On behalf of Murkowski, Sen. Mitch McConnell launches vicious attack ads on Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka

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Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s political action committee has put Republican Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka in its crosshairs, with a vicious radio ad in Alaska that all but accuses Tshibaka of committing fraud.

Tshibaka has, in the past, said that if elected she will not support McConnell, now in his seventh term in office, for Republican majority leader. The Kentucky lawmaker is returning the favor: His ad, which is carefully worded, refers to an audit done when Tshibaka was a federal employee that related to the accounting of her hours and the hours of others. Tshibaka was never accused of any wrongdoing then, but listeners would not know it from the ad running on many radio stations across the state.

“Kelly was fully exonerated after an investigation, and in fact was shortly thereafter named acting inspector general for the federal trade commission. The ad is full of lies,” said Tshibaka’s campaign.

One radio station owner turned the ad down, saying it was over the line in terms of decency, according to what the owner told Must Read Alaska. The station sacrificed several thousands of dollars by turning down the ad.

The Senate Leadership Fund, controlled by McConnell, supports Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in her reelection campaign, while former President Donald Trump and his political action committee support Tshibaka. Earlier this year, McConnell’s fund postponed running its ads in Alaska in order to focus on more high-stakes races. But just two weeks after an AARP poll shows Murkowski and Tshibaka virtually tied, the ads against Tshibaka are on the airwaves.

Tshibaka and Murkowski’s campaigns have been running attack ads on each other for months, but the McConnell ad caught the attention of many Alaskans, who said it went too far.

Murkowski and McConnell are usually aligned, but not always, especially when it comes to Donald Trump. In 2021, Murkowski publicly said she was upset with McConnell over his decision to block a commission to look into what she considers a the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by hundreds of Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

“In an extraordinary meeting with reporters on Capitol Hill before an expected vote on the Jan. 6 commission, Murkowski took direct aim at the Kentucky Republican over his stated rationale for opposing the investigatory panel: that he would rather focus his party’s energy on President Joe Biden’s misdeeds to gain fodder for the 2022 midterm elections rather than risk alienating former President Trump and his supporters,” according to the Huffington Post, which reported that she was accusing him of trying to make political gains.

“To be making a decision for the short-term political gain at the expense of understanding and acknowledging what was in front of us on Jan. 6, I think we need to look at that critically. Is that really what this is about, one election cycle after another?” Murkowski said to reporters then. “Or are we going to acknowledge that as a country that is based on these principles of democracy that we hold so dear. And one of those is that we have free and fair elections… I kind of want that to endure beyond just one election cycle.”

66 COMMENTS

  1. It’s official, he’s a rhino. He turned on Trump and it is against anything out of ordinary establishment which means he loves turning the other cheek. I trust no one except Lindsey Graham.

  2. Why doesn’t Sen. Murkowski want to debate with Kelly? Sen. Murkowski has done NOTHING for the state of Alaska.

  3. It looks like the Turtle’s lips have totally worn away, after kissing the deep state’s behind so frequently and regularly.
    .
    What a contemptible, reprehensible, pro-status-quo swamp creature The Turtle truly is.
    But swamps are after all the natural habitat of turtles.

    • So true!

      DJT started to bring an end to the crookedness of The Swamp, and all he got in return was betrayal!

      He was the one guy not in it for himself!

  4. Swamp creatures have to protect their own.
    .
    I wonder if Kelly has any legal recourse. Slander and libel laws likely do not apply to campaign ads that are “not specific” but I would be interested to see if Kelly T. can claim harm from the ads.

    • CB: careful what you ask for. You tend to promote misinformation and scatter insults. You called me a errant five year old and a toddler once. Maybe I should sue you.

      • Never called you those names. I stated that your comments read like that. And, since you continue to show up here, and continue to post comments that demonstrate the intellect of a five year old or toddler, you have not been harmed in any way by my statements.
        .
        Please, file a lawsuit. You will have to represent yourself because no lawyer worth their pay will take up your case. You have no standing.

      • If the allegations in the ads were actually true, there would be more substantive statements. Instead, it is a bunch of unanswered questions.
        She received money to move. What is not mentioned is the contract she signed when she took the job and was moved. Likely it required one year on the job. She put in two. But the ad does not even mention a contract.
        Same with the report alleging fraud. Go find the report. I will bet every dollar in my wallet that it does not actually provide any evidence of fraud, but her name is mentioned in it.
        .
        An unanswered question is evidence of nothing.

  5. Mitch McConnell is nothing but a drone. Married to a billionaire Chinese woman who he always manages to get placed in high US government positions. McConnell is the US Senate autocrat who expects complete allegiance and servitude by his understudy Republican senators. Kelly T will not play his game, unlike the suck*ss Lisa Murkowski.

    • Agree fully, ChrissyB. McConnell has never stepped foot in Alaska. Yet, he’s using Senate campaign money to try and keep his cheerleader Lisa Murkowski in office.
      .
      Please vote Kelly Tshibaka for US Senate in November.

    • McConnell is another politician who has been in office nearly 50 years. I hope the good people of Kentucky get rid of this old creepy Republican.

    • Totally agree. Mitchy needs to go. He keeps stuff from moving forward and now denigrates Republicans running for US Senate. He needs to go and take his hate America/Alaska buddy Murkowski with him.

  6. Kelly Tshibaka was not exonerated for teaching at a Bible School while charging time to the Federal Government. People like Kelly make government bad, not the hard working Federal employees Kelly rails against

    • “Hard working federal employees”
      .
      I am laughing out loud at you, Frankly.
      (And I noticed how, your quasi-religious statist love of governmental power, capitalized the word “federal” there.)
      .
      If any federal employees are actually working hard, it is only to strip us of our remaining rights and freedoms, such as how the blindly partisan, politicized, and deep state co-opted federal intelligence agencies have been doing, most especially under and because of Trump.

    • Frank, (sigh), as usual your comment is clueless and reactionary. It is NOT illegal to teach part-time (at any college…) while holding down a federal position. You overplay your hand by emphasizing “Bible College”, as if that somehow makes her not-a-crime somehow worse. Please show some class and respect.

    • Hard working federal employee??? Your ignorance is really showing now Frank.

      Yeah the reason we have a bloated government and runaway spending combined with ever increasing inflation is because all our federal employees are working so hard. Cripes, you be hilarious if weren’t a liberal shill.

  7. Neither Mitch McConnell nor Lisa Murkowski, true RINOs, represent any of us any longer. Long term politicians getting richer off of any of us willing to vote for them or support them. Lying to us without a thought or care to its impact.
    The power of the purse… it is a curse on us that we cannot command them to only tell us the actual whole truth, they are punchlines and talking points and both spread lies disguised as part of a truth, not the rest of the story… lies upon lies.
    Go Kelly

  8. You really have to pay close attention and turn the volume up if on the radio to hear or read who is responsible for these hate adds. Kind of reminiscent of the old used car adds. They obviously are not very proud of their product. There should be large fines for putting out false information during a political campaign, especially since they have been proven to be so effective in past elections. Most people believe this crap, which in turn encourages more of it. Part of the responsibility goes to the networks that just can’t turn down the money paid to run them. What a racket. And the lier with the biggest financial backing from special interest wins, because they can create the most hate adds. Proud of yourself, Lisa?

  9. Somehow I don’t see free and fair elections in Alaska’s future as long as we have rank choice voting which as I understand was largely funded by dark money backing Murkowski. While the country is rapidly being decimated by democrat policies, this is not the time to be transitioning Alaska to a Blue state.

    • Ya and Dunleavy and Meyers aren’t saying or doing enough to restore trust. Ballot harvesting needs to be outlawed in this state and counting should be done much faster. Public access to voter registration information needs to be eradicated. And counting and tabulating overnight should never be ok. And so much more. And frankly, it is going to be hard to get trust in the system ever again until they either get rid of Dominion and/or they do a very public and extensive overhaul of the checks and balances and security requirements and forensics that are required every single election.

      I personally don’t trust any company that manufacturers election equipment and says you can’t audit their equipment because of proprietary information on the systems. That company just needs to go.

  10. Mitch McConnell, AKA the Turtle, is not doing Murkowski’s campaign any favors by supporting her over Tsibaka. Like the Turtle he looks like, he is well adapted to life in the Swamp and everyone knows it.

  11. I did not like the political ad. However, to say Kelly is not a swamp creature is false. Loren Leman, Sean Parnell, and Mead Treadwell are better candidates. Kelly and her husband have made a pretty penny in their brief stay here. The former did the Mayor no favors as Personnel Head. The candidate remained silent as troopers were moved from rural Alaskan as rapes soared. Both will be heading home to DC think tanks after the election.

  12. Listen to KFQD 2-3 hours a day and have been surprised by the Murkowski to Tshibaka ads. Probably around 10 to 1 for Murkowski, hardly ever hear a Tshibaka ad and started to wonder if her campaign is running low on funds. Never hear a Palin ad, but good Lord KFQD is inundated with Peltola. Fish and abortion, fish and abortion. About 20 to 1 over other political ads. Started turning the radio down because I can’t take the repetitive Peltola bombardment.

  13. We gotta fire and send these swamp rats to the private sector where they’ll have to live under the nanny state laws they’ve created, just as we do. Anyone who believes Murky’s radio ads about working hard to provide land access to Alaska citizens obviously doesn’t remember her Sea Alaska Bill debacle which would have heavily restricted land access throughout SE Alaska. She is a liar.

  14. The Ads are not “vicious, they are truthful. Kelly is a proven grifter that uses her governmental positions to enrich herself and all the ads do is expose her. Clearly her track record is a Government Gold Digger. She also lied on her Alaska residency to save a few bucks on her sports fish license and was busted and sentenced. (Must Read did stories on this). Kelly is a carpetbagging outsider that is a damaged candidate. If you do not like Mitch’s ads you certainly will not like the Plumber and Pipefitter ads exposing Kelly’s graft and corruption that ends with “Kelly, take a hike.”

    Kelly is a damaged candidate that cannot beat Murkowski with the Alaska electorate. Murkowski wins. Game, set, match.

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