Clinton wins first debate: CNN/ORC poll

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pauses as she speaks with campaign supporters after the first presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in Westbury, New York, US, September 26, 2016. Photo: Reuters

Star Online Report

Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner of Monday night's debate by 62% of voters who tuned in to watch, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night, according to a CNN/ORC Poll of voters who watched the debate.
That drubbing is similar to Mitt Romney's dominant performance over President Barack Obama in the first 2012 presidential debate, CNN reports.

READ more: Clinton, Trump clash in fiery first debate
Voters who watched said Clinton expressed her views more clearly than Trump and had a better understanding of the issues by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Clinton also was seen as having done a better job addressing concerns voters might have about her potential presidency by a 57% to 35% margin, and as the stronger leader by a 56% to 39% margin.
The gap was smaller on which candidate appeared more sincere and authentic, though still broke in Clinton's favor, with 53% saying she was more sincere vs. 40% who felt Trump did better on that score. Trump topped Clinton 56% to 33% as the debater who spent more time attacking their opponent.
Although the survey suggested debate watchers were more apt to describe themselves as Democrats than the overall pool of voters, even independents who watched deemed Clinton the winner, 54% vs. 33% who thought Trump did the best job in the debate.
And the survey suggests Clinton outperformed the expectations of those who watched. While pre-debate interviews indicated these watchers expected Clinton to win by a 26-point margin, that grew to 35 points in the post-debate survey.

About half in the poll say the debate did not have an effect on their voting plans, 47% said it didn't make a difference, but those who say they were moved by it tilted in Clinton's direction, 34% said the debate made them more apt to vote for Clinton, 18% more likely to back Trump.
On the issues, voters who watched broadly say Clinton would do a better job handling foreign policy, 62% to 35%, and most think she would be the better candidate to handle terrorism, 54% to 43% who prefer Trump. But on the economy, the split is much closer, with 51% saying they favor Clinton's approach vs. 47% who prefer Trump.
Most debate watchers came away from Monday's face-off with doubts about Trump's ability to handle the presidency. Overall, 55% say they didn't think Trump would be able to handle the job of president, 43% said they thought he would. Among political independents who watched the debate, it's a near-even split, 50% say he can handle it, 49% that he can't.
And voters who watched were more apt to see Trump's attacks on Clinton as unfair than they were to see her critiques that way. About two-thirds of debate viewers, 67%, said Clinton's critiques of Trump were fair, while just 51% said the same of Trump.
Assessments of Trump's attacks on Clinton were sharply split by gender, with 58% of men seeing them as fair compared with 44% of women who watched on Monday. There was almost no gender divide in perceptions of whether Clinton's attacks were fair.
The CNN/ORC post-debate poll includes interviews with 521 registered voters who watched the September 26 debate. Results among debate-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Respondents were originally interviewed as part of a September 23-25 telephone survey of a random sample of Americans, and indicated they planned to watch the debate and would be willing to be re-interviewed when it was over.https://youtu.be/ZEHPrYUcoi0

Trump hits Clinton on stamina; she pounces in retort

Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks as Democratic US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton listens during their first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, US, September 26, 2016. Photo: Reuters

AP, Washington

It was the opening Hillary Clinton had been waiting for all night.
Late in Monday's debate, when the candidates each had notched their points on trade, taxes, crime and more, the talk turned to Clinton's stamina, brought to the fore by her recent bout of pneumonia.

Also READ: Clinton wins first debate - CNN/ORC poll Moderator Lester Holt of NBC asked Trump what he had meant by questioning whether Clinton had a "presidential look."
Trump didn't back off: "She doesn't have the look," he reaffirmed. "She doesn't have the stamina."
"You have so many different things you have to be able to do and I don't believe Hillary has the stamina."
He made his point, feeding into the conspiracy theories swirling about Clinton's health, as well as feeding into sexist questions about whether a woman is tough enough for the job.

Clinton stood stock still, waiting to pounce.
First, she let fly a recitation of her exploits as secretary of state: travels to 112 countries, negotiations on peace deals, cease-fires and imprisoned dissidents - even the 11 hours she spent testifying before a congressional committee investigating the Benghazi situation.
Once Trump can do all that, said Clinton, "He can talk to me about stamina."
Then, she quickly pivoted to the point she'd been dying to make all night, hoping to turn every woman in America against him and evoking memories of Trump's boorish behavior in the primary election season.
Trump, she said, had tried to switch the context of his remarks from talking about her "looks" to her "stamina."
"But this is a man who called women pigs, slobs and dogs," she continued.
She went on to reference his past remarks calling pregnancy an "inconvenience" for employers and questioning when women should get equal pay.
Then, she went to Exhibit A, bringing up a onetime beauty queen whom Trump had called "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping, because she was Latina."
That woman, Clinton said, is now an American citizen - "and you can bet she's going to vote this November."
Trump was left to ask: "Where did you find this? Where did you find this? Oh really?"
He didn't deny he'd said it.
Instead, he played the victim, and offered himself as a model of restraint.
"I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family. And I said to myself, I can't do it, I just can't do it," he said.
Clinton, he said, had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on him, and "it's not nice. And I don't deserve that."
Later, during post-debate press interviews, Trump disclosed what he had held back:
"I was very happy I was able to hold back on the indiscretions of Bill Clinton."
There were plenty of tit-for-tat moments between Trump and Clinton over the 90-minute debate.
In this one, Trump made his point. But Clinton managed to revive a whole body of questions about how the Republican nominee treats half the electorate.

‘Tangail boy jailed for possessing narcotics,’ HC told

Star Online Report

Authorities today told the High Court that the Tangail schoolboy – who was handed two-year-jail for alleged Facebook threat to a lawmaker – was handed penalised “for narcotics”.
- After jailing boy in ICT act, they now say it was for narcotics
- ‘Assaulted, tortured, threatened’ for ‘threatening’ MP
- Authorities appear before High Court for explanation
Tangail authorities provided the turnaround explanation in response to High Court’s summon – based on a report published in The Daily Star on September 20.
The report quoted Executive Magistrate Rafiqul Islam to say that the boy penalised under ICT Act after the class IX student admitted sending a Facebook text to local lawmaker Anupam Shajahan Joy.
Now, the High Court has set October 18 for passing further order on its suo moto rule – issued earlier seeking explanation from Sakhipur UNO and local OC on their actions.

The boy, Sabbir Shikder, a student of Protima Bonki Public High School in Sakhipur upazila and now on bail, was also present before the High Court and presented his account today.

‘WAS ASSAULTED, THREATENED WITH DEATH’

Describing his account of the incident, Sabbir said plainclothes picked him up from his house around 9:00pm on September 16 and took him blindfolded to Sakhipur Police Station.
There, Sakhipur Officer-in-Charge Maksudul Islam “tortured him and threatened to kill him in crossfire” before escorting him to the residence of MP Anupam Shahjahan.
“The lawmaker beat me up with stick,” Sabbir said. Then he was taken to the office of Sakhipur upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) Rafiqul Islam, where the upazila officer kicked him before jailing him for two years.
However, UNO’s lawyer SM Rezaul Karim and OC’s lawyer Nurul Islam Sujon told the High Court that the mobile court sentenced Sabbir for carrying marijuana.
Also, on the note of the report, the lawyers said that The Daily Star published it to malign the image of the lawmaker.