It’s not Christmas until I watch “The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show.” Back in 2019, country star Kacey Musgraves released her first, and only (so far), Christmas special, which is a sparkling, festive film full of fun cameos and appearances from some great artists, as well as beautiful renditions of some of the songs from her 2016 A Very Kacey Christmas album. The special was directed by Chris Howe, and features a star-studded guest list including Lana Del Rey, Camila Cabello, Zooey Deschanel, and the Radio City Rockettes even make an appearance, too, which is of course a holiday staple. Not only is the music fantastic, but the set design and wardrobe is spectacular, and very vintage-inspired, giving it a really warm and nostalgic holiday feel. You’ll see that Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy plays narrator, as his bits with Kacey tie the story together, as she roams through different rooms in what looks like a life-sized dollhouse, which finds Kacey searching for her Nana’s heirloom Christmas tree star. In a behind-the-scenes video, Kacey gave some insight on the process, saying the idea came to her during a conversation with her band leader, when they realized they wanted to bring her Christmas album to life: “Last Christmas, I was sitting on the bus with my band leader, and we had this late night idea about bringing the Christmas album to life. So from there, the ideas just started snowballing.” The team shared about how much work went into the making of the set, and of course the gorgeous wardrobe, which is honestly my favorite part. It’s just stunning in every way from a visual perspective, and that in and of itself makes it worth the watch. Kacey also noted how important the fashion was to the special: “There are so many great fashion moments that I’m really proud of. So for the past year, this whole team has been working really hard creating something really memorable, really classic, bur also, something that feels, like, very me. I hope you like it.” It’s very campy, very quirky, and very Kacey, and if you haven’t seen it before, it really is the perfect thing to add to your holiday watch-list. It’s also family-friendly, so if you are looking for something different and fun to watch with your relatives, this is it. The full special is available on Amazon Prime Video, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you get tired of some of the cheesy, or repetitive Christmas movies that are on every year, Kacey’s special is a fun departure from that and it’s one of my favorite things to watch every holiday season. The Christmas special thing is becoming more popular among music stars, pop star Sabrina Carpenter put one out last year, but nothing tops Kacey’s in my humble opinion. Back in the day, it used to be really popular for country artists to do them, and people like Dolly Parton has several she did during the height of her career, and Kacey did an incredible job keeping that tradition alive. Here are some of my favorite songs: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” “Glittery” “Christmas Makes Me Cry” Here’s the behind-the-scenes video: The post “The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show” Is One Of The Most Underrated Country Holiday Specials first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, met Monday with podcaster Candace Owens amid an intensifying public feud over Owens' promotion of conspiracy theories surrounding Kirk's death.

Erika Kirk, widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and right-wing podcaster Candace Owens emerged from their lengthy meeting Monday describing the conversation as "productive" and suggesting tensions had eased.

Erika Kirk, the CEO of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and the widow of conservative icon Charlie Kirk, and conservative commentator Candace Owens, have both revealed that they had a "productive conversation" with each other.

In July 1988, the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea exploded into fire. A worker on the rig, Andy Mochan, had to make a choice: stay and certainly die, or jump off the platform and probably die from the 100-foot drop or hypothermia in the freezing water. The burning platform has become a useful metaphor in the management of change, referring to what it takes to make people accept change, to reject the status quo. (P.S. Mr. Mochan jumped and survived.) Is U.S. healthcare “burning” yet? Are people motivated to change from the system they know and intensely dislike (media accolades notwithstanding) to an unfamiliar one they fear because it is different? Democrats want to double down on failed Obamacare with an extension of the subsidies. Republicans can’t seem to agree on healthcare, other than a distaste for Obamacare. With the midterm elections looming, Republicans came up with a plan, but they didn’t want to rock the boat. They worry the burning healthcare platform may not be hot enough to get the American public to move off and accept something new that would actually work. Are they right? Probably, given the consistent media drumbeat of subsidy solution and how well the ACA has worked. Obamacare has been successful in reducing the uninsured rate. Unfortunately, it has also made medical care less accessible and more expensive. (RELATED: Trump’s Pivot Could Make Health Care Affordable Again) Healthcare Is “Burning” Evidence confirms U.S. healthcare is fully ablaze, taking down both American families and the nation. There is a worsening shortage of doctors. Some patients wait as long as 132 days to see a primary care doctor. Even a one-month delay in cancer diagnosis increases mortality. Patients in Medicaid and the VA system have died waiting in line for care that doesn’t come in time: death-by-queue. (RELATED: Subtext to Shutdown: Unaffordable Healthcare) Death-by-queue is proof that the medical plank of the healthcare platform has turned into ash. The financial plank is also fully aflame. (RELATED: Wait Times for Medical Care Matter) Last year, the U.S. spent more than double per capita what the United Kingdom (U.K.) spent, $12,555 versus $5,493. Nationally, healthcare expenditures consumed 17.8 percent of U.S. GDP compared to 10.9 percent for the U.K. Government Solutions Government solutions seem attractive to the public because a) that is what they are used to; and b) left-wing politicians and complicit mainstream media keep touting the success of big federal programs. Recall the grandiose promises for the ACA: “you will save $2,500,” “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” and “Americans will get all the care they deserve.” Though these promises failed to materialize, the media and Democrat politicians continue to deny the manifold failures of Obamacare and healthcare in general. There is also the widely accepted myth that single payer — total government control of healthcare — works elsewhere, viz., the U.K., and should be adopted here. The reason Great Britain spends so much less than the U.S. is government rationing of medical care. Nearly 11 percent of the entire British population is on a waiting list for medical care: roughly one-third have been waiting 18 weeks or longer. With regard to cost savings of government healthcare, even Bernie Sanders admitted that his single-payer plan, Medicare-for-All, could cost up to $40 trillion. For perspective, that amount is one-third of the combined GDP of all nations on planet Earth. (RELATED: Democrats Are Pushing for Government-Run Healthcare. The Time to Begin Fighting It Is Now.) Another nail in the coffin of government healthcare, or so-called “universal healthcare,” is the well-documented seesaw effect. As the number of people enrolled in government-provided health insurance programs goes up, access to medical care goes down. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Inaugural speech, “Government is not the fireman for the healthcare fire, government is the arsonist.” It is unclear whether the American public realizes how hot the healthcare fire is. Therefore, Americans may be reluctant to get off the platform — to change the healthcare system. (RELATED: Washington’s Reverse Midas Touch) Jumping Into Icy Waters President Trump hinted at the solution when he asked (referring to ACA subsidies), “Why not give the money directly to the people?” In a nutshell, that is the answer. Give control of healthcare spending to We the People. After all, it IS their money… and their lives! Americans have been programmed for 83 years to think that “employer-sponsored health insurance” is their employer taking corporate monies to pay for employee policies. That is wrong. Americans have been programmed for 83 years to think that “employer-sponsored health insurance” is their employer taking corporate monies to pay for employee policies. That is wrong. Shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, Congress passed wage and price freezes. Washington needed control of the entire production capacity. To recruit and retain good workers when employers could not increase wages, Congress passed a law, the Stabilization Act of 1942, that allowed employers to pay tax-free for employees’ health insurance in lieu of paying their full wages. After the war, all the wage (and price) freezes were repealed except one: the tax-advantaged employer-sponsored health benefit. Last year, the average amount employers paid for employees’ health insurance was $25,572. That money was sent to an insurance company instead of being paid to those who earned it. Expand on President Trump’s offhand suggestion to 165 million Americans: “give them the money.” Americans need to jump from the burning healthcare platform into a sea of icy waters called Empower Patients. Instead of giving employees’ money to insurance companies that ration care and make huge profits at the expense of patient welfare, give workers’ money to the workers. After all, they earned it. At the same time, expand HSAs so there are no limits — time or contributions — tax-free as long as the money is expended for medical purposes. Suddenly, there would be a huge market of most of the American workforce and their families with more than $4 trillion to spend on medical care and medical insurance. Sellers of both care and insurance would have to respond to consumers’ (i.e., patients) needs and wants instead of complying with government regulations. Prices would plummet due to competition. Service would become timely for the same reason. Instead of a four-month wait to see the doctor, it would be less than four days. Instead of $35,114 for hip replacement with insurance, the direct-pay charge would be $15,499. To complete the picture, give unrestricted block grants to the states for Medicaid as intended by the original Medicaid law, The cost of BURRDEN — federal bureaucracy, unnecessary rules and regulations, directives, enforcement, noncompliance activities — would fall to a tiny fraction of what was spent last year: $2.45 trillion wasted dollars. Doctors would regain professional satisfaction. Patients get what they want and need. Insurance would return to its original function: management of financial risk, not management of medical decision-making. With empowered patients, the terrifying sea of icy waters turns out to be a warm, soothing hot tub. READ MORE from Deane Waldman: A Thanksgiving ‘What-If’ for American Healthcare Subtext to Shutdown: Unaffordable Healthcare Where Have All Our Healthcare Dollars Gone? Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA, is professor emeritus of pediatrics, pathology, and decision science; former director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of 14 books; his latest is Empower Patients — Two Doctors’ Cure for Healthcare. Follow him on X.com @DrDeaneW or contact him at dw@empowerpatients.info.

One of the most powerful weapons Hamas has wielded against Israel over the past two years is not used on the battlefield, but propagated through the media. Not standing a chance in combat against the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), Hamas’s most effective war strategy has been the global propagation of false narratives that accuse Israel of war crime violations, such as genocide and famine. These allegations work to delegitimize the IDF’s presence in Gaza and distract the world from Hamas’s atrocities. With help from the U.N., select heads of state across the so-called civilized world, and the biggest names in mainstream media (what Lee Smith called the Global Empire of Palestine), Hamas managed to wrangle global sympathy almost immediately after Oct. 7 as the victims of an Israeli genocide and famine in Gaza. (RELATED: The New York Times , Kristof, and the Ethics of War Reporting) Last summer, however, the famine narrative came under new scrutiny. Evidence surfaced revealing that severe food shortages in Gaza were not caused by the IDF military campaigns or the alleged war crimes of Israeli leaders, but rather by Hamas’s strategy to starve the Gazan population to keep the famine story going. (RELATED: The Gaza Famine Myth: Refuting NYT’s Kristof’s Libelous Claims) Propagating the Famine Narrative In early 2024, major news outlets interpreted the predictions of food shortages in Gaza from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS) and other U.N.-backed food and health organizations to mean that there was a famine in Gaza. CNN reported as early as January 2024 that “Israel’s war in Gaza has brought famine with ‘such incredible speed,’” and warned that “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are starving in the besieged enclave.” (RELATED: Grim’s Tales: Ryan Grim’s Anti-Israel Drop Site) By the late spring of 2024, various other reports and analyses, together with a flood of viral images depicting emaciated Palestinian women and children (some not even from Gaza, or from the current war), had convinced the world that Israel’s intervention in Gaza was to instill famine and genocide on the civilian population as a war tactic against Hamas. The reports were convincing enough to make the Biden administration focus on combating the Gaza famine (not rescuing the American, Thai, and Israeli hostages, or brokering a ceasefire) its foreign policy priority. The famine narrative rang so loud throughout the world that it drowned out simple facts on the ground. The famine narrative rang so loud throughout the world that it drowned out simple facts on the ground. As The American Spectator reported last year in May, “often lost in the fog of this war are the tireless efforts taken by the IDF to alleviate civilian suffering and facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza.” (RELATED: US and Israel’s Humanitarian Mission to Gaza) The main Israeli-Jordanian border crossing became the starting point for international aid trucks to convoy across Israel and reach the humanitarian access points for the Gaza Strip. Roughly 300 trucks were reportedly entering Gaza each day. In March 2024, a “maritime corridor” was established between ports in Cyprus and Gaza and Ashdod in Israel to facilitate the World Central Kitchen’s shipments of international aid. These initiatives were facilitated by Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) with security provided by the IDF. Former official in the IDF Spokesperson Unit, Rachel Lester, noted in the summer of 2024 that “even according to the most conservative calculations made by the very people who have been crying ‘famine’ in Gaza, what the pro-Israel movement has been saying for months is actually true: Israel has been delivering more food to Gaza than ever before.” But it was too late for hardline facts. The international community had bought the famine narrative wholesale, and Hamas entered the second year of war confident that this strategy could be used as leverage against Israel. Maintaining the Famine Narrative If tons of humanitarian aid are reportedly entering Gaza each day, where is it all going? A thread of new reporting, starting last summer, has shed light on the fact that Hamas is orchestrating the detriment of the Gazan people for propagandistic effect. In May 2025, the Shin Bet (Israel’s counterterrorist agency) revealed that 60 percent of the international aid entering Gaza is confiscated or looted by Hamas. That same month, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, criticized Hamas “gangs” for looting humanitarian aid intended for civilians. Abbas held “Hamas-affiliated gangs primarily responsible” for the “looting and theft carried out by criminal gangs targeting warehouses and storage facilities of humanitarian aid.” (RELATED: Who Is to Blame for Civilian Deaths in Gaza?) Last week, on Dec. 9, the New York Post published a story, first exposed by the Palestinian, anti-Hamas activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, on how Hamas has been hoarding food in a boarded-up warehouse. “During the worst of the days of the hunger crisis in Gaza in the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid literal tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children […] to worsen the hunger crisis and initiate a disaster as part of the terror group’s famine narrative,” Alkhatib stated on X, accompanied by footage of the food inside a Gaza warehouse. The U.N. must also be held partly, if not wholly, responsible for Hamas’s actions. All international aid passes through Israeli security checkpoints before entering the Gaza Strip, where it is then turned over to U.N. agencies for distribution. The abundant evidence of U.N. agencies in Gaza partnering with Hamas and hiring Hamas operatives further reveals the U.N.’s complicity in maintaining the famine narrative by allowing Hamas access to the incoming aid. (RELATED: Why Are We in the UN?) The U.N., therefore, has been highly critical of turning over complete responsibility of aid distribution to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) because it will expose their level of complicity and corruption. Furthermore, without the U.N.’s facade of authority, Hamas will lose its main collaborator in maintaining credibility for the famine narrative. Staging the Famine Narrative The threads in Hamas’s deceptive scheme continue to unravel as the authenticity of famine images is brought into question. One widely published image of the emaciated body of 5-year-old Osama al-Rakab went viral as evidence of severe malnutrition in Gaza, when, in fact, Osama suffered from a genetic disease and was being treated in Italy. Another photograph of a supposedly starving Gazan girl, supposedly taken by photographer Abdel Kareem Hana for the Associated Press, caused a media scandal when evidence surfaced that it was actually the image of a Yazidi girl fleeing ISIS in 2014. In August, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung questioned whether the images coming out of Gaza are purposely selected and manipulated to trigger emotional reactions, a tactic known as “Pallywood.” Contributing to the report was professor emeritus of history and photography expert Gerhard Paul, who has been researching war images from Israel and Gaza for over 25 years. The “starvation’ images from Gaza are not fake,” concluded Paul, but “are presented in a certain way or provided with a falsifying caption to mobilize our visual memory and emotions.” The German paper BILD explored this further with the headline: “Gaza photographer Anas Zayed Fteiha stages the real suffering of the Palestinians for the global public — for the benefit of Hamas and its propaganda.” Fteiha, a freelance photographer who contributes to Reuters, BBC, and other major news outlets, was on assignment in Gaza last July for the state-owned Turkish news agency Anadolu to produce a photo essay on the hunger crisis. He was on location at the Khaula al-Badri field kitchen when he snapped his now-famous image of women and children desperately waving empty bowls and pans behind an aluminum fence. The staging of this photo, the German reporters argued, comes in part because the women and children were not waiting in line to receive food, but posed in front of the cameraman. Additionally, other images that Ftieha took at the same field kitchen, such as those depicting men peacefully waiting in line and receiving food, were not published. “The hunger is (almost always) real — but the photos may not be,” the BILD reporters stated. The article concluded that Fteiha’s photos were carefully selected for publication by big-name publishers because they showed “chaos and destruction […] and especially: children, mothers, suffering in close-up and in perfect lighting conditions.” The BILD investigation, Israel’s foreign ministry stated, “underscores how Pallywood has gone mainstream with staged images and ideological bias shaping international coverage, while the suffering of Israeli hostages and Hamas atrocities are pushed out of frame.” READ MORE from Bennett Tucker: Milei’s Isaac Accords Expands Pro-Israel Networks The New Ceasefire Status Quo is War Military Clashes in Gaza Challenge the Ceasefire Terms

“Peace on Earth,” editorial cartoon by Tom Stiglich for The American Spectator on Dec. 16, 2025.

If “going to the movies” is something you look forward to, then the planned $82.7 billion merger of streaming giant Netflix and movie studio Warner Bros. should be on your radar. Movie theater operators woke up last Friday to the possibility of their world being turned upside down. Should the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal be approved by regulators, 2025 could be remembered as a watershed moment for the movie industry, specifically, and the moviegoing public in general. (RELATED: Something to Hold Against Donald Trump) Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a deal for the streaming giant to acquire WBD’s film studio and streaming service, bringing an end to a months-long bidding process that saw Paramount, Skydance, and Comcast also vying for the assets. (RELATED: Netflix Doesn’t Want Competition — It Wants Narrative Control) With Netflix prevailing in the bidding, exhibitors are in a panic. [T]here are fears that big changes could be coming to an industry that is still struggling post-pandemic. Unlike traditional movie studios, streaming companies like Netflix have not adhered to conventional theater distribution, and there are fears that big changes could be coming to an industry that is still struggling post-pandemic. In short, movie theaters are dying, and here’s why: the appeal of going to see today’s movies has diminished. And whatever appeal remains is not enough to pull the movie business out of its disastrous run of woke, divisive, preachy, smug, insulting, and utterly divisive downward spiral. People still want to go to the movies. There’s much evidence for this. If the movie is appealing enough (e.g., Top Gun: Maverick, Barbie, Avatar: Way of the Water, Spider-Man: No Way Home), people will forsake the small screen for the big one. All Hollywood had to do to pull out of their suicide dive towards oblivion was to amend their appeal at the box office — make better movies. But that’s not what happened. (RELATED: We Have the Great Stories: Let the Cinematic Renaissance Begin) Sasha Stone explains it well. If one compares the movie industry with that of streaming, the problem for Warner Bros. and the other studios comes into bold relief. With streaming (think Netflix and HBO Max), there is no free market pressure, no quality control. Streamers don’t have to motivate people to leave their homes and drive anywhere. They don’t need to pay “big bucks” for “big stars” to drive box office demand, and best of all, they can ignore the silent majority that has long ago tuned them out. Don’t like the trans agenda being imposed upon you? Too bad. Your view is met with stolid disregard. And your boycotts are irrelevant to Netflix. It’s the perfect solution to Hollywood’s (think Disney) box office problem. They can have everything they want — a virtue signaling paradise — and never have to worry about big budgets or low box office ever again. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 300: Why Movies Suck: Screenwriter Lou Aguilar Tells the Story) In other words, streamers have little incentive to create a product so entertaining and thus appealing that millions of people leave their homes to go see it. [T]he Netflix collection is junk driven by AI algorithms, audience apathy, and a generation looking for something they can watch while doomscrolling their smartphones. To be honest, I have subscribed to Netflix in the past to see what it was like. And a few of their TV shows are entertaining. But let’s be clear; overall, the Netflix collection is junk driven by AI algorithms, audience apathy, and a generation looking for something they can watch while doomscrolling their smartphones. If Netflix is allowed to absorb Warner Bros. (and in spite of Trump’s antipathy, the deal could be approved), it is a strong possibility that movie theaters will substantially decline in number, or worse. Consider the fact that there will be fewer products (i.e., movies) — four major studios, instead of five. Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, says the company will continue releasing Warner Bros. titles into theaters; yet he is also signaling that the window of time between theater release and availability at home will be shortened (17 days instead of 45-90). This means subscribers to Netflix and HBO Max (which is part of the Warner purchase) will have little incentive to go to the theater. Why leave your house to go see a movie when you can stream it within a few weeks of its release? The reality is that at some point, Netflix will cease or restrict Warner’s theater releases. Why? It’s all about lower production and distribution costs and subscriptions. Subscriptions Netflix’s business model focuses primarily on one thing: subscriptions. That’s it. That’s all Netflix really cares about. But let’s be honest — that’s all Netflix should care about. One cannot blame Netflix for caring about what fuels the bottom line. Unlike Adam Smith’s concerns for morals in corporate decisions, Sarandos follows the doctrine of Milton Friedman: the primary responsibility of corporations is to maximize profits for the shareholders. Netflix is an entertainment company that primarily cares about what generates revenue — subscriptions. Why would it seek to potentially increase its operating costs by releasing movies into theaters? What Netflix is primarily selling is “exclusive content.” And if the only way to see a particular show or movie is by subscribing to Netflix, well, that’s just how the game is played — it’s the niche which streamers have carved out for themselves — and Warner Bros. understands this. Warner Bros. chairman David Zaslav has no nostalgic wish to sustain movie theaters to preserve the art; remember, he shelved Batgirl so the company could take a tax write-off and recoup the cost of the unfinished movie ($90 million). Zaslav also understands that the real money is in subscriptions, not box office. Hollywood dislikes having to appeal to the box office by pleasing people for whom it has utter disdain. But if you are willing to “subscribe” to low-cost AI algorithms as a means to creativity and profit, it doesn’t much matter if your content is of poor taste. Netflix currently boasts 301.6 million worldwide subscribers. HBO Max has roughly 128 million worldwide subscribers. Once the merger happens, Netflix will have over 400 million subscribers. Consider that even if Netflix charged only $1 a month, that would still add up to roughly $4.8 billion in revenue per year. The average customer, however, pays closer to $12 per month, so now we’re zeroing in on something like $58 billion per year. What’s most troubling for me is that Netflix will now control the Warner Bros. archives, which includes its libraries and catalogs — virtually all of the Warner Bros., MGM, and United Artists classic creations. We are perilously close to experiencing a reality where just four major studios (and Netflix) will control much of America’s cinematic cultural content — what we are allowed to see, what is considered acceptable, and how it will be experienced. And I hope I’m wrong about everything — but I doubt it. READ MORE from F. Andrew Wolf Jr.: The British Need a Sixth Amendment, Badly America’s Retirement Dilemma and Australia’s Surprising Blueprint Thanksgiving — Beyond the First Feast

from And We Know: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Ian Proud, Strategic Culture: For over two years, there have been loud and repeated calls for Russia’s immobilised assets in Europe – valued at around $245 billion – to be permanently seized. However, those assets had hitherto been immobilised under EU sanctions which required unanimous agreement every six months. Not any more. Given Belgium’s sturdy resistance […]