The ‘Israel Lobby’ Works for the US Military Industrial Complex

Since publication of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2007, superior public relations has served as the main explanation for the outsized influence that the nation of Israel holds over American politicians. In that telling, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other supporters of Israel built a sophisticated and far-reaching public relations machine that promotes US politicians who support Israel and punishes those who don’t.

The ‘Israel Lobby’ Works for the US Military Industrial Complex – by Rob Urie – 27 June 2024

H/T: xenagoguevicene

Pakistan’s misery continues

Pakistan has a general election today. It will decide on the next government of the world’s fifth-most populous nation and the governments of its four provinces — Punjab, Singh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 128 million people can vote to pick 266 representatives to form the 16th parliament in a first-past-the-post system. They will also vote to elect the legislatures of the country’s four provinces.

Pakistan’s misery continues

TSMC Arizona chip plant will be a paperweight, says analyst

The TSMC Arizona chip plant is behind schedule, over budget, and the subject of contention in online forums – and now an analyst says that it will be little more than a useless paperweight, even when it does finally begin production.

Not only will it only make chips for older Apple devices, but it can’t even complete the process of making those without sending them back to Taiwan for final assembly …

TSMC Arizona chip plant will be a paperweight, says analyst

Foxconn Selling Two Empty Wisconsin Buildings After Failed Promises to Bring Jobs to the State

Source

The manufacturing project became infamous when former President Trump broke ground at the site and red flags became immediately apparent.

Foxconn Selling Two Empty Wisconsin Buildings After Failed Promises to Bring Jobs to the State

Related:

Trump promised this Wisconsin town a manufacturing boom. It never arrived.

Roughly 100 homeowners and farmers were forced to move, sometimes under threat of eminent domain, so their properties could be bulldozed to make way for the campus, according to residents and village officials. The village paid more than 40 percent over market value for that land, officials noted.

[2020] Republicans blasting China forget that the GOP enabled Beijing’s rise

As a deadly pandemic wreaks havoc in an election year, Republicans are leveling relentless attacks against China. To be sure, Beijing’s initial response to the coronavirus outbreak was littered with errors, egregious injustices and conspiracy-mongering.

Republicans blasting China forget that the GOP enabled Beijing’s rise

Related:

What Republicans did 15 years ago to help create Donald Trump today

Urged on by their presidential standard-bearer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and by nearly all of the business lobbyists who represented the core of the party’s donor class, three-quarters of House Republicans voted to extend the status of permanent normal trade relations to China. They were more than enough, when added to a minority of Democrats, to secure passage of a bill that would sail through the Senate and be signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Biden’s Tech-War “Goes Nuclear”

Biden’s Tech-War “Goes Nuclear”

So, where is all of this heading, you ask?

To more conflict, more confrontation, higher prices, lower standards of living and, eventually, a disintegration of the prevailing order. That much is certain. The problem, of course, is that the China hawks now control the levers of power in Washington which means that the attacks on China will intensify, decoupling will accelerate, and a massively-destabilizing international crisis will soon follow.

Related:

Explained: How Americans In Chinese Tech Firms Might Have To Choose Between US Citizenship And Job