Posts Tagged ‘Foxconn’

India’s Semiconductor Push: More Smoke Than Fire

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023

India has been trying to get into semiconductor fabrication for a while now, and after announcing a $10 billion investment fund, and with China locked out of so much semiconductor technology, there have been a lot of news bubbling up, but I want to focus on the Foxconn/Vedanta fab project.

The Economic Times is reporting that Foxconn and Vedanta are seeking to bring in European chipmaker STMicroelectronics as their technology partner in their proposed India manufacturing unit. The two companies announced their joint venture February 2021, with Foxconn as lead partner. Vedanta are reportedly seeking to onboard a CXO to head their semiconductor business.

Snip.

Vedanta-Foxconn are set to finalize a location for their facility in the next few weeks. The consortium are reportedly seeking a 800-1000 acre land parcel that is also well connected with Ahmedabad. The Gujarat government, as of media reports on September 16, showing sites at Sanand and Mandal-Becharaji in Ahmedabad district, two locations near Vadodara in central Gujarat, Dholera, Himmatnagar, Jamnagar, and Kutch. The plant has to be located at a distance from national and state highways so to cut off any vibration from heavy traffic movement. Further, no other major industry should be located in its vicinity.

Vedanta and Foxconn, in a 60-40 joint venture, will be setting up India’s first semiconductor production plant, a display fab unit, and a semiconductor assembling and testing unit over 1000 acres in Ahmedabad, state of Gujarat. The plant will begin production in two years as Foxconn plays the role of technical partner while Vedanta provides financial backing. The investment is worth over INR 1.54 trillion (approx. US$20 billion) and semiconductor manufacturing will be carried out by the holding company, Volcan Investments Limited.

Foxconn is a serious tech player that has serious mastery over the value-added chain. $20 billion, assuming it actually materializes, is real money, even in semiconductors. It’s right around the threshold to build a state of the art sub-10nm fab, even though it’s apparent that that’s not what they’re aiming for.

Vedanta, on the other hand, is another matter. They’re “a globally diversified natural resources company. We extract and process minerals, oil and gas.” Yeah, a natural resources company generally isn’t who you want running your fabs. Another strike is their talking about “Net Zero Carbon by 2050,” which suggests they may have their fingers in political scam pies.

STMicroelectronics is a real chipmaker that runs real fabs, but not the first company I would turn toward to purchase cutting edge process technology from, nor even the tenth. The fact that STM has already announced plans to team up with Global Foundries to build a new 300mm fab next to their existing fab line in Crolles, France in June 2022 makes me even more suspicious. Information on that existing 300mm Crolles fab is sketchy, and I know that for a long time it was a pilot rather than a production line, and I can see no evidence that it was ever expanded to volume production.

The fact that they plan to set set up a fab, a display fab, and a slice-and-dice packaging facility suggest a certain lack of focus. Flat Panel Display (FPD) fabs use familiar semiconductor steps, but the machines are very different because the substrates are different, and Samsung has huge dedicated display fabs. It’s setting up a modern chip fabrication plant that’s the difficult part, and while this combination could probably put together a solid trailing edge fab, like Bosch’s new 65nm fab. But that only cost $1.2B. Maybe they plan to build something in the 20-10nm range.

“The plant will begin production in two years.” Yeah, that’s not happening. Even giant players like TSMC and Intel generally take 2.5-3 years to stand up a new fab from breaking ground to starting up the line.

This could still happen, but the details are very sketchy. The slice and dice operation could be set up without too much difficulty, but it’s a low volume, low tech spinoff operation. A display fab would be more difficult, but it’s doable, though again, probably not in two years. But a real 300mm wafer, sub-65mn node microchip fabrication plant in India? I don’t see this set of players carrying that off well in three years. Five sounds more realistic, and that’s assuming the deal doesn’t fall apart.

Other India semiconductor plays sound even more nebulous.

Taiwan’s TSMC is also looking to set up a chip-fabricating factory in India, and is currently speaking to various government agencies to check the viability of setting up factory in India. TSMC already has one of its largest offices outside of Taiwan in India in Bengaluru, Karnataka, from where it provides support to its’ existing customers in Asia, Europe and North America and supports and encourages fabless companies in India in design and growth.

Ever since news N Chandrasekaran – chairman of the Tata group, announced that Tata Electronics (TEPL) will set up an Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) facility in India, there has a been a lot of speculation, according to which, TSMC and Tata may enter into a partnership.

Besides TSMC, Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, a Taiwanese chipmaker, is also in exploratory negotiations with several Indian companies to help establish new chip operations in the country, as per a report by Taipei Times. According to the newspaper, the memory chip maker’s announcement put an end to six months of speculation that it was planning to invest in India to diversify its operations despite Taiwan’s rising geopolitical tensions.

“Speaking to,” “exploring plans,” etc. These are very wishy-washy terms. Powerchip is a memory manufacturer that’s hardly flush with cash. I’m sure TSMC is talking to a lot of countries about fabs, but their newest one is under construction in Arizona.

International Semiconductor Consortium (ISMC), a joint venture between UAE’s Next Orbit Ventures and Israel’s Tower Semiconductor, was supposed to spend $3 billion to get started on a 40-65nm analog fab right about now, but I don’t see signs that’s actually happened. Tower is a real foundry, and the $3 billion pricetag and 4-5 year timeline seems realistic, but I’m not 100% sure they’re still interested in the project after Intel announced plans to buy them about a year ago. And having to bring in Arab petrostate funding for your venture is seldom a sign of strong financial viability.

There’s no reason you can’t build one or more modern fabs in India, but so far no major chip manufacturer has chosen to do so, despite the availability of $10 million in government subsidies.

LinkSwarm for November 7, 2022

Monday, November 7th, 2022

Greetings, and welcome to a special Election Eve Monday LinkSwarm! My Internet is back up, and tomorrow night I will be liveblogging the election returns starting around 7 PM.


  • A red tsunami?

    For the past week or so, my back-of-the-envelope math envisioned a GOP House majority somewhere between 229 and 241, and I’m sticking to that. Give the Republicans the 212 seats in Cook Political Report, with two-thirds of the 35 races in the toss-up category, and you end up with 235 Republicans and 200 Democrats, so put those down as my final prediction numbers.

    Snip.

    With Bolduc, Laxalt, and Johnson winning, I come out to a 51–48 GOP advantage by the end of the week, with Walker and Warnock headed to a runoff. It wouldn’t shock me if Oz or Masters or both won, giving Republicans a 53- or 54-seat majority.

  • “Dem Strategist Admits Her Party ‘Did Not Listen to Voters’ and Will Lose Midterms.”

    On Sunday, Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party will have a bad night on Tuesday because they did not listen to voters.

    “I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think we did not listen to voters in this election, and I think we are going to have a bad night,” she said.

    She faulted the Democratic Party for ignoring voters’ concerns about the economy, and implored them to “stop talking about democracy being at stake.”

    “When voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them,” she said. “Stop talking about democracy being at stake. Democracy is at stake because people are fighting so much about what elections mean. Voters have told us what they wanted to hear. I don’t think Democrats have delivered this cycle.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    

  • Republican senators release more details of Hunter Biden’s suspicious finances.

    Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson gave the federal prosecutor probing Hunter Biden a little nudge Wednesday — sending him more than 200 pages of bank records showing millions in transactions between the first son’s companies and Communist Chinese-tied entities.

    Snip.

    The senators’ analysis of banking records, first reported by Fox News, finds that between August 2017 and October 2018, $6 million was transferred to a company allegedly set up by Hunter Biden called Hudson West III, $5 million came from Northern International Capital, a [Chinese energy compan] CEFC affiliate, and $1 million was transferred from CEFC itself.

    From the pool of cash, $4.8 million was transferred from Hudson West III to other Biden companies, such as Owasco P.C. and Owasco LLC, and to a company associated with President Biden’s brother James, the Lion Hall Group.

    The bank records also show that Hunter Biden and his aunt and uncle, Sara and James Biden, went on a “spending spree,” in the senators words, after Hudson West III received the millions in payments from CEFC, through a line of credit that was opened.

    “We are also providing bank records showing that credit cards were collateralized by a $99,000 preauthorized withdrawal from Hudson West III,” Grassley and Johnson write, noting that the money was spent for airfare, at Apple stores, hotels, and restaurants, as they detailed back in 2020.

    Grassley and Johnson also mention two $3 million wire transfers sent to Robinson Walker LLC, another Hunter Biden-associated company; and by State Energy HK Limited, another CEFC affiliate, saying the purpose of those transfers “is unclear.” The Post reported on those mysterious transactions back in 2020.

    The senators also make reference to JiaQi Bao, Hunter Biden’s Chinese secretary, who reportedly pushed for “Uncle Joe” Biden to run for president and has been linked to the Chinese government. The bank transactions included in Grassley and Johnson’s letter show that Hunter Biden made payments to Bao totaling $29,795.84 after Hudson West III received the $6 million from the Chinese firms.

    Some names and entities will be familiar to BattleSwarm readers, but other bits are new.

  • Big ballot-havesting operation busted in Orlando, Florida.”

    Ballot harvesting, according to the California Democrats who’d like to take it national, is an innocent practice where union members and activists, some of them illegally present in the country, do voters the favor, see, of helping voters fill out their ballots and then collecting those ballots for them so that they need never go to the polls. They call it “a new service.” It’s part of their “make every vote count” agenda, and who could be against that?

    But out in Florida, where there’s still some semblance of objectivity, investigators found another story.

    According to the Washington Times:

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security is requesting a criminal investigation into charges of ballot harvesting in Orlando, a Democratic stronghold in the critical swing state.

    Cynthia Harris, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for District 6 commissioner in Orange County, which includes Orlando, provided a sworn complaint to the election crimes office, alleging left-leaning organizations have been perpetrating a scheme to encourage residents in black neighborhoods to apply for mail-in ballots and to fill out those ballots, which she said have been collected by paid canvassers, and sometimes altered, all in violation of state law.

    In an interview with The Washington Times, Ms. Harris said she has video evidence of paid ballot harvesters operating in Orlando neighborhoods in both 2014 and 2017, and that the scheme has been going on for decades, continuing through the 2020 election and the 2022 primary.

    If voting fraud is this massive in Florida, how widespread and massive is it in states controlled by Democrats? (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

  • “Pennsylvania Supreme Court Orders Undated, Wrongly Dated Ballots To Not Be Counted…siding with national and state Republican groups in a lawsuit filed just over two weeks ago.”
  • “GOP Reps Go Public After Uncovering What Biden Gave to Soros-Backed Group.”

    Two members of Congress from Texas and one former Trump administration official who now serves in the Texas House of Representatives are asking for answers from the Biden administration after discovering that an open borders group funded by George Soros received millions of dollars in federal grant money last year.

    Alianza Americas, a nonprofit that says it is “committed to a human rights agenda for all people, with an emphasis on the inclusion and support of Latin American immigrant communities, and people on the move in Latin America,” received $7.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2021, according to the Washington Examiner, and then another $1 million from the Health Resources and Services administration in July.

    Both organizations fall under President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services organization, and both grants were to fund COVID relief and vaccination efforts.

    The group has also received nearly $1.4 million from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation from 2016 through 2020.

    Federal law prohibits government grant money from being spent on lobbying, but Alianza Americas may have violated that prohibition in its activities as a “political advocacy group,” according to a letter from former HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison.

  • Chicago teacher’s unions want to pass an Illinois state constitutional amendment that would basically let them run the state.

    If approved by Illinois voters in November, Amendment 1 will give government teachers’ unions an unfettered constitutional right to demand not just anything in their interests, but in what they see as the interests of every Illinoisan. The amendment is not limited to employee matters at the workplace.

    Don’t take my word for that. Look at the first sentence of the argument in favor of it as written in the official summary as published by the Illinois Secretary of State: “This amendment will protect workers’ and others’ safety.” [Emphasis added.]

    hat particular sentence is just about safety, but it shows the broad interpretation of the amendment beyond the workplace that government unions will assert. The language of the amendment itself supports that broad interpretation, and will extend to anybody’s “economic welfare,” which is pretty much everything.

    What will government unions, especially radical teachers’ unions, demand with that new constitutional right?

    The Chicago Teachers Union has long been quite open about its purpose. It sees itself as the vanguard of a national movement, led by unions like itself, that is textbook Marxism.

    That purpose is well documented. It goes beyond the radical curriculum they teach in schools and encompasses an entire rearrangement of how America works.

    Among the first things we wrote about on this site, ten years ago, was the role of the CTU and other teachers’ unions at a Marxism conference held that year:

    The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond” between Socialism and teachers’ unions according to reports, and Chicago teachers were on the stage. Chicago Teachers Union [then] VP Jesse Sharkey spoke at one breakout session. Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike….”

    Since then, militant radicalism has become still more firmly embedded in the CTU. That history is well documented – quite proudly by radicals themselves. The International Socialist Review, for example, lays out a good history of the CTU, saying the CTU “transcended a simple labor dispute and was transformed into a social movement, with the teachers fusing their struggle with that of the community they serve…joining in the Occupy Chicago movement that pointed out the root of societal problems—social and economic inequality.”

  • Shockingly, those who suffer the most from spiking urban crime hate defunding the police.

    A poll that shows ridiculously low support from black voters for defunding the police should be the final nail in the coffin for Democrats’ anti-law and order campaign of the last seven years.

    TheGrio.com commissioned a poll, along with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that 82% of black respondents want police funding either to be kept about the same (48%) or increased (34%). Only 17% wanted it decreased.

    It’s just like Kari Lake said in a recent confrontation with a reporter. If you go into most black neighborhoods and talk about defunding the police, they’ll look at you “like you’re the craziest person on the planet.” But it’s one thing for a white, conservative Republican to say it — it’s far more important to hear black respondents in a poll confirm it overwhelmingly.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Things that make you go “hmmmm“: “San Francisco DA Won’t Release Police Bodycam Video, 911 Calls From Paul Pelosi Attack.”
  • Great line in the middle of this Ben Shapiro election roundup video: “Andrew Cuomo came to kill all the old people and grab ass, and he ran out of old people.”
  • Twitter Is Still Censoring Conservatives.”
  • Remember all those stories of how bad it sucked for workers in Foxconn’s iPhone factory? It’s worse now.

    Hundreds and perhaps thousands of workers fled a Chinese manufacturing complex that accounts for 85% of iPhone assembly capacity. The mass migration, which began this weekend, called into question that country’s COVID-control measures and, more broadly, its reliability as a part of global supply chains.

    “Something snapped over the weekend,” Bloomberg News reports. Employees suddenly fled the Zhengzhou plant of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., better known as Foxconn. Videos show, in what is now called the “Foxconn Great Escape” or the “iPhone Long March,” workers scrambling over high chain fences at the plant, known as “iPhone City.”

    To avoid detection, workers traveled through cropland by day. At night, they took to the roads. “Some people were walking amid wheat fields with their luggage, blankets, and quilts,” said a poster on WeChat, the popular Chinese social media platform. “I couldn’t help but feel sad.”

    Residents of neighboring areas rallied, for instance leaving water and provisions in the open on roadsides. Social media postings reported signs such as “For Foxconn workers returning home.”

    Truckers also pitched in. Risking criminal prosecution, they took workers in pick-up, dump, and flatbed trucks. One video shows a woman standing on the back of a big tank truck speeding down a highway in the rain.

    Workers fled Foxconn’s “closed loop” system, which isolated the plant from the rest of society. Inside the loop, the company went to great lengths to stop COVID. As a disease-control measure, it had ended canteen service on October 19, forcing workers to eat boxed food in dormitory-style sleeping quarters. Food was reportedly scarce, and conditions in the dorms rapidly deteriorated. On Sunday, Foxconn announced it would resume cafeteria dining.

  • Democrats want a “covid amnesty” so moms won’t destroy them at the ballot box.

    The political establishment—left and right—want desperately to move on, to pretend the last 30 months didn’t happen. With very few exceptions (Ron DeSantis, Kirsti Noem, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Ron Johnson, and a few others, later), they betrayed their core values. Many Republicans and so-called Libertarians quickly capitulated the primacy and importance of individual liberties. Whereas supposedly equality-loving democrats embraced policies that in no uncertain terms screwed women, children and the poor. The 2020 democrat campaign slogan might as well have been “protect the rich, infect the poor.” Or “only the rich need to learn.” They’d all very much like that you forget about that. They’d like to go back to the fights they know how to fight, the golden oldies that turn the bases out, and turn us against each other. But COVID policies turned the whole thing on its side, jumbling us all up and resulting in all sorts of hitherto unheard of alliances. And when your business is maintaining the status quo, that is very dangerous.

    Which is why Emily Oster is pleading for an amnesty.

    First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states. Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit the freedoms that really count. That while democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of our living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose the real threat.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Blue city blues: “Nearly 20% Of Seattle Shootings Happened Near Homeless Encampments.”
  • Man who used to get all his information on conservatives from the mainstream media realizes he’d been lied to.

  • Questions that shouldn’t even have to be asked: “Should Schools Notify Parents if Their Child Claims to Be Transgender?”

    Wendell Perez received a call from the elementary school that would alarm any parent. School officials told him that his 12-year-old daughter had attempted suicide in the school’s bathroom. He was told it was because she wanted to be a boy, with a male name and pronouns.

    Wendell couldn’t believe it. At home, his daughter hadn’t shown any signs of gender dysphoria or discomfort in being a girl. The Perez family is Catholic, and they raised their children with a biblical and scientific understanding of biological sex.

    But when Wendell and his wife Maria arrived at the school, they found out that school officials had been having confidential meetings with their daughter and discussing her discomfort with her gender. Wendell and Maria found out that teachers and staff at school had begun treating their daughter as a boy at school without their consent or knowledge. Wendell was told by staff that they didn’t share information about his daughter’s “transition” with him or his wife because of “confidentiality issues.”

    Whatever happened to in loco parentis? Or does that just not apply when there are radical transexual activists to mollify?

  • When it comes to school boards shoving radical transexism down students throats, it doesn’t just happen in big cities.

    When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.

    When the school called his 14-year-old son to the principal’s office for refusing to say a female student was a boy, Matthew Duncan decided he’d had enough.

    “There was never a push towards dominance and control like it is now,” said Duncan. “You can’t voice your opinion.”

    In response, many families in Grants Pass have withdrawn their children from public school, enrolling them in private school or starting to homeschool, Grants Pass teachers, school administrators and parents told The Epoch Times.

  • Meanwhile, in a civilized state: “Florida Bans Puberty Blockers and Transgender Surgery for Minors.”
  • “Campaign Aide Threatens to ‘Punch You’ for Not Voting for Beto O’Rourke.”
  • Also, an O’Rourke rally too close to a voting location violated Texas law.
  • Still more Beto: “New poll shows Abbott gaining six points in eight weeks, 53/40.”
  • “More California companies moving headquarters out-of-state than ever before.” Texas once again tops the list of destination states, followed by Tennessee, Nevada, Florida and Arizona.
  • Life imitates Grosse Point Blank: “Man shot dead in NYC while bicycling to shoot someone else.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Democrat Nominee In Arkansas Arrested For Felony Terroristic Threatening. Law enforcement officials in the state of Arkansas arrested Diamond Arnold-Johnson, the Democrat nominee for Arkansas auditor, on Friday for first-degree terroristic threats.” Bonus:

    Arnold-Johnson’s husband was on trial in August for allegedly posting terroristic threats on Facebook, police said. During the trial, Arnold-Johnson, 32, admitted that she, not her husband, posted the threatening messages on Facebook that led to the criminal charges, KATV reported.

    A warrant was served for Arnold-Johnson’s arrest on October 13, but she refused to comply and a SWAT team was dispatched to resolve the matter.

    However, police made the decision to cancel using the SWAT team to force compliance from Arnold-Johnson in an apparent attempt to not risk an explosive situation happening right before an election.

  • The counterpoint to quiet quitting: Quiet firing.
  • I’m not much for baseball, but did want to note that the Astros won the World Series, and threw only the second No-Hitter in World Series history.”
  • Guy Who Decided To Ban The Babylon Bee Wondering If He Might Be In Hot Water.”
  • “Citizens Being Able To Vote The Ruling Party Out Of Power Is The End Of Democracy.”

    I cannot believe democracy is about to die in America, again.

    After years of living under a dictatorship, America rose from the ashes. Democrats took control of the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the university system, Big Tech, the entertainment industry, and major corporations – and thereby defeated fascism by seizing every major lever of power in the nation. With one-party rule established, and all of our critics silenced, democracy was once again free to flourish.

    Now, our dear democracy is under attack – by America holding a so-called “election” and allowing idiots to vote. Let us be clear about what the stakes are: if a single person I disagree with is elected in a free and fair election, democracy will be DEAD. If citizens have the power to simply vote the ruling party out of power – when I really like the current ruling party – all is lost.

  • “Galactic Empire Requests Amnesty For Anyone Who May Have Gotten Carried Away And Blown Up A Planet.”
  • Surf’s up:

  • LinkSwarm for July 28, 2017

    Friday, July 28th, 2017

    Supposed to hit 104° in Austin today, and 106° tomorrow. Try to keep your cool…

  • “Why Was Wife of DWS’s Swindler Staffer Allowed to Leave the Country?”

    In early March [Imran’s] wife, Hina Alvi, suddenly left the country for Lahore, by way of Doha, Qatar. Notwithstanding the return flight she booked for a date in September 2017, the FBI believes that she actually has no intention to return to the U.S. She had abruptly pulled the couple’s three daughters out of school without alerting the school’s staff, and brought them with her — along with lots of luggage and household goods — to Pakistan.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Mark Steyn on Tucker Carlson: Everything Democrats have looked for and not found in the Russia wild goose chase is actually, demonstrably present in the Imran Awan case:

    Steyn also notes: Why worry whether Vladimir Putin gave the DNC emails to Wikileaks when Debbie Wasserman Schultz just gave Imran Awan her DNC iPad password? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • “The mainstream media are doing their best to ignore a bizarre, serious, and colorful story, but it’s not going to work.” Also: “Occam’s Razor suggests that DWS and the Dems were being blackmailed. For what? And what secrets, if any, were compromised by the members of the House Intelligence Committee who employed the Awan ring?” Note that both Steyn and American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson invoke Occam’s Razor to conclude that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was being blackmailed. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • This eye-opening Lee Smith piece in Tablet mag not only details how Fusion GPS came to gun up the Trump Russian fantasy (and how it’s plating both sides of the fence on Russia), but how deep research is now outsourced to opposition research firms:

    Donald Trump, Jr. appears to be the latest figure in President Donald Trump’s inner circle to be caught in the giant web of the Great Kremlin Conspiracy. Trump the younger said he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, but that all he got in his June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer was an earful about dropping the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials involved in the death of a Russian lawyer who was killed in detention.

    If the Trump, Jr. meeting is just another chapter in the Beltway telenovela about Trump selling out America to the Russians through an ever-changing cast of supposed intermediaries—come back, Mike Flynn and Carter Page, we hardly knew ye—it sheds valuable light on the ways and means by which the news that fills our iPhone screens and Facebook feeds is now produced. You see, the Russian lawyer—often carelessly presented as a “Russian government lawyer” with “close ties to Putin”—Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Trump, also worked recently with a Washington, D.C. “commercial research and strategic intelligence firm” that is also believed to have lobbied against the Magnitsky Act. That firm, which also doubles as an opposition research shop, is called Fusion GPS—famous for producing the Russia dossier distributed under the byline of Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent for hire.

    Steele’s report, a collection of anonymously-sourced allegations, many of which were said to come from “high-ranking former Russian government officials”—i.e. not exactly the kinds of people who seem likely to randomly shoot the shit with ex-British spooks—detailed Trump’s ties to Russian officials and strange sexual obsessions. Originally ordered up by one of Trump’s Republican challengers, the dossier circulated widely in D.C. in the months before the 2016 election, pushed by the Clinton campaign, but no credible press organization was able to verify its claims. After Clinton’s surprise loss, the dossier became public, and it’s claims—while still unverified—have shaped the American public sphere ever since.

    Yet at the same time that Fusion GPS was fueling a campaign warning against a vast Russia-Trump conspiracy to destroy the integrity of American elections, the company was also working with Russia to influence American policy—by removing the same sanctions that Trump was supposedly going to remove as his quid pro quo for Putin’s help in defeating Hillary. Many observers, including the press, can’t quite figure out how the firm wound up on both sides of the fence. Sen. Chuck Grassley wants to know if Fusion GPS has violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    As the founders of Fusion GPS surely understand, flexibility is a key recipe for success—and the more room you can occupy in the news cycle, the bigger the brand. After all, they’re former journalists—and good ones. Fusion GPS is the story of a few journalists who decided to stop being suckers. They’re not buyers of information, they’re sellers.

    Snip.

    For the past seven years, I’ve reported on and written about American foreign policy and what I saw as troubling trends in how we describe and debate our relationship to the rest of the world. What I’ve concluded during that period is that the fractious nature of those arguments—over the Iran Deal, for instance, or the war in Syria, or Russia’s growing role in the Middle East and elsewhere—is a symptom of a problem here at home. The issue is not about this or that foreign policy. Rather, the problem is that the mediating institutions that enabled Americans to debate and decide our politics and policies, here and abroad, are deeply damaged, likely beyond repair.

    The shape of the debate over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action illustrated this most clearly. The Obama White House turned the press into an instrument used not only to promote its initiatives, but also to drown out and threaten and shame critics and potential opponents, even within the president’s own party. Given the financial exigencies of a media whose business model had been broken by the internet, mismanagement, and the rise of social media as the dominant information platform, the prestige press sacrificed its independence for access to power. If for instance, your beat was national security, it was difficult at best to cross the very few sources of power in Washington that controlled access to information. Your job depended on it. And there are increasingly fewer jobs in the press.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Breakdown of Fusion GPS toes to Russia. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Another day, another failed ObamaCare repeal vote in the Senate, although the “skinny repeal” was nothing to write home about, Republicans John McCain, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against it.
  • While we were concentrating on the Islamic State, the Taliban seized three districts in Afghanistan:

    The Afghan Taliban has overrun three districts previously held by the Afghan government in the provinces of Paktia, Faryab and Ghor over the past several days. The Taliban is demonstrating that it can sustain operations in all theaters of Afghanistan. The three districts are located in three different regions of the country.

    The district of Jani Khel in Paktia, a known stronghold of the Haqqani Network – the powerful Taliban subgroup that is based in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas – fell to the Taliban earlier today after several days of heavy fighting, according to Afghan officials and the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the district headquarters buildings, the police headquarters and all security checkpoints are under his group’s control. Fighting is underway at a nearby military base.

    Jani Khel was effectively under Taliban control. At the end of March, the group claimed that all but six percent of the district, including the district center, was under Afghan government control.

    The districts of Taywara in Ghor in central Afghanistan, and Kohistan (or Lolash) in Faryab in the northwest fell to the Taliban on July 23 after several days of fighting. TOLONews confirmed that the two districts are now Taliban controlled and “government forces have not yet launched military operations to re-capture these districts.”

    The Taliban has also claimed it seized control of Pusht Koh in Farah province and Guzargah in Baghlan, however the reports cannot be independently confirmed. However Taliban reports on the takeover of districts have proven accurate in the pasts.

    The loss of the three districts shows that the Taliban is capable of conducting operations in all regions of the country. Even as the three districts fell, the Taliban is on the offensive in all of the other regions. Afghan security forces, which are sustaining record highs in casualties and desertions, is largely on the defensive in most areas of the country.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • The awful time Yazidi girls have recovering from Islamic State sexual slavery.
  • Liberals freak out over President Trump’s no trannies in the military policy. I don’t think most of America realized our military had trannies. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Defense of same ban by wounded Iraq veteran.
  • Texas special session update. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has gotten the Senate to consider and pass 18 bills in just the first week. Meanwhile, Speaker Joe Straus’ House hasn’t even considered most in committee yet.
  • Kid Rock can win.
  • Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke outraised Ted Cruz in Q2 for the 2018 Texas Senate race, but Cruz still has $5.7 million cash on hand.
  • Flashback: Trump has no path to 270 electoral votes. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • We were close to nabbing Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2015 until a leak to the New York Times dried up information.
  • Congress passes veto-proof sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.
  • Sweden now has 61 “no go” zones, up from 55 last year. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Convicted felon Brett Kimberlin loses in court yet again. “Nearly four years after Brett Kimberlin sued Patrick Frey, myself and numerous other defendants (including Michelle Malkin, Breitbart.com and Red State) in a bogus federal RICO suit, the case has finally concluded with Judge George Hazel granting Frey summary judgment.”
  • Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn to build $10 billion display plant in Wisconsin.
  • President Trump gets a huge welcome in Youngstown, Ohio. Bonus: People interviewed are sick and tired of hearing about Russia. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Greece Arrests Russian ‘Mastermind’ Behind $4 Billion Bitcoin Laundering Scheme.”
  • Dwight has DEFCON and Black Hat rundowns for you computer security boffins. Plus regular updates.
  • Appeals court invalidates D.C.’s ‘good reason’ constraint on public carry of firearms.”

    Because the District’s good-reason law merits invalidation under Heller regardless of its precise benefits, we would be wasting judicial resources if we remanded for the [lower] court to develop the records in these cases. … We vacate both orders below and remand with instructions to render permanent injunctions against enforcement of the District’s good-reason law.

  • NSA expert hacks “smart gun” with $1.5 million supercomputer. And by “NSA expert” I mean a random hacker and by $1.5 million supercomputer I mean $15 worth of magnets. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • 15 pro-illegal alien protestors arrested for blocking traffic near the capitol in Austin. Bonus: Only five actually reside in Texas.
  • Swarthmore commies disband after realizing they were all middle upper class white people. Also, “Swarthmore Commies” would make a good name for a rock band.
  • My piece on ISIS-pledged terrorist groups made it to Zero Hedge. Which I’m happy about. But the comments do seem to be much more Israeli/Jewish conspiracy theory-heavy than I’ve seen there in the past…
  • Speaking of which, no, Edward Snowden did not say that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s is really an Israeli Jew named Elliot Shimon. In fact, he specifically denied saying that through his lawyer.
  • Charlie Gard, RIP.
  • “A number of so-called scientific journals have accepted a Star Wars-themed spoof paper…an absurd mess of factual errors, plagiarism and movie quotes.”
  • Nice house, lots of room. The decoration scheme is a little…wait a minute…”