It’s that time of year, folks, for Fox Noise and head-spinners to start the annual phony “War On Christmas”.  After all, book sales are down post summer, and the Caravan is no longer a threat after the election, so the Outrage Machine needs to whip up resentment over restrictions on Yuletide celebrations that don’t exist.  To those who fall for this tripe every year, I offer this:

Merry Christmas!
Happy Hanukkah!
Happy Holidays!
Happy Kwanzaa!
Happy Winter Solstice!
Happy Diwali!

To piss off the Defenders of Christmas, please feel free to add your own greeting!

Remember in 2009 during the writing of the ACA when Sarah Palin spun the big lie about “death panels” where faceless bureaucrats would arbitrarily deny coverage to innocent patients?  I certainly do.  During late 2009, this gigantic lie took on a life of its own, scaring the crap out of people using a completely baseless charge about healthcare under the new act.  Even today some media circles still use that lie to oppose people getting medical insurance.

The tragedy of the death panel lies is that death panels do actually exist and have for decades since Nixon converted the national healthcare system from a care system to a for-profit system when he signed the 1973 act forming HMOs.  Since then, actual panels of nurses and doctors are flooded on a daily basis with life and death decisions for their customers, insurance policy holders.  These actual death panels often make the wrong decision, wrecking millions of families’ financial wellbeing and accelerating the deaths of those with deadly diseases.

In a small victory against the insurance industry monopoly, Aetna has just been ordered to pay the family of Orrana Cunningham $25.5 million for “recklessly” disregarding its duty to deal fairly and in good faith when the Aetna death panel denied coverage for her treatment.  She had cancer and the proton beam treatment which could have saved her (and was approved by Medicare) was denied for financial reasons.  The court also ruled that the doctors making these decisions were unqualified and overworked, noting that one doctor had stated that he was expected to review over 80 cases per day, which is impossible for a doctor to properly review cases like these.

Aetna hasn’t decided whether it will appeal the judgement, but a spokesman said the company has “learned some things” during the course of this case.  I’ll bet.

NO solution to healthcare works unless it is a nationalized healthcare for all system.  Every developed country on the planet, with the notable exception of the United States, has figured out this problem.  It’s time we do, too.

Okay, so Mitch McConnell refused to even hear Senator Jeff Flake’s bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.  McConnell won’t let it go to a vote.

Well, two can play the Stubborn old Bastard game.

Flake then declared he will vote to reject all judicial nominees. “This is not a moment for our national leadership to be weak or irresolute,” he said on the Senate floor.

Flake is the swing vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee and, with Democrats, can vote down judicial nominations. McConnell could still bring these nominations forward to the Senate floor against the will of the committee, but Flake said he doubts this would happen because it would alienate GOP senators.

McConnell, who is legally deaf and blind but yet he speaks, says that it’s not time to protect Mueller because there’s no indication Trump will go after him.  When is time, Mitch?  After Trump’s goofy AG fires him?

Ya think Mueller has something on Mitch?  Lord have mercy, I sure hope so.

In a move worthy of Colombo, Vanity Fair has finally uncovered the mystery of why Trump did not attend any of the Veterans Day events.

One Republican briefed on the internal discussions said the real reason Trump did not want to go was because there would be no tent to stand under. “He was worried his hair was going to get messed up in the rain,” the source said. “[John] Bolton and everyone was telling him this was a big mistake.” A former administration official said Trump hates being outside in wet conditions.

It was his hair, you damn fools.

Marine One cannot fly in the rain?  Oh hell, Marine One can fly through a damn tornado.  The Secret Service didn’t want him going in his car because it’s raining and they just finished washing it?

No, he did not go because he knew he would look silly wearing a shower cap.

Y’all, there’s a new Christmas present for your children to celebrate the birth of a undocumented worker born in a strange land. It’s a wall to keep the likes of Sweet Jesus on his side to keep us God-Fearing Americans safe on the other side.

Just in time for Christmas, Conservative gift retailer Keep and Bear has a toy called “build the wall.” It’s a lego-like mess about how wonderful Trump’s border wall is.

“A mob of 10,000 Central American migrants is marching through Mexico and heading toward El Paso, Texas. Mexican border agents attempted to stop them at the Mexican border, but to no avail,” the promotional material reads.

No, I am not kidding.

Hell, this is so bad that even Amazon won’t carry it and they carry some really questionable crap.

They also have a depiction of the kind of people we don’t want in our country.

You shall know them by their hats.

You really need to test the waters over at Keep and Bear – it’ll get your blood Russian to your head.

You’re not going to believe this.  Wait, you probably will.

Mitch McConnell was obviously in a coma for the past two years.  Now he’s going to whine. Oh won’t that be charming.

Here’s the original op-ed, published at Fox News.

Mitch, remember that railroad you built to run us out of government.  You might wanna duck, old man, because it’s coming around.