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How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

washingtonpost.com

21–30 of 119 posts

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#21
post #20
post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

> This kind of reminds me how in one of the Wikileak emails, Clinton removed a country from a list of human rights violators for a mere donation. Could you dig that up so we can see it?

Yeah, I'd love to see info on this. What country was it?

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#22
post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman.

Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress.

http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti...

Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...

The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions and prevents the recognition of Palestine.

Israel has nuclear weapons and is outside the Non proliferation treaty and yet the US goes crazy about other countries that try to get weapons.

Meanwhile AIPAC isn't even registered as something foreign.

This can be happily discussed online and in every non US country it amazes people how a tiny country like Israel can get the US to support them no matter what they do.

Now even Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of Israel, by one country in the whole world.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#23
S&P and Moody’s and other credit rating agencies need to downgrade the US for our total and complete political dysfunction. We are being passed by as other counties address real problems, while we argue about plain as day facts that only one political party in the world still refuses to acknowledge. America’s power will continue to fade the longer republicans are in power.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#24
post #22
post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#25
post #22
post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

> Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress.

No, Israel has enormous support by Americans so it gets a lot of support by Congress. No surprises there, that is how a democracy should function.

> The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

Because they are a democratic ally with a stable government in a highly volatile region. Of course, there can be legitimate debate if that level of funding is a good idea, but it is entirely within reason. Additionally, much of the funding was in exchange for repeated concessions from Israel in peace talks which were always rebuffed and rejected by Palestinian leadership.

> Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions and prevents the recognition of Palestine.

...by which they are uniquely singled out and targeted by countries with tremendous human rights violations such as Syria, Iran, etc.

> Israel has nuclear weapons and is outside the Non proliferation treaty and yet the US goes crazy about other countries that try to get weapons.

Because Israel is a stable democracy under existential threat by it's neighbors, as opposed to, say, Iran or North Korea which are destabilizers.

> Meanwhile AIPAC isn't even registered as something foreign.

Because it isn't. AIPAC is made up of and supported by American citizens. And this is where these arguments begin to take an undertone of antisemitism. The assumption that AIPAC is a foreign organization implies that it's members (primarily Jews) are foreign by virtue of being Jewish.

> Now even Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of Israel, by one country in the whole world.

Because it is their capital. America recognizes Seoul as capital of South Korea and Pyongyang as capital of North Korea, does it not?

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And the enemy of your friend is your enemy. And when you're big and powerful, some friends might be using you just for that.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This kind of reminds me how in one of the Wikileak emails, Clinton removed a country from a list of human rights violators for a mere donation. Could you dig that up so we can see it?

Yeah, I'd love to see info on this. What country was it?

Algeria

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#28
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The enemy of my enemy is the the enemy of my enemy, nothing more and nothing less. There's a fair chance they earned that status for a good reason.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#29
post #22
post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

Reminds me of how the NRA is supported by a small but active part of the population that votes.

Jews may be small in number but I would bet dollars to Latka’s that they vote.

If Tech issues brought people out to vote like guns or Israel I bet we would have more engineers in Congress.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#30
post #2

The amount of corruption I’ve heard against US Senators is staggering. I had no idea stuff like this was done except maybe in some cartoon version of the 1870’s Gilded Age. Good example, Max Baucus shorted various financial companies for petty/risky wins as he was helping construct the 2008 bailout. He then later became the ambassador to China :( > Financial markets were experiencing the greatest volatility on record…

> The amount of corruption I’ve heard against US Senators is staggering.

Perhaps, but there was no indication of corruption in the article.

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