As much as China wants to dominate the ice and slopes at this year’s Olympics, winning medals is only part of the goal. Its greatest victory, the regime knows, would be rehabilitating its global image. And in some ways, the propaganda game has already been won. Not only did Beijing win the hosting job from the International Olympic Committee over the world’s objections, but it managed to convince some of the planet’s biggest advertisers to pour their money into a country that spends its free time committing mass atrocities against its own people. Atrocities, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) argues, our athletes should ignore.

“I know there’s a temptation on the part of some to speak out while they’re there,” Pelosi said Thursday. “I respect that, but I also worry about what the Chinese government might do… to their reputations, to their families… We wish all of the athletes well. We wish them safety — and that safety includes: Don’t for one moment believe what the Chinese government might tell you about freedom of expression. You take a risk.” The comments — a “shut up and play” moment from the third most powerful person in Washington — sent shockwaves through the sports community. The NBA’s Enes Kanter Freedom, who’s spent a lot of personal capital shining a light on the Uyghur genocide, couldn’t believe his ears. Pelosi’s message “broke my heart,” he told reporters. “Athletes need to use their platform to bring awareness to the world.”

If the world stays silent, China wins. Noah Hoffman, an Olympic skier in 2018, is already distressed at the human rights blackout. Scrolling through social media posts from Team USA, he says there’s almost no mention of China’s crimes against humanity or the disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai. “Let’s be clear,” he wrote in passionate op-ed for the Daily Mail, “these athletes are not silent on human rights issues out of ignorance or indifference. They are not attempting to ‘keep politics out of sport’ or to ‘limit distractions.’ They are silent out of fear.” And it’s entirely the IOC’s fault. They’re using the athletes like “pawns.” “The behind-the-scenes truth of these Olympic games… is that ‘political neutrality’ is an excuse for the IOC and its U.S. sponsors to pursue power and profit at the expense of athletes.” Given the choice between them, the Chinese Communist Party always “comes out on top.”

Congress has done what it can to fight the rosy picture the Olympics are painting. Over the last several weeks, Republicans have launched a number of efforts to register their outrage at the U.S.‘s participation. Just this week, there was an onslaught of letters to everyone from Beijing’s American sponsors to NBC. The GOP’s China Task Force members called the U.S. Olympic Committee on the carpet, pointing out, “The 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing will be the first Olympic games to take place in a country that is conducting an ongoing genocide. Therefore, these games are an unprecedented threat to American values, inalienable human rights, and the spirit of the Olympics.” They urge the committee to inform every athlete about the “human rights situation in China,” along with an explanation of what they plan to do to keep our team safe.

Taking direct aim at the IOC, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher (R) decided Thursday night to introduce a bill that would sanction the committee if any part of the U.S. delegation — athlete, fan, journalist, or participant — “falls victim to 'gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” In Gallagher’s mind, it’s not enough to boycott these Olympics, it’s time to “call the IOC out for their complete cowardice” and “complacent role.”

Republicans also had strong words for NBC, who they fear is under the regime’s influence during the next few weeks’ broadcasts. What input, they want to know, did the $7.7 billion dollar deal buy the Chinese government? Did the IOC or CCP take any steps to sanitize their coverage? And are those steps being taken “to shed light on China’s history of human rights abuses?” The network took some cautious steps toward that end during today’s Opening Ceremony, hosting a panel of experts on the “alleged” program of Uyghur suppression taking place in Xinjiang. Savannah Guthrie carefully couched the criticism, saying, “Some have said there’s a cloud over these Olympics,” as if the mass persecution was merely unconfirmed hearsay. NBC’s Andy Browne, desperately trying to help the network have it both ways, insisted on making the point that “the Chinese government emphatically denies all of this. They say that accusations of genocide are the lie of the century.”

If it’s a lie, then it’s an elaborate one. Satellite images, witness testimony, and thousands of pages of China’s own documents urging “no mercy” prove what too many American companies refuse to admit: they are complicit in the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in the modern age. Top executives at Visa, P&G, Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Intel, Procter & Gamble, and Toyota have been trying to lie low for months — some, the Wall Street Journal points out, not even talking or tweeting about their participation in the Games. They’re trying to “weather the storm,” marketing experts say. Easier said than done. Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) has already fired off a missive to every U.S. sponsor demanding to know: Where is the red line? If it’s not human rights, if it’s not slave labor, if it’s not silencing and disappearing citizens — what is it?

Politics has no place in business, they reply. It’s a convenient lie, told in the shadow of concentration camps. One they will not repeat back home, the second a liberal cause comes knocking.

Originally published here.

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Truckers Refuse to Yield on Vaccine Mandate

COVID cases may be going down, but the health worker shortage is bigger than ever. In places like New York, leaders are desperately trying to fill the 34,000-person gap by either bringing in foreign nurses or throwing money at the ones already here. “We have to stop the hemorrhaging of current health care workers,” Governor Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) insisted. Her state’s solution? Four billion dollars in bonuses and higher wages. Conservatives have a better idea: end the job-crushing mandate.

All across the country, Democratic leaders are doing everything to jump start the workforce except the one thing that would work. Instead of rolling back the vaccine mandate that forced thousands of employees to up and leave, Hochul and others are clinging to the tyranny that’s put them in this mess in the first place. Now, the situation is so dire, that hospitals, nursing homes, and adult care facilities are putting up “help wanted” signs at the border. Amy Erlbacher-Anderson, an immigration attorney, told the AP she’s “seen more demand for foreign nurses in two years than the rest of her 18-year career.

And it’s no wonder. Blue states like California have lost a whopping 14 percent of their nursing workforce, forcing them to pay traveling nurses as much as $100 an hour just to meet the demand. Even graduating students as fast as possible, schools can’t keep up.

For a lot of health care workers, most of whom have had COVID (and, as a result, natural immunity), the mandate is outrageous. Worst of all, Hochul — and before her, Andrew Cuomo (D) — went out of their way to bypass any exemptions. In New York, employers were told that they couldn’t offer religious accommodations, in complete violation of Title VII law. And, as Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver pointed out, locals were told that if they ignored that order and recognized a religious exemption, they would lose their business license. And these are states — Maine is another one — who were already well understaffed before the pandemic began. "So when COVID hit in 2020… some of them got out of the health care industry.”

Fortunately, in October, a federal judge ordered New York to start allowing religious exemptions. But by then, the damage had already been done. Desperate to cope, some of the governors called in the National Guard or started hiring foreign workers. “That’s like putting your finger in the bathtub to try to raise the water level,” Staver joked. “Because the number of workers that have left [these states] are in the tens of thousands. And the National Guard simply doesn’t have the [volume] of nurses or doctors to be able to come in and replace that loss. So who suffers? The patient.”

Meanwhile, in a picture of contrast, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R) declared an end to the state’s COVID health emergency on Thursday, insisting it’s time to move on from the pandemic restrictions. “After two years, it’s no longer feasible or necessary,” she said. “The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives, and coronavirus can be managed similarly.”

The truckers of America will be glad to hear that, since they’ll be rolling through that friendly ground during next month’s Freedom Convoy. Taking their cue from the Canadian truckers up north, a group of Americans plans to carry on the protest, starting in California on March 1 and ending up in the nation’s capital. Brian Brase, who co-founded the effort, says it’s not just about trucking. It’s about “looking out for our community” and “stop[ping] the mandates.”

“We’re not anti-vax,” Brase explained on “Washington Watch.” “We just we believe that you should have the choice.” Looking around the country right now, he said, “it’s really kind of sad.” [People] are losing their jobs that they’ve had for years. These are some of the most talented people in their fields. The military spends millions of dollars in training on these soldiers, and they’re being forced to leave because they won’t get the vaccine because they don’t want to put something in their arm. It violates not only your constitutional rights as an American, but it’s violating your rights as a human being, what some would call your God-given rights…“

As far as Brase is concerned, most of the supply chain crunch Americans are experiencing could have been avoided. Instead, Democrats tried to throw money at the problem, paying employees to stay home and not work. That means, there’s "nobody to manufacture products. There’s nobody to load the trucks. There’s nobody to unload the trucks. We’re spending hours sitting in the docks because they don’t have the employees. A lot of times they don’t have the employees because places are requiring all of their employees to be vaccinated… That’s why there’s only two loaves of bread on the shelf at Walmart.”

Of course, that’s not a truth the far-Left wants to admit, so they’re censoring the truckers — pulling down their Facebook page under the auspices of “community standards.” Well, they can take away their platform, but they can’t stop the movement. Not even Big Tech can censor the image of thousands of trucks driving down America’s highways in the biggest mobile protest of all.

Originally published here.

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This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.