TikTok Isn’t So Much Dangerous As It Is Stupid.

TIKTOK is a seven-year-old proprietary social media and video sharing software, available worldwide in English and Chinese, that is particularly popular with young people who like to make super-short videos of themselves, often doing silly, superficial things like giggling and dancing. 

It is owned by Chinese mega-biz, ByteDance, and by founders/Chinese investors (20%), other global investors (60%), and employees (20%), according to Politico. It was the brainchild of Chinese developer, Zhang Yiming, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and is based in Singapore and Los Angeles. Its C.E.O., Shou Chew, is from Singapore and studied economics at the University College London. The operating system is macOS. It began using Oracle servers based in the U.S. in 2022. 

Cloudflare designated TikTok the most popular website in 2021, surpassing ubiquitous Google. Some 170 million Americans use it. TikTok was expected to approach $15 billion in advertising revenue in 2023, thanks to major advertisers such as Pepsi, Amazon, and Apple, among many others. It is a huge money-maker!

TikTok is also highly controversial. So much, in fact, it has been the subject of lengthy debate in the U.S. House of Representatives. And on Wednesday, the House overwhelmingly passed a piece of legislation called ‘The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,’ in direct response to TikTok’s growing popularity and its perceived threats. (Read the bill here.) 

The bill calls for China’s conglomerate, ByteDance, to divest itself of TikTok lest it be banned in the United States. It heads to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. (Biden is sure to sign off on it if it reaches his desk, assuming he remembers his name. Trump has since changed his mind, after being reeducated on this issue by Vivek Ramaswamy, and would not.) 

The demand for divestiture wouldn’t be remarkable if it were an American corporation since it would fall squarely into government authority in antitrust matters. It’s remarkable insofar as the U.S. purports to be capitalistic, support free-trade, and be open to entrepreneurial ventures, but has backtracked when it comes to TikTok. 

Could TikTok be banned? Perhaps, if the bill becomes law and potential judicial remedies are unsuccessful. One supposes, and hopes it would be banned if at all on antitrust rather than national security grounds, but the U.S. loves to impute national security to anything it wants to control, no matter how tenuous its claim may be, so who knows. Meanwhile, a potential buyer may be free-speech platform, Rumble, a fav of conservatives too often banned elsewhere. 

TikTok is controversial for several reasons. First, it has links to the Chinese government (with so-called ‘golden shares’). Second, its content is questionable in terms of accuracy and appropriateness. Third, its privacy practices are suspect. Fourth, it is considered by some to be a national security danger. Those who like TikTok say it’s fun, and to take it away is to abridge their First Amendment rights. None of these assertions are altogether true—it’s just binary thinking not uncommon in the 2020s (except when it concerns sexuality for some reason). 

Links to C.P.P.Make no mistake about it. I am no apologist for Red China or the C.P.P. in any fashion whatsoever. I consider China to be America’s most formidable and potentially dangerous enemy, posing an existential threat to our cherished way of life. For over a decade, I have emphasized the dangers China poses to the U.S., believing it to be vastly underestimated by Washington, which prefers to demonize Russia, which, IMO, ordinarily poses little or no threat to us. My dislike and distrust of China cannot be overstated. 

That said, like it or not, we live in a global digital universe, and as such, have to learn to live in that reality. That TikTok has ties to the C.P.P. is neither surprising, nor is it, in and of itself, dangerous. Perhaps embedded in its code somewhere, there is spyware so that Chinese officials can get a glimpse of American, and other youth worldwide, dancing foolishly to catchy ditties, but so what? 

Yes, China may be happy our youth are too preoccupied with their stupid little videos to want to wage war on the C.C.P., and may even respond favorably to messaging that suggests it should be their party of choice. So what? It’s really catnip for today’s cool cats. If we’re concerned about the TikTok app being installed on sensitive equipment, e.g., government- or corporate-issued cellphones, or devices used in education or research, wouldn’t a simple proscription against such installs suffice? I think so.

Questionable Content. I highly doubt anyone is using TikTok as a news source or authority for making any of life’s critical decisions. Okay, I thought the same thing about Facebook and Twitter, too, and look what happened, but even if people used the app in such a way, it’s not materially different from Facebook or X. 

Yes, one is Chinese, and the other two are not, but if you are to believe the U.S. government, the American analogues of TikTok are more culpable for mis-, dis-, and mal-information (whatever they are) than their Chinese counterpart. We know this for a fact because of recent revelations about how the U.S. government, in its ultimate wisdom, felt it necessary to severely censor them on vital matters involving, for example, Covid-19, the 2020 election, and the military action in Ukraine. (See e.g., The Twitter Files.) 

Privacy Concerns. Spyware is one thing, but it’s quite ubiquitous, particularly in social media, not just TikTok. But this doesn’t seem to be the focus of the privacy arguments. Instead, it seems to focus more on user’s mental health after using the site: from observing disturbing behavior of others, being teased or bullied by others, or being induced to do something inadvisable, embarrassing, or dangerous. Again, these are risks evident in all social media apps. Would the C.P.P. have any interest in endangering the youth of other nations in such ways? Probably. The solution to that possibility is parental involvement and education, not divestiture or banning.

National Security Dangers. Yes, it’s possible spyware or other malware could surreptitiously disclose sensitive, privileged, or classified information that could harm national security, or accounts could be hacked, but again, the least restrictive means of dealing with that risk is to prevent the app from government or other sensitive equipment. Banning it might help, but how divestiture would mitigate any damage is opaque. It’s definitely a valid concern, I guess, claiming no expertise in the matter. 

Absent undisclosed information the government has showing TikTok poses some other uncontemplated dangers, I doubt the validity of the claim. Cybersecurity is of crucial importance, and I concede spyware or other types of malware could cause serious concerns for governments and businesses, and I certainly don’t want to minimize that fact, but the least restrictive means of mitigating such risks is to not install risky apps on government or business phones. TikTok isn’t meant for those users, anyway.

Those whose opinions I respect on this matter include Ramek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, and Glenn Greenwald. I will synopsize those shortly. It sounds as though Donald Trump has seriously considered these men’s opinions, too. I will address these positions shortly.

The Amazon Files

THE RECORD IS REPLETE with stories of censorship by the Biden regime of Facebook and Twitter content. Now, thanks to emails released by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), we now know the regime browbeat Amazon into censoring books on its site that the regime loathed. Jordan’s revelation appeared on Feb. 5th as a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

The internal documents and emails Jordan released had been subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee and House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The regime was mostly intent on censoring books that were critical of the Covid shot. At first, Amazon allegedly tried to resist, but found the bullying tactics of the regime to be insurmountable, and caved. 

The regime’s point man, Biden’s former White House Senior Advisor for the COVID-19 Response, Andy Slavitt, was apparently very convincing. And he had experience censoring Facebook. He began the crusade against Amazon shortly after the installment of his boss in the White House, on March 2, 2021. He demanded to have a discussion with Amazon over its sale of supposed ‘disinformation.’ In his email to Amazon, he referred to “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon.” Apparently, no rigorous search was actually done by Slavitt. He merely clicked on a couple of hot-button issues, such as ‘vaccines’ to populate his list of offending materials to censored.The list would then be sent to Amazon for corrective action to be taken. 

Amazon wanted to hold off on censorship to not be so obvious about it and to avoid understandable criticism. The online retailer believed “retailers are different than social media communities” and needed to provide “customers with access to a variety of viewpoints.” The regime was predictably displeased and amped up pressure. 

A week later, Amazon met with White House officials. Amazon wanted to know if the regime wanted the subject books banned or simply buried deeper in the search results. Later that day, Amazon initiated a “Do Not Promote” measure for all books that questioned the efficacy of the Covid shot and evaluated other means to reduce readers’ ability to find the books in the website. 

This new information will be used by lead plaintiff, Gateway Pundit publisher Jim Hoft, in an forthcoming First Amendment Supreme Court case, in conjunction with the profusion of other censorship evidence against the Biden regime. The case, Missouri v. Biden, arose from a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the federal government had engaged in a massive campaign of censorship. (Read it here.) The case will be heard by SCOTUS on March 18th. The Missouri brief is here. There are many amicus briefs filed, as well. Of particular note are those of Rep. Jordan (here), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (here), and the Twitter Files Journalists (here). 

Sadly, Over 10 Years After Snowden’s Disclosures, Little Has Changed.

THERE IS AN INTERESTING U.S. Supreme Court case that has received little publicity, but which was covered in some detail in theconservativeteehouse.com (CT), to the point a reporter was subpoenaed for writing about the underlying facts. The case, X Corp. v. Merrick Garland, involves governmental control over social media, and originated years ago in the Obama administration. It eventually wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Monday declined to review the lower courts based on traditional deference afforded the executive branch in matters of military and national security. The Writ of Certiorari is here. 

There are oodles of precedential case law to support the Court’s declination to review, but CT writes that Deep State law enforcement and intelligence agencies, such as DOJ, FBI, and DHS,  have been weaponized to use this deference as a tool of lawfare against unwitting Americans in order to control or limit their thoughts, speech, and behaviors. It almost morphs these Deep State agencies into an unconstitutional Fourth Branch of Government. (I concur with CT’s position.) 

Some background: In 2014, during Obama’s reign, Twitter (now known as X) sued the federal government after it was prevented from simply disclosing the number of requests made by officials for user information that were allegedly related to ‘national security.’ Twitter wanted the number and frequency of such government requests to be published in its biannual online ‘Transparency Report.’ And it being blocked from doing so by the government unconstitutionally restrained its speech, Twitter asserted in its lawsuit. The government had also placed strict controls or ‘guidance’ on what Twitter could publish on its platform or give to researchers.

A federal district court ruled in 2020 that the government’s classification of this information was justified and that “no more narrow tailoring of the restrictions can be made.” The case went to a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the lower court’s decision, again, stating the redactions made by the government were as narrowly tailored as they could be. Some pleadings in the case have been filed under seal because of the ‘national security’ sensitivity involved, but it can be deduced the appeals court believed that the disclosure of the number and frequency of requests could somehow tip off foreign enemies of what the government was aware/not aware of and that could somehow give them unspecified advantages.

This sounds like a very strained rationale. The Surveillance State and weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence agencies became particularly prevalent under Obama and then-A.G. Eric Holder. The deference the judiciary gives isn’t one some Americans are willing to give after The Snowden Revelations of 2013 or The Twitter Files of 2023, or all that came in between. One might perhaps be more understanding if government had an established pattern of integrity in conducting its business. It too often doesn’t.  Over-classification is one thing; weaponizing the process, another thing altogether. It’s why Warrant Canaries had to be hatched.

This Is What Tyranny Looks Like…

PRESIDENT TRUMP is known to sometimes say that it isn’t him they [the Deep State] are after, it’s us, and he’s just in the way. On the surface, one might conclude Trump is arrogant, and he is, but it doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Trump, we’re told by Deep Staters, IS the danger. He’s an existential threat to something they call ‘our’ democracy. Since 2015, I’ve called bullshit on this bullshit from Dems. It is the Deep State, which is sneaky, elusive, disingenuous, cruel, and corrupt. Special Counsel Jack Smith is Exhibit A of a Deep State bullshitter. He’s generating an enemies list for his masters, containing our details.

Smith’s latest stunt is the stealth search warrant he sought, and apparently was authorized by the court, for “all information from…the [Trump] account, including all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by the account, as well as all tweets that include (i.e., ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’). Obviously, this implicates potentially millions and millions of Twitter (now X) users.

This warrant, kept secret because Trump allegedly posed a flight risk, was highly redacted when first published on Aug. 15th as part of a 207-page court filing, but it reappeared on a separate docket on Monday. In August, the story was what was demanded from Trump at trial; Monday, it focused on Trump supporters, or at least those who showed any interest in him. It’s a big deal, too.

The Federalist, as usual, had a good take on the situation, calling it a “dystopic nightmare” of government overreach. Government overreach? That’s an understatement! But get this: an order was subsequently entered blocking any attempts by X or any other media intervenor to further discover anything about the heavily-redacted search warrant due to the ostensible “undeniable need” to ‘protect’ Smith’s investigation from any inconvenience they may deem to be harassment or intimidation. That’s ‘government overreach’ to the power of 99!

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote: “Ultimately, the undeniable need to protect an ongoing criminal investigation tips the balance to and the Government’s request to continue sealing,” adding, “There may yet come a time when press access becomes appropriate, but at present the Application is a premature bid for sensitive information pertaining to an active investigation.”

I call bullshit yet again.

Read the Opinion here.

A “Thermonuclear Lawsuit” of Seismic Proportions Is Launched by X

THE FUTURE MAY FAULT US for suing each other all the time, but I’m okay with that. After all, that’s how civilized people peacefully resolve their disputes when they can’t do so by themselves, and we clearly can’t today. But are we even civilized? That’s another question altogether, and I digress…

On 11/20, Elon Musk has made good on a promise to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against leftist advocacy group, Media Matters for America, for targeting his retarded baby, X, formerly known as Twitter, and tarnishing its reputation unfairly. X could very well be entitled to the general and special damages and injunction he seeks. Apparently Media Matters tried to, or in fact did discourage potential sponsors from buying advertising on the social media platform by publishing an article that purported to show big-name ads placed next to ‘white nationalist’ and other offensive hashtags. Musk claims that the group manipulated the algorithm to generate such results that would otherwise never occur. Obviously, ad revenue would be drastically less if potential advertisers believed the false representations of Media Matters. 

Allegedly, Media Matters followed a small subset of accounts “known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers” to produce “side-by-side content.” Then, through continuous “scrolling and refreshing,” it generated “between 13 and 15” times more ads per hour than a regular user. It then repeated “this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.” It certainly sounds plausible. X Corp. C.E.O. Linda Yaccarino wrote:

“If you know me, you know I’m committed to truth and fairness.Here’s the truth. Not a single authentic user on X saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to the content in Media Matters’ article. Only 2 users saw Apple’s ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters. Data wins over manipulation or allegations. Don’t be manipulated. Stand with X.”

Aside from answering to X, Media Matters will be answering to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who is opening an investigation into whether the group engaged in “potential fraudulent activity” by manipulating data on the platform. 

The Complaint by X Corp. is here and will be heard by a Trump-appointed judge.

Former Counterintelligence Agent Who Covertly Worked at “X” Revealed.

EARLIER THIS MONTH, new evidence through The Twitter Files revealed that a former C.I.A. counter-terrorism agent engaged in a smear campaign against The New York Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s ‘laptop from hell,’ concealed her true position while at Twitter, now “X.” Her name is Nada Bakos. 

Substack writer/reporter Texas Lindsay obtained an email Bakos sent where she was anxious to secure her social media profiles when she appeared on the cover of The New York Post along with colleagues at the agency who had tried to discredit the laptop story in its earliest days. It appears Bakos may have played a crucial role in Twitter’s policy enforcement framework as recently as March of 2022. This would have allowed her to directly influence the implementation of the platform’s content moderation procedures. Lindsay’s piece is definitely worth reading, here.

Bakos worked at the agency under former C.I.A. Director, Mike Morrell, during the Obama regime. Morrell drafted the now debunked an infamous ex-intelligence official letter claiming the laptop story reeked of a Russian misinformation campaign aimed at election interference or killing our democracy or some such nonsense. 

Assuming it’s true that Bakos was in a senior policy position and an essential part of Twitter in 2020, there is remarkable irony in that the former intelligence agent both discredited a story and manipulated its social media trajectory at the same time. Archives on the internet found by Lindsay suggest Bakos used her personal accounts to amplify negative views of Trump, which show her lack of neutrality in pushing media narratives—not that social media platforms even purport to be objective arbiters of reasoned opinions or proven facts anyway. 

But it does suggest a crossover between government and the private sector in censorship and/or gaslighting of Americans. And worse, it sets a dangerous precedent of having counterintelligence agents engaging in covert operations partnering with social media to steer narratives to suit a particular political outcome or personal preference. It also ensures tech giants will continue to lose credibility, especially for the more media-savvy among us.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), et al. is seeking information from Bakos, here. 

AB 587 = X v. CA

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA has apparently promulgated a number of new laws or regulations pertaining to the internet recently. One of them is particularly contentious: AB 587, styled the ‘transparency’ bill. But as transparent as it may be, its critics charge it is a form of censorship. Among the critics are Elon Musk’s company, X Corp., formerly known as Twitter. 

Musk’s X has sued for equitable relief, enlisting counsel from First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. At issue is the law’s requirements for X to delineate how it moderates “(i) hate speech or racism, (ii) extremism or radicalization, (iii) disinformation or misinformation, (iv) harassment, and (v) foreign political interference; as well as information and statistics about actions taken by the social media company to moderate these categories of content (the ‘Terms of Service Report’).” The Complaint claims this violates the First Amendment as well as the state constitution equivalent, in this case,  Article16 I, Section 2, of the California Constitution.

Other critics are happy about the lawsuit given another challenge against the bill failed recently. Minds, Tim Pool, and the Babylon Bee similarly filed suit earlier this year, but were unsuccessful because the court found insufficient evidence that the law would cause these plaintiffs any potential harm. Minds is a free, open source, crowd-funded, and encrypted social networking platform founded by Bill Ottman in 2011. Tim Pool is a political commentator and podcaster who became known for live streaming the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. The Babylon Bee is a popular satirical website, considered to be a conservative version of The Onion.

X’s lawsuit claims, correctly IMO, that California is forcing it, and other social media companies, into involuntary speech and is meddling with its moderation policies. The law’s real intent, X maintains, is to coerce platforms into eliminating content the state finds unacceptable. This assertion appears to be supported by the bill’s legislative history: the law’s creators cited the objectives of eliminating “divisive content” and promoting “better corporate citizens.”  (More here.)

The Complaint can be read here.

Elon The Terrible

ELON MUSK, the multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur, is a terrible person. So claims a senior Ukrainian official who blames him for “committing evil” by allegedly ordering his Starlink satellite communications network to be shut off near the Crimean coast last year in order to stop a drone attack by Kiev against Russian warships. The Ukrainian official lodging the accusation is Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential advisor. He made his accusation on X, which is the social media platform recently known as Twitter that is owned by Musk. He learned of Musk’s ‘evil’ through a biography, called simply enough, Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson, that has just been published, and excerpted by CNN. 

The excerpt describes how armed submarine drones were nearing a Russian fleet near the Crimean coast when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.” It indicates Musk ordered Starlink engineers to shut down the service because he was concerned that Russian president Vladimir Putin might respond to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea by using nuclear weapons. 

Podolyak said Musk’s move caused the death of civilians and called the move “the price of a cocktail of ignorance and a big ego.” He tweeted, or x’ed, of you prefer:

“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, and children are being killed…”

That isn’t all Ukraine is bitching about when it comes to Musk. Aside from the standard fare of complaining about Musk allowing Russian misinformation or propaganda on X, on Friday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, told the Financial Times that Musk disclosed confidential exchanges about Ukraine’s military access to Starlink to his biographer without his permission. (It’s not clear why Fedorov believes Musk has a duty to hide information about his own company.) It is debated, and debatable, whether and to what extent Russian engagement on X has increased measurably under Musk.

It has been widely understood Musk thinks the Ukraine-Russian conflict should be settled by U.N.-supervised annexation referendums in Moscow-occupied regions of Ukraine while recognizing Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula and having Ukraine be neutral. It’s not an unreasonable position. Kiev should listen.

The E.U.: Our ‘Trusted Ally,’ ‘Trusted Partner,’ and ‘Trusted Flagger’

THE INTERNET is just too tempting for pols to keep their elephant or donkey paws out of. The European Union has passed some laws to try to protect user’s privacy a bit—indeed, it exceeds that of the U.S. which condones wholesale spying—but on Aug. 25th, the E.U. ushering in something pretty awful called the “Digital Services Act.” 

Under this new law, Europe’s bureaucrats can order big tech to censor any content, posted by persons anywhere on Earth, that is deemed “illegal,” “disinformation,” or “hate speech.” If a company refuses to comply, they will face extremely harsh penalties, such as a complete ban in Europe with fines of up to six percent of a company’s global revenue. 

The pitch for it is simple enough: “Please, oh please, Big Government, protect us from ourselves and all that nasty ‘hate speech’ and all those lies.” Yeah, no, thanks. This isn’t for us; it’s for them. And we cannot trust them.

Hopefully, no one wants the internet to be used to, say, promote terrorism, human trafficking, child sexual abuse, violent crime, or commercial scams, and hopefully, that these are the only types of things the law will be used for, but recent history strongly suggests that will not be the case at all. (Think e.g., BREXIT.)

The law can just as easily be used abused to essentially order certain behaviors or thoughts and criminalize others. If the government elites don’t like what you believe, think, say, do, or urge, you will, minimally, be silenced. The law’s vagueness is alarming. 

Perhaps most alarmingly, E.U. bureaucrats would be the arbiters of everyone in the world, since the law applies to posts that the only requirement for is that a European could potentially see it. Its overbreadth is also disturbing.

Initially, the law impacts, in alpha-order, Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X (listed as Twitter), Wikipedia, YouTube, the European clothing retailer Zalando, Bing and Google Search. By 2/24/2024, however, many smaller platforms will be impacted. Yikes…

Larry Elder Is Pissed. He Should Be.

LARRY ELDER is running for president. I hope he doesn’t win, myself, but he deserves a fair shake, like everybody else. He isn’t getting one, so he’s suing the Republican National Committee. Good for him. They deserve it.

Elder is an ultra-conservative. Not of my ilk—he likes religiosity with his politics and I most certainly do not. But he couldn’t get the good word out last Wednesday at the G.O.P.’s first primary debate because he was excluded wrongfully, he claims.  

He had posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter:

“I intend to sue the RNC to halt Wednesday’s presidential debate. I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is.  For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the debate stage. Just as I had to fight to successfully be on the ballot in the California recall election, I will fight to be on that debate stage because I fully met all of the requirements to do so.”

It appears he was right. According to the RNC’s own rules, a candidate ha to have accumulated 40,000 unique donors, including at least 200 in at least 20 states or territories. They also had to sign a pledge to support the eventual party nominee (and not said out loud, even if it is Donald Trump). And lastly, a candidate had to have garnered at least one percent support in three qualifying national polls or a combination of national polls and polls from at least two early primary states within a specified period.  

The last is where Elder fell short, according to the RNC. It refused to count Rasmussen polls, claiming the surveyor “has ties to former President Donald Trump.” (Say what?!) Even if true and even if it was a legitimate qualification, Elder says he had another valid poll conducted before the deadline that met the requirement.

Elder didn’t appear on Wednesday’s debate in Milwaukee, and he was all over TV complaining about it, as he should. The next debate is scheduled for Sept. 27th in Simi Valley, Calif. at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. Fox Business, Univision, and Rumble will broadcast it. Those appearing must have met an increased three percent support level within a deadline, and it is not clear yet if Elder, or some of the others will make the cut. Donald Trump isn’t expected to attend, and shouldn’t, given his tremendous advantage in the polls.