Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America and Jim Garrity of National Review.
Free Martini's coming up.
So glad you're with us for the Friday edition of The Three Martini Lunch.
So much to get to today.
We're going to be talking about a number of things, including the latest on the TikTok ban, which still isn't a ban and now it looks like it'll never be a ban. Why is this so hard to actually implement this law. We'll talk about what the new arrangement with TikTok is and why it seems to be falling short.
We'll also be taking a look at.
Pam Bondi and the Justice Department actually making some arrests and response to the invasion of the church on Sunday, including the guy that we played in the clip on Monday. So that's pretty gratifying, and we'll be taking a look. As we head into NFL Conference Championship weekend, the San Francisco forty nine ers are not in the final four. They got slaughtered by the Seahawks last week, but they fact that they got to the divisional round despite a
raft of injury to keep players this year. They're now investigating whether the fact that their practice facility is next to an electrical substation could be responsible for injuries this year and.
In prior years well. Also time permitting.
Talk about the huge storm that's expected to hit a lot of the South and the East Coast this week.
So tons to get to.
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main stores in select states. All right, Jim Great, first Martini, And this story was actually breaking about the time we started recording yesterday, but now we can addle a few more details to it. Three people have now been arrested in conjunction with those anti ice protests that barged into the city's church on Sunday, disrupting worship services. Video E saw videos of the kids crying. We played the clip of the guy just screaming like he was either on.
Drugs or possessed. Take your pick.
I believe William Kelly. We don't need to just prefer him as the guy. We've now got a mug shot for him. Sorry to step on the news.
No, that's exactly right.
So the first two arrests yesterday, we're Nikima Levy Armstrong, who was kind of the ringleader of the whole deal, and then also Chantelle Luisa Allen. And yes, William Kelly, the guy who has not only been part of that protest, but many protests at Christ Church in Washington, d C. He's been spotted in New Orleans trying to worshippers all over the place. So he is finally in custody. Don Lemon, you can tell he really wishes he was arrested, but he's not. The judge would not sign off on that.
I'm not sure why, but nonetheless, Jim, it's good to see arrests being made here because, as we've explained earlier in the week, this was clearly a crime.
You know, Greg, we're not fans of Don Lemon on this podcast, but this is where we can find common ground with Don Lemon. We'd like to see him frog marched in handcuffs. To use the infamous phrase of Ambassador Joe Wilson, apparently it is not to be or it is not to be based on the current evidence. I saw people pointing out that the judge reportedly as a spouse who works in the Minnesota Attorney General's office. I
don't know if that's the case. I would point out to the fact that certain figures were arrested, that there was sufficient evidence to get an arrest warrant indicates that this is not the judge rejecting all evidence out of hand and doing what he had to protect it if clearly there's some threshold of evidence and some of them were made, some of them were not, we can still hold out hope that at some point Don Lemon will get his wish and that we will finally get to
see that. I'm sure he would think we would make great television. You know, it's almost the old expression here, I can't even get arrested in the case of Don Lemon, literally he cannot get arrested despite me or recording himself
disrupting church services and things like that. But look, you know, William Kelly, based on both that video and the let's just say scruffy looking mugshot that he's got here, seems like exactly the kind of guy where if you see him on a street corner shouting, you're probably gonna cross the street to just avoid him. I think we've all run into that type of personality and that kind of persona. Look,
you know, they'll have their day in court. They'll have either court appointed attorneys, or maybe they'll afford attorneys, or maybe Soros will shell out for some nice, high priced attorney or something like that. But all in all, they look like it certainly appears that they committed a federal crime. They'll be prosecuted for it and hopefully a jury will hold them accountable. Either way, it is good news in Minnesota, which is a pretty rare thing these.
Days, no no doubt about it. Good news on the charges. Getting a conviction in Minneapolis, Minnesota on this could be a tricky deal. We'll find out, but the evidence should be cut and dried. I'm not sure what the penalty for this is, but good on the Justice Department for what should be an obvious need for prosecution there and they did it.
So good deal. All right.
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subject of today's Morning Jolt. And you know, back in the I guess the last year of the Biden administration, Congress passed the TikTok Ban as it was known, basically forcing TikTok to no longer be owned by Byte Dance, had to be completely divested of any company that was
connected to the Chinese government. It was upheld by the Supreme Court nine to nothing, and ever since then it's basically been kicked down the road by the Trump administration for the most part, in terms of actually implementing this law. At different times, Trump has talked about, you know, other people taking it over. He mentioned Larry Allison at one point,
He mentioned other people at one point. Well, now there's a deal in place, but the deal does not exactly fit with what the law calls for, which is the complete devestment of Byte Dance, because the Bike Dance still controls twenty percent of the company, and as you point out in the Jolt today, that means Byte Dance still certainly has a say in how tik Talk functions, which
means propaganda and other things. And possibly I don't know, but maybe you've dug into this as well, data harvesting, basically Chinese spyware.
Will it still be that going forward here?
So what exactly is the deal and what's the reality for its compliance or non compliance with the law.
Yeah, well, Greg, you said this the current arrangement that was now finalized yesterday, it does not fit with the existing past law. That's another way of saying violates the law. Yes, Byte Dance gets to keep nineteen point nine percent of the US version of TikTok. The You know, everybody who was worried about this from a national security perspective, all the China hawks, all the big people who saw this,
none of them are satisfied with this. And these are folks like you know, folks not just with the Hudson Institute, good solid conservative hawkish types. Mark Short, former of Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff. He was Director of Legislative Affairs in Trump's first term. These are not knee jerk Trump critics. These are not people who are automatically going to denounce the president whatever he says. And the
whole playing Well, don't worry, the US licenses the algorithm. Well, that doesn't really address the core problem here, which is the problem was being used to feed out messages that were hostile to American interests and to suppress messages that were, you know, supportive of American interests or critical of the Chinese state. Right, and so one of the things they point out is that, well, don't worry, we have full
inspection of the algorithm. Well, why do you feel the need to inspect the algorithm because the algorithm is even used to pump foreign propaganda into people's mind, Like there's this thing like, no, the problem is the algorithm. You would need a different algorithm to resolve this, right. So, yes, technically there's a US entity that is in charge of moderating the content seven member majority of American board, TikTok's Chief executive officer, Shao Chu, who gets to have a
seat on the board. But the person who was TikTok's head of operations, Adam Presser, is the new CEO. People say oh, okay, well you got an American CEO that fakes. That's good is Adam Presser has been with TikTok in senior executive role since April twenty twenty two. So I went back through some of the most notorious examples of TikTok either censoring content or promoting content that we considered
to be anti American propaganda. Former NBA player Nis Kanter Freedom had his account shut down and back in March twenty twenty three. Then twelve days later they said, oh, it was an error, you know, just because we just happened to coincidentally shut down the biggest critic of the one of the biggest critics of the Chinese regime. May twenty twenty three, they shut down the Actin Institute after her post messages promoting Jimmy Lai and criticizing the Chinese
Communist Party. All this time, Presser was the TikTok vice president in chief of staff. You know, this is not a guy who was oh off in some branch office somewhere who had no idea what was going on there. October twenty three, the Hamas attack on Israel, all of a sudden, TikTok users are getting all these anti Israel and pro Hamas messages, and the guy go back on it works through the algorithm and says, the moment you clicked on one of these, your fee just started filling
up with more and more of it. Right. November twenty twenty three, TikTok users suddenly start approvingly this two thousand and two letter from Osama bin Laden and saying, oh, bin Laden made a lot of good useful points. No, no, he did not, right, But the question is like, how does something from two thousand and two suddenly go big and go viral all over TikTok and what caused that?
That has to be the algorithm, right. Rutgers University does a study December twenty twenty three and says, look, there's just no way that the information's critical of the Chinese government has this low traffic, and information that is supportive of the Chinese government has this much traffic without somebody playing with the algorithm. It's just no way that this is naturally occurring this entire time. Presser is head of operations for TikTok. So you're like, oh, don't worry, We've
got an American in church. We've got the American who's been in senior roles during all the problem times. But all the other times we've had these problems with the algorithm. So why would we think that this algorithm is going to suddenly get a whole lot better when you've got the same guy running the operation. I don't see how this is consistent with US interests. Last night on True Social Trump goes on talks about how much he loves TikTok,
and TikTok loves young people, young people love him. He also says, I would also like to thank President g of China for working with us and ultimately approving the deal. Boy, there's nothing that makes me feel warmer or fuzzier than having the president of the United States gush about how great the Chinese, the dictator in China is and how wonderful it is to work with them, how great they get along.
So reassuring the question about the data harvesting, Has that gotten any better, because that's probably the biggest national security concern.
It's the same algorithm. They say, Oh, don't worry, it's going to stay in the United States. But again, Bite Dance has a twenty percent stake in all that, So what's preventing them from also, like if TikTok, if China wanted to use TikTok as a weapon of leverage, if they were using it to to gather dirt on people, if they're using it to track the locations of US service personnel or US government employees or something like that, well they already have all that data. The horse says
the bar. The whole herd left the bar. The entire Kentucky Derby has run out of the barn at top speed. So yeah, we can close the barn door. Now, I'm not sure how much is going to mitigate the damage.
Yeah, this seemed like an easy win. It was overwhelmingly passed firm by the Supreme Court.
Yeah, so how.
This continues to unfold like this, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, let's talk about your life. Hopefully you're all going to be safe this weekend with the big storm. But look, as we've talked about all week and kind of joked a tongue in cheek, but it's true, we're all going to die, and so at this point hopefully it's not this weekend, certainly, but nonetheless, it's just smart. It's always smart to be prepared for things that are either likely
or guaranteed to happen. You don't know when it's going to happen, but having a life insurance policy to take care of those you love just makes sense. And I talked yesterday about, you know, just kind of having to jump through the hoops to get the life insurance that I have. It's good policy, but as a pain in the neck to go through at the time. So when there's an opportunity to do that without the hassle, take it.
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that is not the story today. The story today is that a team that consistently over the past several years has competed for conference championships is now trying to figure out why, not only this year, but over a number of years, they've piled up more injuries and injuries to key players than just about any team in the league, in some cases more than any other team in the league. In fact, this year, they've sidelined about ninety five million
dollars in salary as a result of injuries. And so when it comes to guys who have been lost by the forty nine Ers, it's been players like Nick Bosa and Torn acl Fred Warner broke an ankle. Those guys have been out most of the season. George kittletore achilles in the first playoff game against the Eagles first round
draft pick tour in Acl. But even guys that didn't end up out for the season, like quarterback Brock Purty, receivers Ricky Piersoll and Juwan Jennings, they've missed serious playing time. But somehow, credit to coach Shanahan and his team, they've managed to make the playoffs and even get a playoff win in Philadelphia.
But they're trying to figure out why this is happening.
Could be a lot of different reasons, but one of the reasons that they're investigating, along with others, admittedly, is whether the electrical substation near their training facility and Levi Stadium where they play in Santa Clara, might have something to do with that, and general manager John Lynch says, Hey, it deals with allegedly the health and safety of our players. I think you at least have to take a look
at it. We're reaching out to anyone and everyone to see is there even a study that exists on something like this. The Washington Post says, this is ridiculous, This is nonsense. There's no suggestion that exposure to electro motive force is what I mean, it's from these substations, could be related to all these injuries. But you know, as long as you're investigating everything, I guess if there is a way to test it, go ahead and do it.
But I am skeptical that that's the case, because you know, it looks like that would be an unlikely reason for somebody to snap their ankle.
But you know that could be me.
I actually really like the response from John Lynch. He basically just tackles this the way he used to tackle posing running backs back when he was a safety. Just just hammers into it in the sense that he's saying that like, look, we don't know, we don't really have a lot of good evidence to point in this direction, but we're not going to leave any stone unturned. If there's a possibility this is a factor in player injuries, we will, you know, dig into it see if there's
something we can do to address it. But he doesn't sound like he's a wide eyed conspiracy theorist either. Now I could make a lot of jokes about the Jets here, but I'm actually not going to. It always seems like your team is getting hurt by injuries much worse than other teams. I'm sure that's kind of a perception. You can, you know, quantify how many, how many there are and how serious they are. I think it was men's health.
I was reading years ago somebody made the argument that an overwhelming majority of injuries that are involving ligaments, tendons, pulled muscles, stuff like that come from an imbalance in the body. We used to think of our you know, we used to looking like, oh, our arms are about the same length, our legs are about the same length. But if you really measure them, usually there's actually a
slight difference. Usually people have like one arm that they're they're either left handed or right handed, and they prefer and you may have noticed your biceps a little bigger on that, you know, for me, that right arm, because
that's the one I use the mouse for. But basicently, the gist is that, like our body is slightly imbalanced, and so at some point, particularly in football, you're running, you're cutting, you're trying to change direction, pressure on one side of the body is not the same as the other side, and that's when tendons, tear ligaments, tear muscles get pulled, stuff like that. I'm not a doctor, I'm not, you know, but that always seem to make sense to
me as a likely reason for this. Now, could electrical fields have some sort of harmful effect on bodies and muscles? I suppose so. But Greg, how do you think an electrical field causes a turf toe?
That's a good question.
The cause seems to be right there in the name turf that you know, you're getting caught on it and your foot doesn't, you know, move what the rest of your body does or something. The other one is if this is true, color me skeptical but willing to be persuaded. If there's new good data on this, Greg, what is the rate of electrical line repairmen and they're ACL and MCL tears? I have not heard. Yeah, you know, I was out working. I'm a lie because this substation somebody's
got to be fixing it. Somebody's got to be coming in and checking on it. If that guy's not pulling muscles left and right, and if they're not tearing acls and out for the year, well then it kind of be like, why would the you know, the electrical waves be coming across onto the practice field? Also, like are the coaches having the same kind of things are the water boy is? If have they had severe turi? Like
why would this old be affecting the players living? Do the residents nearby have a higher rate of injuries or something like that? If there isn't, it makes me think, well, there's probably something to do with what the players are doing, you know, anyone who you know. So it's been a long time complaint of Jets and Giants fans. The turf at MetLife Stadium is a disaster, and that that's where you see guys really, you know, planning their foot trying
to change direction. Foot goes one way, the body goes the other, and you know you see something. You know, you hear pops, you hear stuff like that. Achilles tenddn't start, you know, snapping like like my patients in the third quarter, and you just end up with this like like it
generally would be factors beyond that. I'll be very surprised if proximity to an electrical substation is it, because otherwise you think this would be affecting everybody who lives close, not just to this one, how about every other electrical substation around. It has got to be one that's near a high school field. There's got to be one that's probably near some college practice field somewhere else in the country. Is this the only place in America where we have
an athletic field next to an electrical substation. So again I'm skeptical, But also I want to say, like, you know, credit to the San Francisco forty nine ers for saying, you know what, this doesn't seem like a likely scenario, but you know what, we'll dig into it because we want to take care of our players. We want to avoid injuries. And by the way, there are way like certain teams do have their injury rates go down, and sometimes they have different stretching that they do, different training,
different ways of attempting to recover from exertion. So there are factors that could be in this just color me skeptical that this is you know, some sort of you know, electrical attack upon the San Francisco forty nine ers.
If it isn't a factor, the most plausible thing would be that, you know, consistent exposure to that somehow makes recovery difficult or erodes your ability. I mean, these athletes are doing more intense activity than the average people in the neighborhood, but in terms of its effect on your overall health, can't hurt to look into it. And I think you're right about the attitude. And if there's any team you know that you could probably consult on this, I guess it.
Would be the Chargers.
Ah. I was kind of waiting for that.
Anyway, Real quick, Jim, this massive storm it's going to head from I think Texas all the way to all the way to the East coast, through the South and then up the East coast, and we're supposed to get hit late Saturday night through Sunday, maybe into Monday. But this has gone from a snow event to a snow, sleet and possible freezing rain event where we are, and further south it's almost entirely ice. So this has gone from you know, we're getting a few days off of
school to possibly a few days without power. For some folks. That's getting a little bit more difficult there. So hopefully you're hunkering down. And I know it's high population area, so hopefully our listeners are too.
So first of all, Greg, right before we started taping, the National Weather Service put out a new update. They said there's now a ninety to ninety five percent chance that the next couple of days are going to bring an insufferable amount of ice. Immigration's custom Enforcement jokes. Ice is coming. Ice is all over the country. Ice is everywhere. You're going to get a lot of that. I just want to point out that next Fairfax County Public Schools has the kids off for Thursday and Friday, end of
the quarter. Teachers have to grades and get everything in there, and it's a half day on Wednesday, the twenty eighth.
They're not to at school this week, right, it's.
A week off. You know, at this point it is Friday afternoon, and I know, there's like the odds of my kid going to school next week are exceptionally small. Monday, you know, again, it sounds like there's gonna be a
bunch of snow and ice. Fairfax County apparently has more school buses than any other jurisdiction in the country, which seems weird, but then you realize that like New York City public schools LA public schools, they're much more densely packed, right, so you're not as much need for a school bus. So we can go. Fairfax County is fairly large. A million people live here, and you have a whole bunch
of roads, and so I looked out. You know, my roads usually get cleared pretty early in a snowstorm, but there are parts where they don't clear all of them, and like, oh, we can't have school buses out on icy roads and stuff like that. So Monday's almost certainly out of that. I'm kind of surprised. Probably immediately after the end of us taping this, I will get the message we're already closing for Monday. Yeah, Tuesday's not Tuesday is going to be at least a delayed opening. Oh
and what right? And so the thing is you're probably off Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday's a half day. So at that point the school board's been like, nah, forget it, we're out for the week. Enjoy it. You know, a couple of weeks ago, they are a couple years ago, is a twenty twenty one. I'm absolutely sure they had gotten the kids back to school and then Omicron was going on, so we got, you know, a decent snow on,
like you know, over the weekend. So they closed Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, Thursday, frind they just closed the entire week. It wasn't because of Omicron. It wasn't because people were sick. It was totally because of the weather.
Wink wink. So yes, you know this is this is a as I like to say, Fairfax County, the everybody, the teachers, the actually I should say the teachers, the school board, and the people who make the decisions act like metaphorical snowflakes over literal snowflakes.
Now, Omicron is that one of the COVID strains that we couldn't name after the country that it started in, Yes, Okay turned into.
When we suddenly got attacked by the Greek gods.
Yes exactly.
Wellma Crime was also my least favorite transformer.
Well a shout out also to my Upper Midwest people have been under below zero four they get real days and days and days woke up today. I looked at the temperatures in my hometown. Minus seventeen feels like minus twenty eight. So and it's been like that for a couple of weeks now at least. So it's it's brutal and a lot of different places. Be smart, stay safe. Hopefully the kids can have some fun with this snow, and hopefully we're through it all in a few days.
So anyway, Jim, have a good weekend, and so we've got some power.
We'll see you on Monday.
Because we tape from home. See them Monday, everybody.
Yes, exactly, Jim Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be sure to subscribe to the Three Martini Lunch podcast and tell your friends about us as well. We'd love to have them listening. Thanks also for your five star ratings and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming.
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