🔒 Spider-Man trumps Omicron as moviegoers flock to cinema – with insight from The Wall Street Journal

Also in the Hollywood Reporter today, Tatiana Siegel and Patrick Brzeski report that ignoring the abuses of the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t always lead to commercial success:

In 2014, when Warner Bros. drafted LeBron James to star in its Space Jam sequel, the film was tailored to appeal above all else to the mighty Chinese market. After all, James was a huge commodity in the basketball-obsessed country, where his signature Nike sneakers are made. Along the way, the future Hall of Famer avoided poking the China bear, even if it meant drawing outrage when he criticized Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey in 2019 for tweeting his support for Hong Kong protesters, calling him “misinformed” — a notable move given James’ vocal stance on police brutality issues and former President Trump’s so-called Muslim travel ban. At the time, videos of police crackdowns on Hong Kong’s pro-Democracy movement were circulating widely while it was well reported that more than 1 million Uighur Muslims were being held in internment camps.

Despite attempts to make it past China’s censors, Space Jam: A New Legacy never received a release in China this summer and scored just $162.8 million worldwide — a so-so figure even given the coronavirus pandemic. Still, Space Jam wasn’t alone. Disney received the same cold shoulder when it came to its Marvel tentpoles Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Eternals, films that were built around Chinese talent in order to make a giant showing in the market. But to no avail. Neither film was given a release in the country that continues to take heat for reported human rights abuses. Hollywood’s silence on those abuses has become deafening as other industries and entities have begun to confront China.

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Another Big Problem with Build Back Better

The Journal’s Andrew Duehren reports from Washington:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Democrats would plow forward early next year with a vote on the party’s roughly $2 trillion education, healthcare and climate package as Sen. Joe Manchin again said he wouldn’t be pressured into supporting the bill…

“The Senate will, in fact, consider the Build Back Better Act, very early in the new year so that every Member of this body has the opportunity to make their position known on the Senate floor, not just on television,” Mr. Schumer wrote, in a reference to Mr. Manchin’s appearance on Fox News Sunday in which he announced his stance.

Mr. Schumer’s statement raised the prospect of the central piece of Democrats’ economic agenda… failing on the Senate floor.

Mr. Schumer may find that a number of Democratic colleagues aren’t eager to take this vote if, as expected, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (socialist, Vt.) sign off on provisions to give themselves a tax break. Such lawmakers have been negotiating a potential increase in the state and local tax (SALT) Deduction. But not all Senate Democrats are on board.

Abby Vesoulis recently reported for Time:

That’s because raising the cap on SALT deductions from $10,000 to $80,000, as prescribed in the House-passed version of BBB, would disproportionately help taxpayers rich enough to benefit from itemizing their federal tax deductions—which is to say, the richest fifth of Americans. According to a November analysis from the… Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the higher SALT cap would primarily benefit the richest 20% of taxpayers, and three-fourths of the benefits would go to the richest 5%… If they raise the SALT cap, the second-most expensive item in a bill designed to bolster American working families would be a tax break for coastal elites…

“Our priorities should be making sure that families have affordable childcare, our priority should be making sure that we have paid family and medical leave and that it’s meaningful,” Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat also leading the negotiations, tells TIME. “To the extent that we’re spending money on a regressive tax policy, like SALT, I think that does diminish our ability to do those other things… I do think that it raises the question about what our priorities really are.”

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Good Guy with a Gun
Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas reports for the Chicago Tribune:

Two Rottweilers that were attacking a jogger in St. Charles are dead after the dogs’ owner and a man who intervened tried unsuccessfully to pull the animals off the woman until the man, who has a concealed carry license, fatally shot one of the dogs, according to the Kane County sheriff’s office.

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Good Guy with a Script
“Nick Offerman Says He Was Constantly Given Extra Bacon At Restaurants After Taking Ron Swanson Role,” Daily Caller, November 19

Where Are the Good Guys?
“1,140 Cars Were Stolen in November Across Portland. Mine Was One of Them,” Willamette Week, December 15

American Founders as Bad Guys
“The malicious, historically illiterate 1619 Project keeps rolling on,” George Will in the Washington Post, Dec. 17

Listen to the Science
“The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School,” The Atlantic, Dec. 16

Fact Check: True
“N.J. quarantines too many students, lawmaker says,” NJ.com, Dec. 19

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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(Lisa Rossi helps compile Best of the Web.Thanks to Al Eaton, Wes Van Fleet and Tony Lima.)

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