INTENSE FINAL DEBATE: Candidates make closing arguments – as Trump causes stir with vote results answer

[Geee]

:

Donald Trump would not commit Wednesday night to accepting the results of the presidential election if he loses on Nov. 8, in a striking moment during his final debate with Hillary Clinton that underscored the deepening tensions in the race – as the bitter rivals defined the choice for voters on an array of issues not three weeks from Election Day.

 

The debate in Las Vegas, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, started with a measured discussion on policy disputes ranging from gun rights to abortion to immigration. But it ended with the candidates hurling a grab-bag of accusations and insults at each other.

 

Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman.” Clinton called Trump the “most dangerous” person to run for president in modern history.

 

The most pointed moment came when Trump – who for weeks has warned of a “rigged” election – was asked whether he will commit to accept the results of the election.

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THE THIRD DEBATE: 'WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY ARE WE GOING TO BE?'

 

The peculiar self-contradiction of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was on abundant display Wednesday night during her third and last presidential debate with Donald Trump: running as the anointed heir of a two-term president in whose administration she served, she has to maintain both that everything is going great and that the nation in general is in drastic need of repair. Above all, amid all the bluster and platitudes, she and Trump took up opposing sides on virtually all the major fault lines of contemporary America, emphasizing yet again that this election is for all the marbles: either the U.S. will continue on the road to socialist internationalism, or recover a sense of itself. This may be the last time that question is at stake in a presidential election.

 

“What kind of country are we going to be?,” Hillary Clinton asked near the beginning of the debate, and that indeed was the question. The Supreme Court, she told us, needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on side of the wealthy. What would a Supreme Court that stood on the side of the people, rather than the plutocrats, look like? Why, of course it would be one that said no to Citizen’s United, and yes to Marriage Equality and Roe vs. Wade: as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned, anyone who stands for traditional values is simply not of the people, or any people she has any interest in representing. Nor, presumably, among Hillary Clinton’s people are those who respect and want to uphold the Second Amendment – in which she firmly believes, she assured us Wednesday night, as long as it is gutted of any actual substance.

 

Trump, on the other hand, affirmed that he would appoint justices who would interpret the Constitution as written, repeal Roe v. Wade and return the abortion question to the states, and protect gun rights. Chicago, he pointed out, has some of the nation’s toughest gun laws, yet also has more gun violence than any other city. This was a telling point; in response, Clinton promised she would give us both the Second Amendment and “reform,” but did not explain how this sleight-of-hand would be performed.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264561/third-debate-what-kind-country-are-we-going-be-robert-spencer

[Geee]

Clinton Dodges Questions on ‘Pay-to-Play’ Allegations Surrounding State Department, Clinton Foundation

 

Hillary Clinton dodged questions at Wednesday night’s debate about the pay-to-play allegations surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the access its donors got to her State Department, pivoting to talking points about its charitable achievements.

 

Records showed foundation donors made up a significant percentage of the private parties Clinton met with as secretary of state. Another example of access was favorable treatment given to “Friends of Bill,” referring to Clinton’s husband, after the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

 

“During your 2009 Senate confirmation hearing, you promised to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with your dealing with the Clinton Foundation while you were secretary of state,” moderator Chris Wallace said. “But emails show that donors got special access to you. Those seeking grants for Haiti relief were considered separately from non-donors, and some of those donors got government contracts … Can you really say that you kept your pledge to that Senate committee … Why isn’t it what Mr. Trump calls pay-to-play?”

 

Clinton said everything she did as secretary of state “was in furtherance of our country’s interests and our values,” before saying she was “thrilled” to talk about the Clinton Foundation’s charitable work. As she began to rattle off talking points about its achievements, Wallace interrupted.

 

http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-dodges-questions-pay-to-play-allegations-surrounding-state-department-clinton-foundation/

[Geee]

Clinton Pressed on Dream of ‘Open Borders’ Email During Debate, Pivots Discussion to Russian Hacking

 

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had a heated exchange during Wednesday night’s presidential debate over a hacked email released by WikiLeaks showing Clinton arguing for open borders in a speech to a Brazilian bank.

 

“In a speech you gave to a Brazilian bank for which you were paid $225,000, we’ve learned from WikiLeaks that you said this, and I want to quote, ‘My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders,'” moderator Chris Wallace said to Clinton.

 

The Democratic nominee briefly addressed Wallace’s question before deflecting and blaming the ongoing WikiLeaks email releases on the Russia government. The Clinton campaign has so far refused to acknowledge the veracity of the hacked emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s account.

 

“What is really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans,” Clinton said. “They have hacked American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions. Then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the internet.”

 

http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-pressed-dream-open-borders-during-debate/

[Geee]

Five takeaways from the final debate

 

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump made their closing arguments to voters on Wednesday night at the third and final 2016 presidential debate and are now left with just the final sprint to Election Day.

 

 

The tilt in Las Vegas had a little something for everyone: sharp personal attacks, substantive policy discussion and Trump’s unmatched ability to provoke controversy.

 

Here are five takeaways from their final clash:

 

Clinton looks to run up the score

 

Pundits had predicted Clinton would seek to play it safe in the last debate, with polls giving her a comfortable lead nationally and in battleground states.

 

Instead, she sought to run up the score.

 

She attacked Trump aggressively, seeking a resounding victory that will rob her detractors of the argument that she lacks a mandate to govern.

 

“I’m reaching out to all Americans, Democrats, Republicans and independents, because we need everyone to help make our country what it needs to be,” Clinton said in her closing remarks.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/301936-five-takeaways-from-the-final-debate

[Geee]

In Las Vegas, a Tale of Two Debates

 

Trump scored points early, only to give them back to Clinton late.

Las Vegas — Donald Trump saved his best for last, and his best wasn’t good enough.

It was a tale of two debates — and two elections — here on the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where the Republican nominee squared off against Hillary Clinton for a third and final time. The first 45 minutes showcased Trump at his sharpest: Offering a reminder of the potential for an outsider candidate, he used plainspoken arguments to aggressively prosecute Clinton as a failed political insider incapable of bringing change to the country. But the last 45 minutes demonstrated his glaring and fundamental weaknesses, as he sputtered in the face of questions about recent allegations of sexual assault and Clinton, smelling blood in the water, reverted to unloading a trove of opposition-research to stall his momentum.

 

Then, in a moment that negated much of his success and stole every post-debate headline, Trump refused to promise that he would accept the election’s result.

 

At a venue just off the famous Las Vegas Strip, that moment — in which the GOP nominee bucked centuries of American political tradition — was the only real gamble of the night. Both candidates otherwise seemed content to play to their bases, avoid damaging missteps, and steer clear of the fireworks that dominated the second debate in St. Louis.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441241/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-las-vegas-debate-ends-draw

[Geee]

Trump Eviscerated Hillary in Debate #3. What Difference, at This Point, Does It Make?

 

Donald Trump was, dare I say, magnificent in the third presidential debate. I am not a member of #NeverTrump, but suffice it to say that I have been extremely skeptical about Trump as a candidate, and Trump as president. I have repeatedly given Trump the opportunity to convince me that he's not only a good conservative, but a good, viable candidate—and that he won't be a megalomaniac once in office. I've repeatedly been left wanting. During the final debate, however, he was disciplined, he was focused, and he was uncharacteristically prepared. Hell, he even sounded like a conservative warrior—something he'd completely failed to accomplish in any previous effort. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was clearly rattled. She came off like a prize fighter who had taken too many body blows. She was sucking wind for most of the match, and by the time she did counterpunch, she lacked energy and power.

 

So, what difference will it make at this stage of the race for the White House? I believe this will move the needle in important ways, but not enough to help The Donald.

 

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/19/trump-eviscerated-hillary-in-debate-3-what-difference-at-this-point-does-it-make/

[Geee]

Luntz Group: Trump Scored High On Trade, Clinton Floundered On Foundation Defense

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/10/20/luntz-group-trump-scored-high-on-trade-clinton-floundered-on-foundation-defense-n2234919

 

Luntz Focus Group: Trump Won The Debate, But It Was Close

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2016/10/19/luntz-focus-group-xxxx-won-the-debate-n2234745

[Geee]

What we learned about Trump through three debates

 

James Antle III

 

As Dennis Green once said of the Chicago Bears, through three presidential debates Hillary Clinton was who we thought she was. But was Donald Trump?

 

Now that the debates are safely in the rearview mirror, we can evaluate some of the conventional wisdom about the Republican nominee's performance.

 

Trump is not a 90-minute debater. Green might have admonished his teams to play 60 minutes of football. Surely, Kellyanne Conway tried to impress upon her boss the importance of a full hour and a half debate performance.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/what-we-learned-about-trump-through-three-debates/article/2605099

[Geee]

Byron York: For Trump, a solid debate performance disappears in an instant

 

LAS VEGAS — Standing in a garish hotel lobby, casino music pounding, a Republican who has worked hard to help Donald Trump couldn't quite believe how the final presidential debate had ended just a couple of hours earlier.

 

"He had a home run going — a home run — and then he pissed it away in ten seconds," the person said. "Could he just try to win? Just f—-king try to win?"

 

The Republican was referring, of course, to Trump's refusal to promise that he will abide by the results of the election, should he lose. "I will look at it at the time," Trump said. "I will keep you in suspense."

 

It seemed a crazy answer for a number of reasons, not least of which was that in the first debate, when Trump was asked, "Will you accept the outcome of the election?" he answered, "If [Hillary Clinton] wins, I will absolutely support her." Then, Wednesday night, for reasons unknown, Trump said something completely different.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-for-trump-a-solid-debate-performance-disappears-in-an-instant/article/2605098

[Geee]

Michael Barone - Some nice jabs, but an uninspiring debate performance

 

In the final presidential debate both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton landed some good punches. Trump savaged Clinton on her emails, on the Obama administration withdrawal from Iraq, on the nuclear deal with Iran, on Democratic operatives' fomenting violence at Trump events.

Clinton savaged Trump on his impulsiveness and his intemperate remarks on women and nuclear weapons. She hit him for his consistent response to one setback after another — he predictably claims that the results were rigged. Trump said Clinton should have been criminally prosecuted for her secret email system, an eminently defensible position. He nailed her on changing the subject from the WikiLeaks revelations by charging — in terms that seemed to me startlingly Joe McCarthyesque — that he was a knowing tool of Russia. He was equally startling when he declined to say he would accept the result of the election.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/an-uninspiring-debate-performance/article/2605082

 

[Geee]

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton clash on policy, personality in final debate

 

LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of being “a puppet” for Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged voters to send a signal in this presidential election by rejecting the kind of candidate who has been accused of demeaning and assaulting women, mocking the disabled and inciting violence, as the two candidates faced off Wednesday in their final debate.

Mr. Trump came out flat but quickly turned combative, repeatedly interrupting Mrs. Clinton with one-line gibes. He also refused to agree to accept the results on Election Day, saying there is too much evidence of potential fraud for him to do that right now, and he will have to “look at it at the time.”

“That’s horrifying,” Mrs. Clinton countered, saying it was yet another example of Mr. Trump lashing out in a manner unbecoming for someone who would sit in the White House. “He is denigrating, he is talking down our democracy. And I, for one, am appalled.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/19/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-clash-on-policy-perso/

[Geee]

Republicans despondent that Trump threw away final debate

‘Down-ticket Republicans lost,' one GOP pollster said. 'They needed some help and got absolutely none.'

Donald Trump’s rocky performance on the final debate stage did little to allay his party’s concerns that the GOP is headed for an electoral catastrophe up and down the ticket.

In interviews with over a dozen senior Republican strategists, not one said Trump did anything to change the trajectory of a contest that is growing further out of reach. And many said they were deeply distressed by Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the Nov. 8 election, an eyebrow-raising moment already dominating headlines.

 

With Trump’s prospects for securing 270 electoral votes growing dimmer by the day, many Republicans have turned their focus to the gritty, unpleasant task of protecting the party’s congressional majorities. Trump, they said, did little to buttress the GOP ticket — and may have worsened its position by repeating his claim that the election is rigged, something congressional Republicans are sure to be pressed on in the days to come.

 

Immediately after Trump’s remark, several party higher-ups, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, took to Twitter to distance themselves from it.

 

“The biggest loser tonight was not Trump, the presidential race is over,” said Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster who is working on a number of congressional races. “Instead, down-ticket Republicans lost tonight — they needed some help and got absolutely none.”

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/republicans-trump-debate-230071

[Valin]

Not rigged, thrown
Scott Johnson
Oct 20 2016

(Snip)

Why would Trump advertise his loss in advance? He wants us to know that it’s not his fault. It couldn’t be helped. It’s beyond his control. When he loses an eminently winnable race to the most beatable Democratic candidate of the modern era, so he believes, it won’t be because of his failures as a candidate.

It certainly seems to be beyond his control to get a handle on the personality defects that have manifested themselves within 30 minutes or so of his debates with Clinton. If he prepared at all for these showdowns, it barely showed. It makes more sense to infer that Trump is throwing the election than to assert that it is rigged.

Hillary Clinton is a sinister character but an utterly pathetic candidate. To anyone paying attention, her manifest flaws, weaknesses and wrongdoing made themselves apparent one way or another last night. The evidence continues to mount every day. A modestly capable candidate could make hash of her.

Trump is not the man. He can barely frame a coherent thought or articulate a comprehensible argument against her.

 

(Snip)

[Geee]

The 5 Most Outrageous Hillary Clinton Lies From The Last Debate

 

The third and, mercifully, final presidential debate featuring Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also turned out to be the most conventional. Fox News’ Chris Wallace did a solid job pressing the candidates on issues in Las Vegas; giving them space to spar, but not enough space to spiral out of control.

 

Of course, not even a strong moderator will deter candidates from misleading, lying, and prevaricating all night. And since we know Trump’s performance will be comprehensively fact checked by the entire media, let’s talk about Hillary.

 

1. Hillary Does Not ‘Respect the Second Amendment’

 

Was there anything more ridiculous last night than Hillary’s answer on guns? When pressed by Wallace to explain her opposition to 2008’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, Clinton went through a checklist of platitudes before landing on the following:

 

You mentioned the Heller decision, and what I was saying that you reference, Chris, was that I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment in that case. Because what the District of Columbia was trying to do was protect toddlers from guns.

 

Hillary brought up “toddlers” a few more times, because little children are mostly adorable and no one wants to see them shot.

 

http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/20/the-five-most-outrageous-hillary-clinton-lies-from-the-last-debate/

[Geee]

NOT RIGGED, THROWN

 

Donald Trump’s allegations that the election is “rigged” constitute a motif in the closing days of his presidential campaign. The theme emerged last night in his refusal to acknowledge he would concede the election when he loses.

 

I find Trump’s allegation of the rigging of the election bizarre. It advertises his understanding that he will lose the election. He disclaims responsibility for the loss in advance, but there it is, even if his enthusiasts fail to understand what he is saying.

 

Why would Trump advertise his loss in advance? He wants us to know that it’s not his fault. It couldn’t be helped. It’s beyond his control. When he loses an eminently winnable race to the most beatable Democratic candidate of the modern era, so he believes, it won’t be because of his failures as a candidate.

 

It certainly seems to be beyond his control to get a handle on the personality defects that have manifested themselves within 30 minutes or so of his debates with Clinton. If he prepared at all for these showdowns, it barely showed. It makes more sense to infer that Trump is throwing the election than to assert that it is rigged.

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/not-rigged-thrown.php

[Geee]

ON “ACCEPTING ELECTION RESULTS”

 

But wait! Who was the last candidate who refused to accept the result on election day, as certified by election authorities? Al Gore. Did Gore “upend a basic pillar of American democracy” when he tried to overturn the result of the 2000 election? I don’t remember the Associated Press saying so at the time.

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/on-accepting-election-results.php

[Valin]

Related

Alinskyite Tactics, Robert Creamer, and Us
Stanley Kurtz
October 20, 2016

(Snip)

In 2007, Robert Creamer published Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win, a tactical handbook for the left that he wrote while serving a prison term for tax evasion and bank fraud. Creamer’s advice on how to handle conservatives (pp. 74-6) makes for interesting reading about now:

 

 

In general our strategic goal with people who have become conservative activists is not to convert them—that isn’t going to happen. It is to demoralize them—to ‘deactivate’ them. We need to deflate their enthusiasm, to make them lose their ardor and above all their self-confidence…[A] way to demoralize conservative activists is to surround them with the echo chamber of our positions and assumptions. We need to make them feel that they are not mainstream, to make them feel isolated… We must isolate them ideologically…[and] use the progressive echo chamber…By defeating them and isolating them ideologically, we demoralize conservative activists directly. Then they begin to quarrel among themselves or blame each other for defeat in isolation, and that demoralizes them further.

 

 

[Draggingtree]

[Draggingtree]

Hillary's And Donald's Supreme Difference

The Law: One of the things you often hear during this presidential election campaign is that there isn't much difference between the two candidates on many issues. But there's one big exception: the judiciary.

 

We're pretty sure Donald Trump didn't have a well-articulated judicial philosophy when he first started to run. But, as Wednesday's debate showed, he sure has one now, and it's solidly conservative. Hillary, meanwhile, also has a very clear judicial philosophy, one born of the Progressive movement -- and one that likely would end constitutional jurisprudence as we know it.

 

Early on in the debate, Fox News' Chris Wallace asked the candidates about their Supreme Court nominees, leading to perhaps the clearest exchange between the two of the evening.

 

"I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy," Clinton said. She was admirably clear about what she meant: she would uphold what she called "marriage equality,"

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/hillarys-and-donalds-supreme-difference/