RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 16 to August 22, 2020

Featured Investigation:

What if China launched an all-out military invasion to seize Taiwan, the island 90 miles off its coast that it regards as a renegade province? Could the U.S. turn it back? The answer seems to be an unsettling no, at least not without paying a heavy price, Richard Bernstein reports for RealClearInvestigations, drawing on years of war-game simulations by the Pentagon and the Rand Corp.

Put another way, against the Red Team (China), the Blue Team (America) comes out looking more like the Black-and-Blue Brigade. "It's had its ass handed to it for years," a former Pentagon honcho remarks indelicately. And the problem is fast becoming more than theoretical, Bernstein reports:

• A bill now before Congress would end the long-held American policy of "strategic ambiguity" and require the U.S. "to delay, degrade, and ultimately defeat" an attempt by China "to use military force to seize control of Taiwan."
• If passed, the Taiwan Defense Act would impose serious legal obligations demanding action in a place where the United States has no military presence now.
• Military analysts say the days of unfettered American military superiority in the Western Pacific are over.
• China has achieved what's called anti-access area denial, or A2/AD, which would prevent American forces from being able to penetrate anywhere near Taiwan.
• In the first day or two of a conflict, there would likely be thousands of American deaths and the loss of billions of dollars' worth of materiel.
• The U.S. might be able to fire from ships up to 600 miles away, beyond the range of any Chinese attack, with a new generation of long-range anti-ship missiles, or LRASMs.
• But success might prove daunting. Analyst: "It comes down to sinking about 300 Chinese ships in about 48 hours."
• China tensions are not just a matter of disagreements with President Trump, who has drawn closer to Taiwan. There is global alarm over aggressive Chinese policies, from suppression of Hong Kong and the Uighurs to its regional projections of power to cyber-mischief.
• Although few predict any invasion soon, China shows no sign of moderating over its "core interests." And no core interest is more important to it than establishing sovereignty over Taiwan.

Trump-Russia/2020 Election News

Democratic Convention's Best, Worst and Weirdest Moments Steve Shepard, Politico

Third of Americans Say They Know Secret Trump Supporter, Just the News

Senate Affirms: No Trump/Russia Collusion, New York Times

Unpacking the Bannon Indictment Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review

How Fox News Turned Murder Into Conspiracy, Rolling Stone

Left Works To Elect, Then Control, Biden, Politico

Wealthy Republicans Keeping Checkbooks Closed for Trump, New York Times

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

DMV Failures Allow Dangerous Drivers to Kill

Boston Globe

Despite nearly 50 years of warnings by federal road safety officials, the United States still has no effective national system to keep tabs on drivers who commit serious offenses in another state. Enforcement relies on state agencies to do their job, which they often don't. This 11-month investigation identified seven people killed in recent years by drivers with past violations that should have stripped them of their driving privileges. But, it reports, "they mark just the visible edge of a vast problem. There are unquestionably many more, but restrictive state rules on access to driver data make compiling a true tally almost impossible."

Coal Ash Cleanup Kills and Sickens Workers

Guardian

This article reports that at least fifty workers have died and hundreds of other have sick fallen after cleaning up a large coal ash spill in Tennessee without proper gear. It also reports that the utility that created the mess, the Tennessee Valley Authority, knew that the coal ash - waste material leftover from burning coal for electricity - contained toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium, and radioactive materials. More than 200 workers, spouses and families of the deceased are now part of an ongoing series of lawsuits seeking damages against Jacobs Engineering, the contractor TVA paid $64 million to oversee the cleanup.

NYC Releases 35 Years of Police Complaints Online

New York Times

More than 323,000 accusations of misconduct against current and former New York City police officers were published online Thursday, a major milestone in a long and contentious political battle to open records of police discipline to public scrutiny. The records include all civilian complaints filed since 1985 with the city's independent police watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and closed after an investigation. Some 81,550 officers — from the rank-and-file to the current commissioner — were named in the complaints. Less than 3 percent of the complaints resulted in a penalty for officers, 12 of whom had been terminated.

Trump Redirects SEC Enforcement Actions

NPR

Each administration set its own priorities - prosecuting insider trading does not seem to be one for the Trump Administration. This article reports that a review of data from the 1980s through last year found that the SEC brought just 32 insider trading enforcement actions in 2019, the lowest number since 1996. It also reports, however, that "despite a 35-day government shutdown, the overall number of SEC enforcement actions increased in 2019, largely due to a crackdown on other wrongdoing, including alleged abuses by investment advisers. But as other enforcement areas grew, insider trading made up less than 4% of the commission's enforcement work that year, another decades-long low."

Obamas Skirt Hawaii's Environmental Rules

ProPublica/Honolulu Star Adviser

The oceanfront property on Oahu that Michelle and Barack Obama hope to add to their collection of properties had one problem: a century-old seawall built to protect the estate from the water that was in conflict with modern laws designed to preserve Hawaii's natural coastlines. But the friends of the Obamas who hope to sell them the property found a simple way around the problem: they wrote a check. Their a one-time payment of $61,400 bought them an easement that essentially allows them to lease the public land that sits under the seawall to not only keep it in place but to expand it. This article reports that some community members rallying against the proposed seawall expansion are directing their criticism at the former president, who staked his legacy, in part, on fighting climate change and promoting environmental sustainability.

Librarians Teaching Kids All Whites Are Racists

Federalist

"Antiracist Baby," a kindergarten distillation of Ibram X. Kendi's bestselling history, "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You," teaches young children that the "antiracist Baby is bred, not born." Put plainly, white tots are indoctrinated into white supremacy and so they must be taught to recognize and purge their latent racism. This article reports that "Antiracist Baby" is part of a growing genre of books often pushed by librarians that seeks to convince children to recognize and then reject their whiteness. For example, a picture book recommended for children aged 3 to 8 is Anastasia Higginbotham's "Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness," teaches "that white supremacy is a lie; that white innocence is a lie" and that every white child needs prompting to "Question everything you are told about your goodness and your value as a white person."

Coronavirus Investigations

The Three Weeks That Derailed COVID Testing

Wall Street Journal

This article suggests that crucial mistakes and delays by U.S. officials regarding COVID-19 testing during a three week period in February may have allowed the virus to spread. While offering some interesting information, the article mostly confirms how much remains unknown about this virulent moving target. It reports that it took 21 days for testing to take off - from Feb. 8 when state and city public-health labs detected a problem, until Feb. 29, when federal officials offered a broad solution. The lack of adequate testing meant public-health officials couldn't identify and isolate infected individuals and track down people they exposed to the virus. But it also reports that that "it still isn't clear what caused the initial problem, which involved just one component of the test" so we don't know if and how the delay could have been avoided. The article also reports that "no one suggests America could have avoided the pandemic. But the 21-day delay prevented testing that might have limited the spread and alerted cities like New York and Seattle to shut down sooner, many public-health authorities say." Or not.

CIA: Wuhan Officials Hid Virus From Central Government

Daily Caller

This story opens with information that seems to let the China's central government off the hook for the spread of COVID19: the determination by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies that Chinese officials in Wuhan Province hid important information about coronavirus from the nation's leaders even as the virus spread rapidly. But then it hammers home their complicity by noting that the intelligence report - first reported by the New York Times - also maintains that high ranking Chinese Communist Party officials in Beijing withheld coronavirus information from the world and the World Health Organization (WHO) as they tried to gather more data from Wuhan. Instead of one cover up it seems there might have been two.

Also Coronavirus-Related

Greek Life Creating Viral Clusters on Campus, New York Times

Yale's COVID Test Could Be Game-Changer, Fortune

CDC: Pandemic Fuels Anguish, Suicidal Thoughts, Federalist

Herd Immunity May Be Closer Than We Think, New York Times

Did Sweden Blunder Into COVID-19 Herd Immunity?, Reason