There will be no column today, sorry. I have been laid low by the flu, and can barely stay awake for a half an hour at a time. I really did plan on writing something today, but this has proven impossible. Hopefully I will be recovered enough by Monday to resume regular columns (starting with the Obama Poll Watch column for December).

Once again, my apologies for the disruption of our schedule, but it truly is beyond my control.

It's that time of year again -- time to check the Lake Superior State University's annual list of "banished words." Or, perhaps, a "back to twerk" column.

OK, I apologize for that one. But you just knew twerking would be on this year's list, didn't you? Indeed, it ranked second only to "selfie," another shoo-in for banishment this year. But while some of this year's list was pretty obvious, there are a few that I haven't noticed have become annoyingly overused. Perhaps I'm just talking to the wrong people or something. Or the right people, maybe?

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It's time for a regularly-scheduled checkup (to use a medical metaphor) on how Obamacare's doing. Three months in, things do seem to be improving. So much so, in fact, that January will (one way or another) see a shift in the political discussion to other aspects of the health reform law than just the HealthCare.gov website. Whatever way the story gets spun next month, it will be different than the prevailing storyline up to this point. But before we get to that, let's take a look at the progress made in the past month.

December was pretty crucial for the website. After the interminable wait in October and November, this was pretty much the last chance for the federal insurance exchange site. But now that the numbers are starting to leak out, it looks like the website performed not just competently, but downright admirably once all the fixes were in.

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Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!

Part 1 of this column ran last week, just in case you missed it. We've got a lot to cover, so let's jump right in with no further introduction.

   Destined For Political Stardom

At the risk of later being seen as overly optimistic, we're going to hand the Destined For Political Stardom award to the newly-elected mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. De Blasio not only won convincingly both in the Democratic primary (over such luminaries as Anthony Weiner, but more on him in a bit) and in the general election itself, which he carried by almost fifty points. That's a pretty impressive beginning, you've got to admit.

De Blasio's campaign was cheered on by progressives, since he ran a full-throated campaign on the subject of inequality, which is seen in more stark contrast in New York (Manhattan, especially) than perhaps anywhere else in the country. How successful Bill de Blasio will be is an open question right now, but so far he certainly seems to have his priorities straight, and it's easy to see him using this as a steppingstone to higher and higher office. So, optimistically wishing de Blasio the best, we feel he is indeed Destined For Political Stardom.

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Just a quick note for everyone with the hope that Santa brought what you wanted this year. There will be no column today, as we're getting the final "McLaughlin Awards" together.

Which means, of course, that tonight is pretty much your last chance for any nominations, which you can list as a comment here or back on the open call article (either way, I'll see them).

Once again, hope everyone's having a great holiday and join us back here for Part 2 of our big year-end wrapup tomorrow!

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Ho, Ho, Holy Cow -- Santa Gets Fighter Escort On U.S. Military Site (Reuters)

A U.S. military website showing Santa Claus delivering his presents while guarded by warplanes has some children's advocates worried.

In a twist to its tradition of tracking an animated version of Santa Claus' sleigh and reindeer as he flies around the globe on December 24, the military is adding the animated fighter plane escort to give a realistic feel to the popular feature, said a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

"We wanted to let folks know that, hey, this is a NORAD video, and we're the military and this is our mission," said the spokesman, Navy Captain Jeff Davis.

[Note: The above article is real. What follows, however, is not.]

We hereby interrupt our live coverage of Pope Francis leading Midnight Mass this Christmas Eve, because we've got some breaking news from the Pentagon. We apologize for pre-empting our traditional Christmas Eve programming, and promise we will continue our coverage after the newsbreak, on a slight time delay so our viewers won't miss a single minute of the Pope.

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Welcome everyone to our year-end awards columns! Every year, we pre-empt our normal "Friday Talking Points" columns for two weeks, in order to take a look back at the year that was.

As always, we will be using the categories created by The McLaughlin Group for their own year-end show, as an homage (our lawyers inform us that this is much better than saying we're ripping McLaughlin's categories off... ahem).

We've got a lot to get to (warning: this column is going to be a LONG one), so we'll get started right away, but not before inviting everyone who disagrees with these choices to chime in below, in the comments section. Also, if you're interested in making nominations for next week's "Part 2" awards, you can do so over at my site, where there is a full list of categories (Part 2 starts after the "Person Of The Year," which is the final award we're going to hand out today).

OK, that's enough, let's get on with it.

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Today is really just going to be an extended program note, just to warn everyone, which ends with a crass fundraising plea.

I've been busy reviewing 2014 in preparation for tomorrow's (and next Friday's) year-end awards columns, so you've got that to look forward to.

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'Tis the season.

What season? Well, that depends upon your belief system, doesn't it?

For Christians, it is the season of Advent, the season of Noël; in short, the season of Christmas. For Jews, the season of Hanukkah. For Muslims, the season of Eid.

For others, joining in the mirth has now come to mean celebrating the season of Festivus, a made-up holiday from a made-up television show. And even the Flying Spaghetti Monster adherents are getting in on the fun this year.

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A federal judge just made news by ruling that the state of Utah overstepped its constitutional bounds in their definition of bigamy, ruling in favor of a polygamist who had previously left the state for fear of being prosecuted. This is the first step along a path I predicted six years ago, and is a big victory for polygamists' rights. Or for "polyamory," which has been adopted as a more-neutral term for those who "love many." It is not quite the victory that some of the news headlines would have had America believe ("bigamy," or being legally married to more than one person, is still a crime in Utah, even after the ruling), but it certainly is a first step along the path of securing legal equality.

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