Thick as Thieves: Murkowski, Alaska’s Political Establishment, and the PFD Grab

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Ever wonder why our politicians never seem to represent us? Keep reading.

Alaska Dispatch News recently reported that telecommunications giant GCI funneled more than $2 million into the Alaska’s Future campaign in an attempt to strong-arm the legislature into a PFD grab that would direct half of the designated statutory payout to fund State deficit spending.

Over the past week, US Senate candidate Joe Miller has flooded the radio airwaves with an ad highlighting Senator Lisa Murkowski’s repeated attempts to tap the Permanent Fund for State spending while she was a State legislator, and reminding voters of the fact that Murkowski made statements earlier this year that appear to double-down on support for the PFD grab.

But is there really a connection between the corporate-sponsored Alaska’s Future campaign to take Permanent Fund earnings from Alaskans and Senator Lisa Murkowski?

Here’s what I found.

While Alaska’s Future campaign is a bipartisan group, run by Senator Dan Sullivan’s campaign manager Ben Sparks and former Senator Mark Begich’s spokeswoman Heather Handyside, it is in large part a campaign funded and directed by Murkowski donors. She is, in fact, the common denominator.

The Washington DC-based consulting firm, Black Rock Group, who is working Lisa Murkowski’s US Senate campaign is also consulting the Alaska’s Future campaign.

Alaska’s Future Co-Chair Ron Duncan of GCI has personally given the maximum $5,400 to Lisa Murkowski’s 2016 re-election campaign, and donated to numerous PACs who have funneled thousands more into the senior senator’s coffers.

At least three of Duncan’s Vice Presidents at GCI have donated a combined $9,900 more in personal contributions, and have also donated to PACs supporting Murkowski with thousands more.

Co-Chair Helvi Sandvik, President of NANA Development Corporation, has personally donated $3,500 to Murkowski, and steered an additional $7,000 to her from the NANA Development Corporation Inc. PAC.

Co-Chair Sophie Minich, President and CEO of the CIRI Corporation, is a past Murkowski donor.

No less than 17 of the 32 Alaskans named to the Alaska’s Future Leadership Council have either endorsed Mrukowski or donated to her, or to PACs that have donated no less than $34,875 to her campaign.

Further, corporate members have donated tens of thousands more through their PACS, and this before the latest disclosures have been posted to reflect donations since Murkowski picked up a legitimate challenger in the senate race.

Murkowski also has the backing of the AFL-CIO, whose leader in Alaska, Vince Beltrami, reportedly assisted GCI chief Ron Duncan with lobbying efforts in Juneau.

With just a handful of exceptions, the remainder of the Alaska’s Future Leadership Council are donors to either sitting Senator Dan Sullivan or former Democratic Senator Mark Begich.

    And to no one’s surprise, not one member of the group trying to grab your PFD has donated to any of Joe Miller’s three US Senate campaigns.

Alaska’s Future is a thinly veiled pay-to-play racket. They give money to the politicians, who take your money, and give a portion back to them. And the favor is returned come election time. This is what we call a quid pro quo. Everyone wins but the taxpayer.

And you wonder why Senator Murkowski offers consent to the politicians stealing your PFD? Wonder no more. Follow the money. The permanent political class is indeed thick as thieves, and they’re all in this thing together.

Thankfully, Joe Miller fought back, drafting the Save The PFD recall petition application in July.

And how can we fight back? Elect a man to the United States Senate who isn’t party to the theft.

In early September, when United States Senate Libertarian nominee Cean Stevens decided to step down, Joe Miller agreed to replace her on the ballot. He is the only viable candidate in the US Senate race capable of displacing this cabal and giving ordinary Alaskans a truly independent voice in Washington.

This One Tweet Shows Why You Can’t Trust Media ‘Fact Checkers’

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In the wake of another debate, the self-appointed media fact checkers are at it again. Instead of fact checking, they often dispense opinions packaged as facts, and in some cases outright obfuscate on behalf of Democrats. NBC gave America a textbook case of the latter last night.

During the second presidential debate, Trump explained how, after a congressional subpoena, Clinton’s team had her server deleted of emails. During the exchange Trump made a metaphorical reference to Clinton wiping the server clean. NBC News, hilariously tried to fact check that.

The Claim

Trump says Clinton ‘acid washed’ her email server.

The Truth

Clinton’s team used an app called BleachBit; she did not use a corrosive chemical.

NBC rated the claim a “NOPE.”

This was not satire; they actually did this. What makes it more outrageous is Trump, in the same sentence, used the prhase “Bleach them.” Here’s the exchange as transcribed by the Washington Post.

When I speak, I go out and speak, the people of this country are furious. In my opinion, the people that have been long-term workers at the FBI are furious. There has never been anything like this, where e-mails — and you get a subpoena, you get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena, you delete 33,000 e-mails, and then you acid wash them or bleach them, as you would say, very expensive process.

Two words after ‘acid wash’ Trump said ‘bleach them,’ which was an obvious reference to the computer program (not an app but that’s an aside) BleachBit.

It is noteworthy that NBC News did not try to fact check whether or not the underlying premise —that Hillary Clinton deleted emails after getting a subpoena — is true. Because it is. Morther Jones, not exactly a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, reported what the FBI report had to say about the emails (emphasis mine).

Pages 18-19: According to Mills, in December 2014, Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her e-mails older than 60 days. […] On March 2, 2015, The New York Times (NYT) published an article titled “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.” […] In his interviews with the FBI, REDACTED [a PRN techie] indicated that sometime between March 25-31, 2015, he realized he did not make the e-mail retention policy changes to Clinton’s clintonemail.com e-mail account that Mills had requested in December 2014. […] He believed he had an “oh shit” moment and sometime between March 25-31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server and used BleachBit to delete the exported .PST files he had created on the server system containing Clinton’s e-mails.

This explains why data was removed from the PRN server after the New York Times article and after the Benghazi committee had subpoenaed Hillary’s emails. It had nothing to do with anyone around Hillary Clinton. An IT guy at PRN realized one day that he’d forgotten about the retention order and went ahead and implemented it.

The report makes clear that Cheryl Mills sent an email, which the PRN techie received, telling PRN about the preservation request from the Benghazi committee. The techie said he knew it meant he shouldn’t disturb the Clinton server but apparently got confused and didn’t realize this meant he shouldn’t touch the old archives or the backups.

What is not being questioned is whether or Clinton’s team deleted the emails after the subpoena. It is established fact. By rating Trump as false — or in this case ‘NOPE’ – NBC News is intentionally misleading the public.

Remember when you read a “fact check” do some digging on your own, no matter who is providing the “facts.” (For more from the author of “This One Tweet Shows Why You Can’t Trust Media ‘Fact Checkers'” please click HERE)

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Emails: Firm That Hired Abedin Called Chelsea Clinton a ‘Spoiled Brat Kid’

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Emails published by WikiLeaks on Monday show Chelsea Clinton was worried about a consulting firm that was founded by former aides to Bill and Hillary Clinton as she clashed with fellow employees of the Clinton Foundation.

Teneo Strategies, founded by Doug Band and Declan Kelly, has drawn scrutiny for its decision to employ longtime Clinton confidante Huma Abedin during the final months of Hillary Clinton’s State Department tenure. The firm created potential conflicts of interest when Abedin and Band went to State Department officials to seek assistance for Teneo’s clients.

In a Nov. 2011 email to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chair, Band worried that “if this story gets out, we are screwed.” He was referring to Chelsea Clinton’s assertions that Teneo employees had begun to invoke Bill Clinton’s name, without his knowledge or consent, on behalf of corporate clients.

“She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life,” Band said of the former first daughter’s criticisms.

Band later described an incident in which the Clinton Foundation’s chief operating officer, Laura Graham, contemplated suicide in Dec. 2011 due to the “stress” of the foundation. (Read more from “Emails: Firm That Hired Abedin Called Chelsea Clinton a ‘Spoiled Brat Kid'” HERE)

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Alinsky’s Daughter: Here’s the Truth About Hillary the Media Won’t Tell You

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In 1993, the president of Wellesley College approved a new rule upon being contacted by Bill Clinton’s White House. The rule stated that all senior theses written by a president or first lady of the United States would be kept under lock and key. The rule was meant to keep the public ignorant about the radical ties of the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the radical Marxist organizer, Saul Alinsky. The 92-page thesis was titled, “There is only the fight…: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”

The thesis became unlocked after the Clintons left the White House and is now posted online. After being ruled by Barack Obama, another Alinskyite, for 8 years, perhaps one might think the fact that the modern Democratic Party is completely taken over by Alinskyites is old news, but the connection between Alinsky and Hillary is special.

Hillary describes Alinsky as a “neo-Hobbesian who objects to the consensual mystique surrounding political processes; for him, conflict is the route to power.” Alinsky’s central focus, she notes, is that the community organizer must understand that conflict will arise and to redirect it and, as she quoted him in her thesis, be “…dedicated to changing the character of life of a particular community [and] has an initial function of serving as an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions… to provide a channel into which they can pour their frustration of the past; to create a mechanism which can drain off underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. When those who represent the status quo label you [i.e. the community organizer] as an ‘agitator’ they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function–to agitate to the point of conflict.”

The thesis in and of itself is limited to whether or not “social justice” can be attained through the tactics described by Alinsky in “Reveille For Radicals,” and the numerous speeches he gave on hundreds of college campuses in the 1950s and 1960s. What had become clear was that Alinsky’s previous organizing had fallen apart and almost all attempts to recapture the original intent had gone by the wayside.

Hillary noted that, “Alinsky’s lessons in organizing and mobilizing community action independent of extra-community strings appear to have been lost in the face of the lure of OEO money.” Pointing out that the power of the government took away the work of the “local organizer.” It is here that we see her light bulb illuminate. With this reasoning, the better approach would be to be the government who had the power to force social change.

But just because Hillary criticized Alinsky’s model in 1969 doesn’t mean she disagrees with his politics. In fact, it could very well be that Hillary’s model, which was to gain political power and wield it to gain social change, is simply her thesis finally realized. She criticized Alinsky, not so much for his tactics, but for his focus on organization. What is possibly the best way to put Hillary’s philosophy is what she told the Black Lives Matter movement, saying, “I don’t believe you change hearts, you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.”

Hillary questions whether organizing as Alinsky did in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago and eventually across the country was effective enough because of the unanticipated results. She pointed to other lefty thinkers that criticized Alinsky as a “showman rather than an activist.”

It should also be noted that while Alinsky’s “Reville for Radicals” was directed at labor organizing, “Rules For Radicals” was directed at middle class youth, instructing them how to carry out his model in a new age. Ever the social observer, Alinsky recognized that the blue-collar workers of the 1930s were no longer, “where it’s at,” but that middle class youth of the 60s was ripe for organization. But also, the emphasis in the prologue of working within the system is eerily similar to Clinton’s argumentation. In her 2003 book, “Living History,” Clinton wrote, “He believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn’t. Alinsky said I would be wasting my time, but my decision was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within.”

At the end of Clinton’s thesis, she includes correspondence she received from Alinsky, and notes the personal interviews she conducted with him: twice in Boston in October 1968 and once at Wellesley in January 1969. She followed his organization, Industrial Areas Foundation, which was a training institute for communist radicals. She credited Saul Alinsky for both “providing a topic” and “offering me a job.” She never questioned the organization’s ultimate goal to achieve a Marxist utopia. What drove Hillary was how to get there.

Hillary’s whole life has been dedicated to socialist/communist ends. The fact that the arguments and the anger fomented by Alinsky in the 40s, 50s and 60s are the same arguments and anger of today’s Obama/Clinton model is telling. For 75 years, inner city blacks have been poor, labor unions have worked to put their members out of a job, and everyday there is some new group claiming it doesn’t have equality. All of these groups have been targeted by these so-called organizational geniuses. No matter what happens, either by the power/conflict ideals of Alinsky and Obama or by power grabs/money laundering of the Clintons, the lives of the people get worse. It is not whether Saul or Hillary are right about how to “achieve democratic equality,” or whose tactics are more effective, but of the failure of the philosophy behind it.

Hillary kept in contact with Alinsky throughout college and while in law school, she wrote him a letter claiming that she missed corresponding with him. The letter began, “Dear Saul, When is that new book [Rules for Radicals] coming out — or has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation? I have just had my one-thousandth conversation about Reveille [for Radicals] and need some new material to throw at people,” — she added, a reference to Alinsky’s 1946 book on his theories of community organizing.

David Brock, in his 1996 biography, “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham,” called Hillary “Alinsky’s daughter.” That is an apt label. Where Alinsky tactics are used now on both sides to confuse and agitate, Hillary is poised to become the supreme leader with all the power and tools of our monstrous government at her fingertips.

Saul’s daughter has it all figured out. (For more from the author of “Alinsky’s Daughter: Here’s the Truth About Hillary the Media Won’t Tell You” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

These 4 Women Were the Real Debate Winners and the Clintons Will Hate It

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Yes, Donald Trump was significantly better in tonight’s debate than the first debate. Yes, he probably won on points. It won’t matter much for his campaign. But tonight’s real winners were the women impacted by Bill and Hillary’s quest for power, who finally got the media to pay attention to them, if only for a few minutes.

Many young people voting today do not know the stories of the sexual assault victims that Bill and Hillary Clinton have allegedly left in their wake. The media has done a fantastic job — for the Clintons — of whitewashing Bill’s extracurricular activities as “consensual.” There are many women who say that is not the case. Some have even credibly accused Bill Clinton of raping them, and Hillary Clinton of covering it up.

Tonight Trump gave those women a voice. Try as they may, the media could ignore it no longer — if only for a brief moment in time.

Before the debate, four of the Clintons’ alleged victims, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and Kathleen Shelton, joined Trump for a press conference.

Then, on the debate stage, Trump mentioned some of those women and what the Clintons did to them. Here is the transcript of those remarks, as compiled in real-time by Vox.

That was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I am a person who has great respect for people, for my family, for the people of this country. And certainly I’m not proud of it, but that was something that happened. If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse, mine are words, his was action. This is what he has done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women, so you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women.

Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them are here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years-old, was raped at 12. Her client she represented got him off and she’s seen laughing at the girl who was raped. She is here with us tonight, so, don’t tell me about words. And absolutely, I apologize for those words. But it is things that people say, but what President Clinton did, he was impeached, lost his license to practice law. He had to pay an $850,000 fine. To one of the women. Paula Jones, who’s also here tonight.

And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point like that and talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it’s disgraceful and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.

With those women in the audience, Hillary Clinton called them liars in her next breath.

First, let me say so much of what he just said is not right, but he gets to run his campaign any way he chooses. He gets to decide what he gets to talk about.

Her first instinct, as it has always been, was to denigrate the women who dare speak out against her and her husband. This time to their faces.

But this time, the media had to cover it, because it was brought up in the debate. The talking heads got back to calling it a non-issue, but for a few brief moments these women got their day in the court of public opinion. For that reason, they were the true winners tonight. (For more from the author of “These 4 Women Were the Real Debate Winners and the Clintons Will Hate It” please click HERE)

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Undercover: Steven Crowder Infiltrates Socialist Student Protest and It Is Absolutely Terrifying

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So, what exactly does a “Students Against Sweatshops” conference entail? Conservative comedian Steven Crowder went undercover — for science — to find out.

The results? Just … just watch and see for yourself.

Today’s college students don’t identify as socialists, but rather as “anarchist-communists.”

Do not confuse “intersecting identities.” You can be “sexuality queer” but NOT “gender queer” and if you get that wrong, well, you’re naturally a BIGOT.

And, of course, a “conference” is really code for paid union protests where the unions don’t actually show up and just use these college students to promote their far-left agenda and do their dirty work for them.

If this is the best our universities have to offer, we’re doomed. (For more from the author of “Undercover: Steven Crowder Infiltrates Socialist Student Protest and It Is Absolutely Terrifying” please click HERE)

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Murkowski Insider, KTVA’s John Tracy, Fails to Declare Conflict of Interest in PFD Grab

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Former Murkowski media consultant John Tracy this week took on the topic of Bill Walker’s PFD grab on his weekly television spot “Reality Check,” defending the embattled governor and suggesting that Alaskans opposed the governor’s legally dubious executive action are being unreasonable.

It’s time to “reality check” John Tracy.

Tracy suggests it is ordinary Alaskans who don’t want to just hand their money over to an outsized, wasteful and confiscatory government who are being unreasonable, not the government that is deficit spending at a reported $360,000 an hour.

He even goes so far as to invoke the Alaska Constitution as justification for confiscating the common property of all Alaskans for the benefit of a few.

But the section cited explicitly states: “the fund should provide a means of conserving a portion of the state’s revenue from mineral resources to benefit all generations of Alaskans.”

What Tracy never begins to explain is how diverting those resources to some Alaskans now, without fixing the underlying problem, serves the interests of all Alaskans now, much less benefits “all generations of Alaskans.”

He further compounds his error by suggesting the PFD is an “entitlement,” rather than just compensation for private property taken by the State of Alaska, our mineral rights.

At first blush it would appear Tracy is just another arrogant elitist blowhard, but when one scratches below the surface something else altogether emerges.

John Tracy’s high-sounding rhetoric about Governor Walker’s knowing the difference between politics and governing – read, being a statesman –  is nothing more than a manipulative ploy to cover for his bosses.

The truth is, Tracy is being paid big bucks by KTVA to say what he says. KTVA is owned by GCI, whose President and CEO Ron Duncan co-Chairs the Alaska’s Future campaign, a special interest cabal comprised of major corporations, unions, and corrupt politicians pushing to take ordinary Alaskans’ PFD to solve the State’s fiscal woes.

Duncan has gone so far as to blackmail our politicians by threatening to pull as much as $220 million in planned capital improvements off the table if the State government doesn’t comply with their demands.

John Tracy further has counted Senator Lisa Murkowski among his major clients, who has for years favored the PFD grab, dating all the way back to her days in the State legislature before her father appointed her to the United States Senate.

Even over the objections of a whopping 83% of Alaskans, Murkowski co-sponsored and voted for legislation to take your PFD, a measure her father backed strongly as governor of Alaska.

Earlier this year, Senator Murkowski reiterated her support for an all-options-on-the-table approach to the State’s budget shortfall, including your PFD.

John Tracy is certainly entitled to his opinion, but he owes Alaskans a full accounting of his rather substantial conflicts of interest. Because maybe, just maybe, his opinions are shrouded in self-interest.

In the interest of full disclosure, Restoring Liberty publisher Joe Miller drafted the Recall Walker petition application that is circulating around the state.

Here’s hoping the mainstream media catches up to speed on full disclosure.

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For more on KTVA’s questionable reporting, click HERE.

Did Jeb Bush Just Let Slip Who He’s Voting for in Presidential Election?

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When asked who he will vote for in the November presidential election, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has intimated on several occasions that he may cast his vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

At a luncheon hosted by the Manhattan Institute on Wednesday, Bush suggested he may choose Johnson over Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

A source at the luncheon told the New York Daily News, “There was an old man talking to Jeb across the table and said, ‘I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary and Trump,’ and Jeb looked at him and mouthed the word ‘Johnson,’ silently.”

During his speech at the event, Bush reportedly made a comment referring to Johnson as the president.

According to a source, Bush jokingly said, “If I did get a call several weeks after the election, what would I tell President Johnson — I mean, President whoever.”

In an email to the Daily News, Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, made it clear he had not chosen a candidate to support.

“Nothing has changed since the Governor wrote [a Washington Post] op-ed a couple months ago saying he couldn’t support Hillary or Trump. He has said he would consider voting for the Libertarian ticket. No decision/update though,” Campbell wrote.

Johnson, who according to the latest Real Clear Politics analysis is drawing about 7 percent support in the most recent presidential polls, has been in the news recently for his responses to questions on foreign issues.

The former governor of New Mexico recently appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” where he was asked, “What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?”

Johnson responded, “And what is Aleppo?”

The host asked if he was joking to which Johnson answered, “No.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Wednesday, Johnson was asked to name his favorite foreign leader.

Johnson wanted to name the former Mexican President Vicente Fox, but was unable to grasp the name.

“I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment,” Johnson told Matthews. (For more from the author of “Did Jeb Bush Just Let Slip Who He’s Voting for in Presidential Election?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

City Obama Buried in Refugees Is Fighting Back

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The latest flashpoint in the growing backlash against refugee resettlement is Fargo, North Dakota, where the city commission is demanding a full accounting of the program’s costs.

“Surprisingly, that’s never been done before,” said a Fargo city commissioner, Dave Piepkorn, who spoke with WND this week and can be seen discussing his plan in the video above.

Fargo, like many other small cities that have received large numbers of refugees, has been divided by the issue. There have been protests against refugees and counter protests in favor of them, followed by biting blogs and news reports on both sides.

Fargo was thrust into the spotlight on Sept. 18 when it was revealed that the Somali refugee who attacked mall shoppers in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was originally resettled here.

“When we have one Muslim terrorist who tries to kill innocent people in St. Cloud, which is two hours from here, that raised my alarm,” said Piepkorn, who is leading the fight to expose the costs of refugee resettlement on his community. (Read more from “City Obama Buried in Refugees Is Fighting Back” HERE)

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No, Mainstream Media, Hillary Did Not Win the First Debate

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Immediately after the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ended Monday night, liberal media pundits began gloating abuot how poorly Trump performed. Many Republicans piled on. I felt like we had watched two different debates.

Were they right? No.

Trump’s Higher Hurdle

Trump had to jump higher hurdles than Clinton to get a favorable report from the mainstream media, who favor Clinton and see the world the way she does. He faced other disadvantages.

The moderator, Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News, is being called “the third debater” by HeatStreet for his biased role. He asked six follow-up questions of Trump but none of Clinton. Holt asked Clinton nothing about her emails, Benghazi or the Clinton Foundation. Instead, he “grilled Trump on stop-and-frisk, the birther story, his comments about women, his many bankruptcies, why he hasn’t released his tax returns — and a host of other issues the media sees as unfriendly to the Republican candidate.”

Holt’s fact-checking follow-ups were directed at Trump, not Clinton. Todd Starnes, a contributor to The Stream, tweeted, “Lester Holt should’ve moderated — instead of auditioning to be Hillary’s press secretary.” (For other examples of the media’s unfair use of fact-checking against Trump, see The Washington Times‘ article “Eight examples where ‘fact-checking’ became opinion journalism.”)

Journalists evaluating the debate kept up the claim that Trump made many mistakes and false claims. Compared to Clinton, he is vulnerable to this criticism. Clinton is a lawyer, with years of experience nitpicking details, which showed when she got bogged down on details several times during the debate. In contrast, Trump is a creative innovator, who has focused on the big picture throughout his entire career.

Now, it is true that Trump made a few mistakes, but his misstatements were generally not material. One “error” some jumped on was his saying Clinton has “been fighting ISIS [her] entire adult life.”

Yes, ISIS began in 1999, when Clinton was 52. She hasn’t been fighting ISIS her entire adult life. But as a public figure, she has always been a strong supporter of aggressive military action against such groups. Trump exaggerated to make a point about her consistent support for military intervention. It’s called “hyperbole” and it’s a legitimate way of making a point. Nevertheless, some “fact-checkers” declared that Trump was wrong again.

Clinton Performed Even Worse

What the media is leaving out is that Clinton performed even worse than Trump. Equally missing is any praise for the clever things Trump said.

Stylistically, Clinton was a disaster. It may not be fair to judge candidates on this, but style does influence voters — remember the Nixon-Kennedy debate. She marched out in a glaringly bright red pantsuit, the type of outfit she is ridiculed for, since the harsh colors are unforgiving to her body shape. She reverted to her nasally, harsh “schoolmarm” voice throughout the length of the debate, perhaps to keep from coughing.

She came across as arrogant and condescending, unlikable, particularly when she gloated while boasting about her accomplishments. Since few voters know anything about her tenure as secretary of state other than the Benghazi terror attack and her email scandal, the bragging felt fake.

Trump cleverly interjected short comments while Clinton was speaking, refuting her. Even if a critic disagrees with him, the critic should credit him with an effective debating strategy. Of course, his critics complain that he only did that because she’s a woman — though if Clinton had done the same to him they would have been silent.

Professional political observers can argue about who did better in the debate. I think Trump did better than Clinton, but liberal journalists usually think Clinton did better than Trump. The real test is what effect the debates have on undecided voters, and that is something we won’t know for a long time. (For more from the author of “No, Mainstream Media, Hillary Did Not Win the First Debate” please click HERE)

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