REPORT: Tom Brady’s Formal Retirement Announcement ‘Expected Shortly,’ According To Members Of QB’s ‘Inner Circle.’

Of course, Brady could always do a Brett Favre, and parachute in at a later date to a team (or two) that’s desperate for a veteran QB.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Neil Old Edition.

WAPO APPLIES CAREFULLY REASONED RHETORIC TO CONVINCE ANTI-VAXXERS TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS. Nahh — just kidding, of course: Washington Post Mocks Massive Canadian Trucker Convoy Protesting Vaccine Mandates, Labels Trucks ‘Fascism.’

On Friday, Michael Adder, the political cartoonist for the Washington Post, mocked the Freedom Convoy of truckers crossing the breadth of Canada and heading for the nation’s capital, Ottawa, to protest against Canada’s vaccine mandate. Adder created a cartoon of numerous trucks, all labeled in capital letters “FASCISM,” adding the hashtags, “fascism” and “supplychain.”

Roughly five hours later, The Post printed an opinion piece attacking the convoy. The author, David Moscrop, wrote, “The movement shares an affinity with Trumpist toxic authoritarianist politics.”

“Time and time again we learn the lesson, or at least come across it, that teaches us that rage-soaked antigovernment types can’t be reasoned with,” Moscrop continued. “This time around, the convoy has produced an incoherent ‘memorandum of understanding’ premised upon a misunderstanding of government and absurd demands. Of course, the memo should be ignored. It’s the product of a temper tantrum.”

A temper tantrum, eh? Flashback:

To hear the big news media tell it, Nov. 8 was Armageddon, Doomsday and the end of civilization as we’ve known it. And there has been no let-up in the three weeks since the election.

ABC’s Peter Jennings slandered the voters, comparing them to toddlers throwing a fit. “It’s clear that anger controls the child and not the other way around,” said the Canadian-born Jennings in a radio commentary. “The voters had a temper tantrum. . . . The nation can’t be run by an angry 2-year-old.”

Why do liberals such as Jennings refuse to believe it was their failed ideas — not voter anger — that did them in?

—Cal Thomas, “The Big News Media’s Temper Tantrum,” the Orlando Sentinel, November 27th, 1994.

It’s also fascinating that a newspaper that is always looking to spread socialism nationally can’t define what “fascism” actually means. But then as George Orwell wrote in 1946’s “Politics and the English Language:”

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

And that was 60 years before the woke-ification of everything. For updates on the Canadian convoy, drop by Small Dead Animals. 

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): In today’s Newspeak, when the government combines with corporations to run people’s lives and censor the opposition, that’s “our democracy.” When the people complain about this, that’s “fascism.”

TIM BLAIR: BBC turns CCP.

By its own admission, the BBC has been deleting entire sketches from comedy series that are 50, 60, or 70 years old, many of which can be heard only with the BBC’s permission. Are we simply to assume that the public supports this development? And, if so, are we permitted to wonder why the BBC was not open about it?

And what about the poor bastards at the BBC dutifully combing through the archives to remove ancient wrongthink? They’re real-life Winston Smiths:

The “process of continuous alteration” in which Smith was engaged, Orwell wrote in 1984, “applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs – to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance,” such that “day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.”

What better description could one find of what the BBC is now doing to its canon?

As a well-known BBC comic duo asked in a sketch (that’s still online, at least for now) about a titanic battle between national and international socialists, “Are we the baddies?”

https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU

ROGER SIMON: Hell, No, We Shouldn’t Go—to the Olympics.

Evidently, Team USA has been advised to leave their cellphones at home when they travel to China for the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing next month.

In an email from his CAVPAC political action committee, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo writes:

“That Team USA is telling our athletes to use burner phones and to avoid surveillance by the CCP is no surprise to me. That’s exactly what my team and I did when we traveled to China to protect America’s interests. But you have to ask: if our athletes have to use burner phones when visiting a country, then why on earth are we sending them to that country in the first place?”

Good question.

And while we’re at it, why is NBC (and its owner Comcast) broadcasting an event that is, in essence, a propaganda exercise for a country practicing various degrees of genocide against Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, and other religious minorities, not to mention oppressing almost anyone who questions their totalitarian regime?

Related: ‘Never Again’ Means Standing Up for China’s Uyghur Minority.

IT’S TURTLES IDENTITY POLITICS ALL THE WAY DOWN: As Supreme Court Hears Challenge Against Race-Based College Admissions, Joe Biden Wants Race-Based Supreme Court Nominee.

With one possible exception: ‘Kamala for SCOTUS’ is a distraction Biden wants. Better that than suffer another terrible news cycle.

Nothing like a little Obama-style stray voltage from time to time.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Ex-Obama aide unleashes R-rated rant against Kyrsten Sinema for breaking ranks on filibuster.

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is no stranger to taking flak from fellow Democrats for bucking the party line — but a former high-level aide to President Barack Obama may have crossed another line.

“I think she’s a c—,” Alyssa Mastromonaco told the “Pod Save America” podcast earlier this month, after Sinema refused to side with other Democrats regarding the filibuster. “That’s what I have to say.”

Mastromonaco chose a fairly large platform for her profanity-laced remarks: According to Chartable, the podcast has enormous reach, and is the seventh-highest news program on Apple Podcasts.

* * * * * * * *

“She talks about the ‘disease of division,’” Mastromonaco said about the senator. “She gave the speech as Joe Biden was on [his] way up to the Hill. So anyway, it’s the s—tiest, grossest, most disrespectful thing she could’ve done. I think she’s a c—. That’s what I have to say.”

The hosts, also ex-Obama staffers, laughed in response, before one asked, “Do we have to beep that?”

“No, because I’m a woman,” Mastromonaco replied. “I’m a woman, OK?”

Then she continued, “It was so many layers of a—holeness, like you know that she played a combative video game before she went down to the Senate floor, and was like, ‘You are a maverick. You are a maverick!’ And b—-, you’re not a maverick. OK? No. You’re trash.”

The conversation then moved to the late Sen. John McCain, also of Arizona, who pundits often referred to as a maverick in the Senate.

“The best part about this take is that there’s no one out there making the case for bipartisanship,” added co-host Daniel Pfeiffer, responding to the original Washington Post piece.

Thus, the perfect definition of bipartisanship: It’s brilliant and thoughtful when a nominally Republican senator forces leftist policies on America; it’s a sign that Washington has failed when a nominal Democrat attempts to keep the left from going over a cliff.

RUST NEVER SPOTIFYS: Neil Young Demands Spotify Remove His Music Over ‘False Information About Vaccines.’Neil Young Demands Spotify Remove His Music Over ‘False Information About Vaccines.’

Spotify’s response? Thank you; your terms are acceptable: Spotify Takes Down Neil Young’s Music After His Joe Rogan Ultimatum.

Mr. Young’s record label, Warner Music Group Corp.’s Warner Records, formally requested Spotify remove the music Wednesday.

“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators,” a Spotify spokesman said Wednesday. The company has detailed content policies in place and has removed over 20,000 Covid-19-related podcast episodes since the start of the pandemic, he added.

“We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon,” he said.

For Spotify, the controversy is a significant test of its big bet on Mr. Rogan, one of podcasting’s most popular and polarizing voices. Spotify struck a deal with Mr. Rogan in 2020 worth more than $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing his loyal followers and lucrative show exclusively to its service. Mr. Rogan is central to Spotify’s podcast strategy in attracting listeners and ad dollars to its platform and shows.

While the letter has since been removed from Mr. Young’s website, he has been in discussions with his label and Spotify since then, and continued to hold his ground, according to people familiar with the matter.

As I said yesterday, given Young’s negative statements about pretty much all music formats post-LP records, Spotify’s management really seem to be going out of their way to save Young’s superfans from their worst 21st century tendencies.

Young’s picking a fight with Spotify over Joe Rogan seems much more like to get an extra 15 minutes of relevancy rather than a principled stance by the former member of Buffalo Springfield: “The way to deter ultimatums like that is to punish the first person who issues one by locking him out. So that’s what Spotify did, even though Young is right that Rogan is obnoxious for giving anti-vaxxers a platform. Which is ironic, because he’s been no hero about standing up for good science in the past. This is a guy who cut an entire album a few years ago devoted to spooking people about genetically modified foods. Actual title: ‘The Monsanto Years.’”

#AB5 UPDATE: San Diego lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez used false data to peddle her disastrous AB 5 law.

Eventually, we did find what we were looking for. It turns out that in 2012, a report issued by an Obama Administration commission headed by Joe Biden stated that the nation, not California alone, loses $7 billion because contractors don’t pay payroll taxes—not annually, but rather over a 10-year period. Their report covered all people who provide contracting services, not just those in rideshare and high-tech.”

Lewin and his team then analyzed numbers to determine the actual potential loss to the state of California annually due to independent contracting.

The loss is closer to zero, he said. In fact, in the rideshare and delivery sector alone, the state would actually gain about $111 million annually from the independent contractor arrangement relative to the employment arrangement, they found.

“That supposed $7 billion putative annual revenue loss in California due to independent contractors has no basis in fact or in empirical evidence whatsoever,” affirmed Lewin.

The $7 billion estimate continues to be promoted to this day, not just in California, but nationally.

Those numbers were just a pre-COVID modified limited hangout that did its job — to further wreck California’s economy, and possibly serve as a dry run for a similarly disastrous Federal version.

OUT ON A LIMB: Meat Loaf blamed China for COVID, revealed he couldn’t sing months before death.

Serious, no kidding around question: Where does the New York Post’s Natalie O’Neill think that COVID came from?

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Only Four States Have Regained All the Jobs Lost Since the Pandemic. They’re All Run By Republicans.

FAILURE: CNN’s Brianna Keilar Loses to Andy Griffith, Game Shows, My 600 Pound Life.

NOW WE KNOW WHAT ULTIMATELY HAPPENED TO THE BRADY BUNCH’S ASTROTURF BACKYARD: Behold the deeply unsettling creep factor of this “luxury bunker” in Las Vegas that’s located 26 feet below ground but is made to look as if it’s outside.

GREAT MOMENTS IN TROLLING: ‘It’s a dangerous time to tell the truth in America:’ Glenn Greenwald shows ‘solidarity with Peter Doocy’ and libs aren’t on board for some reason (video).

CRISES BY DESIGN:

● How it started: Biden Administration Green Lights Putin’s Pipeline. Nord Stream 2 will boost the Russian president’s influence in Europe.

—The Washington Free Beacon, July 21st, 2021.

● How it’s going: White House seeks energy security plan for Europe amid Russia-Ukraine crisis.

—CNBC, today.

As a wise community organizer reportedly said, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.” Biden’s “energy security plan for Europe” will likely be as effective as Biden’s “energy security plan” for America.

Related: What Does Vladimir Putin Have on Joe Biden? Joe and Hunter Biden’s seedy involvements in Ukraine may have given the Russian leader all the ‘kompromat’ he needs to keep America at bay.

OLD AND BUSTED: “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.”

The New Hotness? Neil Young Demands Spotify Remove His Music Over ‘False Information About Vaccines.’ “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young,” Neil Young wrote in a letter to his manager and label. “Not both.”

But what if this is Neil Young’s way of saving his fans from themselves? Neil Young hates what the internet has done to music.

Spotify may not be literally damaging our brains, but he’s not entirely wrong, either.

There’s an epic interview slash feature in the New York Times with music legend Neil Young. The notoriously particular audio purist explains why he believes the internet is killing music through poor quality streaming, and how it’s harming our brains.

Young appears not only to believe that the quality of the music is poor, which few would argue in comparison to vinyl. He also believes it’s literally harming our minds.

Neil Young, described here as “crankier than a hermit being stung by bees,” loathes Spotify, Facebook, Apple, and Steve Jobs, who it must be noted, is dead.

“He hates what digital technology is doing to music,” most of all, writes David Samuels in today’s NYT.

“It’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t want to write music anymore.”

This is merely an update to Young’s 1980s response to another then-emerging digital technology:

“‘Everything recorded between 1981 and say, 2010 will be known as the dark ages of recorded sound,” Young began. On the surface, his distaste for the CD seems a little over-dramatic, but he had a number of important reasons for disliking the format. The compact disc took over from the cassette tape in the early 1980s and was released in tandem with stereo players fitted with the newly-invented programming button, allowing the listener to reorganise album tracklists to suit their own tastes, essentially giving the middle finger to the intentions of artists such as Young, who believed so strongly in the sanctity of their artistic vision.

But for Young, the CD heralded something much worse – the dominance of digital sound. “It’s almost like torture,” he argued. “Digital makes you think that you’re hearing it better than you heard it before [but] you’re hearing a facsimile of it, you’re only hearing the surface of it,” he continued. He’s got a point. Digital sound – unlike analogue formats like cassette and vinyl, which are physically imprinted with recorded sound waves – are often regarded as mere representations of recorded sound.

Spotify should call Young’s bluff with a statement that “Based on Mr. Young’s earlier comments about Spotify and other digital media, while we hate to see him go, we believe that it’s in the mutual best interests of Mr. Young, his fans and Spotify, that we, reluctantly, must let him go.”

UPDATE: Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it. Ed Morrissey writes that Young has since pulled his letter. “ Young has now given Rogan even greater cachet as someone fighting off cancel culture and muzzling by the establishment. It’s as self-defeating as it is oppressive, and as it should be offensive to others who work in the free-speech environment … like aging protest singers. Perhaps Young pulled down the letter after rethinking that context. Or perhaps he and his business managers considered the money context, a point to which we must return. Spotify isn’t going to eat $100 million dollars just so senior citizens can still access ‘Heart of Gold.’ That kind of ultimatum is ludicrous on its own, but especially so given the business relationship between Spotify and Rogan. When someone declares, ‘It’s either him or me,’ it’s an act of arrogance at best — and in this case, ignorance about Young’s cultural relevancy in this moment. If we didn’t know any better, it would look like a cynical attempt to boost his relevancy.”

Via a platform that as recently as 2019, Young professed to loathe, at least according to his New York Times interviewer.

(Updated and bumped.)

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: This Pennsylvania school board member wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper, and I kid you not this is the title:

“‘I don’t work for you?’ Yeah, bud… ya do.”

At least until the next election, perhaps.

IF IT SAVES JUST ONE LIFE, IT’S WORTH IT: School Choice Lowers Teenage Suicide: Study.

LORDING IT OVER THE REST OF US IS THE ENTIRE POINT: Scotland Yard wonders: Just how many parties did BoJo throw during COVID lockdowns, anyway?

Shouldn’t the head of a government that forbids social gatherings indoors have followed his own rules at his official residence? That question has come up in Parliament, where MPs recently demanded answers from Boris Johnson over reports of two parties that violated the UK orders against such residential gatherings. In an ominous move, the London Metropolitan Police have announced that they have begun a criminal investigation into multiple reports of such events at 10 Downing Street, in parallel to an ongoing civil probe:

* * * * * * * *

A number of events”? How many are we talking about here — two, four, six, eight? More like nineteen between May 2020 and April of last year, although not all involve Johnson. Most involve Tories, but a number of Conservatives in Parliament have made it clear that they want to give Boris the Order of the Boot to punish the hypocrisy[.]

Oh, and speaking of party time, Old Blighty-style in May of 2020: What Neil Ferguson’s booty call tells us about modern politics. “It is actually incredibly important news that Ferguson, the Imperial College modeller who said it was possible 500,000 Brits would die if we didn’t lock down, defied the lockdown. It deserves the frontpage treatment it is getting today. For Ferguson’s booty call with his married lover actually reveals a great deal about the 21st-century elites and how they view their relationship with the masses. It’s one rule for them and another for us.”

In response, as Stephen Kruiser suggested: Let’s Start Jailing Lawmakers Who Violate Their Own COVID Restrictions. “Imagine the pure, poetic justice of seeing Newsom, Cuomo, and some of the other Hitler youth (stole that from Animal House) cooling their heels in a holding cell after being caught with their masks off and their pants down.”

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME: RFK Jr’s anti-vaxx rant: Hey, at least Anne Frank could hide from the Nazis.

At a rally against vaccine mandates in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likened vaccine policies in the US to the actions of a totalitarian state, even suggesting Anne Frank was in a better situation when she was hiding from the Nazis.

“Even in Hitler Germany (sic), you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did,” said Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. “I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.”

RFK  Jr. is a descendent of a family that has been diminishing the horrors of National Socialists since about 1938 or so: Joseph Kennedy, American Fascist:

In this meticulous, relentless biography, Joseph P. Kennedy is now firmly established in the annals of twentieth-century fascism. When he arrived in England in early 1938, he quickly found a home among the ruling elite who believed, as Susan Ronald puts it, that “fascism was the cure for communism.” Notwithstanding FDR’s unprecedented provocation of sending an Irishman with no diplomatic skills to Great Britain, Kennedy immediately sided with Prime Minister Chamberlain and the appeasers, believing that any deal with Hitler—no matter how humiliating and lethal to the lives of millions—was preferable to war. Kennedy never stopped believing that Hitler could be bought off, that businessmen could do business with fascists.

But appeasement, in and of itself, is not, of course, a form of fascism. Even Neville Chamberlain eventually realized that Hitler’s cruel lust for power could not be satiated by offering so much of Europe to his suzerainty. FDR understood that Hitler could not be appeased and became increasingly wary of Kennedy, but kept him in England because the President felt the Ambassador’s defeatist attitudes would demoralize the American people and undermine democratic life. Kennedy, on his leaves home, lectured FDR and said “very frankly” that the United States “would have to come to some form of Fascism here.” He did not believe Great Britain could survive a war against the fascist powers and that America would become increasingly isolated and lose control of its markets if FDR’s government did not take over control of the economy to counter Hitler’s hegemony over his capitalists. Kennedy proposed that the President “organize a small powerful committee under himself as chairman and this committee would run the country without much reference to Congress.”

Kennedy thought solely in terms of economics. Although he said he cared about the fate of Jews and persecuted minorities, in the end he thought they would have to be sacrificed for the greater good of the United States and its allies. Like Hitler, Kennedy believed in a Jewish cabal, which had thwarted him and that was intent on instigating incidents that would draw America into a disastrous war. “To defeat fascism,” Kennedy argued in a memorandum, the United States would “have to adopt totalitarian methods” and strike deals with dictators.

When the war actually began, Kennedy remained defeatist, proclaiming to journalists, to his British colleagues, and to FDR himself that Great Britain was finished as a world power and that a German invasion of the UK would succeed. Even after the heroic RAF victories during the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, Kennedy predicted defeat. In short, he never acknowledged that the will, the spirit, or the values of the democracies would triumph in war. Democracy, he insisted, would be vanquished.

Like father, like sons: Did John F. Kennedy Admire Adolf Hitler?

John F. Kennedy admired Hitler as a young man and felt fascism was right for Germany, according to a new book in German that mines the future president’s diaries.

According to Spiegel Online’s article on the book, the 20-year-old Kennedy pondered on August 3, 1937: What are the evils of fascism compared to communism? On August 21 he added that the Germans had been ganged up on.

The book is “John F. Kennedy Unter Deutschen” (“John F. Kennedy Among the Germans”) – featuring travel diaries and letters between 1937 and 1945. The work, edited by Oliver Lubrich, documents three visits by Kennedy to Germany – in 1937, 1939 and 1945. “At first glance, one could get the impression that Kennedy endorsed fascism and even admired Hitler,” Spiegel writes.

Bobby Kennedy’s Fascist Moment: “If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.”

STACY MCCAIN: Can We Make Thursday ‘Everybody Blog About Mass Formation Psychosis Day?’

Recall that people are trying to de-platform Joe Rogan for hosting Dr. Robert Malone, who has popularized the “Mass Formation Psychosis” theory to explain public reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Well, here’s some news for you: They can’t de-platform everybody.

If all of us with access to digital platforms — bloggers, columnists, people on Twitter and Facebook, etc. — will unite behind this idea, we can defeat these censors and make it impossible for them to suppress the idea.

Therefore, I propose that this Thursday, Jan. 27, be declared “Everybody Blog About Mass Formation Psychosis Day.” The objectives:

1. Call attention to the censorship campaign by which COVID-19 panic brigades are attempting to suppress criticism. If you look at the Google results, you’ll notice that the first page of results (which is all that most Googlers ever see) is dominated by “fact checks” and people endeavoring to “debunk” Mass Formation Psychosis as a “conspiracy theory.” This obviously reflects manipulation of the Google algorithm in an attempt to support censorship of Joe Rogan and others.

Read the whole thing.

OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH GEORGE ORWELL: The University of Northampton in Orwell’s own England puts Trigger Warning on 1984. “With staff claiming that the book contains ‘explicit material’ and that some students may find the work to be ‘offensive and unsettling.’”

Unsettling that Ingsoc in real life is living up to Orwell’s predictions for it?

BUILD BACK BRANDON: Families of US Embassy personnel in Ukraine ordered to begin evacuating as soon as Monday: officials.

I hope this ends better than Biden’s previous foreign policy debacle: Biden doubles down on Afghanistan withdrawal, snaps over question about horrific scenes. “And when Stephanopoulos tried to ask Biden about the horrific scenes of people clinging to and falling from departing US airplanes, the president grew combative. ‘We’ve all seen the pictures. We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We’ve seen Afghans falling –’ ‘That was four days ago, five days ago!’ Biden cut Stephanopoulos, even though the images were taken on Monday.”

WHOOPI GOLDBERG CLAIMS ‘BLACK PEOPLE STILL ARE WHERE WE WERE UNDER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.’

Related: “According to Celebrity Net Worth, Goldberg has a net worth of $60 million and her annual salary for The View is estimated to be around $8 million.”

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD ABOUT GLENN REYNOLDS’ CARBON FOOTPRINT: LAPD investigates Arnold Schwarzenegger car crash after woman is injured when the star rolls his GMC Yukon SUV over a Prius and then onto a Porsche Cayenne after lunch with his son and daughter.