Bow to democracy
On Friday last week, FBI Director James Comey notified the US Congress that the bureau would review newly discovered e-mails connected to Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of classified information.
“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of e-mails that appear pertinent to the investigation. I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these e-mails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” he said.
The newly discovered e-mails are part of an investigation into Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman, recently estranged from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin after a “sexting” incident. While sifting through Weiner’s laptop, the FBI found evidence of a trove of e-mails similar to ones that had been examined in the Clinton investigation. Clinton’s personal e-mails should be read by her and deleted by her only, now they were not only viewed by her top aide, but also shared by a third person, Weiner.
“We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record,” Comey said.
In Clinton’s first response to Comey’s letter, she asked the FBI to explain the issue in question, whatever it is, without any delay, because voting is under way, so the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately.
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said: “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we’ve never seen before, we must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”
US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said Clinton betrayed Americans’ trust for handling the nation’s most important secrets. This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private e-mail server and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators, he said.
He renewed his call for the director of national intelligence to suspend all classified briefings for Clinton until the matter is fully resolved.
Comey and other senior FBI officials were not aware of what exactly was in the e-mails found on a laptop used by Abedin and her husband at beginning, so they obtained a warrant to review them.
Hopefully the public will soon be informed what those e-mails are and whether they include any classified material.
The US, as leader of the democratic system, surely will set a model for the world to learn how they fairly handle this “October surprise” e-mail storm. No crime without punishment, no punishment without crime; No guts, no glory. All are equal before the law and none is above the law.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Sunday fired several top aides in a bid to stem a worsening scandal and in an effort to regain the public’s trust, hours after Choi Soon-sil, an adviser at the center of the scandal, apologized.
While the free world is struggling to maintain a fair and just system of democracy, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) easily gained another honorary title of “core” leader in a formal document. Senior Chinese Communist Party officials have shown that, willingly or not, they have bowed to his dominance.
Under the new title Xi is almost authorized as a dictator to push through policies in the face of doubts and foot dragging.
Yes, the democratic system is not perfect, sometimes even painful and inefficient, but it is much better than a dictatorship. Democracy is the best form of government, in which all eligible citizens participate equally, either directly or through elected representatives. It is fair and reasonable with dignity to all people.
Unfortunately, in Taiwan there are a group of people, known as members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) led by KMT Chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who strongly believe they are part of China and are scrambling to worship the new Chinese core leader Xi. They hope Xi will give them the authority to rule over Taiwan.
Well, Taiwan and China are different countries with different systems: democracy and dictatorship.
Chinese in Taiwan who kowtow to Xi should go to him under the care of his umbrella and leave Taiwan alone.
Adios, dictator followers. Please stay in China and do not come back to Taiwan.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
There has been much catastrophizing in Taiwan recently about America becoming more unreliable as a bulwark against Chinese pressure. Some of this has been sparked by debates in Washington about whether the United States should defend Taiwan in event of conflict. There also were understandable anxieties about whether President Trump would sacrifice Taiwan’s interests for a trade deal when he sat down with President Xi (習近平) in late October. On top of that, Taiwan’s opposition political leaders have sought to score political points by attacking the Lai (賴清德) administration for mishandling relations with the United States. Part of this budding anxiety
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
On Nov. 8, newly elected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Vice Chairman Chi Lin-len (季麟連) attended a memorial for White Terror era victims, during which convicted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies such as Wu Shi (吳石) were also honored. Cheng’s participation in the ceremony, which she said was part of her efforts to promote cross-strait reconciliation, has trapped herself and her party into the KMT’s dark past, and risks putting the party back on its old disastrous road. Wu, a lieutenant general who was the Ministry of National Defense’s deputy chief of the general staff, was recruited
RSS