TEN YEARS!  CURIOUS AIN’T IT?   Biden Gives Hunter A Blanket Pardon To Cover The Last Ten Years.

NOOO. SAY IT AIN’T SO. THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE:  Randi Weingarten And Unions Only Care About The Money.

HOPEFULLY HE REMAINS UNFLAPPABLE AND THIS IS THE SIGN OF A SEA CHANGE:  Unflappable Conservative Pundit Scott Jennings Joins LA Times Editorial Board.

WELL, IT DIDN’T WORK WITH KAVANAUGH!   Democrats and the Media Are Trying to ‘Brett Kavanaugh’ Trump DoD Pick Pete Hegseth.

MR. PRESIDENT, THIS IS THE SORT OF TALK YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON:  Trump: ‘There Will be All Hell to Pay’ if Hamas Doesn’t Release Hostages by January 20.

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.