an ad released by America First Policies.  The left is, predictably and hilariously, melting down.

All of us in the Legal Insurrection family (and it is truly a family) wish you and yours the Happiest of Christmases and a wonderful holiday season. For you: our holiday memories, wishes, reflections, and thoughts.

On Christmas Eve 1944, U.S. troops were in the freezing cold of the Ardennes forest during the Battle of the Bulge, waist-high in snow. We have remembered and told that story on recent Christmas Eves: I encourage you not only to read the posts and the comments, but also the comments to our prior Facebook threads [here and here] and our current Facebook thread [here] in which people recounted their family experiences.

Legal Insurrection has posted some awesome Christmas videos over the years, and this is a great time to revisit them . . . and add a few. Music is such an integral part of the human experience, and our memories are so often connected directly to a particular tune or lyric.  A song can whisk us back in time, warm our heart, and boost our spirits.  Christmas songs, it seems to me, are among the more powerful examples of this phenomenon.