REPORT: Ben Roethlisberger expects this season to be his last.

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH CHRIS CUOMO:

Shot: CNN’s Brian Stelter speculates Chris Cuomo could return to air by January.

—The Colorado Springs Gazette, Wednesday.

Chaser: Hmmm: Brian Stelter Says Chris Cuomo Caused ‘So Many Headaches’ at CNN.

—Matt Margolis, PJ Media.com, today.

REPORT: Former U.S. presidential candidate Bob Dole has died at age 98.

CNN TERMINATES CHRIS CUOMO ‘EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:’ And so, as he flies the blue lady of the skies into the sunset, we say aloha, Five O’Clock Fredo, and return to our duties. Let me me remind you that the Weblog is open 24 hours a day for your dancing and dining pleasure.

GREAT MOMENTS IN CHUTZPAH AND/OR AMNESIA: Democrats livid over GOP’s COVID-19 attacks on Biden.

BIDEN’S CHIEF OF STAFF CAN’T STOP EMBARRASSING HIMSELF ON TWITTER:

The president’s chief of staff is arguably the most demanding job inside any White House. President Joe Biden’s top staffer, Ron Klain, isn’t making things easier for himself lately with the absurd things he’s posting on Twitter.

Klain is what we can only call a Very Online person. He is constantly tweeting and sharing other people’s posts to his half-million followers in an incessant effort to cheerlead for his boss and the Democratic Party more broadly. While this is the role of any outward-facing political staffer, Klain is taking his shilling so far that he’s now just making embarrassing public statements on the regular.

For example, Klain recently tweeted that “America is back at work” alongside this graph, which shows the opposite.

The Biden staffer boosted the graph hoping to show that the labor force participation rate, the percentage of people working or seeking work, is back to normal after the pandemic. Yet it actually shows that it’s still significantly below pre-pandemic levels, even a year and nine months later. Anyone with eyes can clearly see this.

In actuality, we are 8.2 million jobs below the pre-pandemic trend, according to economist Aaron Sojourner. So much for America being “back at work.”

Earlier: The Mark of Klain. “[A]ll in all, things have worked out pretty darn well for Ron Klain. For America? Not so much.”

REPORT: Russia is Planning a Military Offensive Against Ukraine in Early 2022

FORMER PRODUCER HARASSED BY CHRIS CUOMO SAYS INTERNAL INVESTIGATION AT CNN ISN’T ENOUGH:

A former executive producer at ABC when Chris Cuomo worked there accused him of sexually harassing her in September. Her claim of abusive behavior by Chris Cuomo goes back to 2005. Not only did Cuomo grab her backside at a going-away party for a colleague, but he did so in front of her husband.

At the time Cuomo told his former producer, Shelley Ross, that he could do that because she was no longer his boss as the producer of his Primetime Live show on ABC. She objected, telling him that no he could not do so and pushed him away. Ross produced an email from that time that came from Cuomo after the incident. He apologized for his behavior to both her and her husband, thus admitting guilt. The older Cuomo brother isn’t the only one with a problem with controlling his hands around women, apparently. Ross now says that an internal investigation at CNN over Cuomo’s egregious professional behavior that resulted in an indefinite suspension just won’t cut it. An in-house investigation isn’t enough and she suggests that CNN should do as CBS did over the Dan Rather fake reporting of George W. Bush in 2000 and hire independent investigators to do the job.

Good luck with that: CNN’s Brian Stelter speculates Chris Cuomo could return to air by January.

CANCEL CULTURE FINALLY COMES FOR ANCIENT ROME: Ancient Roman ‘homophobic graffiti’ found in unearthed Pompeii snack bar.

LEE SMITH: Here Comes the Limited Hangout. America’s Nixonian press corps takes a page from the Watergate playbook to try and cover up its active role in the criminal Russiagate hoax:

In other words, all of Russiagate—the initial crime and the criminal cover-up—is based on the dossier. No matter how much reporters now try to sever themselves from it while maintaining Trump really did collude with Russia, there was only ever the dossier.

So should the Pulitzer committee strip the Post and the Times of their 2018 prize, as Trump and many of his supporters are saying? By no means. That would only further obscure the damage the media have done to American citizens, U.S. national security, and government institutions during the past several years. The press sponsored an intelligence operation that, among many other outrages, violated the privacy rights of an American citizen (Page); forced another to flee his adopted home for fear of false imprisonment (Millian); dragged a decorated combat veteran through the mud and cost him his home and millions of dollars in legal fees (Flynn); interfered in an election, and helped spies target the president through leaks of classified information. Demanding they simply return the awards they use to credential themselves obscures the larger truth. Instead, it would be more fitting for the Post and Times to have the prize’s citation emblazoned on their mastheads for posterity to commemorate how they injected poison into the national bloodstream and burned down our free press.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Before Russiagate, There Was Watergate.

TIM BLAIR ON LET’S GO BRANDON, THE EARLY YEARS: “According to conventional wisdom, the Let’s Go Brandon movement began in Alabama two months ago. That’s the theory, anyway. But reader Kris has discovered evidence that LGB commenced 39 years earlier, during an Ashes Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1982.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Chicago Public Schools Making Bathrooms Gender-Neutral.

DEAR FELLOW AMERICANS, STEVE GREEN CAN’T DO IT ALL HIMSELF, YOU KNOW: Global survey finds the drunkest country in the world — and it’s not the US.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: The New New Deviant Edition.

ROGER SIMON: Eighty House Republicans Vote for More Government Spying.

Welcome to Stasi America!

I used to think that cry was excessive, was an unrestrained accusation of some semi-existent phenomenon called the alt-right. The East German Stasi, after all, topped even the KGB when it came to intruding on the private lives of citizens, fundamentally destroying the individual at the hands of the state.

No longer.

Our lack of privacy, not to mention the increased ability of the government to spy on us, has been ratified by eighty—count ‘em eighty—House Republicans, including minority leader Kevin McCarthy (who wants us to see him as a viable replacement of, an actual savior from, Nancy Pelosi) and Burgess Owens of all people (Et tu, Burgess? Who can we rely on now?)

What these GOP members of what seems more and more like the People’s Congress of Cambodia under Pol Pot have voted for en masse, joining one hundred percent of the Democrats (something suspicious right there), is a bill to fund a Federal Vaccination Database.

Known as the Immunization Infrastructure Act (H. R. 550), this baby would provide $400 million of your dollars and mine for an “immunization system data modernization and expansion” of “a confidential, population-based, computerized database that records immunization doses administered by any health care provider to persons within the geographic area covered by that database.”

In other words, it’s a handy way to get the “wrong” people fired, ostracized or whatever, while getting their children kicked out of school.

The Lives of Others was never meant to be a how-to guide for good government.

COMING SOON: THE MUELLER REPORT DELUXE BOX SET, WITH OUTTAKES AND ALTERNATE MIXES! More Russiagate Nonsense: DOJ Considers Releasing Alternate Mueller Report.

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH SARAH SILVERMAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: The truth has to matter’: Sarah Silverman (!!!) scolds Joy Reid over the Florida State Guard story.

Background here: DeSantis Derangement Syndrome Starts to Rear Its Ugly Head. “On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, likely fed up with the lack of support from the Biden administration, proposed a civilian-military force in the Sunshine State. The Republican introduced plans to re-establish the Florida State Guard to quickly aid responses to emergencies like hurricanes. Several other states across the country, including deep-blue California and New York, have similar civilian forces…Florida would be the 23rd state to establish such a force.”

GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: Utility Bills to Rise up to 10 Percent to Green NYC Electricity Grid.

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: 14 California Looters Arrested by Police Have Been Released Due to the State’s Zero Bail Policy.

JUST ASK ERIC GARNER: New Report Shows Why Congress’s Plan to Raise Cigarette and Nicotine Taxes is Such a Terrible Idea.

Suffice it to say this isn’t a good thing. Black markets fuel criminal activity and lack the same accountability and quality standards of free, legal markets. But fueling the black market is just another unintended consequence of big government meddling with legal markets.

“The crafting of tax policy can never be divorced from an understanding of the law of unintended consequences, but it is too often disregarded or misunderstood in political debate,” Boesen concludes. “Sometimes policies, however well-intentioned, have unintended consequences that outweigh their benefits.”

Flashback: It Wasn’t Just a Chokehold That Killed Eric Garner.

ALEC BALDWIN: I feel no guilt over Hutchins’ death.

By speaking publicly now, Baldwin locks himself into a series of claims which evidence may later contradict. If so, Baldwin has already impeached himself and that may make him more vulnerable to prosecution on criminal grounds, and certainly in the wrongful-death lawsuit to come. This is precisely why people involved in these kinds of incidents shouldn’t go on national television or anywhere else to offer “explanations.” They should let their attorneys do all the talking until absolutely necessary otherwise.

This is even worse, from a PR standpoint. Baldwin may not have loaded the live round, but the pistol he held fired it anyway — after Baldwin apparently didn’t check for safety himself before pointing the weapon at Hutchins and director Joel Souza. Instead of taking responsibility for what were undeniably his own actions, Baldwin instead paints himself as a victim with no moral responsibility for what transpired, let alone legal responsibility, even as one of the producers of the film with a duty to ensure safety on the set.

In its way, it’s as absurd a statement as Darrell Brooks’ complaint that the media had turned him into a “dehumanized … monster.” Both men ought to seriously consider all of the benefits that flow from keeping their mouths shut while the wheels of justice turn, rather than open them and help grease those wheels.

As Jim Treacher adds: Baldwin Proves Not All Publicity Is Good Publicity.

OCEANIA INCREASES CHOCOLATE RATIONS FROM 30 GRAMS PER WEEK TO 20! Biden Hasn’t Fixed The Port Crisis — Ships Are Just Being Counted Differently.

WHILE ALEC BALDWIN WALKS FREE: Police are searching for the parents of the Michigan high school shooting suspect after they are charged with involuntary manslaughter.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Is Jussie Smollett the worst hate crime hoaxer of all time?

Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett appeared in court for the first time this week to defend himself against allegations that he fabricated an elaborate hate crime for attention. Chicago prosecutors say Smollett wasted police time and resources by sending them on a wild goose chase against his alleged attackers — resources which surely could have been better used elsewhere, given the city’s astronomical murder rate.

Early details shared during the trial don’t help Smollett’s case. Prosecutors showed the jury surveillance video of an alleged “dry run” of the orchestrated attack. The video, taken a day before the incident, shows Smollett walking around the area with the Osundairo brothers. Smollett is accused of paying the Osundairo brothers to stage the hate crime because he was frustrated by the lack of attention Empire gave to hate mail he received on set.

One of the Osundairo brothers took the stand Wednesday and testified that he procured drugs for Smollett and considered him a “brother.” The Nigerian immigrants previously told police that Smollett helped them plan the attack and warned them to pull their punches so as not to severely injure him.

This headline didn’t take long to appear: Jussie Smollett’s lawyers claim judge ‘lunged’ at one of them, ask for a mistrial.

UPDATE: From America’s Newspaper of Record: Mirror Brought Into Courtroom So Jussie Smollett Can Face His Attackers.

(Updated and bumped.)

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE AND WEIMAR AMERICA, PART DEUX: Loudoun County asks parent to pay $36K for FOIA request for documents regarding ‘sexual assault’ or ‘rape.’