Visitors to the Drudge Report Tuesday evening were treated to the headline, "OBAMA'S NEW 'CHRISTMAS TREE TAX,'" accompanied by a photo of what would appear to be the president freezing a child solid with his Jack Frost breath so he could snatch away her tower of Legos. As breathlessly relayed in festering Fox News subsidiary Fox Nation, it's a chilling tale of a Commander in Grinch and his plans to steal Christmas via the levying of a tax on all Yuletide shrubberies. Why? Because he hates Christians, of course. (It might stem from the fact that Christmas always overshadows Kwanzaadan, and the seasonal magic of its ceremonial goat raffle.)

Except a tax on Christmas trees has been in the works since 2008, towards the end of the Bush administration, when members of the National Christmas Tree Association convinced the Department of Agriculture to collect a fresh-tree surcharge in order to "fund research into marketing Christmas trees."

From the Federal Register:

The initial assessment rate will be $0.15 per Christmas tree domestically produced or imported into the United States and could be increased up to $0.20 per Christmas tree. The purpose of the program will be to strengthen the position of fresh cut Christmas trees in the marketplace and maintain and expand markets for Christmas trees within the United States.

Want to know more about the fascinating subject of Christmas tree marketing? The whole thing is explained in the fall issue of Christmas Trees: The World's Leading Christmas Tree Magazine. Meanwhile, Fox can get a head start on their next White House holiday expose, "Obama to Israel: 'Back Off of Iran or No Hanukkah Gelt For You.'"

[mediamatters.org, Screengrab via drudgereport.com]