News and Commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and Published by Riley Murray.
1. Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship
2. US Ends Curbs On Official American Contacts With Taiwan
3. How antisemitic conspiracy theories fueled the Capitol Hill riots
4. Facts won't fix this: experts on how to fight America's disinformation crisis
5. World Shouldn't Laugh at U.S. Too Soon
6. Insurrection and misinformation is tearing the country into three Americas
7. Who is Jack Ma? Where the Alibaba co-founder came from and disappeared to
8. Months ahead of Capitol riot, DHS threat assessment group was gutted: Officials
9. Why the West Isn't Confronting China Over Coronavirus
10. Riots Shine Light on 'Infamously Opaque' Capitol Police
11. US Congressman Andy Kim helps clean up Capitol
12. China's underwater drones seized in Indonesia expose tech, routes and potential submarine plans
13. Mass Delusion in America: What I heard from insurrectionists on their march to the Capitol
14. US intelligence agencies have 180 days to share what they know about UFOs, thanks to the Covid-19 relief and spending bill
15. Before Mob Stormed the Capitol, Days of Security Planning Involved Cabinet Officials and President Trump
16. Capitol Hill violence was not a 'victory' for Putin: In reality, Russia fears consequences of political instability in US
17. Chinese censorship invades the U.S. via WeChat
18. Inside the Capitol siege: How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control
19. America's Authoritarian Adversaries Seize the Moment
20. Analysis | Most Americans reject the attack on the Capitol - but millions empathize with the mob
1. Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship
state.gov · by Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State
Fascinating timing.
2. US Ends Curbs On Official American Contacts With Taiwan
Barron's · by AFP - Agence France Presse
How does this impact the incoming administration? Does it provide flexibility or top cover to allow continued high-level engagement with Taiwan by US officials? Or will the incoming administration rescind this and appear to be kowtowing to China?
3. How antisemitic conspiracy theories fueled the Capitol Hill riots
codastory.com · by Isobel Cockerell · January 8, 2021
We have so many who are influenced by propaganda couched as conspiracy theories that are simply anti-Semitic and racist.
4. Facts won't fix this: experts on how to fight America's disinformation crisis
The Guardian · by Lois Beckett · January 1, 2021
This was published on New Year’s Day before last week's insurrection.
5. World Shouldn't Laugh at U.S. Too Soon
Bloomberg · by Mihir Sharma · January 10, 2021
This is an OpEd with which I want to associate myself. To borrow from Nietzsche: "That which does not kill our democracy will make our democracy stronger."
Excerpts:
Now, a lot of this is entertaining and some of it is understandable. Certainly, nobody who lives in an emerging nation likes to hear shocked liberal Americans declaring their country's turmoil similar to events "in the Third World." In India, for example, we manage to conduct much larger elections than the U.S. endures with far fewer complications.
But I think all of us busy mocking the U.S. and declaring the end of American exceptionalism also need to take a deep breath. The fact is that America has survived its populist moment in far better shape than most of the rest of us.
6. Insurrection and misinformation is tearing the country into three Americas
Axios · by Jim VandeHei
It sure looks like this: "America, in its modern foundational components, is breaking into blue America, red America, and Trump America - all with distinct politics, social networks and media channels."
7. Who is Jack Ma? Where the Alibaba co-founder came from and disappeared to
New York Post · by Dana Kennedy · January 9, 2021
Excerpts:
But for all his shrewdness, Ma failed to see what should have been obvious to him and everyone around him, Navarro said. "Xi's been consolidating power for the last four to five years."
"He's doing the same thing to Chinese oligarchs as Putin did to Russian oligarchs. They get money and fall in love with the West and forget where they come from. Then they get slapped down. There's a Chinese expression called 'kill the chicken, scare the monkey' which means to make an example of someone. That's what they're doing to him. They'll probably let him come back but his marching orders will be to just shut up and make money."
Singleton agreed.
"He will re-surface and will have to publicly repent but not on his terms," Singleton said. "But I bet Jack Ma will comply because he doesn't want to see this massive thing he built blew up. He's a strategic thinker and he's still someone to be reckoned with."
8. Months ahead of Capitol riot, DHS threat assessment group was gutted: Officials
ABCNews.com · by ABC News
Sometimes too small a government is not good. We need a correctly resourced government.
9. Why the West Isn't Confronting China Over Coronavirus
The National Interest · by Andrew A. Michta · January 9, 2021
Excerpts:
The challenge that China poses for the United States and the democratic world, in general, is orders of magnitude greater than the threat posed to NATO by the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. China's rise is occurring at a time when the United States is coming off two decades of continuous wars in secondary theaters, which not only consumed trillions of dollars but also restructured its military away from large scale combat operations against another great power. During the Cold War the United States faced only one near-peer military competitor: the Soviet Union-Maoist China was a regional player at best. The Nixon-Kissinger gambit that pulled it closer to the United States in effect lowered the cost of containment and contributed to America's victory in the Cold War. In contrast, today we are confronted by two near-peer competitors in the military arena, for Russia is aligned with China in its opposition to the United States. Moscow remains determined to revise the post-Cold War settlement while Beijing wants to completely replace it with one built around its own power and geostrategic priorities.
The lack of consensus across the West about the threat that China poses to the international order is likely to remain the most intractable problem for NATO and transatlantic relations going forward, presenting a fundamental obstacle to building a workable joint strategy to outcompete China and preserve our dominant position. So long as such a consensus is missing, Beijing will be able to leverage the policy differences and divergent economic priorities of the United States and Europe to its benefit.
10. Riots Shine Light on 'Infamously Opaque' Capitol Police
defenseone.com · by Courtney Bublé
I remember serving in the Army in the early 1980s with a former Secret Service agent who had been on duty during the Reagan assassination attempt. And to this day I remember him describing the complex jurisdiction problems and the numerous law enforcement and public safety organizations that overlap and most importantly compete with each other for limited federal resources.
11. US Congressman Andy Kim helps clean up Capitol
https://www.donga.com/en/home/article/all/20210109/2358427/1/US-Congressman-Andy-Kim-helps-clean-up-Capitol - 9 January 2021
Servant leadership.
12. China's underwater drones seized in Indonesia expose tech, routes and potential submarine plans
scmp.com – by Kristin Huang
I hope we are able to exploit this intelligence with the Indonesians.
13. Mass Delusion in America: What I heard from insurrectionists on their march to the Capitol
The Atlantic · by Jeffrey Goldberg · January 7, 2021
An event of "mass delusion." That seems to be quite an apt description. The comments heard are very important to understanding what happened.
14. US intelligence agencies have 180 days to share what they know about UFOs, thanks to the Covid-19 relief and spending bill
CNN · by Harmeet Kaur
I am glad we have our priorities straight. The real threat may be UFOs. We need to rally against that real "external enemy."
15. Before Mob Stormed the Capitol, Days of Security Planning Involved Cabinet Officials and President Trump
ProPublica · by Joshua Kaplan
The DOD memo is at this link: https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jan/08/2002562063/-1/-1/1/PLANNING-AND-EXECUTION-TIMELINE-FOR-THE-NATIONAL-GUARDS-INVOLVEMENT-IN-THE-JANUARY-6-2021-FIRST-AMENDMENT-PROTESTS-IN-WASHINGTON-DC.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2LvVfsPL8by9V7cgl2tq-y7nSi4RIKj8Bn5l7QcG9UmlNrVJKn5N7N_bU
16. Capitol Hill violence was not a 'victory' for Putin: In reality, Russia fears consequences of political instability in US
From the Russian propaganda mouthpiece: RT - Russia Today.
17. Chinese censorship invades the U.S. via WeChat
The Washington Post – by Jeanne Whalen - January 7, 2021
Excerpts:
Teng, a dissident who fled China after clashing with the authorities over his human rights work, said he often censors himself on WeChat, avoiding political posts and mostly sticking to personal photos and news so his friends back home "might know I am still alive."
He agrees that banning WeChat would "bring a lot of inconvenience" to Chinese speakers. But ultimately Teng said he supports the idea.
"I think WeChat should be banned because it is a censorship tool and also a propaganda and misinformation tool," he said. "WeChat is controlled by the Chinese authorities. It's not like another Twitter or Facebook."
18. Inside the Capitol siege: How barricaded lawmakers and aides sounded urgent pleas for help as police lost control
The Washington Post - By Karoun Demirjian, Carol D. Leonnig, Paul Kane and Aaron C. Davis - January 10, 2021
19. America's Authoritarian Adversaries Seize the Moment
National Review Online · by Jimmy Quinn · January 10, 2021
Key Point: "These observers and others are right to lament the damage that this does to U.S. democracy promotion efforts and the gift that it's been to foreign authoritarian regimes. Still, the precise extent of that harm remains to be seen. This depends on how - and whether - Americans remedy the ills wrought by the mayhem and confront the political forces and disinformation epidemic that enabled it. In the short term, though, these efforts should be accompanied by a forceful rebuttal of foreign authoritarian efforts to exploit the moment."
Conclusion:
So the immediate reaction should be to discredit foreign propaganda and expose the anti-democratic motives behind it. This alone won't be enough, though. Messages for an international audience to protest measures to punish human-rights abusers stand less chance of swaying people than do similar messages designed for domestic consumption that can erode the efforts of pro-democracy forces in those countries. The president's conduct and the Capitol mobs handed them a news cycle that's crowded out talk of everything from Beijing's Hong Kong crackdown to Iran's obstruction of the investigation into the civilian airliner taken down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps over Tehran last year.
There's little disputing that this assault on the peaceful transfer of power seems likely to have severe consequences for America's global credibility unless the downward spiral slows.
20. Analysis | Most Americans reject the attack on the Capitol - but millions empathize with the mob
The Washington Post · January 9, 2021
The headline is the paradox we cannot grasp.
"I do believe that political arrangements which are based upon violence, intimidation and theft will eventually break down - and will deserve to do so."
- Margaret Thatcher
"You can justify, from a political standpoint, any type of violence you want to use."
- Jerry Vlasak
"When we use the word domestic [terrorism], we discount its actual impact as political terrorism, which is, of course, political violence meant to impact an audience outside of the immediate victims."
- Malcolm Wrightson Nance