White House Supposedly Blocked Walmart From Buying Tiktok Because It Would Prove Its Rationale For Forcing A Deal Was Bullshit
from the look-at-that dept
Among the rumors of who might take over TikTok (which the Trump administration is forcing ByteDance to sell) was the surprise entrant of Walmart. While we're still waiting for the official decision, a report last week noted that the White House stepped in to tell Walmart that couldn't happen if Walmart was to be the lead buyer:
The deal structure would have had Walmart as the lead buyer, with SoftBank and Alphabet acquiring minority stakes. One or two other minority holders held talks to join the consortium, two of the people said.
Walmart wanted to be the exclusive e-commerce and payments provider for TikTok and have access to user data to enhance those capabilities, one of the people said. But the people said the U.S. government wanted the lead buyer of TikTok to be a technology company because that would better fit with its national-security rationale for forcing Chinese owner ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations.
This is why the newer rumor is that Microsoft would be the lead, in combination with Walmart. There's no way the DOJ would allow Google to be the lead buyer for TikTok. But here we have it: proof that the White House knows its own rationale for forcing the sale of TikTok is total and complete bullshit, and it's worried that one potential buyer might underline that fact.
Of course, this raises a shit ton of questions. Going back to the original issue, why is the White House even forcing this sale in the first place? The fact that it's now effectively admitting that the "national security" rationale was bogus by telling Walmart it can't be the lead is really revealing. Not that anyone seems willing to say or do anything about this. But now it does seem abundantly clear that even the White House knows that its rationale for forcing a deal is a fraud. Then of course, why is the White House even involved in the deal at this stage, telling Walmart what it can or can't do? None of this makes any sense, and all of it is not how any of this is supposed to work.
But, of course, the anti-TikTok sentiment is so strong among many that no one's going to point out that even the White House doesn't seem to believe its own reason for forcing the deal.
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Filed Under: china, national security, social media, white house
Companies: tiktok, walmart
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How can you assume anything ever muttered by the administration was not knowingly bogus, when the liar in chief manages to dole them out measured in lpm (lies per minute)?
Yeah, though what can you expect from the PHP 4 of administrations?
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Re:
<I>How can you assume anything ever muttered by the administration was not knowingly bogus<\I>
Well, to be fair, another explanation is that the muttering is the delusional fantasies of a dementia victim.
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Makes perfect sense if you treat a liar as a liar
None of this makes any sense, and all of it is not how any of this is supposed to work.
As I have noted in the past on similar subjects it only doesn't make sense if you're gullible enough to buy the official 'national security' narrative. The actions involved make perfect sense if you see them through the lens of petty, vindictive retribution and spinning a narrative.
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Re: Makes perfect sense if you treat a liar as a liar
^ This. Context is everything.
Whether something make sense or not is completely dependent on the context in which it is viewed. All to often, particularly with government, if you view a given thing in the context of the way things are supposed to be, the thing will not make any sense at all. But when viewed in the context of how things actually are, the thing makes perfect sense.
A good example is the new military fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. If viewed in the context of a state-of-the-art weapons system procurement program, there is absolutely nothing about the development process or the final product that makes any sense at all. But when viewed in the context of a Congressional vote-buying program, as well as a massive welfare and subsidy program for the crony capitalist military-industrial complex, it all makes perfect sense.
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Re: Makes perfect sense if you treat a liar as a liar
To be a liar, there would have to be an intent to deceive. I don't think this applies to Trump: there's little evidence he considers reality before speaking. He is, rather, a bullshitter.
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Smoke screen
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See, here's your mistake:
Not liking someone is not equivalent to denying him a straight deal. Justice and fairness does not mean you have to like everyone. That would be creepy.
When Eisenhower called upon the National Guard to desegregate Southern schools, did that mean that he loved negroes (the term used for a somewhat specific subset of the population then)? All it meant that he had sworn an oath on the Constitution, and the Supreme Court had ruled segregation illegal. And as a law and order president, he was sworn to upholding the highest law of the land, and so he did.
That may be a concept hard to grasp these days, days where politicians strive to rule rather than to serve.
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Re: See, here's your mistake:
The party of Trump is a far cry from the party of Eisenhower, let alone the party of Lincoln…
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Re: Re: See, here's your mistake:
Sure. When Lyndon B Johnson decided to cross off the traditional objective of racism from the Democratic ticket and put Civil Rights on it, the Republican party pivoted in the Southern Strategy in order to not let those voters go waste.
But they've eaten its soul inside out. Trump is just giving the husk a bizarre animation, but he did not start the demise of the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower.
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Re: Re: Re: See, here's your mistake:
That's completely true, and I completely agree with it. Probably because it's completely true. ;-)
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Re: Re: Re: See, here's your mistake:
"When Lyndon B Johnson decided to cross off the traditional objective of racism from the Democratic ticket and put Civil Rights on it, the Republican party pivoted in the Southern Strategy in order to not let those voters go waste."
It started even before then. FDR's New Deal included a lot of affirmative action for black people, particularly recruiting them into government. That's when a whole lot of democrats started leaving for the republican party and the respective party stance on racism started swinging due right.
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If a company wants to set up a factory in china it has to team up with a local companyand give it acess to its ip .Tik tok is attractive to many companys, it has millions on young genz users so just to get acess to those users is worth alot of money.
of course forcing the sale of tik tok makes no sense so looking for logic in the policys of this government is futile.
And it seems the chinese government might stop the programming
algorithm/code being included as part of the sale ,
the programming algorithms that serve up videos to new users is a vital part
of tik toks sucess.
The genius of tik tok is the design of the app ,how easy it is to use ,
how its easy to edit videos and upload them.
imagine if google had to sell youtube ,
but is forced to remove all the programming code and algorithms
that make it work so well.
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Would it be interesting.
To have China and the Asian countries RUN threw the USA and upgrade everything, then nationalize everything, kick them out, then sell everything to the corps??
Corps would love the anti competition idea.
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Well the lead buyer couldn't be Walmart, because we can't have them involved when we want to yell at "technology" companies.
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Or, just take it to the next illogical conclusion...
If we "accept" the national security premise, and accept that the current administration has a problem with Walmart acquiring TikTok, that means Walmart is ALSO a national security risk, right? I mean, this is being done to bolster national security so it's obvious we can't have yet another risky company complete the purchase....
Wonder if I could get the Q supporters to pick this up and run with it... :-)
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Somewhere on Tiktok is a video of a Russian Hooker pissing into Trumps mouth whilst he gargles the Russian National Anthem:
Putin, Putin, he's not gay,
His manliness is here to stay.
Putin, Putin doesn't molest young boys,
don't say he does, he has nuclear toys.
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Re:
k then...
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