This may be the weirdest of all. Tik-Tok (hereafter TT. It’s easier to type).

TT is owned by a Chinese company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter CP for no good reason).

Apparently, the TT and, therefore, the CP can learn a lot about you when you use TT. I don’t understand this, and I am not sure what they can learn. My age, height, IQ, SSN, bank accounts, shoe size, medical records, the fact that I don’t have a mistress in Topeka? I am not sure, but American intelligence knows and has briefed everyone in government with a need to know, and with remarkable bipartisanship, Congress votes to ban TT and the soon to be ex-president signs the bill. The soon-to-be president agrees.

It’s a matter of national security, they say. And the Supreme Court, 9-0, agrees, saying that in this case, the national security risks are likely so high that any effect on free speech is, as they say, trumped.

Then, both the soon-to-be and soon-not-to-be presidents change their minds. Again, bipartisanship in action.

Now, the law, passed and signed, said that TT could not operate in the US unless it was sold to an American owner. The drop dead date was last Sunday, but the law apparently says that the president could extend it for 90 days under certain circumstances. From what I understand, there had to be an American buyer in place and the parties actively working to close the sale.

This is not the case. The Chinese owner has not agreed to sell, for one thing. Kevin O’Leary (if that is his name)(hereafter KO) and his partner in crime (probably) McSomething say they will buy TT for $20B. But their purchase, as I heard it, will not include the algorithm, which allows TT to decide how it wants me to be brainwashed, so they would perhaps only get Tik, but need to develop their own Tok.

The site went dark in the US (hereafter, the United States) at midnight Sunday morning (I know that isn’t a time, but you know what I mean). But then the president-to-be said he would sign an Executive Order (hereafter EO) giving it 90 days, and the site lit up again. The president-to-be also said he would perhaps solve the problem by having a United States entity buy half the company and the CP retaining the other half.

Some things are obvious. For one, the 90 day EO violates the law, as there is no buyer in place, and should be null and void. Secondly, that the 50-50 compromise would not end the national security risk that started this particular ball (hereafter PB) rolling down the hill. Third, that the constant talk about the security risk has vanished altogether. Fourth, that the American servers who host TT and were afraid to continue hosting past the legislative drop dead date, are now OK with hosting because Trump said he would not prosecute them. And of course, Chairman Xi’s second in command will be at the inauguration today, along with all the tech billionaires (including OK and McSomething) who have a sufficient number of homemade bitcoins to buy TT.

So, the EO violates the law. The 50-50 proposal ignores what had been viewed as a major security risk. Dealing with Xi’s Number 2 ignores Chinese government protestations that they really had nothing to do with TT, which operated independently. And telling the Justice Department not to prosecute the server hosts ignores Attorney General-to-be-Bondi’s claim that the White House won’t tell her what to do even before she takes office.

I am sure there is more to this story, by the way.

And I am also interested in the promised ICE raid in Chicago, which as been postponed because of media leaks. An ICE raid takes a lot of planning, doesn’t it? How could the planning be done before the president-to-be became president? Was it all a fake announcement from the start? Or is there a real Deep State operating in the mysterious world of MAGA?

About 4 hours to the indoor inauguration. I do not want to watch. But if I change my mind, I think I will conduct my own protest and take my computer outdoors and watch it sitting down in the snow.