Our picksOnly Immigrants Can Save Entitlements | U.K.-China: Academic Decoupling | No Need Another Patriot Act, and more

Only Immigrants Can Save Entitlements (Linda Chavez, The Bulwark)
A new report projects that Social Security and Medicare will need much higher levels of immigration to stay solvent.

The Ghost in the (Voting) Machine (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Dispatch)
The MyPillow Guy is living in a dream—and he’s not alone.
A couple of weeks ago, pillow magnate Mike Lindell attended a meeting at the White House to help figure out a strategy for Donald Trump to cling to power despite losing the election. A photographer snapped a picture showing his notes from the meeting, which included references to the Insurrection Act and declaring “martial law if necessary.”
Anyway, it turned out that whatever Lindell’s plan was, it didn’t save the day. So he’s moved on to phase two. He’s put out a “documentary” “explaining” how the election was “stolen.”  It weaves together nearly every strand and thread in the grand conspiracy that the election was stolen. This shouldn’t surprise us, after all he knows a lot about high thread counts. 
Anyway, on the eve of its release, he told an interviewer that “this is the miracle” we’ve all been waiting for. “It will change everything.” He believes it will be so persuasive that it will “unite the whole country” and we’ll be “one nation under God again.” And, if it doesn’t pan out, well then “it’s the End Times.”

Liz Cheney: Trump’s Pence Tweet During Riot Could Be ‘Premeditated Effort to Provoke Violence’  (Justin Baragona, Daily Beast)
Cheney also said that Republicans “are mistaken” to believe that BLM and antifa were responsible for the violence at the Capitol riot.

In the Battle for the Capitol, Veterans Fought on Opposite Sides  (Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times)
Military veterans trying to defend the Capitol on Jan. 6 were taunted by veterans in the pro-Trump mob who were storming it. Both felt they were doing their patriotic duty in a fractured country.

Pushing QAnon and Stolen Election Lies, Flynn Re-emerges  (Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times)

Recast by President Trump’s most ardent supporters as a MAGA martyr, Michael T. Flynn has embraced his role as the man who spent four years unjustly ensnared in the Russia investigation.

New Biden Rules for ICE Point to Fewer Arrests and Deportations, and a More Restrained Agency(Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to issue new guidelines to agents this week that could sharply curb arrests and deportations, as the Biden administration attempts to assert more control over an agency afforded wide latitude under President Donald Trump, according to internal memos and emails obtained by The Washington Post.
While ICE’s new operational plans are not yet final, interim instructions sent to senior officials point to a major shift in enforcement. Agents will no longer seek to deport immigrants for crimes such as driving under the influence and assault, and will focus instead on national security threats, recent border crossers and people completing prison and jail terms for aggravated felony convictions.

The Times View on Institutions’ Ties with China: Academic Decoupling (Editorial, The Times)
Partnerships between British universities and Chinese companies may be putting national security at risk. New rules of engagement with China are needed.

U.K. Targeted ISIS Drones and Online Servers in Cyberattack  (Helen Warrell, Financial Times)
Intelligence and military chiefs reveal details of operation to weaken terrorist group in 2016-2017.

How Parler Reveals the Alarming Trajectory of Political Violence(Candace Rondeaux and Heather Hurlburt, New York Times)
The Biden administration needs a game plan to deal with what will be a rolling and escalating threat from platform migration.

We Don’t Need Another Patriot Act (Russ Feingold, Wall Street Journal)
New law-enforcement powers would inevitably be turned against minorities and progressive dissenters.

Vaccines Alone Are Not Enough to Beat COVID  (Kevin J. Tracey, Scientific American)
It could take years to immunize everyone, so we need to work on discovering new treatments as well—and fast.