The clock is TikTocking. The Supreme Court has upheld the TikTok ban that technically gives the company just two days to sell the company. The ruling states: "There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary." This saga has been going on for a long time. Trump was for the ban before he was against it. That whiplash view is not particularly unique. Opinions from political officials on this topic have shifted almost as fast as political opinions shift on TikTok and other social media platforms. In the early days of TikTok, a couple of friends of mine (one from the Pentagon and one from intelligence) advised against allowing my kids to use the service for the very reasons that ultimately led to today's ban. There is a clear danger of enabling an adversarial government like China to collect our data and use a massively popular platform to influence American public opinion. This a significant issue. I'm just not sure if your data is any safer or your opinions are any less likely to be nefariously manipulated by platforms owned by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Donald Trump. 2Passing Sentence"Kelly Burke took a few labored steps to the witness stand and looked toward a large video screen in a rural Georgia courtroom. There, he saw the face of a man, beamed in from a nearby prison, whom he had sent away 25 years earlier for life without parole. Mr. Burke, a former district attorney, hadn’t seen the man, Jessie Askew Jr., since the sentencing in 1998. He had insisted at the time that Mr. Askew, then 24 years old, deserved to die in prison. On this spring morning in 2023, Mr. Burke planned to tell the court it was the biggest mistake of his career." NYT (Gift Article): For Decades, He Has Regretted Sending a Man Away for Life. Can He Fix It? "Weakened by cancer and nagged by his conscience, a former Georgia prosecutor wants the courts to reverse the sentence he demanded for a man who didn’t physically harm anyone in his crimes." 3Are We Having Fund Yet?"For people like me who don’t live near L.A., the destruction can start to read like a set of statistics—more than 12,000 structures damaged or destroyed; roughly 40,000 acres burned. But statistics have a strange way of obfuscating the magnitude and depth of the damage. On GoFundMe, the harm is shockingly visceral. As the catastrophe unfolds, the site is serving as a real-time record of the wildfires’ destruction." The Atlantic (Gift Article): The GoFundMe Fires. 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Doc: In The Grab, an investigative journalist from the excellent Center for Investigative Reporting uncovers the money, influence and alarming rationale behind covert efforts to control the most vital resource on the planet. This is the story about the story beneath all other stories. Great stuff. Streaming on Hulu. Available to rent elsewhere. 5Extra, ExtraLiberal Snowflakes: "President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office from inside the Capitol Rotunda on Monday due to forecasts of intense cold weather." ("Pardon me, are you Aaron Brrr, sir?") 6Feel Good Friday"The Post interviewed a half-dozen people, who told their stories through sporadic coughs, and has reconstructed what happened after that first interaction in the parking lot: a five-day rescue mission that aligned an incredible cast of characters from across the country, paired them up with celebrities, all with the sole mission of rescuing a small spitfire of a dog that, for much of its life, nobody had wanted." WaPo (Gift Article): The gripping story of how Oreo the dog was rescued from the LA fires. Also from WaPo: Watch man rescue woman and 4 dogs from Palisades Fire: ‘Just miraculous.'
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