Watching the debate now. How exactly is Biden not being pilloried for this “keep yapping, man”
Now Biden attacking Trump for closing the economy. Two minutes before he was saying Trump did nothing and ignored the danger
30 minutes in, so far Trump better
So far the debate seems a normal one to me, not the depressing spectacle described by the Chinese Global Times
Biden is very loose with facts, not an area where he distinguishes himself from Trump. Lots of scientists and doctors did in fact say masks were useless
Didn’t understand the Inshallah moment. Biden makes it into a question...
Really puzzled by the reactions I saw this morning. This is a normal debate, similar to many others. Bit boring if anything
Biden saying Trump “blew the economy before Covid” would probably deserve some unbiased criticism
“This clown”? Biden seems to be losing it, to be honest. So far this looks like a clear Trump win, but 30 m to go
As I tweeted before I could not vote Trump, but after this debate would find it very difficult to vote Biden either. He seems completely out of it, unable to put two sentences together.
I am bored as hell. I have a few coming interviews where I have to comment on the elections so feel this is my professional, painful duty...
So the moment of the debate. Trump says stand by. I don’t see this as a call to action given the context just before, but picking wrong words is indeed a serious mistake. Biden says antifa is not an organization, also an unfortunate mistake. Calling it a tie on this moment
Stupid Trump moment on Beau Biden
Final verdict: seems to me obvious Trump won the debate, would be interested in knowing how anyone could disagree. But not a great debate and Biden managed to survive
Anyway, don’t try to do this at home. Looking at the facts objectively is not what this is about
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By the standards of protests in the US, for example 2020, these are extremely peaceful and orderly protests. I even see people mocking how nerdy and bookish the protestors sound. Height of violence was breaking a glass to get to a door handle, as one does when leaving keys inside
But US authorities have been whipping themselves into a fever and a frenzy: “terrorists, Muslims, Hamas, monsters, inhumans”, they shout, cheering each other on in a kind of collective madness or witch-hunt
You see the poor policemen, always minorities, themselves the target of police brutality, arrive with their minds bubbling up in these notions, convinced they are fighting animals or worse, because they heard this from the politicians
US intelligence sources again blame Ukraine for the counteroffensive’s failure but this time they say Ukrainians were not willing to accept the necessary casualties washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
Officials envisioned “Kyiv accepting the casualties” “but Ukraine chose to stem the losses on the battlefield”
The article is overkill blaming Ukraine for several choices of different kinds but this one stands out for falseness and callousness
Everyone whose opinion I respect thinks the US does not want Ukraine to win the war. It’s a troubling conclusion but hard to avoid
And some of those people tell me there are ongoing, top secret exchanges between the US and Russia to begin shaping a peace agreement…
Even those with no privileged access might look at the facts and notice the military support is carefully designed to match Russia’s buildup but not more
Hope people realise the significance of the diplomatic game between the EU and China over the past few weeks
EU threatened to impose export restrictions on 8 companies registered in China and Hong Kong accused of circumventing EU sanctions. China desperately wanted to avoid this not only because of the restrictions but because a sanctions spiral could follow
In his interview with me Chinese ambassador to EU went so far as to offer to deal with those companies on its own, stopping the circumvention. It was a stunning move I thought newstatesman.com/world/asia/chi…
But:
“Export control analysts told Newsweek they did not know of any examples since the start of the war where a company based in the U.S. or in an allied nation knowingly sold critical technology directly to Russia for the express purpose of helping Moscow's war effort.”
The formulation seems to exclude US companies that sold components to Russia with the express purpose of … making money