January 17, 2025

Friday: Below the Fold

Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, Ashley Moody to fill Rubio’s Senate seat, Biden commutes more scumbags, and more.

  • SCOTUS upholds TikTok ban: In a resounding 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled late this morning that a law banning TikTok in the U.S. unless it is sold to an American company could stand, setting the stage for the quasi-shutdown of the platform on Sunday, just a day before noted TikTok fan Donald Trump takes the oath of office. The opinion, said constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, “spends a lot of time dealing with the free-speech issues that were obviously of great concern to the justices.” He added that the justices viewed the law as content-neutral. That is, the law isn’t predicated on what TikTok is saying so much as what it’s doing — namely, spying on Americans. Clearly, the justices were persuaded by the national security threat that the Communist Chinese spyware platform poses. As Turley interprets the decision, the Court is saying that those national security concerns are valid and that the executive and legislative branches can legitimately make these decisions without violating the First Amendment. So, what’s next for TikTok? Businessman, investor, and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O'Leary says a $20 billion offer is already on the table to buy the platform.

  • DeSantis picks AG Ashley Moody to fill Rubio’s Senate seat: It’s been a busy week for The Nation’s Best Governor™, first announcing his plans to help Donald Trump enact his illegal immigrant deportation agenda, and then, yesterday, naming Florida’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, to fill Marco Rubio’s Senate seat as Rubio becomes secretary of state. Moody, a 49-year-old mother of two, won election in 2018 to replace the term-limited Pam Bondi as Florida’s AG and easily won reelection in 2022. She’s been a strong partner of DeSantis and a vocal supporter of Trump. “As Attorney General,” said National Republican Senatorial Campaign Chair Tim Scott, “she has been a national leader on border security, a champion of safe streets, and an unyielding defender of the rights of Floridians.” Moody will have to stand for a special election next year to win the final two years of Rubio’s term. After that, she might have company, as current GOP congressman and Army combat veteran Cory Mills has also expressed interest in the role. For his part, DeSantis expressed reluctance to pluck a sitting U.S. congressman to replace Rubio due to the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House.

  • Joe Biden: The Pardon President: In addition to distinguishing himself as the worst and most embarrassing president in American history, Joe Biden, just days before leaving office, has also cemented his legacy as The Pardon President. This morning, Biden announced that he’s commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 more inmates in addition to the 1,500 convicts to whom he granted clemency on December 12 in the largest single-day such action in American history. Heck, he even admits it: “With this action,” he crowed, “I have now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history.” In addition to all this, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — allowing murdering dogs such as Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, and plenty of other vile scumbags to escape the ultimate sanction. Speaking of scumbags, let’s not forget that Biden also pardoned his son Hunter of felony gun and tax-evasion charges, even as he claimed during his farewell address that “people should … play by the same rules, pay their fair share in taxes.” (Over the last four years, Biden has now issued pardons and clemencies to more than 10,500 criminals, and as he proudly declared, “more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history.” For context, Donald Trump issued a total of 237 pardons and clemencies in his first term.)

  • Biden falsely slams red states: Joe Biden continued his delusional farewell tour this week, sitting down for one last media interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O'Donnell. Biden continued to peddle the fiction of his economic record being great, and in his effort to burnish his bogus claim, he falsely asserted, “Red states really screwed up in terms of the way they handled their economy and the way they handled manufacturing and the way they handled access to supply chains.” He claimed that this was why his administration had “invested more in red states than blue states.” This is pure fiction. Most of the country views Biden’s handling of the economy negatively, but he blamed a failure to communicate everything he had done, saying that his “mistake” was in “not getting our allies to acknowledge that the Democrats did this.” He added, “Ironically, I almost spent too much time on the policy and not enough time on the politics.” Oh, so “Bidennomics” was simply talk and not policy? Never mind the fact that Bidenomics brought inflation to a 40-year high.

  • Pelosi joins the inauguration boycott: Another prominent Democrat lawmaker will not be attending Donald Trump’s inauguration. A spokesman for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted that the California representative would not be going but offered no explanation. Pelosi, who is 84 years old, is recovering from a fall last month in Luxembourg, which required hip replacement surgery. That said, she has been seen on Capitol Hill getting around using a walker. Still, the weather is forecast to be especially cold on Inauguration Day, likely making it that much more physically painful for Pelosi. Moreover, given the fact that she no longer holds a significant leadership position in Congress and that she’s no fan of Trump, it’s understandable why she has decided to avoid the event. She may not be cold, but she’ll still be bitter.

  • Newsom joins the flag raisers: In a surprising move, California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom joined with several Republican governors in ordering that U.S. flags in his state be raised to full-staff on Inauguration Day. Flags across the country have been at half-staff in recognition of former President Jimmy Carter’s death on December 29. Traditionally, flags are flown at half-staff for 30 days following the death of a U.S. president. Earlier this month, Donald Trump was critical of the initial decision not to raise flags on Inauguration Day, stating, “Nobody wants to see" that. Trump also contended that Democrats were "giddy about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration.” Now, in California, as well as Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Idaho, Tennessee, Iowa, North Dakota, and on Capitol Hill, flags will be raised on Inauguration Day to full-staff and then lowered back down to half-staff the following day, January 21.

  • House approves deportation bill, no thanks to Dems: On November 5, Donald Trump swept to a 312-electoral-vote victory, in large part due to Joe Biden’s border malfeasance. But House Democrats don’t seem to have gotten the message yet. To wit, the House yesterday passed legislation, Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, which allows the deportation of illegal migrants who commit domestic violence or are found guilty of sex crimes. The bill passed “with 213 Republicans and 61 Democrats supporting it,” reports Just the News. “Fifteen members of the House were not present for the vote, and 145 Democrats voted against it.” The question, then, is what on earth those 145 Democrats were thinking. For the life of us, we can’t figure it out. Nor, it seems, can Elon Musk. “Unconscionable,” he said, “that 145 elected representatives voted AGAINST deporting illegal migrant rapists!”

  • WaPo’s new mission statement: In February 2017, The Washington Post announced its resistance to Donald Trump’s presidency by adopting the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That pretentious, self-aggrandizing propaganda failed to prevent Trump from reentering the White House. Worse for the paper, over the last three years, the Post has seen its subscription numbers tumble while losing nearly $300 million. In light of this reality, Post owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been taking action to try to stop his paper from dying in darkness. This includes a new mission statement that calls for a broader focus: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” It’s an effort to push the Post away from the extreme left toward the middle. The move has not been well received by employees, 400 of whom sent a letter to Bezos asserting that his actions have “led readers to question the integrity of this institution” and “prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave.” Obviously, a few more employees will need to leave if things are going to change.

Headlines

  • DeWine passes over Ramaswamy, will select Jon Husted for Senate (Politico)

  • GOP Senate introduces Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (Daily Wire)

  • Trump, Vance official portraits released (CNBC)

  • Trump-bashing cartoonist arrested on child porn charges (NY Post)

  • Connecticut parole board pardons illegal migrant pedophile who says he might re-offend (Daily Wire)

  • SecDef Austin took meds that could impair cognitive function while in sole command of Pentagon (National Review)

  • Close to 15,500 died waiting for healthcare in Canada (Toronto Sun)

  • Humor: Here are the 11 best moments of Biden’s presidency (Babylon Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.

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