Day: June 28, 2024

Every year, hundreds of Kenyans head off to study at elite universities in the US and UK. On graduating, many find themselves in a strange position: unable to fit in abroad, but no longer feeling like they belong back home. By Carey Baraka

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This week Politics Weekly UK is in Boston, Lincolnshire, to where large numbers of eastern Europeans moved to work as vegetable pickers on farms. In 2016 more than 75% of the town voted for Brexit. The Guardian’s John Harris returns to Boston to find out how far Reform UK’s Richard Tice can capitalise on tensions in the region

Candidates for Boston and Skegness:

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You can watch RFK Jr.’s debate counterprogramming live online on NewsNation. RFK Jr. will also speak to NewsNation immediately after his event. Get fact–based, unbiased news coverage 24/7 with the NewsNation app. 

(NewsNation) — The first presidential debate of the 2024 election has come to a close, and political experts joined NewsNation to discuss the format, content and how the candidates stacked up against each other.

NewsNation hosts Dan Abrams and Elizabeth Vargas joined Chris Cuomo to discuss some of the hottest debate topics: Was Joe Biden all there? Was Donald Trump different than his opponents believe? Will tonight make a difference?

“I think [the debate] could make a difference. I’m not sure it’s the difference that the Biden campaign wants it to make,” Vargas said.

Biden’s gravelly voice concerned some observers.

“He did not look sure-footed, he did not sound sure-footed. He did pick up a little bit of steam, of energy, later, especially when sparring when former President Trump,” Vargas said.

The peculiar format of the debate also gave some pause.

“I think the format, which was mics to be cut and no audience, you know, didn’t suit Biden very well tonight,” Vargas said.

For Trump, however, the format was beneficial, as the former president was forced to refrain from interjecting or coming off as disruptive during the debate.

But for Abrams, the format was only one piece of the puzzle.

“I don’t think it was the format that became the issue here. There is no way to say that Joe Biden had a good night,” Abrams posited. “I think if anyone comes on after this debate and says that ‘Joe Biden had a great night!’ That’s not a credible assessment.”

Abrams believes the debate was not a battle for Republicans or Democrats but for the undecided voters, but he said that neither shone enough to swing those voters.

Cuomo summarized the trio’s opinion: “If either of you performed the way either of them performed tonight, you’d be out of a job.”

(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden said making Social Security solvent is an easy fix.

“Make the very wealthy begin to pay their fair share,” he said during Thursday’s CNN debate.

Former President Donald Trump countered by saying “This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security,” but offered no concrete proposal, instead steering the debate back to immigration.

“Social Security … he’s destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country and they’re putting them onto Social Security,” Trump said. “They’re putting ‘em onto Medicare and Medicaid. Putting them into hospitals. They’re taking the place of our citizens.”

Many studies have shown that illegal immigrants pay income tax and social security taxes while never receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits. A 2019 study said that, if everyone illegally in the U.S. were deported, the Social Security Trust Fund would be depleted by about $13 billion.

Biden offered details of his “fair share” plan.

“Right now, everybody making under $170,000 pays 6% of their income. Milionaires pay 1%. I have not raised the cost of Social Security for anybody under $400,000. After that I begin to make the wealthy pay their fair share by increasing (their tax rate).”

That, said Biden, will “guarantee the program for life.”

Tying Social Security to illegal immigration, Trump repeated an allegation he offered many times during the 90-minute debate:

“These millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security. He will wipe out Medicare.”

Biden countered with what he considers the most important key to saving the country’s bedrock pension and health programs.

“The biggest thing I’ll do is defeat this man because he wants to get rid of Social Security.”

President Joe Biden falsely claimed to be the first president in the last decade not to have U.S. service members die on his watch, ignoring the 13 Americans who died at Abbey Gate during Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

“Truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any—this, this decade—that don’t [have] any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did,” Biden said during Thursday night’s debate. Thirteen service members died in the suicide bombing attack at the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021.

The attack marked one of the deadliest days for American forces in Afghanistan in the last decade.

Experts on the subject have argued that the Biden administration’s reliance on the Taliban during the withdrawal is to blame for the attack.

The suicide bomber who detonated an explosive belt at the airport’s Abbey Gate, killing 13 U.S. service members and injuring 45 more, was “Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an ISIS-K terrorist who was freed from the Bagram prison by the Taliban,” House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) revealed in April.

Biden has faced criticism from the families of the 13 deceased service members for his response to their deaths.

“He has not reached out to our family,” Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee, a Marine who was killed during the bombing, told CNN earlier this year. “We’ve actually reached out to the White House and have never heard back. We asked to meet with them to kind of understand where their thinking was in calling [the withdrawal] a success. It’s been months.”

The post Biden Says No American Troops Died on His Watch, Ignoring 13 Deaths During Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Former president Donald Trump during Thursday night’s presidential debate boasted of killing “the two greatest terrorists, biggest terrorists anywhere in the world.”

After President Joe Biden referenced the deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2019, saying a terrorist “came along and killed three under [Trump’s] administration,” Trump countered by highlighting the deaths of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, both of whom the United States assassinated under Trump.

“He said we killed three people,” Trump said of Biden. “The people we killed are al-Baghdadi and Soleimani, the two greatest terrorists, biggest terrorists anywhere in the world.”

In a speech delivered in the wake of al-Baghdadi’s death, Trump said the ISIS leader “died like a dog.”

The post BEASTMODE: Trump Boasts of Killing ‘Two Greatest Terrorists Anywhere in the World’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

It was clear within the first few minutes that the presidential debate was not going to go well for President Joe Biden. His breath was heavy, his voice was raspy and faint, his physical bearing poor. When he wasn’t speaking, his mouth was agape. His answers rambled, and he was sometimes incoherent. Every so often, he coughed noticeably. He did not look well.

This wasn’t the hyped-up, partisan Biden who appeared at the State of the Union in March. This was the Biden who mumbled argle-bargle at the White House’s Juneteenth celebration.

The contrast with former president Donald Trump was apparent. Trump was confident, direct, and forceful. Unlike in 2020, he did not interrupt his opponent or the moderators. He followed the debate rules. He kept his facial expressions, and even his sarcasm, to a minimum. I have watched every Trump debate since he entered electoral politics in 2015. Thursday night was his best performance.

I’ve missed quite a few Biden debates because of his longevity, but this was easily his worst showing since 2008. And while his answers became somewhat steadier over time, he could not overcome the visual of the split screen with Trump.

On the left of television screens around the world, Trump looked like he had just stepped off the 2020 campaign trail. On the right, Biden looked like a diminished man who is not up to the job and cannot be expected to complete a second full term as president. Biden’s presence confirmed that Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated the president’s handling of classified documents, was, if anything, pulling punches when he wrote that Biden is “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The split screen explains why the level of panic among liberal commentators and Democratic strategists on social media was so high during the debate. This wasn’t some “cheapfake” or altered video meme online. This was happening in real time, in a television studio in Atlanta, with only Biden, Trump, Jake Tapper, and Dana Bash in the room. How do you spin what Americans saw Thursday night? You can’t.

Nor were Americans the only ones watching Biden’s performance and assessing Biden’s demeanor. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong Un tuned in as well. And the world has become a more dangerous place.

Biden’s hubris might not only cost him a second term and cause Democrats to lose Congress this November. It may provoke America’s adversaries to commit hostile acts before January 20, 2025. And if that happens, Biden won’t be the only one who loses. We all will.

The post For Whom the Split Screen Tolls appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The post Мишель: саммит ЕС не утвердил меры по кредиту Киеву в 50 млрд долларов first appeared on The News And Times.