Attention to the Unseen

Travis Waldron reports: David Dreyer just needed a nap. The morning of Jan. 6, Dreyer, a Georgia state representative, had spent most of the last 24 hours in the Georgia World Congress Center watching local officials tally absentee ballots in the two runoff elections that had taken place the day before. The outcome would determine majority control of the U.S. Senate. Overnight, The Associated Press had projected both Democratic candidates, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, as the winners….

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New York Magazine reports: About 100 people showed up on Saturday for a protest on the National Mall in support of people arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol during the pro-Trump insurrection on January 6. Considering the widespread media coverage and extensive security preparations ahead of the event, and the fact that journalists and police far outnumbered attendees, the so-called “Justice for J6” rally undoubtedly attracted more attention than it deserved. Indeed, the rally’s “D-list” organizer claimed on Friday that…

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CBS News reports: Three of the nation’s four most recent former presidents are coming together to offer their support to a new organization that aims to assist Afghan evacuees who are resettling in the United States after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, are joining Welcome.US as honorary co-chairs “to lift up everyone else involved and remind us that this…

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The New York Times reports: The United States and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling France’s largest defense contract and so enraging President Emmanuel Macron that on Friday he ordered the withdrawal of France’s ambassadors to both nations. Mr. Macron’s decision was a stunning and unexpected escalation of the breach between Washington and Paris, on a day that the two countries had planned to…

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By Patricia A. O’Brien, Georgetown University It has been announced the US, Australia and the UK are forming a new security partnership to be known as AUKUS. This alliance, announced by the leaders of the three countries, throws an entirely different light on the recent 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty and indeed key defence relationships of the past seven decades. Dubbed by some as ANZUS 2.0, AUKUS is a trilateral agreement, but one that notably excludes New Zealand. With…

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Susan Glasser writes: President Biden is moving on. His “summer of freedom” from Covid didn’t work out. His politically popular end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan resulted in the return of the Taliban to power and a chaotic U.S. withdrawal that left behind tens of thousands of Afghan allies, whose lives are now in danger. His poll numbers have dropped so low that, as Politico’s Playbook noted, on Thursday morning, his approval rating now hovers at that of Gerald…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Zhao Wei spent the past two decades as China’s equivalent of Reese Witherspoon, a beloved actress turned business mogul. She directed award-winning films, sold millions of records as a pop singer and built a large following on social media, amassing 86 million fans on Weibo, China’s Twitter -like microblogging site. She also made a fortune as an investor in Chinese technology and entertainment companies. Today, the 45-year-old star has been erased from the Chinese internet….

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Ronald Brownstein writes: Governor Gavin Newsom of California defeated yesterday’s recall election by a large enough margin to squash earlier Republican threats to challenge the results no matter the outcome. But the proliferation of those allegations of voter fraud before the election, including ungrounded claims from former President Donald Trump that the contest was “rigged,” points toward an ominous future in which more GOP candidates challenge the results of any election that they do not win. Although Trump, Larry Elder…

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