Merry Christmas!
Even as the assault on what little remains of our republican constitutional order continues apace (ht/t emailer Jim):
Donald Trump executive order banning diversity training blocked by federal judge
A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump's executive order restricting the federal government and its contractors from offering diversity training that the president labeled "divisive" and "un-American."
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted a preliminary nationwide injunction in the lawsuit filed by LGBT rights groups in November in the Northern District of California, saying the groups were likely to prevail on their First Amendment claims.
I extend the traditional greeting with the prayer that, just as the seeming demise of our constitutional order has been revealed, so too this season of hope may reveal to us a rebirth of the hope on which our order was founded.