First TikTok, now tutoring

The fires of liberty

Dramatic scenes at the new Dupont Circle headquarters of Reason this week, as the libertarian magazine’s staff evacuated due to billowing plumes of smoke from a first-floor fire.

“The staff of Reason was briefly driven out of our Connecticut Avenue offices by a literal dumpster fire nearby on Tuesday,” editor-in-chief Katherine Mangu-Ward confirmed to Cockburn. “Everyone is fine, and our only regret is there was no private firefighting company to call in our time of distress.” 

The Spectator’s Washington editor Amber Duke was on the scene for a taping of her new YouTube show with Robby Soave. She offered Cockburn her retelling of events. 

“To quote the great Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger, ‘They say that a hero could save us, I’m not gonna stand here and wait.’ I led the charge down the emergency stairwell, only for a hysterical woman to attempt to stop us on the third floor,” Duke said. “She insisted we needed to ‘go back up’ and ‘find a different exit’ because the fire was ‘down below.’ I sarcastically asked her if she was planning on jumping out of a window, used my blazer to cover my mouth and nose — and plowed past her with Katherine.

“Thanks to my extensive youth lifeguard training, we safely navigated past the blaze even as water from the fire hoses splashed near our feet. I’d like Ana de Armas to play me in the movie.”

Mike Johnson gets railed

Correction of the week comes courtesy of the AP’s Farnoush Amiri, on her story regarding the struggles of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“You’re missing an ‘against’ in a rather embarrassing spot,” writes a reader. ”Members have been railing AGAINST Johnson. Presumably, had they been railing him, AP Usage would require different phrasing.” 

The initial line said “some of Johnson’s harshest critics, members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus… railing the speaker.”

For the sake of Johnson’s son’s moral purity app, Cockburn is grateful that the speaker didn’t find himself on the receiving end of the Lauren Boebert theater treatment…

First TikTok, now tutoring

Tutor.com, an educational website used by everyone from elementary school teachers to military servicemembers, is under congressional scrutiny for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The site was purchased in 2022 by Primavera Capital Group, which a coalition of lawmakers noted this week is a “Chinese-owned” firm with “a well-documented relationship with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.” 

Thirteen Republican representatives, led by Congressman Tim Walberg, raised concerns in a letter to education secretary Miguel Cardona first obtained by Cockburn that revolve around how Tutor.com collects “sensitive data on its users and tutors, including names, locations, IP addresses and recordings of the tutoring sessions.” 

“As has been demonstrated by TikTok and ByteDance, Tutor.com being headquartered in the United States does not protect it from its owner’s requirements or connections to the Chinese Communist Party,” the letter continues. 

Walberg told Cockburn that he and his colleagues want Cardona to “thoroughly evaluate the implications of this partnership, particularly in the context of student privacy.” 

“Similar to efforts to force TikTok to break up with the CCP, this is not a First Amendment issue. We’re not interested in restricting content but going after the conduct allowed under Chinese law,” Walberg said. 

“We encourage more educational platforms for children, so long as they are not being used and manipulated to influence our children and collect data on them.”

Fetterman spits bars

Overheard in the DMV: a Capitol Hill staffer was riding the elevator with a container of baked goods when Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman joined them and asked if they were carrying gold bars. The staffer told him they were brownies and he replied, “Well I know someone else who has gold bars.” 

Fetterman, of course, has repeatedly called on his party to oust New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, whose indictment alleged he and his wife stored foreign bribes — including gold bars — in a home safe. Menendez’s corruption trial was just delayed due to his wife’s health issues.

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