And yet Nixon and Kissinger approached the Chinese 50 years ago all the current complaints now ring hollow, the Chinese at the time wanted to be left alone we probably in hindsight should granted them their wish but greed interfered. Like the Opium Wars.
With all due respect, I think only those who have access to classified government information should be the ones speaking on this subject.
EVERYTHING in China is owned and controlled by the Chineses Communist Party not the Chinese People including TikTok!
An old communist once said “a capitalist is a fool who will sell the rope to his own hanging!”
Well please let me update this by say….“TikTok influencers are naïve money making fools that are selling the ropes to everyone’s and every society’s hangings!
People who have access to classified material and information are given such access based on having a need to know such things based on their official role and responsibilities. These responsibilities do not include presenting their opinions about anything related to or even adjacent to the classified information they are sworn to protect in a public setting.
Having a security clearance at any level is not like having a preferred credit card to be flashed to impress others. The best thing anyone with a security clearance should do is to avoid any public communication related to the their position, role, insider information, or access to classified material or under a security umbrella. Everyone has heard the phrase “loose lips sink ships.” It’s not a meaningless phrase.
So no, anyone who thinks that having access to classified material makes their arguments about a topic more credible is getting dangerously close to accidentally or unknowingly disclosing too much information related their own role and areas of responsibility beyond the boundaries of the security clearance they’ve been granted. Plus, the vast majority of people who are granted security clearances only have access to material directly related to their roles and responsibilities, I.e., need to know. It’s intensionally siloed based on subject matter and additionally siloed further by the intended audience. Having a Secret clearance does not grant you access to any secret material, much less different levels of secret access.
It always comes back to “need to know,” not desire to impress, or desire to publicly confirm or deny the correctness or incorrectness of specific points of contention based on privileged information or knowledge related to their official role.
Sorry - didn't intend the crazy big font above. No shouting intended.
No problem, that's fixed.
Also, I am fully aware of "knowledge of national security, psych warfare, and the value of being able to tap into the location, traffic flow, and mental processing of one's enemies."
I think we have far more important things to worry about in our country than TikTok. As usual, our priorities are totally in the wrong places. This is purely a political move and not really based on much of any facts at all voted on by people who don't even know how to operate a modern smartphone or turn a computer on today.
I would say that having a whole generation of kids spending 5+ hours a day watching a platform controlled in part by a hostile foreign government a fairly substantial problem.
So this is more important than any other major issue in the US right now? Don't tell me you follow the BS narrative that TikTok is stealing your data. Where's the proof in this?
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
I think we have far more important things to worry about in our country than TikTok. As usual, our priorities are totally in the wrong places. This is purely a political move and not really based on much of any facts at all voted on by people who don't even know how to operate a modern smartphone or turn a computer on today.
I would say that having a whole generation of kids spending 5+ hours a day watching a platform controlled in part by a hostile foreign government a fairly substantial problem.
So this is more important than any other major issue in the US right now? Don't tell me you follow the BS narrative that TikTok is stealing your data. Where's the proof in this?
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
You likely misunderstand how Congress works. Only a few legislators are actually involved in creating a particular piece of legislation, and even then, most of the work is accomplished by congressional aids and interns. In this particular case, TikTok, which President Trump tried to force into sale in 2020, has been under investigation for something on the order of 4 years, and likely longer, and now Trump has reversed himself on a sale.
But sure, at some point, all of them are called on to vote on legislation.
I disagree about term limits, since in fact, institutional knowledge will be lost if there aren't any of those "fucking old geezers" in Congress, both in the process, and in dealing with, for instance, national security issues.
Pretty fucking beneficial to have a President who lived through the Cold War, and certainly, has a historical connection through the "greatest generation" of WWII, when dealing with Russia, China, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the EU. I for one, as do many historians, consider Speaker Pelosi up there with Speaker Tip O'Niell as one of the greatest Speakers in history;
As great events unfold in American and world politics, I suggest that future historians will write that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the most important, consequential and effective Speaker since Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), one of the greatest Speakers who ever served in the House of Representatives.
Speaker Mike Johnson, is arguably, the least effective Speaker in modern history.
All that said, the Democrats have a deep bench of capable, young leaders chomping at the bit for a presidential run in 2028; the Republicans have some, though not so many, and those need to get out of Trump's shadow.
And yet Nixon and Kissinger approached the Chinese 50 years ago all the current complaints now ring hollow, the Chinese at the time wanted to be left alone we probably in hindsight should granted them their wish but greed interfered. Like the Opium Wars.
My recollection of history, is that the U.S. wanted to help China against a mutual adversary, The Soviet Union.
What we have today came out of that, though there was the hope of democratization, now dashed with the rise of Xi Jinping.
With all due respect, I think only those who have access to classified government information should be the ones speaking on this subject.
EVERYTHING in China is owned and controlled by the Chineses Communist Party not the Chinese People including TikTok!
An old communist once said “a capitalist is a fool who will sell the rope to his own hanging!”
I suspect my time supporting legislators for about 15 years is probably sufficient to have an "informed opinion" on how little they know about technological matters, and how motivated they are by money. At least the joint chiefs pay lip service to doing the right thing.
It's been a while, admittedly. Fortunately, a good percentage of the folks that I had long contracts with are still in office, so I suspect the knowledge gleaned from talking to them is still current.
No place in the piece do I say that I want China to have my data. The piece really isn't about that. There are sharper security issues with China that they just don't want to deal with because they aren't flashy, and this is low-hanging fruit with an added bonus of legislators and past ones potentially being able to make a buck with that same data.
But you call this legislation a ban, which sorry, says yours isn’t a sufficiently “informed opinion” to know this isn’t a technological matter, but rather a privacy one and a political one. Who do you THINK should be deciding it? The invisible hand of the market?
I think we have far more important things to worry about in our country than TikTok. As usual, our priorities are totally in the wrong places. This is purely a political move and not really based on much of any facts at all voted on by people who don't even know how to operate a modern smartphone or turn a computer on today.
I would say that having a whole generation of kids spending 5+ hours a day watching a platform controlled in part by a hostile foreign government a fairly substantial problem.
So this is more important than any other major issue in the US right now? Don't tell me you follow the BS narrative that TikTok is stealing your data. Where's the proof in this?
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
You likely misunderstand how Congress works. Only a few legislators are actually involved in creating a particular piece of legislation, and even then, most of the work is accomplished by congressional aids and interns. In this particular case, TikTok, which President Trump tried to force into sale in 2020, has been under investigation for something on the order of 4 years, and likely longer, and now Trump has reversed himself on a sale.
But sure, at some point, all of them are called on to vote on legislation.
I disagree about term limits, since in fact, institutional knowledge will be lost if there aren't any of those "fucking old geezers" in Congress, both in the process, and in dealing with, for instance, national security issues.
Pretty fucking beneficial to have a President who lived through the Cold War, and certainly, has a historical connection through the "greatest generation" of WWII, when dealing with Russia, China, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the EU. I for one, as do many historians, consider Speaker Pelosi up there with Speaker Tip O'Niell as one of the greatest Speakers in history;
As great events unfold in American and world politics, I suggest that future historians will write that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the most important, consequential and effective Speaker since Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), one of the greatest Speakers who ever served in the House of Representatives.
Speaker Mike Johnson, is arguably, the least effective Speaker in modern history.
All that said, the Democrats have a deep bench of capable, young leaders chomping at the bit for a presidential run in 2028; the Republicans have some, though not so many, and those need to get out of Trump's shadow.
There is nothing beneficial in having very old people with clear indications of reduced cognitive capacity running a country like the United States. No matter what they've been through.
People who have been through the exact same periods can have completely differing views on the present while taking the same historical content into account.
Neither Biden nor Trump are likely to get through a term without physical/mental problems holding them back because those problems are already holding them back.
It's true that youth is not a guarantee of anything either but I think we'd all agree that if there is a sweet spot (even if it's just related to the age of potential Apple CEOs) and it's not going to be a person in their eighties.
So, lots going on today as the Biden administration continues to make the case that a democratic government can work for ordinary Americans while Trump and his supporters insist that a country run by such an administration is an apocalyptic nightmare.
First, economic analyst Steven Rattner reported today that according to The Economist, since the end of 2019 the American economy has grown about 8%, while the European Union has grown about 3%, Japan 1%, and Britain not at all. Rattner and economist Brendan Duke reported that entrepreneurship in the U.S. is booming, with 5.2 million “likely employer” business applications filed between January 2021 and December 2023, more than a 33% increase over those filed between 2017 and 2019.
I think we have far more important things to worry about in our country than TikTok. As usual, our priorities are totally in the wrong places. This is purely a political move and not really based on much of any facts at all voted on by people who don't even know how to operate a modern smartphone or turn a computer on today.
I would say that having a whole generation of kids spending 5+ hours a day watching a platform controlled in part by a hostile foreign government a fairly substantial problem.
So this is more important than any other major issue in the US right now? Don't tell me you follow the BS narrative that TikTok is stealing your data. Where's the proof in this?
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
You likely misunderstand how Congress works. Only a few legislators are actually involved in creating a particular piece of legislation, and even then, most of the work is accomplished by congressional aids and interns. In this particular case, TikTok, which President Trump tried to force into sale in 2020, has been under investigation for something on the order of 4 years, and likely longer, and now Trump has reversed himself on a sale.
But sure, at some point, all of them are called on to vote on legislation.
I disagree about term limits, since in fact, institutional knowledge will be lost if there aren't any of those "fucking old geezers" in Congress, both in the process, and in dealing with, for instance, national security issues.
Pretty fucking beneficial to have a President who lived through the Cold War, and certainly, has a historical connection through the "greatest generation" of WWII, when dealing with Russia, China, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the EU. I for one, as do many historians, consider Speaker Pelosi up there with Speaker Tip O'Niell as one of the greatest Speakers in history;
As great events unfold in American and world politics, I suggest that future historians will write that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the most important, consequential and effective Speaker since Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), one of the greatest Speakers who ever served in the House of Representatives.
Speaker Mike Johnson, is arguably, the least effective Speaker in modern history.
All that said, the Democrats have a deep bench of capable, young leaders chomping at the bit for a presidential run in 2028; the Republicans have some, though not so many, and those need to get out of Trump's shadow.
There is nothing beneficial in having very old people with clear indications of reduced cognitive capacity running a country like the United States. No matter what they've been through.
People who have been through the exact same periods can have completely differing views on the present while taking the same historical content into account.
Neither Biden nor Trump are likely to get through a term without physical/mental problems holding them back because those problems are already holding them back.
It's true that youth is not a guarantee of anything either but I think we'd all agree that if there is a sweet spot (even if it's just related to the age of potential Apple CEOs) and it's not going to be a person in their eighties.
Given the variable quality of leadership in the EU, and UK, I'd say our current President has shown himself to be pretty capable, and we do have this entity, the Vice President, who is very capable, and the 25th amendment, should that ever be needed. Might be good to remember that our President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, died in office, during the largest war in history, and the transition was very smooth. President Truman even got read in on The Manhattan Project on April 24, 1945.
Perhaps the EU would let some of the Central European, or Baltic Countries run things for awhile, or at least until Macron figures out how to become the EU leader he imagines himself. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak appears to have failed to turn around the UK economy, which has had about 0% growth and high inflation, since the pandemic.
Former President Trump likely has dementia, of some form or another, but the Republicans, held hostage by MAGA, have decided through a primary system, that he will be the Presidential Candidate.
First, economic analyst Steven Rattner reported today that according to The Economist, since the end of 2019 the American economy has grown about 8%, while the European Union has grown about 3%, Japan 1%, and Britain not at all. Rattner and economist Brendan Duke reported that entrepreneurship in the U.S. is booming, with 5.2 million “likely employer” business applications filed between January 2021 and December 2023, more than a 33% increase over those filed between 2017 and 2019.
Economists Justin Wolfers and Arin Dube noted that, as Wolfers wrote, “[f]or the first time in forever, real wage gains are going to those who need them most.” Wages have gone up for all but the top 20% of Americans, whose wages have fallen, reducing inequality.
...
It seems to me that the news tends to be slow on weekends during the Biden administration, while Mondays are a firehose. (In contrast, Trump’s people tended to dump news in the middle of the night, after Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show was over, which may or may not have been a coincidence.) [...]
Former president Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee...tried to spark attacks on President Joe Biden by asking on social media if people feel better off now than they were four years ago. This was perhaps a mistaken message, since four years ago we were in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Supermarket shelves were empty, toilet paper was hard to find, healthcare professionals were wearing garbage bags and reusing masks because the Trump administration had permitted the strategic stockpile to run low, deaths were mounting, the stock market had crashed, and the economy had ground to a halt.
On this day four years ago, I recorded that “more than 80 national security professionals broke with their tradition of non-partisanship to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for president, saying that while they were from all parties and disagreed with each other about pretty much everything else, they had come together to stand against Trump.”
I think we have far more important things to worry about in our country than TikTok. As usual, our priorities are totally in the wrong places. This is purely a political move and not really based on much of any facts at all voted on by people who don't even know how to operate a modern smartphone or turn a computer on today.
I would say that having a whole generation of kids spending 5+ hours a day watching a platform controlled in part by a hostile foreign government a fairly substantial problem.
So this is more important than any other major issue in the US right now? Don't tell me you follow the BS narrative that TikTok is stealing your data. Where's the proof in this?
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
You likely misunderstand how Congress works. Only a few legislators are actually involved in creating a particular piece of legislation, and even then, most of the work is accomplished by congressional aids and interns. In this particular case, TikTok, which President Trump tried to force into sale in 2020, has been under investigation for something on the order of 4 years, and likely longer, and now Trump has reversed himself on a sale.
But sure, at some point, all of them are called on to vote on legislation.
I disagree about term limits, since in fact, institutional knowledge will be lost if there aren't any of those "fucking old geezers" in Congress, both in the process, and in dealing with, for instance, national security issues.
Pretty fucking beneficial to have a President who lived through the Cold War, and certainly, has a historical connection through the "greatest generation" of WWII, when dealing with Russia, China, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the EU. I for one, as do many historians, consider Speaker Pelosi up there with Speaker Tip O'Niell as one of the greatest Speakers in history;
As great events unfold in American and world politics, I suggest that future historians will write that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the most important, consequential and effective Speaker since Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), one of the greatest Speakers who ever served in the House of Representatives.
Speaker Mike Johnson, is arguably, the least effective Speaker in modern history.
All that said, the Democrats have a deep bench of capable, young leaders chomping at the bit for a presidential run in 2028; the Republicans have some, though not so many, and those need to get out of Trump's shadow.
I don't need a fuckin history lesson on how congress works. I know how it works. My statement holds. We have better shit to worry about in this country than fuckin TikTok. I don't even believe it's been proven that US TikTok data ever goes back to China. It's more of an assumption and assumptions don't make it true. You gotta believe's don't make it true...people who keep saying it doesn't make it true.
I don't care if 4 people from congress worked on this bill to 80 people did. Those very people could be working to fix the bigger issues in this country. We spent time voting on it instead of voting on shit that will actually make US citizen's lives better.
With all due respect, I think only those who have access to classified government information should be the ones speaking on this subject.
EVERYTHING in China is owned and controlled by the Chineses Communist Party not the Chinese People including TikTok!
An old communist once said “a capitalist is a fool who will sell the rope to his own hanging!”
I suspect my time supporting legislators for about 15 years is probably sufficient to have an "informed opinion" on how little they know about technological matters, and how motivated they are by money. At least the joint chiefs pay lip service to doing the right thing.
It's been a while, admittedly. Fortunately, a good percentage of the folks that I had long contracts with are still in office, so I suspect the knowledge gleaned from talking to them is still current.
No place in the piece do I say that I want China to have my data. The piece really isn't about that. There are sharper security issues with China that they just don't want to deal with because they aren't flashy, and this is low-hanging fruit with an added bonus of legislators and past ones potentially being able to make a buck with that same data.
But you call this legislation a ban, which sorry, says yours isn’t a sufficiently “informed opinion” to know this isn’t a technological matter, but rather a privacy one and a political one. Who do you THINK should be deciding it? The invisible hand of the market?
Did you even read the piece?
You don't have anything behind your argument, which is probably why you decided to attack the opinion-haver. It isn't a privacy-protector, as discussed in the piece, because any US buyer will absolutely monetize that data. It is a technological matter, because it'll involve the Chinese surrendering the algorithm, and transferring it to a US tech company -- and the halls of government have no idea what this entails or how.
It's not a security issue any more than Facebook or other social media are, because the app doesn't have open microphones and the like. The WarThunder forums are more of a security threat than TikTok is, but there's no discussion about ownership of that.
That leaves profiteering, and wrapping themselves in the flag.
Comments
Also, I am fully aware of "knowledge of national security, psych warfare, and the value of being able to tap into the location, traffic flow, and mental processing of one's enemies."
But this is more important than reproductive rights for women, the rights of the LGBTQ community, fair pay for women, or taking on large corporations who are brining in record profits because they're price gouging people like crazy, or focusing on the absolute shit healthcare system in the US, tackling the major gun crisis with mass shootings, etc, etc. But yeah...let's focus TikTok. TikTok is the very least of our worries.
We need a new congress with people of this generation and get the fuckin old geezers out. TERM LIMITS!!! Congress shouldn't ever be a full-time permanent job. You serve your district for a 2-4yrs and then you let someone else do it. This should never be a career.
But sure, at some point, all of them are called on to vote on legislation.
I disagree about term limits, since in fact, institutional knowledge will be lost if there aren't any of those "fucking old geezers" in Congress, both in the process, and in dealing with, for instance, national security issues.
Pretty fucking beneficial to have a President who lived through the Cold War, and certainly, has a historical connection through the "greatest generation" of WWII, when dealing with Russia, China, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the EU. I for one, as do many historians, consider Speaker Pelosi up there with Speaker Tip O'Niell as one of the greatest Speakers in history;
https://thehill.com/opinion/447199-budowsky-pelosi-a-historically-great-speaker/
Speaker Mike Johnson, is arguably, the least effective Speaker in modern history.
All that said, the Democrats have a deep bench of capable, young leaders chomping at the bit for a presidential run in 2028; the Republicans have some, though not so many, and those need to get out of Trump's shadow.
What we have today came out of that, though there was the hope of democratization, now dashed with the rise of Xi Jinping.
https://www.twz.com/40396/the-u-s-once-helped-china-develop-a-modern-jet-fighter
People who have been through the exact same periods can have completely differing views on the present while taking the same historical content into account.
Neither Biden nor Trump are likely to get through a term without physical/mental problems holding them back because those problems are already holding them back.
It's true that youth is not a guarantee of anything either but I think we'd all agree that if there is a sweet spot (even if it's just related to the age of potential Apple CEOs) and it's not going to be a person in their eighties.
Perhaps the EU would let some of the Central European, or Baltic Countries run things for awhile, or at least until Macron figures out how to become the EU leader he imagines himself. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak appears to have failed to turn around the UK economy, which has had about 0% growth and high inflation, since the pandemic.
Former President Trump likely has dementia, of some form or another, but the Republicans, held hostage by MAGA, have decided through a primary system, that he will be the Presidential Candidate.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-18-2024
...
I don't care if 4 people from congress worked on this bill to 80 people did. Those very people could be working to fix the bigger issues in this country. We spent time voting on it instead of voting on shit that will actually make US citizen's lives better.
You don't have anything behind your argument, which is probably why you decided to attack the opinion-haver. It isn't a privacy-protector, as discussed in the piece, because any US buyer will absolutely monetize that data. It is a technological matter, because it'll involve the Chinese surrendering the algorithm, and transferring it to a US tech company -- and the halls of government have no idea what this entails or how.
It's not a security issue any more than Facebook or other social media are, because the app doesn't have open microphones and the like. The WarThunder forums are more of a security threat than TikTok is, but there's no discussion about ownership of that.