OLYMPIC NIGHTMARE IN BEIJING: Jeff Dunetz of The Lid has a solid roundup of reasons why the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to award the 2022 winter games to China was so utterly, predictably … stupid.

LEAKED RCMP MESSAGES: “Time for the protesters to hear our jackboots on the ground.”

HEH:

ROGER SIMON: Djokovic, the Trucker? Tennis Star Sticks to His Guns as Sports Press Explodes.

The sports press—those noted “progressives” who almost uniformly praised Colin Kaepernick for “taking a knee” and did their best to ignore LeBron James’s coddling of the genocidal Chinese communists— immediately jumped all over Djokovic as if here a leper on the loose.

Said Sports Illustrated: “Novak Djokovic Is Still Making Bad Decisions.”

The Guardian chimed in: “Novak Djokovic’s propensity for self-sabotage has become a defining trait.”

Tennis World opined: “Novak Djokovic’s darkest moment.”

And, of course, our friends at The New York Times wrapped it all up for us:

“For now, Djokovic will still not get vaccinated against the coronavirus, no matter how much it costs him, as he made clear in an interview with the BBC that was broadcast on Tuesday and in which the interviewer, Amol Rajan, summed up a fair share of the global mood by abandoning journalistic sang-froid and imploring: ‘Why Novak, why, why?’

“‘Because the principles of decision-making on my body are more important than any title or anything else,’ Djokovic answered. ‘I’m trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can.’

“That approach has him out of tune with his sport and his times,” the NY Times concluded.

Oh, really? Tell that to the brave Canadian truckers and their supporters who are having their bank accounts frozen by a despotic leader who arrests peaceful protesters with impunity.

But it’s a safe bet the NY Times doesn’t have much sympathy for the truckers or anyone else who doesn’t toe their line.

In other news from the world of sport:

PROF. JACOBSON: When Fascism Comes To America, It Will Look Like Justin Trudeau’s Canada. “Trudeau’s dangerous not just because he’s abusing Canadians, but because he is providing the wish list for crackdowns by Democrats in the U.S.: ‘every single bank, credit union, investment broker and insurance provider in the country has been deputized to figure out if they have a blockader as a client, and to immediately freeze their accounts if so.'”

OUT SHORTLY FROM LARRY CORREIA: Servants of War.

HE’S GONE FULL LINCOLN PROJECT. YOU NEVER GO FULL LINCOLN PROJECT. Major Pastors Rebuke David French Over His Repeated Criticism Of Churches And ‘White Evangelicals.’

OPEN THREAD: It’s getting kinda hectic.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Starship lookalike among China’s new human spaceflight concepts.

RUTHLESS COVERUP CONTINUES: Jeffrey Epstein’s pimp Jean-Luc Brunel ‘hangs himself alone in Paris jail with no CCTV’: Ghislaine Maxwell’s family ‘shocked and scared for her’ as man who procured 1,000 women for paedophile financier dies days after Andrew deal. “Another death by hanging in a high-security prison. My reaction is one of total shock and bewilderment.” Plus: “Brunel is thought to have been alone at the time of his death and there were no cameras to record his final hours, according to an investigating source at La Santé – one of the toughest jails in France.” How convenient.

Who’s behind the killings? People with a lot to hide, and a lot of power. Likely people who purport to be protecting us from “hate.”

HMM: Study of Over 1 Million People Reveals Heart Attacks Can Reduce Parkinson’s Risk.

SHOCKER: Hepatitis C patients cured with antiviral medicines are less likely to be hospitalized, need ER care for liver.

DISPATCHES FROM MOSTLY PEACEFUL TRUDEAUPIA: Rebel News journalist Alexa Lavoie attacked by Ottawa police.

As police and “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators faced off in downtown Ottawa on early Saturday morning, police turned physical towards the protest line, deploying riot suppression devices and striking multiple protesters.

On Saturday, the gridlock continued as police, who formed a line in front of the protesters, attempted to push back against demonstrators gathered at the city center.

Amid loud pops, Rebel News’s Quebec-based reporter Alexa Lavoie was directly hit by police during the melee, injuring her.

Prior to the melee, at least two police officers can be seen accidentally dropping some of their less-lethal firearms and attempting to pick them back up as other officers push back the line.

Seen earlier today on Twitter, here’s an Economist cover that’s aged like fine milk:

UPDATE: Past performance is no guarantee of future results:

(Updated and bumped.)

ANALYSIS: TRUE. The left vs the people: The truckers’ protests have exposed liberals as authoritarians and leftists as enemies of the working class.

THE NAKED EMPEROR KNOWS.

DRUNK WOMAN ON MOTORIZED SUITCASE CREATES HAVOC AT ORLANDO AIRPORT:

Video has surfaced of an intoxicated woman accused of wreaking havoc at Orlando International Airport. The footage can be viewed in the player [at link].

The 31-year-old woman has been arrested and is facing a string of charges, including battery on a law enforcement officer, assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting officer with violence, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

According to an affidavit, the April 2021 incident began around 6:30 p.m. when officers were called to Orlando International Airport for a disorderly passenger.

Police said the 31-year-old woman was denied boarding because she was drunk, slurring her speech and yelling at people around her.

The officer said he tried to explain that he could help her get onto a different flight after she sobered up, to which the woman responded by “angrily rolling away, yelling profanities while atop a motorized luggage bag.”

I blame Jeremy Clarkson:

WHY DRUDGE REPORT IS DEAD: Issues & Insights has a fine post-mortem. Don’t know how I missed it earlier this week, but it’s still well worth reading today if you did, too.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO THOSE WHO PUBLISH FAUCI FACTS: Just ask Open The Books’ Founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski. Forbes loves Hillary Clinton and Anthony Fauci, so they canned Andrzejewski after he used his 209th column for Forbes to tell people about Fauci being the highest paid federal employee. With my latest PJ Media column, I fill in some VIP context that may well explain why Forbes acted so cowardly.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Meet the California Dem Who Invited the CCP Into His Local Classrooms.

A Democrat running for Congress in California worked to bring an educational program sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party into his community’s K-12 classrooms.

As a member of the Hacienda La Puente school board in 2010, Democrat Jay Chen spearheaded an effort to bring the Confucius Classroom program to his district. The program is funded and run by China’s Ministry of Education, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party that provides American K-12 schools with teachers and curriculum materials to teach their students Chinese language and culture. It’s also linked to the CCP’s Confucius Institute program, which provides similar resources to colleges and universities across the United States. The State Department in 2020 labeled that program a Chinese propaganda entity aimed at “advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign,” and CCP officials have acknowledged that Confucius Institutes are “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.”

Roughly a decade after voting to bring a Confucius Classroom to Southern California, Chen is running to unseat freshman congresswoman Michelle Steel (R., Calif.). But the Democrat isn’t distancing himself from his school board tenure—in fact, he’s fundraising off of it. In a recent campaign email, Chen accused Steel of engaging in “anti-Asian racism” and contributing to the “rise in violent, anti-Asian hate crimes” after Steel highlighted Chen’s support for “CCP-sponsored schools.” Chen also dismissed criticism of Confucius Classrooms, which he described merely as a “Chinese language and culture program” that is not tied to the CCP.

Steel spokesman Lance Trover brushed off Chen’s anti-Asian racism charge as “ridiculous,” noting that Steel is one of the first Korean-American women to serve in Congress.

Sure seems to be a lot of white supremacy in California schools these days: Recalled San Francisco School-Board President Claims ‘White Supremacists’ Are to Blame for Her Loss.

Speaking of which: Hate Hoax: Black student confesses to vandalizing California high school with racist graffiti.

Mark T. Harris, the district’s race and equity monitor, told CBS13 that a black female student has confessed to the vandalism, and was caught on camera in the act. Harris said that he believes the vandalism was not a racially motivated act.

SAD, BUT NOT AS SAD AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN: TikTok-er’s Popularity Led a Stalker With a Shotgun to Her Door Where Her Father Shot and Killed Him.

YEP:

TOP SELLER: TurboTax Deluxe 2021 Tax Software, Federal and State Tax Return with Federal E-file [Amazon Exclusive] [PC Download]. #CommissionEarned

IN LIGHT OF TRUDEAU’S STATE OF EMERGENCY, A PETITION: The People of Canada call on the Governor General to dissolve parliament.

DAVID SOLWAY: Who Is Justin Trudeau?

Indeed, his outrageous slandering of the truckers as racists and haters, his refusal to meet with them, his craven flight from office as the convoy assembled in Ottawa, and his invoking of legislation to seize the financial instruments and assets of both the protesters and of ordinary citizens who contributed to the trucker fund is unprecedented in Canadian history. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has brazenly authorized the RCMP to share with banks “the names of individuals, businesses and crypto wallets associated with the protest convoy.”

As of this writing, the banks now have the power to freeze protesters’ accounts, including, it appears, the accounts of people who over the last two weeks donated in good faith. The retroactive application of fiscal reprisals is an egregious violation of legal norms, as is the sequestration order itself. It is a sign of unmitigated tyranny that compares with the typical excesses of the totalitarian despots Trudeau reveres. It seems to be a truism that small men with power are the scourge of their nations.

Read the whole thing.

Exit question:

CRAZY ENOUGH IT JUST MIGHT WORK: Dell’s Bold Idea: A Laptop You Can Actually Repair: It’s a lagging response to the “right to repair” movement. More like this, please.