As we head into the Christmas shopping season, yours truly regrets to inform readers that the relative frequency of late-November media mentions of the "Christmas shopping season" is at the lowest level in all of the years I have been tracking it — probably meaning that it's at an all-time low, period.

This is Year 11 of an effort which began in 2005. Each year has involved Google News searches on "Christmas shopping season" and "holiday shopping season" (both terms in quotes). In the past few years, after Google News merged its archive with its regular one-month news results, I've made sure to only search on the past month. As seen in the graph which follows, this year's result is down to one "Christmas" mention for every 16.5 "holiday" mentions:

On Monday's CNN Tonight, Buck Sexton of The Blaze exposed the left's special treatment of the Islamic faith, after liberal commentator Marc Lamont Hill attacked Bill Maher for his views on Islam. Hill claimed that "Islam is premised on some very basic fundamental values that are in line with what America articulates as its own value." Sexton countered by underlining that a "large portion" of Muslims subscribe to "ideas that, under normal circumstances, would be considered bigoted by American liberals."

In a bid to pump up his anemic African-American support, Bernie Sanders very publicly chowed down yesterday with rapper Killer Mike, who at a subsequent rally endorsed Sanders. Reporting on the meeting of the unlikely duo, the Washington Post wrote that among other things they discussed "their mutual appreciation for the work of the philosopher Noam Chomsky."

So Bernie digs Noam Chomsky. You remember Noam: condemned the killing of Bin Laden and said that George W.'s crimes "vastly exceed bin Laden's;" self-described anarchist-socialist; member of Marxist Industrial Workers of the World; agnostic on the Holocaust, doesn't think Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic; banned from visiting Israel because of anti-Israel positions; defender of the genocidal Khmer Rouge. So what has been the MSM's reaction to Sanders fondness for Chomsky? Crickets, of course. Try to imagine the MSM reaction if a leading GOP presidential candidate expressed appreciation for a similarly-controversial figure on the far right.

On Tuesday, The Atlantic featured an article that lamented decades of Republican race-baiting in presidential campaigns. The piece by [authors] allow that race-baiting “does not mean that those who employ them are racists,” but it does “show a willingness to exploit societal ills for political gain.” The authors don’t think Republicans are racists, just that Republicans have a tendency to exploit racist attitudes across America.

On the South Park episode "Sponsored Content," PC culture is upended when a student with a disability uses un-PC language. PC Principal is on the warpath to find out who printed a headline with the non-PC word "retarded." The culprit? Jimmy, the principled Editor-in-Chief of Super School News, who has cerebral palsy.