CHRISTIAN TOTO ON THE TRUMP EFFECT: Stewart, Rowling, Spacey Defy Woke Mob.

President-Elect Donald Trump hasn’t taken the oath of office yet, but he’s already had a pop culture impact.

One late-night comic pushed partisanship aside to speak actual truth to power. Progressive host Jon Stewart railed against President Joe Biden’s blanket pardon for son Hunter Biden from his “Daily Show” perch.

“I didn’t know pardons covered crimes you ‘may have’ commited. I’m surprised Biden didn’t include the phrase ‘on Earth 1 or any of the Earths in the multi-verse,’” he said.

Progressive stars have fled the free speech confines of X for the fledgling Bluesky platform following Trump’s re-election. The list includes Mark Hamill, Rob Reiner, Alyssa Milano and Stephen King.

A more startling example?

Actor Kevin Spacey, still canceled for serial sex abuse allegations, recently visited Israel alongside journalist Douglas Murray. The trip allowed the two-time Oscar winner, who has been cleared in two court cases but faces a new legal hurdle in 2025, to view areas of the country devastated by the Oct. 7 attacks.

It’s hardly a move an actor seeking a Hollywood comeback would take. Many of his peers have sided with the Palestinian cause following Oct. 7.

Read the whole thing.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

PHOTOS: A peek inside the restoration of the iconic Notre Dame cathedral.

THE HAMMER OF THE GODS: The First Critical Biography of Led Zeppelin Finally Available on the Kindle.

My latest, on Stephen Davis’ somewhat infamous 1985 look at Zeppelin’s now infamous very much non-#metoo-approved debauchery, over at Ed Driscoll.com.

LEFT BASHING BLUE COLLARS ISN’T NEW: Go back to the 1960s and the “New” Left and there you find Neo-Marxist intellectual Herbert Marcuse. He basically told his comrades to stop looking to the downtrodden working class to lead the Revolution.

Instead, Richard Pollock writes in his latest column, Marcuse pointed to the newly emerging class of college-educated upper middle class twit-brains we know today as Harris/Sanders/AOC enthusiasts.

But don’t assume things will remain as they are, with elitists like Alex Baldwin and Sharon Stone driving every last working class stiff out of the Democratic Party. Pollock tells us there a few lonely voices on the Left who see this path as a huge mistake.

HEH: Seattle Is Ordered to Stop Blocking Illegal Alien Deportations in the Most Hilarious Court Decision Ever.

HMM: Inflatable gastric balloon design with controller could help people lose weight.

THE TRUE MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO: Days of disabled workers earning less than $7.25 an hour may soon be over. “The rule, if passed, would no longer allow employers to apply for certificates under Section 14(c) of Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows for the subminimum wage. It would set a three-year phase-out period for employers who currently have existing certificates.”

Easy call: Fewer people with disabilities will have jobs.

DEVELOPING: Head of America’s biggest health insurer shot dead in ‘targeted attack’ outside investor meeting.

The head of America’s biggest health insurer has been killed in an early morning shooting outside an investor meeting in New York.

UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, 50, was shot outside the Hilton Hotel, where the company’s investor conference was being held.

Police said Mr Thompson had been rushed to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

United Healthcare is the health insurance subsidiary of United Health Group, one of America’s biggest healthcare companies.

According to the New York Post, police said the event appeared to be a targeted attack.

Mr Thompson was shot at around 6:45am. The suspect, described as wearing a cream-coloured jacket, a black face mask and a grey backpack, fled on a bicycle.

“No arrests have been made in connection with the attack,” the Telegraph reports.

GOOD NEWS FOR HIIT FANS: Short, intense bursts of exercise lower women’s cardiovascular disease risk by almost half.

ACE OF SPADES: The Hunter Biden Pardon Has Stripped Bare the Democrats’ Years-Long Preening About How They’re the Party That “Respects the Rule of Law.”

SCOTT JENNINGS: Listen, you guys can spend all day long trying to spin this, that this is Donald Trump’s fault, that this is somehow caused by Donald Trump.

“Oh, he’s appointing the wrong people. Oh, he did it.” This is the worst possible thing a president could possibly do to his party and to the country. To sit for a year and say, “I will not do this. I will not do this. The rule of law is sacred. We have to respect the justice system, juries. We have to respect juries. We have to respect the guardrails and the norms of our democracy.” These people are liars.

“Inflation is transitory. Afghanistan is a success. The border is secure. Robert Hur is a liar. The videos are cheap fakes. Biden has a cold. He’ll never drop out. Oh, I’ll never pardon Hunter.” It’s all a lie. It is all a grift. Every American except the most partisan brain-rotted people are going to be outraged by this today.

He is going to leave office–you think 38-39% job approval is bad? Just you wait. Just you wait. He’s disgraced, disgraced today. Outrageous.

Related: Chuck Todd Rips The Bidens: They ‘Put The Entire Democratic Party…In The Position It’s In Now.’

NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd tore into President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden after the president issued a pardon on Sunday to their son, Hunter Biden, who was facing possible prison time over gun and tax crimes.

In a discussion with journalist Chris Cillizza, Todd said he knew “100%” the pardon was going to happen and insisted President Biden “needs therapy” because he has “not processed” the death of his older son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who passed away of brain cancer at the age of 46 in 2015.

If Todd knew “100%” the pardon was going to happen,” why was he berating Republican guests who brought up Hunter’s nasty habits?

Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Chuck Ross pointed out an interview with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on NBC’s “Meet The Press” early last year in which Todd “went to the mat” for Hunter Biden when the first son was under investigation but had not yet been charged with any crimes.

“Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name,” Todd said at one point. At another, he said, “Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity.”

Todd isn’t mad at Joe and Hunter. Todd is mad because he’s a former Democratic Party operative who for years feigned at being an above it all political “ref” (his word) and pretended that was no liberal bias in old media, and has finally been exposed as just another Democratic Party operative with a byline.

WHEN IS A NAZI NOT A NAZI? Inquiring minds want to know.

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT: Judge Scarsi Just Gave Hunter Biden the Spanking Joe Should Have.

PEOPLE ARE ASKING HOW TO DONATE TO INSTAPUNDIT AGAIN, SO HERE YOU GO. You can donate via stripe using the silver “Donate” button at the top of the right sidebar, or by using this link to go to Stripe. You can mail a check (made out to Glenn Reynolds, not InstaPundit) — people still do that — to 118 N. Peters Rd. #12-230, Knoxville, TN 37923. Or you can become a paid subscriber to my Substack, which is always appreciated. Any way you choose to do it, I thank you, and my family thanks you.

SHOCKER: Maintaining muscle as you age helps keep brain sharp.

YES: Leftist women say, ‘better sterile than reasonable.’

Related: Neurosis and the Curley Effect.

“RESTORATIVE JUSTICE”:

This is Daniel Penny's prosecutor Dafna Yoran (Who repeatedly referred to Penny as the "White man" during the trial) , as profiled in Go Magazine's "100 Women We Love." She brags about pioneering the "restorative justice" sentence for an NYC murderer. pic.twitter.com/NVeFxko2dS

— Jeremy Carl (@realJeremyCarl) December 3, 2024

The case is never the case, to twist a famous phrase, the case is always the revolution.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Nine helpful tips for elderly fathers of adult criminals — The Biden Guide to Loving Your Boy:

7) Stay out of sibling drama

There will inevitably come a time in every father’s life when one of your crackhead sons starts cheating on his wife with his dead brother’s widow. Don’t get involved. If a bunch of scumbag reporters keep asking for comment, give them a generic statement about how “we’re all lucky” the two lovebirds “found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness.” Remember, trying to insert yourself in some messy family drama is an unwelcome distraction from your own ambitions, presidential or otherwise.

8) Let him know your door is always open

If your son needs a place to crash, he should always feel welcome at your place of residence. If you happen to live in a heavily fortified location such as the White House, letting your son stay is a great way to help him avoid being served legal documents related to an ongoing paternity suit, for example. Your fatherly hospitality needn’t be unconditional, so set some ground rules. “Don’t leave drugs in the tourist section” is a good place to start.

9) Encourage him to express his feelings

Boys are often discouraged from showing emotion. A good father will always make his son feel comfortable expressing his feelings. For example, your son might be hesitant to discuss the “body dysmorphia” he suffers due to his “very large penis.” You should encourage him to talk about it. There will be times he lashes out at your wife, who may or may not refer to herself as a doctor for some reason, by calling her a “selfish silly entitled c—t” and a “vindictive moron” who “wouldn’t survive one class in a[n] ivy graduate program.” Let him vent. What are you going to do about it anyway? Punish him? That’s not very Biden.

Why, it’s as if: Joe Biden was never a wonderful guy, and definitely not the savior of democracy, no matter what his media supporters said.

SICK: Hunter Skipped Out on Rent, But Offered to Pay His Landlord With Art Made From…

SOMETHING IN THE AIR: Have you noticed it? Something different in the air since November 5. People smiling more, happier. It’s called optimism, something that became a rare commodity between 2021 and this year’s elections.

Issues & Insights (I&I) certainly noticed and they present multiple measures demonstrating it’s not our imagination. To cite but one such example, I&I points out that “the RealClearMarkets/TIPP Economic Optimism Index jumped 13.4 percent in November to 53.2, the highest in more than three years. Anything over 50 indicates a positive for optimism, and this is the first time the index has been positive since September 2021.

YES, EVEN AS THEY GO ON ABOUT TRUMP BEING A THREAT TO THE “RULE OF LAW.” Are Elite Colleges (And Law Schools) Circumventing The Supreme Court’s SFFA Decision?

TYLER O’NEIL: Supreme Court Case Exposes Medical Scandal of Epic Proportions.

It’s hard to wrap your head around just how grotesque it is that many medical associations and the federal government have adopted the idea that it’s healthy to sterilize children in an attempt to “affirm” a stated transgender identity. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will shed much-needed sunlight on this medical scandal of epic proportions.

Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice will explain how activists conspired to flip the Hippocratic Oath on its head. Meanwhile, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio—a female who says he identifies as male—will argue that Tennessee’s law banning Frankensteinian medical experiments on kids violates federal law by discriminating on the basis of sex.

The Supreme Court is hearing the case because of this discrimination argument. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld Tennessee’s law, finding that it doesn’t entail discrimination. But the Biden-Harris administration appealed that decision, and the Supreme Court took up the case—now known as U.S. v. Skrmetti after Jonathan Skrmetti, the Republican attorney general of Tennessee.

I will briefly address the logic behind the pro-transgender case, then explain the medical scandal that will emerge in Wednesday’s oral arguments.

Read the whole thing.

GREAT PICK:

President-elect Trump has nominated Shift4 founder and SpaceX astronaut Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) as the next NASA Administrator. pic.twitter.com/r3ibIFzcWa

— A. Pettit (@PettitFrontier) December 4, 2024

An entrepreneur and astronaut in charge of NASA?

MUCH more like this, please.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Biden Going out with Another $15 Billion on Your Tab for These Two Failures.

READER FAVORITE: Vantrue N2 Pro Uber Dual Dash Cam Infrared Night Vision. #CommissionEarned