But then you can’t call the US a liberal democracy in any way as they aren’t hands-off at all. Time and time again they meddle in other countries’ business to exert influence and power and to advance their interests.

Israel itself was created by the West as Palestine was a British colony before and the US has since given more support to Israel than they would usually grant an ally. The continuous protection (political and militaristic) makes Israel almost a vassal state of the US. This is the real reason why “liberal democracies” have not reacted much (yet, hopefully).

Lol, as all ratings there’s biases and simplifications…

This is our natural AC overheating slowly…

The thing is: It’s 30%, but leave it to the US to call themselves a democracy and completely defy the understanding of other democratic countries.

It’s one thing to say that a country not spending even 2% of the GDP should not be able to call Article 5. It’s another thing to say you would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever they wanted to do” with said country.

Nevertheless it’s signaling unreliability, because it would violate the treaty the US has signed. Plenty of NATO countries have helped out the US when they called article 5 on bullshit arguments and lies when invading Afghanistan.

But you’re right. It’s good European countries rethink their dependence. Too bad it comes with rethinking their alliances as well, with a belligerent USA.

Trump’s inviting the invasion. Let’s not get things twisted. The US has plenty of ways to pressure other member states to contribute more spending to the alliance than threatening publicly to break the treaty and winking towards Russia.

The US demonstrates themselves as an unreliable partner. That’s not in the interest of the US as they lose power globally, when countries rethink their dependence on them.

And with 9/11 a lot of people have talked of blowback. Are you saying the same can be said about Israel?

Not clear from the article how many are from Chinese brands though or just manufactured there.

But “wasting” government resources on immigrants (those few that don’t work and as such don’t enrich the country they immigrate to) would only impact the economy if the health of the economy is reliant on government help. Just because the government is spending more, doesn’t mean the economy is worse… (often time it’s actually better off with government spending). Unless we see massive tax increases in such countries that will impact wealth generation and labor costs etc. I cannot see any negative impact on economic health.

Quite the opposite. Immigration usually helps fill in gaps in “economic planning” and the extra labor helps the economy. And increased government spending for the poorer groups of the population usually boosts the economy a lot more than tax cuts. So any negative economic impact of immigration has to overcome these positive ones.

That said, there are certainly other, non-economic reasons against immigration, but that wasn’t the point.

That’s mostly because the “Elite” is rarely affected by these economic downturns, sometimes even gets richer quicker. That there’s a high potential for lashing out when people see the wealth gap widen one way or another, shouldn’t be a surprise.

How would unfettered immigration (assuming it exists) cause an economic downturn?

They are enablers but at the same time it’s impossible for them to position themselves into opposition to the ruling parties because they’ve been “the establishment” for far too long. So the anti-establishment right flocks to the AfD as the only viable option for them and gets radicalized.

And Israel needs to do something against its bad reputation at this point. They hope a 2-months break will make people forget whose been brutally bombing schools and refugee centers. And if Hamas or whoever breaks the 2-months ceasefire, it’s clear Israel isn’t the aggressor.

Yeah, just today I remembered that Kushner has already “solved” this problem when I read an interview about the future of this conflict depending on the future US president. The interviewee said Trump hates Netanyahu because he congratulated Biden when he won the 2020 election, so the US would probably not pressure Israel to resolve the conflict, but also not help Israel out.

Lieber ein Schnitzel auf dem Teller als beim Fritzl im Keller.

He may no longer be a danger to society, but are we sure society is not a danger to him?

Legal issues. Laws are there to protect the status quo. Whether it’s good or bad.

It’s free trade when they need/want market access and everything else when they need to defend their lead. The semi-conductor business in Taiwan is similar.

Definitely not a fad. It’s used all over the industry. It gives you a lot more control over the environment where your hosted apps run. There may be some overhead, but it’s worth it.

Whoever does surprised Pikachu face now has been living under a rock for the last century.

while the belligerent actions of the country make every Jew inside and outside of Israel less safe.