January 8, 2021

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

The Coup from a Different Lens

School Gun Drills: A lot of teenagers went on TikTok after the siege at the Capitol to demonstrate to the Congress that now they have something in common with the students in our public schools: the fear of sheltering in place during a violent event or even an active shooter drill. “Because of the policies they’ve passed or failed to pass this is just another random Tuesday at an American public school.”

Hong Kong vs MAGA: China used the coup attempt on the US Capitol for propaganda against the Hong Kong protesters. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying pointed to U.S. media descriptions of the D.C. riots as “violence” and a “disgrace,” and compared them to remarks made by U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi who once called the Hong Kong protests a “beautiful sight to behold.” While we certainly do not agree with the comparison, it does help to get us thinking about the power of propaganda and the humiliation of the US. We don’t expect to be taken seriously as a place of freedom any time soon.

The US insurrection was covered and condemned (and will surely be used as further propaganda) by Venezuela, Poland, Iran, Turkey and Russia.

Just in case you had any sympathy for China: Earlier this week, Hong Kong police arrested 53 people in raids on democracy activists in the biggest crackdown since China imposed its security law. The arrests were linked to an unprecedented, independently organized and non-binding vote to select opposition candidates for a since-postponed legislative election.

Even Deodorant stands up for Freedom: A bottle of Axe body spray was photographed amongst the wreckage of the Capitol building. (I guess we know what Incels smell like.) And even Axe didn’t want to be associated with the riots. (This was of course followed with the appropriate Right Guard and Ban puns.)

A Smaller Coup: Republican State Senators in Pennsylvania refused to seat a Democratic Senator this week, even though his election was certified by the State. The problem: his opponent refused to concede. The Senate erupted into chaos as the Senators removed the Democratic Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, from presiding over the session. Following this year’s election, many State legislatures (controlled by Republicans) are expected to take up reforms to voting rights including removing powers from the Secretary of State (hello, Georgia) and changes to mail in voting.

An Older Coup: The European Union no longer legally recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate head of state after he lost his position as head of parliament. Guaido is still seen as the rightful leader by the US and Britain, but that could change with the Biden administration and even with Brexit. The EU, however, did threaten to impose additional sanctions against the Maduro government, on top of an arms embargo and sanctions on Venezuelan officials already imposed, to decry what it views as rights violations and the rupture of democracy.

An Even Older “Coup” or rather a Scoop: Neil Sheehan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author at the NY Times, has died, and now the story of how he obtained the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg can now be told. Sheehan revealed that Ellsberg did not want Sheehan to copy the documents, only read them, and that he defied this request and often ignored the harried phone calls of his confidential source.

What You Might Have Missed

Area 51 to be revealed: The US emergency funding bill had some interesting Easter Eggs. One of which was that the US intelligence services are required to submit an unclassified report on UFOs to the Senate intelligence committee within 180 days. The report must include "a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held" by almost all of the country's intelligence agencies. At least we’ll have one conspiracy theory debunked or confirmed.

COVID Surveillance: Singapore has one of the most widespread contact tracing programs in the world, a program called TraceTogether. Individuals must check in with their ID and phone number before they enter malls, shops, restaurants, workplaces, or schools. This information is fed back to a centralized database, which the government then uses for contact tracing. The government has been all in on technology to stop the spread of the virus, and has even open sourced the code so that other countries could take advantage. Unfortunately, the lack of privacy is leading to some sticky situations: the Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said that the police would also be able to access TraceTogether data for criminal investigations. Singapore calls itself a high-tech, Smart Nation, but citizens can not opt out of location services or tracking due to the virus. TraceTogether will soon be mandatory for all of Singapore’s residents — but it already is for the country’s population of migrant workers. More than 450,000 have been given wearable contact-tracing tokens so that their movements and interactions can be logged even if they don’t have their phones on them while at work.

Zero Percent Mortgages: Looking for a place to escape the pandemic or higher taxes? Instead of moving to Florida or Texas, try Denmark. Homeowners in Denmark can now receive 20-year mortgages at a 0% rate. Denmark is also home to the largest mortgage-backed covered bond market, and the country has had negative central bank rates longer than anywhere.

Healthcare Innovation Shuts Down: Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. plan to shut down Haven, a joint attempt to overhaul employee health care launched three years ago. “The Haven team made good progress exploring a wide range of health-care solutions, as well as piloting new ways to make primary care easier to access, insurance benefits simpler to understand and easier to use, and prescription drugs more affordable,” spokeswoman Brooke Thurston said .While the companies will continue to collaborate informally and work on other programs for their own employees, we don’t think this is the end. We suspect this keeps the door wide open for the companies, especially Amazon, to work on health care: COVID vaccine distribution, pharmacies, etc.

Bike across America: The U.S. is building a coast-to-coast bike trail across 12 states. The multi-use Rail-Trail will be 6,000 km long and will run from Washington DC to Washington State. Launched in May 2019, the route will eventually connect more than 145 existing paths. So far more than 3,200km of it has been completed.

Kermit goes to East Egg: The copyright on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby expired on January 1, putting the 1925 novel into the public domain. And with that freedom, the American public apparently is calling for a Muppet version of the film. Given that the Muppets have rocked their own versions of Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island and The Wizard of Oz, it's not that crazy.

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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