WELL, OBVIOUSLY. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY HAVE STANDARDS:  Democrats Are Upset About Hunter Biden Pardon Only Because They Think It Helps Trump.

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY IS UP: Welcome to the Party, Pal (cont’d): Nate Silver discovers a problem with our expert class.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

MIKE JUDGE DIDN’T INTEND FOR IDIOCRACY TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: How to sum up 2024? The Oxford University Press word of the year is ‘brain rot.’

Many of us have felt it, and now it’s official: “brain rot” is Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year.

Oxford University Press said Monday that the evocative phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” with its frequency of use increasing 230% from the year before.

Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

* * * * * * * *

Collins Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year is “brat” – the album title that became a summer-living ideal.

Remember the five minutes over the summer where the presidential election campaign of a then-59-year old sitting vice president in desperate need of a gravitas infusion tried to somehow adopt that word as a campaign slogan? Those were good times: ‘Kamala IS brat:’ Harris campaign goes lime-green to embrace the meme of the summer.

After Kamala Harris announced her bid for president, she reportedly raised a record-breaking $81m donations in just a day – but her most culturally powerful endorsement may have come from a single tweet.

As nearly all Democrats rallied behind the vice-president offering support in tweets and TV interviews, a perhaps unlikely voice weighed in: the British pop singer Charli xcx, who tweeted, “kamala IS brat.”

That’s high praise from the musician, who released her album, also titled Brat, last month. Brat is not just a name, but a lifestyle, one inspired by noughties excess and rave culture.

The archetypical brat, Charli explained on TikTok, is “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.

Brat summer essentials, again according to Charli, are “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, a strappy white top with no bra”.

Perhaps most importantly, Charli chose a neon lime backdrop for her album cover, one that’s sickeningly sweet, representing both the highs of a long night out and the impending crash of a hangover.

Canonical brats include the actor and model Julia Fox, who appeared in the music video for Charli’s 360 alongside a cast of fellow proclaimed it girls such as Chloë Sevigny, Hari Nef, and Emma Chamberlain. Now, Harris joins their ranks.

“That’s high praise from the musician.”

Incidentally, “Joy,” which was “Brat’s” replacement the following month, also brought some baggage of its own for the flailing campaign and its media enablers to deal with: No, the Kamala Harris campaign hasn’t adopted a Nazi slogan. People online have claimed Vice President Kamala Harris has adopted the Nazi phrase “Strength Through Joy” as her campaign slogan. That’s false.

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: ‘Cataclysmic’ solar storm hit Earth around 2687 years ago, ancient tree rings reveal: If this colossal solar storm hit our technologically advanced world the effects would have been devastating.

Solar storms and asteroid strikes are two major threats that we’ve only recently begun to take seriously. But I think we’re doing more to prepare for a dangerous asteroid than for solar storms.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: The Real Reason the Mainstream Media is Dying (Video).

EDITH WILSON: THE NEXT GENERATION: How Jill Biden led the family campaign to pressure Joe into changing his mind on a Hunter pardon.

For months, President Joe Biden relentlessly insisted there was no chance of offering his son Hunter a pardon.

But he ultimately changed his mind, emerging from a Thanksgiving vacation at a $36 million Nantucket compound on Sunday to drop the bombshell announcement he would be saving Hunter from a potential jail term.

DailyMail.com can now reveal what really happened during that five-day stay on a chilly Massachusetts island and the lead up to the holiday that prompted Biden to make the call – no matter the stain on his legacy.

The decision came after a week of intense family time, including a baby shower for his first great-grandchild and being cocooned with his wife and children on Nantucket’s inner harbor.

At the heart of the 82-year-old’s decision was family, both Joe Biden’s unconditional love for his and the deep loyalty the Bidens’ have for one another.

Leading the charge was Jill Biden, known as her son’s ‘biggest defender.’ With her at the Nantucket compound were Hunter himself, wife Melissa and the Bidens’ daughter Ashley.

Related:

But with 49 days left in the (p)resident’s administration, pardon season may have just begun: Why Joe Biden Might Pardon His Brother Next. James Biden was also involved in Hunter’s business dealings.

But what about the Big Guy himself? In 2018, Jonathan Turley wrote: Yes, Donald Trump can pardon himself, but it would be a disastrous idea.

Will Joe boldly go where even Trump refused to go during his first term?

UPDATE:

JUST NBC THE INSANITY! Yale psychiatrist calls it ‘essential’ for liberals to cut off Trump-voting loved ones during holidays.

With the holiday season approaching, a prominent mental health expert told MSNBC viewers that they should feel justified in cutting ties with relatives that voted for President-elect Donald Trump.

Yale University chief psychiatry resident Dr. Amanda Calhoun spoke to MSNBC host Joy Reid on Friday night about ways liberals who are devastated with Trump’s re-election this week can cope with news, including separating from certain loved ones.

“So, if you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you… it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why,” Calhoun told Reid.

More from Calhoun: She’s Chief Resident of Yale’s Child Psychiatry Program. She Also Says Her Husband Can’t Have White Friends ‘Unless They Meet Me First.’ Dr. Amanda Calhoun says psychiatry ‘is rooted in anti-Black racism.’

As Ed Morrissey writes in response, “one has to wonder whether MSNBC is trying to cram a decade’s worth of crazy into the few months they have left. If so, then Joy Reid is the woman to deliver.”

If this year is their Götterdämmerung, Keith Olbermann must be thrilled that MSNBC is going out in a crescendo of madness not seen since his heyday there: Rachel Maddow’s former mentor says she ‘lost her principles’ for $25m salary.

Keith Olbermann, whom Maddow has previously credited with starting her television career, claimed that his former protege had abandoned her principles for her lofty salary.

Maddow is reported to have negotiated a $25 million salary in a five-year deal with MSNBC for a weekly show, even though her viewership has plummeted following Donald Trump’s election win earlier this month.

Olbermann, who hosted Countdown with Keith Olbermann for eight years until 2011, made the remark after a social media user suggested that MSNBC, a liberal network, might have to “change its identity” if sold off by parent company Comcast.

They added: “Or maybe [Rachel Maddow] should leave and build a new operation.”

Olbermann replied: “She just re-signed for $25 million. If you think she’d do anything for principle, I’ll light a candle for you.”

Olbermann thinks Maddow should resign, huh? But then Olbermann thinks everyone he dislikes should resign:

Note that there are many more names besides those in my screencap – and the day isn’t over yet.

WELL FOR ONE THING, YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET OFF THE TOILET: Protecting Your Muscle Mass Is Vital For Healthy Aging – Here’s Why.

MAKE THE RUBBLE BOUNCE:

BRUTAL: Brianna Keilar on CNN just made Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) watch a clip of himself insisting that Biden would never pardon Hunter. She then asked: "What does that feel like?"

They even kept him on-screen as the video played so we could watch his reaction. pic.twitter.com/uC6EM06Ikh

— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) December 2, 2024

THE LONELY LIVES OF SCIENTISTS: Scientists Just Found 140 Reasons to Love Spider Venom.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Behold the Hundreds of Crimes for Which Hunter Biden Just Got Pardoned.

BUT DID THEY HAVE A V8: What fossilized dino feces can tell us about their rise to dominance.

TAY-TAY WILL BE TRAPPED IN 2020 FOREVER:

I had forgotten the meaning of the phrase “raw dogging,” and was more than a little trepidatious about what I would encounter when I typed those words into Google: The ‘Rawdogging’ Flights Trend, Explained.

[I]n this golden age of in-flight entertainment with all these options available to travelers, who would want to just stare ahead at the seatback, watching nothing but perhaps the flight map for the duration of a long-haul flight?

The trend is referred to as “rawdogging” a flight and it basically means foregoing any of the in-flight perks—no in-flight entertainment, no snacks or beverages from the carts rolling through the aisles, and, in the most extreme cases, no drinking water or napping.

Like many trends, it’s playing out on TikTok, with some travelers posting about their most extreme rawdogging flight feats: “Just rawdogged a 7-hour flight (new personal best) no headphones, no movie, no water, nothing,” wrote one user: @oiwudini, a Manchester-based DJ and producer. “The power of my mind knows no bounds.”

To be honest, I was expecting references to the sort of activities that are Lorenz-approved — rather paradoxically, given her extreme germaphobe mindset: Masked-up Taylor Lorenz attends Pornhub awards.

UPDATE:

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Hunter Biden’s pardon is the death rattle of the elites.

Look, we don’t have to be heartless bastards about it. Many among us would opt to save a child* from jail, even if it meant backtracking on all our fine moral grandstanding. But the problem is the Dems tied their political rectitude to Biden’s acceptance of the jury’s democratic deliberations. They used the Hunter case to morally distinguish themselves from the allegedly lawless bruisers of the Trump set. They swore, endlessly, that they would abide by the rules and restore normalcy to the Trump-rattled republic. And they didn’t. They ended up exploiting presidential power for personal favour to a degree Trump never did. Their claims to moral distinction lie in tatters. Their delusion of righteousness stands exposed as just that: a delusion. This is why this pardon matters.

It feels like a Last Days of Rome vibe has gripped Biden’s White House. One envisions Jill still stomping the halls in fury over Kamala’s betrayal. And officials muttering bitterly about Nancy Pelosi’s Brutus-style wielding of the knife against Joe. All while Joe busies himself with freeing his fallen son from the very justice Joe claims to love. This is what happens when an elite becomes ever more estranged from the people: it starts to rule by itself and for itself. Rarely has the moral exhaustion of a government been on such frank and grim display.

* Hunter is 54, so he’s hardly a child. And Biden’s been looking the other way at his actions for his entire life, leading up to this moment:

On the other hand, Hunter spent his childhood being a political prop for Joe; from that point of view, like the misguided kids of Hollywood celebrities, where there’s no moral compass to be handed down from generation to generation, I am somewhat sympathetic:

That’s the crash that Biden has spent much of his adult life lying about the cause of: ‘Sick To My Stomach:’ Joe Biden lied about my dad being drunk in crash that killed his wife and daughter… he’s got a nerve calling out Trump.

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Is Trump About to Pull off an Iran Hostage Moment?

I LIKE DINOSAURS WITH V8S: The 2024 Lexus IS500 Is a Friggin’ Dinosaur, but One With a Glorious V-8.

TO BE FAIR, ESTONIA DIDN’T SUBSIDIZE THE IMPORTATION OF A NEW CRIMINAL CLASS FROM ABROAD:

Sweden is considering to outsource some of its prisons to Estonia.

After a dramatic rise in violent crime, Swedish prisons are overcrowded.

In Estonia, the situation is the opposite. A drastic decrease in crime has left the country with half of its prisons empty. pic.twitter.com/1X2qBcmWoD

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 1, 2024

According to the replies, that picture is of “a cell in the Swedish maximum security prison Kumla.”

Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the surprisingly posh tiny home-style living.

CYBER MONDAY DEAL: Piscifun Fishing Tackle Backpack with 4 Trays. #CommissionEarned

THEY LIED. Report: Scientists at Center of ‘Lab Leak’ Concerns Misled Congress. “A sprawling final report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic provokes questions over whether some in the scientific community – including EcoHealth Alliance, the American nonprofit that collaborated on novel coronavirus discovery and engineering research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and its president Peter Daszak – could face criminal charges stemming from the COVID-19 tragedy.”

Trump’s FBI and DOJ will be busy.

THAT’S NO SKIN OFF JOE’S NOSE: Hunter’s Creditor Speaks Out on No-Consequences Pardon. “They say crime doesn’t pay, and in the case of Hunter Biden, one could certainly say that the criminal doesn’t pay. A man to whom Hunter reportedly owes over $300,000 is not exactly thrilled at Hunter‘s blanket pardon from his senile father.”

GUN CONTROL GROUPS ALWAYS PREDICT BLOOD IN THE STREETS WHEN GUN CONTROLS ARE REMOVED, BUT IT NEVER HAPPENS: “Yet something funny happened after 2022. Instead of the proverbial ‘blood in the streets’ that was predicted, the national homicide rate dropped. This happened everywhere; in the antigun states forced to issue carry permits for the first time, in pro-gun states like Ohio and Florida which went further and adopted ‘constitutional carry’ (meaning no permit is required to carry a gun if you can legally own one), and even in individual cities like Philadelphia that began issuing permits more liberally as a result of the litigation.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches first Long March 12 from new commercial spaceport in boost for country’s lunar plans.

China launched its first Long March 12 rocket Saturday, marking an advance in its crewed moon plans and the debut of a new spaceport that will boost the country’s access to space.

The two-stage, 62-meter-tall Long March 12 lifted off at 9:25 a.m. Eastern (1425 UTC) Nov. 30 from the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. The rocket climbed into the night sky above the coastal spaceport, with amateur live streams from the area capturing the event.

The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), the rocket’s maker, declared launch success within an hour of liftoff. SAST announced the previously undisclosed payloads on the flight to be the experimental “Satellite Internet Technology Test Satellite” and “Technology Test Satellite-3”. No details of the spacecraft were provided.

The kerosene-fueled Long March 12 is China’s first 3.8-meter-diameter launch vehicle. It can carry a payload of 12,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit (LEO), and 6,000 kg to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), according to SAST. The new rocket could play a role in the construction of China’s planned LEO megaconstellations.

Without reusable rockets, those megaconstellations could prove a huge cash sink.

HIGHER-ED REFORM SUGGESTIONS FOR THE AGE OF TRUMP 2.0. Some very good ones here from Richard Vedder.

(ALMOST) NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW: Here’s How Pardoning Hunter Biden Was Really About Protecting Joe.