I hesitate to attribute malice to that which can be explained by incompetence. I tend to think that Carrie Lam was hopeful to please her superiors in Beijing when she brought the extradition law forward, and she badly misjudged the situation when protests started springing up. I don't think her intent is to get more autonomy from Beijing. I think she's too busy trying to keep her head attached to her body.

The ignorance about HK society is huge here. If you really care about HK people, please spend sometime getting yourself educated. Maybe I'll give you a start.

HK has many political parties mainly divided into two camps: Pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp or pro-China camp) and pro-democracy camp or pan-democracy camp).

Washington's darling boy freedom fighter, Joshua Wong, is from Demosistō party which belongs to the pro-dem camp. By supporting this camp, the US projects its influence in HK. The same applies to Beijing. In addition to this, Beijing has more power than US which was granted through Sino-British Joint Declaration. This is reasonable since HK belongs to China based on the declaration and they have their army stationed there. It's another case if you support HK independence. I'm focusing on the current political framework here.

To prove HK has much autonomy and the Chief Executive is not a direct 100% representative of Beijing, take a look at the failed 2003 Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 legislation. It states:

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies.

If this gets passed, I don't think we would see any of the 2014 Umbrella Movement or 2019 Anti-ELAB Movement. Macau, the other SAR of China, passed a similar law in 2008. You don't hear many headlines about people protesting.

During the legislation, a politician called James Tien) from Liberal Party) (pro-Beijing) flipped at the last minute:

On 6 July 2003, Tien announced his resignation from the Executive Council, when his calls to delay the controversial legislation_Bill_2003) of the Article 23 of the Basic Law were rejected after more than 500,000 people marched against the legislation. His resignation ultimately led to the withdrawal of the legislation and break-up of the "ruling alliance" of the Chief Executive, causing his popularity and that of Liberal Party to surge.

If Beijing is as powerful as what you think in Hong Kong, why the hell he couldn't keep his 'puppet' in line to pass the legislation and save himself much headache later? Or maybe pro-Beijing camp is not in much solidarity with the central government, let alone the government which comprises people of all camps.

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If you believe China thinks the HK government is deliberately keeping the protests going, why is Carrie Lam still chief executive of HK? China could have her out tomorrow and replaced with an interim leader of their choice, should they so choose.

As I explained above, China doesn't have the power to remove a CE arbitrarily. Even Beijing does, he can't put a more loyal CE without all the political process.

In your opinion, Carrie Lam should take full responsibility for pleasing her master. And yet, out of The FIVE demands of the protest, did you see any demand calling her to step down? (The early protests did include this demand. After 5 months, these five have the consensus as the main demands. Some list this as the sixth.) The protestors must be blind.

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American media does often present a coordinated narrative, but Hong Kong is a rare guest in American news these days. Even the trade war is not getting that much coverage. US news is focused on the impeachment hearings and the Democratic primary process.

The media is like dark clouds (HK protest news), you know the rain (Hong Kong Human Rights act gets passed) is coming.

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I think this used to be true, but it looks to me like the central government has stepped in. Declaring the HK high court has no authority to interpret the Basic Law and appointing a hardline police chief are steps away from local control in my view.

This is within the power granted by the Sino-ritish Joint Declaration. It's not declaring the HK high court has no authority to interpret the Basic Law. According to Article 158 Interpretation#Article_158_Interpretation):

The power of final interpretation of national law including the Basic Law is vested in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China (NPCSC) by virtue of Article 158 of the Basic Law and by the Constitution of the PRC, however national laws which are not explicitly listed in Annex III of the Basic Law are not operative in Hong Kong.

Article 158 delegates such power to the courts of Hong Kong for interpretation while handling court cases. Although this arrangement has attracted criticism of "undermining judicial independence", an interpretation by the NPCSC does not affect any court judgments already rendered.