JIM TREACHER: Tiki Torches and “Let’s Go, Brandon”: The Dems Have Lost Their Minds.

Just in time for Halloween, a few young people decided to cosplay as Charlottesville Neo-Nazis, complete with tiki torches. They stood in front of Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus and claimed to be his supporters. Y’know, like ya do.

And no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you:

A woman and a black guy. Even the Nazis are becoming more diverse these days!

And of course, they’re all wearing sunglasses while standing in the pouring rain. A brilliant disguise.

* * * * * * * *

Remember: All this fuss is because a pilot said “Let’s go, Brandon.”

One theory I’ve seen about all this hysteria is that the Dems have been able to play identity politics for over a decade — “If you disagree with our leaders, you just hate black people and/or women” — but now they’re stuck with an 80-year-old white dude in the Oval Office and they can’t adjust. Their usual games don’t work. They’ve just spent four years calling Republicans a bunch of old white people, and now they’re saddled with the oldest, whitest president in the history of the United States.

And of course, the media’s first impulse is to doxx the pilot — in mid-flight! “An AP reporter who happened to be on the plane bragged about nearly being kicked off of it for trying to get to the pilot through a locked cockpit…‘Also in defense of airline I was asking them to open locked cock pit [sic — Ed] and probably sounded insane!’ [Colleen Long] later stressed.”

As Clay Travis tweets, “The same blue check brigade members who have spent five years arguing Colin Kaepernick should be able to make political statements in uniform at work are demanding a Southwest Airlines pilot be fired for allegedly saying ‘Let’s go Brandon,’ on the plane PA.”

THEY AREN’T EVEN TRYING TO HIDE IT ANYMORE:

During a weekly press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was pressed to explain her inability to rally both lawmakers and the general public to support the gargantuan $3.5 trillion spending bill that she, President Biden, and Democrat party leadership are pushing. To Pelosi, the issue is a lack of propaganda. That is, she’s frustrated over the lack of any effective public relations campaign that focuses on what the bill will give to people rather than what it will cost them.

Whose fault is that? A fair-minded person would say the responsibility for such an effort falls squarely on the shoulders of the leaders wanting to enact the legislation. But Pelosi’s not a fair-minded person.

“Well I think you all could do a better job of selling it, to be very frank with you,” the Speaker said to the press gathered in the briefing room.

If you’ve ever wondered how leftists in positions of power view the mainstream media, this is all you need to hear. They see them not only as allies, but as propaganda agents, who bear the responsibility to “sell” Democrat party policy to the American people. It’s an astounding implicit admission from the Speaker.

Plus some thoughts on Katie Couric’s 2016 memory holing RBG’s anger over Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. Just think of Pelosi as a powerful Democrat admonishing her party operatives with bylines, and Couric as one of her party operatives who used to have a byline, and it all makes sense.

KATIE COURIC COVERED UP RBG’S DISLIKE FOR TAKING THE KNEE: Anchor says she edited 2016 interview to ‘protect’ the justice after she said people who kneel are showing ‘contempt for a government that made a decent life possible:’

In new memoir, Going There, Couric writes that she edited out a part where Ginsburg said that those who kneel during the national anthem are showing ‘contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.’

The published story, which Couric wrote for Yahoo! News in 2016, did include quotes from Ginsburg saying refusing to stand for the anthem was ‘dumb and disrespectful’, but omitted more problematic remarks.

But Couric writes in her memoir that she thought the justice, who was 83 at the time, was ‘elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.’

The anecdote is the latest controversial revelation to emerge from Couric’s book, which is set to be released October 26.

“Interviews are often edited for length and clarity, of course, but in this case, there’s no excuse* for leaving out the interaction,” David Harsanyi writes:

If RBG was genuinely unable to answer a simple question regarding flag protests, as her friend New York Times columnist David Brooks suggested to Couric, any genuine journalist would have immediately sensed the interaction as newsworthy. If RBG understood the question — which it seems to me is the case as she offers a completely coherent and normal answer about spoiled athletes disrespecting the American flag — it would also have been newsworthy. This was the year Colin Kaepernick began his protests. Couric included RGB’s describing the protests as “dumb and disrespectful” because, in our warped discourse, it is far less incendiary than pointing out protesters are bequeathed “decent lives” by their nation.

As Harsanyi adds, “It’s worth remembering that Couric isn’t new to helpful edits.” Flashback: Katie Couric & Gun Rights: A Study in Dishonesty.

* Just think of Couric as a Democratic Party operative who used to have a Chyron, and it all makes sense.

Evergreen:

IF ONLY ROGER GOODELL HADN’T POLITICIZED NFL GAMES: “The ‘F*ck Joe Biden’ chants have transitioned from college football stadiums to the National Football League as a thunderous anti-Biden chant was heard Sunday at the Titans-Jets game. It may be the loudest example yet of the chant springing up at a sports venue.”

As Glenn wrote on September 11th, the “f**k Joe Biden” chants “seems to be happening all over. It’s amusing to see Democrats respond by demanding respect for the office, and the separation of politics and sport. Too late guys. Enjoy the new rules you made.”

Many have observed that Joe Biden is essentially Obama’s third term, given the many retreads in his cabinet. And to be fair, the NFL is, in a sense, returning to its roots, given that Goodell allowed the politicization of the NFL to begin when he did nothing to stop Colin Kaepernick and other player protests during the tail end of the original Obama era, despite having the precedent of the NBA blocking similar protests in 1996.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Elitism of the Woke.

What were we to make of multimillionaire Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, and the throng of the woke wealthy and their masked helot attendants?

Was socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suffering for the people when she wore a designer dress to the more than $30,000-a-ticket Met Gala? Her entourage needs were certainly well-attended to by masked Morlock servants.

Did the leftist celebrities at the recent Emmy Awards gather to discuss opening Malibu beaches to the homeless when the (unmasked) stars virtue-signaled their wokeness?

For answers about these hypocritical wokeists, always turn first to George Orwell. In his brief allegorical novella “Animal Farm,” an array of animal characters—led by the thinking pigs of the farm—staged a revolution, driving out their human overseers.

The anti-human animal comrades started out sounding like zealous Russian Bolsheviks (“four legs good, two legs bad”). But soon they ended up conned by a murderous cult of pigs under a Josef Stalin-like leader. And so, the revolution became what it once had opposed (“four legs good, two legs better”).

Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the “white supremacists” and “capitalists,” but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life.

The Marxist co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise—the rewards for revolutionary service.

Professor Ibram X. Kendi has evolved from the edgy revolutionary work of flying all over the country, hawking his Orwellian message of “All racism bad! But some racism good!” Now he has mastered the art of zooming the wannabe woke for his $20,000-an-hour, avant-garde hectoring.

What of Colin Kaepernick, the mediocre second-string quarterback-turned-sudden firebrand? He refused to stand for the national anthem and spread his “take a knee” kitsch throughout professional sports.

Kaepernick became a boutique revolutionary multimillionaire. For $12 million a year, he pitches Nike sneakers, often made in Chinese forced-labor camps.

The Chinese are very happy to see woke culture spread in America.

BYRON YORK: Democrats, double standards, and the Capitol riot committee.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she barred Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks from the Capitol riot investigating committee because the two Republicans “had made statements and taken actions that I think would impact the integrity of the committee.” Pelosi said Jordan and Banks also “made statements and took actions that just made it ridiculous to put them on such a committee seeking the truth.”

But what about Pelosi’s Democratic choices for the committee? Might some of their statements and actions in the past impact the integrity of the committee? And have some of them said and done things that were so at odds with the facts as to make it ridiculous to put them on a committee seeking the truth?

Start with Pelosi’s pick for chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson. On a long-ago January 6 — in 2005, when Congress met to certify President George W. Bush’s victory in the 2004 presidential election — Thompson challenged the certification of the results from Ohio. At the time, some progressive Democrats were promoting wild theories about alleged tampering with electronic voting machines in the state. The House Democrats who voted against certification for Ohio’s results said they were simply protesting the result, and not trying to overturn the election. But the fact is, they focused their challenge on a single state, which just happened to be the decisive state in the 2004 contest. Had they gotten their way, and had Ohio been put in Democrat John Kerry’s column instead of Bush’s, Kerry would have been elected president.

In June 2008, Thompson voted to move forward articles of impeachment against President Bush.

By 2017, Thompson had become a devotee of theories that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. On January 20, 2017, Thompson boycotted Trump’s inauguration because of his concern “about the role that Russia had in our country’s democratic process,” according to a spokesman. Thompson was also angry that Trump had criticized Representative John Lewis after Lewis called Trump an “illegitimate” president.

In December 2017, and again in January 2018, Thompson voted to move forward articles of impeachment against Trump. While he believed more than ever in the collusion theory, the articles Thompson supported proposed to remove Trump from office for different reasons — for his comments on the Charlottesville riot, for his statements on the NFL, and in particular on quarterback/activist Colin Kaepernick, and for his reported description of Haiti, African nations, and El Salvador as “s—holes.” Thompson later also voted in favor of Russia-based impeachment as well.

Could one argue that Thompson, with his embrace of discredited and unproven conspiracy theories, has made statements and taken actions that would impact the integrity of the Capitol riot investigating committee?

Then there is another Democratic member, Representative Adam Schiff. As the ranking minority on the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff promoted the slanderous and unsubstantiated theories of the Steele dossier. For example, Schiff publicized a theory that Russia offered low-level Trump campaign adviser Carter Page potentially billions of dollars to influence Trump — Schiff actually read the dossier’s allegations aloud at an Intelligence Committee hearing. Schiff protested bitterly when his Republican counterpart on the committee, Chairman Devin Nunes, revealed that the dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party and that the FBI improperly used it to get a court-approved warrant to wiretap Page. Of course, the Trump-Russia special counsel, Robert Mueller, found no evidence to establish the claim about Page.

On the broader issue of collusion, Schiff claimed to have proof that it was true. There was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight,” he said. But the Mueller investigation, which had infinitely more resources than Schiff, plus full law enforcement powers, could not establish that collusion ever took place, much less that it involved anyone in the Trump campaign. Schiff devoted years to leading his party — and much of the media — on a wild goose chase, even before he was chosen by Pelosi to lead the first Trump impeachment, which failed to convict the president. . . .

Like Chairman Thompson, another committee member, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, challenged the certification of Electoral College results. He did so on January 6, 2017, when Congress met to ratify Trump’s victory. Within a few months, Raskin was an adherent of the Russia theory, joining the earliest advocates for impeaching the president on the basis of that never-established supposition.

Could one argue that Raskin has made statements and taken actions that would impact the integrity of the Capitol riot investigating committee?

It’s all double standards. And if BLM had invaded the Capitol and done exactly what the Jan. 6, 2021 protesters did, it would have been used as an excuse to pass more BLM-friendly legislation. And the protesters would have been released posthaste on their own recognizance.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! TNR: Republicans Have Ruined Sports for Republicans. The favorability of the MLB, NBA, and NFL has sharply dropped on the right, thanks to culture warriors like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson.

It couldn’t have been stuff like this, right?

And speaking of Republicans pouncing:

As Jim Treacher likes to say, “When Republicans screw up, that’s the story. When Democrats screw up, the Republicans’ reaction is the story.”

Related: From America’s Newspaper of Record: Man Who Agrees With The Media, Universities, Corporations, And Hollywood Thinks He’s Part Of The Resistance.

VIDDY WELL, LITTLE BROTHERS, VIDDY WELL: On March 7^th, Deadline Hollywood reported, “Pepe Le Pew Won’t Be Appearing In Warner Bros’ ‘Space Jam’ Sequel:”

He starred in the first Warner Bros. Space Jam movie back in 1996, however, Pepe Le Pew will not be showing up at all in the upcoming theatrical sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy on July 16.

With the Looney Tunes French skunk besieged by controversy in the wake of New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow slamming that the cartoon character “added to rape culture,” Deadline has learned that a hybrid live-action animation scene between Jane the Virgin actress Greice Santo and Pepe Le Pew, shot back in June 2019 for Space Jam 2 was left on the cutting room floor.

The Pepe Le Pew character will likely be a thing of the past across all media. Warner Bros. also has no current TV series featuring the skunk and there are no plans to have him appear on Looney Toons, Bugs Bunny Builders, Tiny Toons Looniversary or future projects, sources confirmed to Deadline.

Flash-forward to this today, with the Hollywood Reporter noting, “’Space Jam 2’ Trailer Delights Fans with Robust World of Warner Bros. Characters.” Including those family-friendly favorites…the Droogs from Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant, chilling, and at times repulsive 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange, which was Kubrick’s first film for Warner Brothers:

From It’s Pennywise to the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz to the droogs in A Clockwork Orange to an agent from The Matrix series, there was plenty to spot. There even appeared to be Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin.

As Comicbook.com adds, in an article headlined, “Space Jam 2 Includes A Clockwork Orange Cameos, for Some Reason:”

If you’re not familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic, A Clockwork Orange adapts Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel about Alex, a teenager dedicated to a subculture based on “ultraviolence.” Malcolm McDowell plays Alex in the movie, and in the film’s notorious opening sequence, he and his friends commit acts of wanton violence and rape. It seems odd to include characters from this film — which received an X rating upon its initial release in the United States before being edited down and re-released with an R — in a movie that will, at worst, receive a PG rating.

Look, the kids seeing this movie probably won’t notice the A Clockwork Orange characters while watching this story about cartoons playing basketball with monsters. Even if they do, they have no frame of reference. And yes, there are other characters from adult-focused properties like Game of Thrones and Mad Max in the movie. But the Night King and the War Boys are cartoonish villains that wouldn’t be out of place in a work of children’s fiction. Alex and his droogs are something different.

I can’t speak to Charles M. Blow’s role in cancelling Pepe Le Pew – a Timesman waking up in the morning and deciding to write a column on why a semi-beloved Looney Tunes cartoon character is the epitome of “rape culture” is a bit odd. But it is uber-woke New York Times and Charles “stick that in your magic underwear” Blow we’re talking about.

But the cancelling of Pepe and the inclusion of the Droogs in a movie for kids is making the whole thing start to feel like Warner Brothers is taking a page out of Nike’s publicity playbook. Recall the sacrificial “Betsy Ross flag sneakers” that Nike rolled out in 2019, only have their spokesman Colin Kaepernick publicly denounce during run-up to the Fourth of July. As I wrote at the time, “I think Kaepernick was used as a tool (in every sense of the word) by Nike’s social media and PR gurus to help give the brand maximum attention over the week building up to the Fourth of July.” In the short term, it was a brilliant, albeit cynical piece of marketing,” resulting in Nike’s stock going up by two percent as a result of all of the publicity.

And yes, I’m adding to Warner’s publicity by writing about the Pepe/Droogs kerfuffle. But it is remarkably odd to see the Clockwork Orange droogs, who were the epitome of rape (and looting and killing) culture appear in the Space Jam 2 stands after Pepe was tossed down the memory hole.

I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Nike Sues Over Those Satan Shoes, and Lil Nas X Wins in the End. “If you approach the appalling story of the Satan Shoes from the point of view that there is no such thing as bad publicity, it all makes sense.”

To be fair, given Nike’s efforts at attempting to cancel the Betsy Ross flag, and, as Deadspin noted in a headline last year, “Nike would very much like to keep its slave labor, thank you,” it’s good to see that even they have limits when it comes to bad PR.

TO BE FAIR, MAY OF 2020 SEEMS LIKE IT WAS MANY YEARS AGO: Remember when BLM rioters were burning down cities and Colin Kaepernick literally called for more violence? And then, instead of banning him, @Jack gave him $3M?

BELIEVE IN SOMETHING, UNLESS IT UPSETS THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. Report: Nike, Coke, other companies lobbying against bill that would ban goods made with slave labor of Uighurs in Xinjiang.

(Classical reference in headline.)

A MILLION PEOPLE ARE JAILED AT CHINA’S GULAGS. I MANAGED TO ESCAPE. HERE’S WHAT REALLY GOES ON INSIDE.

As Stephen Miller tweets, “The excuse with camps and Nazi Germany was the world simply didn’t know. It was largely hidden & there was very little media. This is happening right out in the open. The world knows. So what’s the excuse this time?”

Hey, those Colin Kaepernick sneakers and NBA merchandise don’t stitch themselves, you know.

UYGHUR LIVES MATTER, TOO: Coke, Nike, and Pro-Black Lives Matter Corps are Using Slave Labor.

A factory making shoes for Nike was “equipped with watchtowers, barbed-wire fences and police guard boxes.” Nike Shox were discovered being made in another factory by slave laborers shipped far from home to produce shoes for the sportswear giant. Too far for them to run away.

“We can walk around, but we can’t go back,” one worker said.

The same company that holds up Colin Kaepernick, a millionaire anti-American activist, as an icon of social justice, also profits from an alleged slave labor facility that moved to be closer to “the region’s cotton fields”. The millionaire victims of imaginary racism that Nike wants us to care about are on their billboards while modern day slaves still toil in the cotton fields because their lives don’t matter.

The dirty secret of the big Corporate Left brands is that behind the familiar names and commercials, are huge conglomerates and financial investors who cut costs by outsourcing their production to China. The Americans design and market, but the real work is done by huge Communist enterprises, either owned directly by the state or by oligarchs tied to the Communist leadership, whose names you don’t know.

All this leaves the executives with plenty of time to come up with new social justice initiatives and call the country and the American people whose wealth, future, and hopes they’ve stolen, racists.

Read the whole thing.

WHY ARE NFL PLAYERS SILENT ON DESEAN JACKSON?

In early June, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints refused to take a knee because he didn’t want to insult the flag. Black NFL players lined up to denounce him.

‘Ignorant,’ said his black teammate Emmanuel Sanders.

‘Drew’s words were extremely painful to hear,’ another black Saint, Malcolm Jenkins said, ‘and I hope he rectifies them with real action.’

‘If you don’t speak about racism, then you’re a part of the problem,’ said A.J. Brown of the Tennessee Titans.

A month later, in early July, DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles posted on Instagram an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory attributed to the noted sports fan Adolf Hitler. None of Jackson’s NFL peers, black or white, has said a word. Colin Kaepernick, who is usually so vocal about racism, has been uncharacteristically silent. The New York Times, usually so quick to denounce imaginary offenses against the speech-code mania of the day, said nothing at all. The leaders of Black Lives Matter didn’t order their minions to add this outburst of racism to their to-do list either.

Related: Shannon Sharpe Doesn’t Condemn Louis Farrakhan In Discussion With Co-Host Skip Bayless.

SPIRIT OF ’76: Forty years on, America’s bicentennial cohesion may be unrecoverable.

The Bicentennial was blessed with good timing, arriving on the heels of a long post-1960s hangover that culminated with two bleak closing acts, less than a year apart: the fall of an American president elected in large part to quell the previous decade’s disorder, and the fall of Saigon to the Communist North Vietnamese, bringing a tragic end to the war that had inspired much of the disorder. With that depressing coda, there was nowhere to go but up, and the Bicentennial became, as Lance Morrow wrote in Time, “a star-spangled ceremony of self-forgiveness.” After a long gaze inward, many concluded that the country and its republican traditions still looked pretty good.

That pride was reflected in the American Freedom Train, a 26-car locomotive loaded with historical exhibits and decorated in stars and stripes. It stopped in all 48 contiguous states from April 1, 1975, in Wilmington, Delaware, to December 31, 1976, in Miami. “It was by far the greatest event on rails since the end of the steam era,” declares a commemorative website, which estimates that tens of millions of Americans stood to watch it pass by and that more than 7 million bought tickets and attended.

I was one of those 7 million, or at least my parents were—they paid for the tickets. We stood in the Freedom Train’s fabled long lines on a hot summer day in suburban Illinois. Sometimes people waited for hours before they could get on board and see the exhibits, and even then, they were hustled along on a moving walkway that rushed them through in 15 minutes (later slowed to 22). It was all a bit overwhelming: “Zuni necklace, golden spike, first English Bible, first edition of Poe, Henry Aaron’s home run bat, Edward G. Robinson as Little Caesar, the familiar, sinister voice intoning ‘The Shadow knows,’ Thomas Hart Benton’s painting, Gerald R. Ford proclaiming, ‘Our Constitution works’—more than half a thousand features flash by before one has a chance to focus,” the New York Times observed. Still, the Freedom Train is remembered fondly, and, like the gifts sent to President Ford, it’s hard to imagine it happening again. The political battles alone—from what stops to make and what exhibits to include to whether to employ unionized workers or use renewable energy—would probably keep a twenty-first-century Freedom Train stranded in the station.

In-between Walter Cronkite droning on about the impending eco-disasters of a new ice age and overpopulation to viewers of the CBS Evening News, and episodes of M*A*S*H as a thinly-disguised Vietnam War commentary full of moral equivalence between the US, North Korea and Communist China, CBS could still muster up some of its biggest stars to host “Bicentennial Minutes” on the important events that led up to the nation’s founding. Today, the network would likely draft Stephen Colbert and Colin Kaepernick to opine on how the nation was born in Original Sin. Perhaps it was the lack of a 24-hour cable news cycle, or the increasingly left-leaning network remembering that it still needed to serve a wide swatch of viewers. In any case, even with a Republican president in the White House, the Bicentennial proved that as late as 1976, the Democratic Party-dominated overculture still offered room for all, decades before today’s “no escapism” mentality on the elite left.

IT’S FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND, SO IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER UBER-WOKE PR STUNT FROM NIKE: Last year, the Betsy Ross flag was cancelled by Nike during the Fourth of July holiday season, as a sneak preview of our current summer of leftist discontent. Now it’s time for Nike to generate PR by another major cancellation: “Nike removes Redskins name, apparel from its website,” NBC reports. (Which also helps to deflect Nike from this unfortunate fact: “Nike Called Out for Low Wages in Asia Amid Colin Kaepernick Ad Promotion,” Newsweek reported in September of 2018:

“The share of production costs of Nike and Adidas shoes that ends up in a worker’s pocket is now a staggering 30 percent less than in the early 1990s (2.5 percent in 2017 for Nike shoes compared with 4 percent in 1995),” the organization said, Reuters reported. According to CCC, the company has transferred much of its manufacturing to Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam as wages have increased in China.

More pressure is being put on the Redskins team owner Dan Snyder by FedEx: “Stadium sponsor FedEx asks Redskins to change nickname,” ESPN adds.  Today, the team issued a statement that they will “undergo a thorough review of the team’s name,” which means a change is possibly on the way. Yesterday, one wag on Twitter suggested an excellent choice to allow Synder to thumb his nose at Nike: “The Washington Uighers.”

At his Lid blog, Jeff Dunetz has a list of suggestions for more replacement names, including this possibility: “How about taking a number? After all, the 49ers have a long history of winning football. Why not call the team the ‘Washington 26 Trillion,’ after the national debt? Nah, that won’t work because then the team will have to change what they are called every few weeks.”

Of course, as Stephen Miller tweets, erasing the Redskins’ name means erasing a bit of black history: “The first African American QB to win a Super Bowl did it with the Washington Redskins. Have fun guys!”

Also in National Wokeball News: “NFL plans to play Black national anthem before Week 1 games this season,” the New York Post reports. As Twitchy adds, “Judging by the comments, we weren’t the only ones who didn’t know that ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ is ‘traditionally known’ as the black national anthem, but NFL viewers will be getting familiar with it, as the league intends to play it before ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ before Week 1 games this season.”

According to CBS, Roger Goodell, the NFL’s commissioner, donated a paltry $2,700 to Chris Christie’s stillborn presidential bid in 2016. This fall’s NFL season is shaping up to be a much larger in-kind contribution to the Trump 2020 campaign.

NIKE POSTS $790M LOSS AFTER CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC SHUTTERED STORES:

Nike lost $790 million during a fourth quarter in which nearly all of its stores were forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company said in its earnings report Thursday.

Sales fell 38 percent to $6.3 billion during the quarter, falling far short of the $7.3 billion that Wall Street analysts expected, according to Refinitiv data. Nike posted a loss of 51 cents per share. The company reported a profit of $989 million in the same period one year ago.

“Our fourth quarter results were significantly impacted by physical store closures across North America, EMEA and APLA, where 90 percent of NIKE-owned stores were closed for roughly eight weeks in the quarter to protect the health and safety of teammates and consumers and help slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Nike said in its earnings release. “Our wholesale partners largely followed the same pattern and as a result, product shipments to wholesale customers were down nearly 50 percent resulting in lower total revenue and higher inventory.”

They probably shouldn’t look for much sympathy from half the country, after getting the Betsy Ross flag cancelled as a PR stunt (with an assist from Nike-sponsored Colin Kaepernick) during last year’s Fourth of July celebrations.

FLASHBACK: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON THE LOOMING 1984 ELECTION:

In his own way, Trump also fights back in 360-degree fashion, from the existential to the trivial, railing against Colin Kaepernick, tit for tatting Hollywood stars, weighing in on radical abortion, open borders, power outages, the homeless and subway jumping. The result is not just that there looms a choice between two different agendas, but two quite different American lifestyles and experiences—and histories.

Like it or not, 2020 is going to be a plebiscite on an American version of Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four. One side advocates a complete transformation not just of the American present but of the past as well. The Left is quite eager to change our very vocabulary and monitor our private behavior to ensure we are not just guilty of incorrect behavior but thought as well.

The other side believes America is far better than the alternative, that it never had to be perfect to be good, and that, all and all, its flawed past is a story of a moral nation’s constant struggle for moral improvement.

One side will say, “Just give us more power and we will create heaven on earth.” The other says “Why would anyone wish to take their road to an Orwellian nightmare?” The 2020 election is that simple.

Advantage: VDH.

WARNER TODD HUDSON: NFL Pledges to Spend $250 Million on Social Justice Causes.

Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reported that the league is looking to spread the money around over the next ten years to groups and organizations that fight “systemic racism.”

The spending amounts to $781,250 per team per year, Pro Football Talk noted.

According to NFL.com, the league is also prepared to reach out to Colin Kaepernick to work out where the money will be spent.

Related:

Give in to the mob, get more mobs.

GIVING PRIZES FOR RADICALIZATION RESULTS IN MORE RADICALIZATION:  How the Radicalization of Colin Kaepernick Explains the Current American Crisis.

TWO CNNs IN ONE!

● Shot: “Assertions about outside agitators come partly from data about who has been arrested, as well as information from fliers and online postings, according to state public safety commissioner John Harrington, who said authorities had ‘seen things like white supremacists organizers’ who had posted online about going to Minnesota. Officials did not provide further details about who exactly was fueling the unrest and where they were from. Harrington said he hoped to release more information later Saturday.”

—“Minnesota officials say outsiders are hijacking protests and ‘attacking civil society,’” CNN, today.

● Chaser: Colin Kaepernick starts legal defense fund for protesters arrested in Minneapolis.

—Headline, CNN today.

NIKE, AN ANTI-AMERICAN COMPANY:  Powerline’s John Hinderaker reminds us that Nike actually cultivates its anti-American image.  And (alas) that image seems to pay off for it.

Almost 30 years ago, I had a (since deceased) leftie friend who insisted that he wouldn’t buy Nike shoes, because they were named for Nike missiles and therefore promote American militarism.  Nothing I could tell him about Nike, the ancient Greek goddess of victory, for whom both the shoes and the missiles were named, would change his mind.  He’d never heard of the goddess Nike, so he was sure nobody else had either (except his weird friend Gail, who reads too much).  This was pre-internet, so I couldn’t just Google it to prove my point.

Too bad I can’t convince everyone inclined to buy Nike shoes on account of the company’s anti-American image that they’d be promoting American militarism.

Related (From Ed): With Attack on U.S. Flag, Colin Kaepernick‏ Shifts the Goalposts.

FROM AMERICA’S PAPER OF RECORD: ‘This Is The Detroit Lions And We’d Love To Sign You,’ Says Giggling Trump On Yet Another Prank Call To Colin Kaepernick.

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Shocking! No NFL Teams Interested in Signing Colin Kaepernick.

NEWSPAPERS CONCERN TROLL THEIR HOMETOWN SPORTS TEAMS, INSULT THEIR FANS: For an organization that values public relations, skipping Colin Kaepernick’s workout seems like a strange decision for the Cowboys

—The Dallas Morning News, Friday. And from the Arizona Republic, also on Friday: 

No other industry trashes its customers like the DNC-MSM.

Related: Breaking: Kaepernick’s Kaper.