Iconoclast: Joe Rogan saves freedom of expression

“’They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.’ This ultimatum from singing legend Neil Young to Spotify had a sense of justifiable certainty,” quipped Jonathan Turley of The Hill. Spotify has remained true to Rogan, and perhaps more importantly, to “free speech“. But “the choice between Rogan’s 11 million listeners or an aging rocker was economically clear”. Spotify’s music side doesn’t bring in much profit; “Rogan and podcasts are a slot machine”, with revenues up “627%”. This is good news for freedom of expression. Normally, “companies see no benefit in defending dissenting views. Now, for the first time, economics may have actually worked against censorship and for free speech.

Libertarian: “public health” camouflage

“The pandemic era,” argues Peter Suderman of Reason, has revealed a “tendency to use public health as a pretext for another goal that has little or nothing to do with public health.” Neil Young’s fight with Spotify and New York’s battle over cocktails to go are both about non-COVID issues. Liquor store lobbyists have worked “strongly against the extension of the [to -go cocktail] politics” for selfish reasons, but claim it is a public health issue. Young cited Joe Rogan’s conversations with vax-deniers, but he “removed his music from all streaming services” in 2015, “complaining that low-quality streaming ‘devalued’ his music.” Both used the “totalizing urgency of the pandemic” to portray their movements “as pure and selfless when the reality is anything but.”

Conservative: Democrats will pay for border scrambles

“The Biden administration doesn’t seem very interested in the devastation on our southern border,” Jason L. Riley notes to the Wall Street Journal, but it’s “getting worse” and Republicans will make it a campaign theme for midterms. People have seen “record levels of illicit crossings, overflowing detention centers and, more recently, video footage of illegal immigrants being transported (in the middle of the night)” across the country – with “disastrous” results. Immigrants are “responding to incentives” and Democrats have encouraged them to “try their luck.” President Donald Trump’s rhetoric was often “exaggerated,” but his argument (Americans should decide who comes here) resonated. “Team Biden’s failure to grasp this” could “cost Democrats dearly in November.”

Foreign Office: Xi Must Win Olympics

If Chinese President Xi Jinping “wants to stay in power – to achieve his goal of being dictator for life – he must win the 2022 Winter Games,” Gordon G. Chang told Newsweek. Xi “seeks an unprecedented third term as general secretary” of the Communist Party “instead of following recent custom and retiring.” It would undermine the power of the party, “which since the 1980s has struggled to establish rules, customs and guidelines to limit leadership as a result of the elites’ horror at the near-absolute power of Mao Zedong.” The next national party congress, likely this fall, will decide “Xi’s fate.” So Xi, who “personally oversees” the Olympics, “needs no scandals, no terrorism, no visible protests against Uyghurs or other issues. And most importantly, given China’s role in the outbreak of the global pandemic, that means Xi’s ‘zero COVID’ strategy has to work.”

Analyst: The Mike Pence Moment

Ex-prez Donald “Trump’s insistence that he win the 2020 election remains a serious problem for Republicans across the country,” Henry Olsen told the Washington Post. Candidates can’t ignore it, so “the GOP could be dealing with a lot of 2020 midterm ‘truthfulness’.” And while “the emperor has no clothes”, “it takes someone who has the courage to say it out loud to break the spell”. Ex-veep Mike “Pence is the perfect person to do this” because “the vast majority of Republicans and elected GOP officials respect him.” And since he is now “under direct attack from Trump, he is also the natural person to refute Trump’s false claims.” He really has only two choices: “To shrink completely into private life or one day meet his destiny as a man with the conviction and stature to engage with Trump in this battle.”

– Compiled by the Editorial Board of The Post