There is an unspoken rule dictating that any Christmas comedy must include a scene where one of the characters gets completely tangled in strings of holiday lights. And while that situation may be funny onscreen, when it’s happening in your living room, it can be hard to find the humor in it.

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World Health Organization logo (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

The World Health Organization (WHO) raised eyebrows when it announced the name of the latest Covid-19 variant on Friday, Omicron, skipping over the next two letters in the Greek Alphabet.

The naming system using Greek letters was implemented in May to avoid confusion between variants and to lower the risk of stigmatizing areas of the world from which variants emerged.

The variant prior to Omicron was named Mu, which is followed by Nu and Xi in the Greek alphabet.

“‘Nu’ is too easily confounded with ‘new,’” Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the WHO said on Saturday.

“And ‘Xi’ was not used because it is a common last name,” added Jsarevic, saying that the WHO works to avoid “causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups” in naming viruses.

Many observers suggested that Xi was skipped as “Xi” composes part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name. Former President Donald Trump stirred controversy early in the pandemic by calling Covid-19 the “China virus” — a term Trump repeated as recently as Friday during an interview on the Fox Business Network.

CNN Newsroom Host Jim Acosta tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for his unwillingness to stand up to the controversial members of the House Republican Conference, warning this “means more hatred, more bigotry, more glorification of violence, and more appeasement.”

Acosta began his comments Saturday night, saying:

“Welcome to the Trump Republican Party freak show caucus, home of Paul Gosar (R-AZ) who was recently censured for posting a violent photoshopped anime showing him attacking prominent Democrats. And of course, there is Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who has been stripped of her committee assignments in part because of her past racist and anti-Semitic statements.”

He continued saying, “The freak show caucus knows the party’s current leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, is not going to stand in their way. McCarthy has gone from blaming Trump for January 6th to complaining that Trump should have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.”

Acosta played a clip of McCarthy speaking in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection saying former President Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on Congress. He then played a clip from a recent House floor speech in which McCarthy complains Trump did not get the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Middle East.

Acosta then explained that McCarthy is now beholden to Greene and Gosar as he eyes becoming speaker if the GOP flips the House in 2022, noting recent comments from Greene saying the McCarthy “doesn’t have the votes” right now to do so.

Acosta concluded:

“The lesson learned for Green and the rest of the freak show caucus, appeasement is always interpreted as weakness. And in the freak show caucus, loyalty only flows in one direction, not to the Republican leader, more like to the dear leader, which means more hatred, more bigotry, more glorification of violence, and more appeasement.”