Well That Was Hilarious.

Ahead of their November 8th (8/11/16) election the US is currently engrossed in its series of Presidential debates.

I have to say that I'm getting quite sick of these debates in general. The news networks really hype them up because it provides a cheap way for them to fill hours of their schedules without having to do any actual journalism.

Here in the UK things have really reached epidemic proportions. Particularly with Sky News.

Every day Sky News have their morning debate in which a not particularly important topic is discussed by guests who don't really know much about the topic but are available in the middle of the working day.

Then Sky News has the afternoon debate in which a not particularly important topic is discussed by guests who don't really know much about the topic but are available in the middle of the working day.

Every night they have not one but two newspaper review shows in which the next day's newspapers are discussed by guests who don't really know much about the topics being discussed.

Sky News also has its weekly "The Pledge" debate in which a range of topics are debated by guests who don't really know much about what they're discussing.

If that wasn't enough Sky News also has its "Week in Review" show in which all of the weeks previous debates are discussed by guests who don't really know what they're talking about.

This is all extremely frustrating if you still make the mistake of turning on a news channel in the hope of catching up on some news. I actually think it has an extremely corrosive effect on the level of political discourse with  facts now being considered wholly secondary to wildly uniformed opinion sharing.

Limited to just three though the US Presidential debates do serve a somewhat important role giving the viewer an insight into the personalities of candidates who otherwise might not be particularly well known. For example back in 2008 Barack Obama had been in politics for all of two years. In 2012 I have to admit that I hadn't really heard of Mitt Romney at all.

However this year the candidates are Donald Trump for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats.

Donald Trump first came to the public's attention in a reality TV called; "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" in the mid-1980's. From 1993 onwards Hillary Clinton caused something of a constitutional crisis by trying to turn the role of First Lady into an unelected executive office similar to the Vice President under the Presidency of her husband Bill Clinton.

Some of the people voting in this election won't have been born until 1998.

With there being very little left to learn about the personalities of the respective candidates I haven't been staying up to the required 4AM to watch this latest round of debates. However the run-up to last night's debate was certainly dramatic.

On Friday (7/10/16) Hillary Clinton's campaign released a video from 2005 of Donald Trump who at the time was a private citizen engaging in some lewd banter with the TV presenter Billy Bush. This wasn't a particularly pleasant conversation. However I have certainly been known to say a host of highly offensive things to knock the person I'm talking too off balance and give myself the upper hand.

The whole thing actually reminded me of the; "Derek and Clive" sketches between the comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. In those sketches Cook would frequently go off script and come out with all sorts offensive things in an effort to make Moore forget his lines and collapse into fits of giggles. The; "C*nt Kicker Sketch" is particularly notorious.

The reason why the Hillary Clinton campaign chose to release the Billy Bush video on Friday was really threefold.

Firstly on Friday the US State Department released another trove of emails relating to those 110 times Hillary Clinton committed espionage against the US. These are of course the emails that Hillary Clinton claimed had been deleted when addressing Congress under oath. Due to the Billy Bush video though you won't hear about that on the news.

Secondly also on Friday Wikileaks released another trove of Hillary Clinton emails. This story of those emails being released to Wikileaks by Russian hackers is simply a lie.

It's something of an open secret that they were released by Democrat staffer Seth Rich with the fully permission of certain people within the party. The purpose of releasing this information was to stage a coup against moderate elements such Debbie Wasserman Schultz in order to replace them with more extremist elements such as Donna Brazil. With the debate taking place in Missouri close to Ferguson that should have been a particularly sensitive topic for the Hillary Clinton campaign

Having authorised the release of the documents to Wikileaks Democrats already know exactly what information Wikileaks is in possession of and what it was likely to make public.

One of the highlights from Friday's release was a private speech Hillary Clinton gave in 2013 to Deutsche Bank. There she took great pride in announcing that throughout her tenure as Secretary of State she had repeatedly lobbied for the arming of extremist groups within Syria. In short creating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Obviously though due to the Billy Bush video you won't hear about that on the news.

Thirdly Hillary Clinton and her campaign were trying to use the Billy Bush video to goad Donald Trump in the days running up to the debate. That way if Trump reacted angrily they could use it to justify their narrative that Trump is temperamentally unfit to be President.

The only problem is that Hillary Clinton's own record on sexual violence is pretty appalling.

Contrary to what she claims one of Hillary Clinton's first jobs on leaving law school was to help child rapists escape justice.

Hillary Clinton is of course married to Bill Clinton. A man whose constant philandering seems to belie a deep, pathological hatred of women. The Monica Lewinsky scandal is just the tip of the iceberg with Bill Clinton having been accused of rape on numerous occasions. On each occasion Hillary Clinton has leapt to his defence launching blistering personal attacks on his accusers. Something that is known in liberal circles as; "Victim Blaming."

Bill Clinton's close friendship with convicted paedophile business man Jeffrey Epstein is particularly troubling.

So about an hour before the debate began Donald Trump simply held a press conference with just three of the women Bill Clinton is accused of raping and whom Hillary Clinton has viciously attacked in public.

The media - particularly CNN - had built their entire coverage of the debate around using the Billy Bush video to tell you that you have to vote for Hillary Clinton. The debate itself was moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Obviously the contrast between Donald Trump's words and Hillary Clinton's actions left them unable to do that.

The word; "Crestfallen" sprung to mind.

12:30 on 10/10/16 (UK date).