Trump's most dangerous gambit Politico

He wasn’t cute or coy about it on Wednesday night. Asked by Chris Wallace if he’d hold true to the basic principles which have guided American elections for 240 years and the peaceful transfer of power every four to eight, Trump said no.

“I will tell you at the time,” Trump said. “I’ll keep you in suspense.”

There’s no suspense. Donald Trump is ready to undermine American democracy to protest a loss even his own team now privately predicts.

His team says he’s blameless, no matter what he has said. But Democrats are warning that the GOP nominee will be to blame if his refusal to accept defeat and his insistence – without any evidence -- that the election is being rigged against him stokes violence.

“If Donald Trump engages in a behavior that is against our democratic norms, says the election’s rigged and then people act violently on it, he will bear some of the responsibility,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.).

Republicans despondent that Trump threw away final debate Politico

Donald Trump’s defiant performance on the final debate stage accelerated Republican party concerns that the GOP could be headed for an electoral car crash with wide-spread impact up and down the ticket.

Politico interviewed 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."

The downwards spiral may well accelerate negative impact down ballot with Trump's refusal to commit that he will accept the results of the Nov. 8 election. The only question for other Republicans is how long will Trump's statement dominate headlines and how aggressive will the media be in interviewing other candidates on their own allegiance to Trump.

The Most Irresponsible Thing Ever Said in a Presidential Debate The Atlantic

Insisting that the media is out to get him with their slanted coverage and pressing the point that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, should have been prohibited from running for president, Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transition of the power of the American presidency. Moderator Chris Wallace tried to explain to him that it was "a bedrock principle of American government, " as Trump doubled down and repeated his plan to keep the nation in suspense.

“This is how Donald Trump thinks,” Clinton said. “It is funny, but it is also really troubling. This is not how our democracy works. We have been around for 240 years. We have had free and fair elections. We have accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them, and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election.”

Insider: Trump's refusal to accept election outcome is a big mistake Politico

Elizabeth Warren to Donald Trump: 'Put on your big-boy pants' Politico

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) lived up to her Democratic heroine reputation, blasting Donald Trump for doubling down on his repeated assertions that the presidential election will be rigged. Sen. Warren dropped the gauntlet to Trump on Twitter, chiding him to stop complaining and put on his “big boy pants” ahead of the third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas.

“Give me a break, @realDonaldTrump. You’re not losing because it’s rigged,You’re losing because we see through your creepy bullying,” Warren tweeted. “Anyone with children knows that whining about imaginary cheating is the last refuge of the sore loser,” she wrote in a followup tweet.

Clinton supporters lean into Trump's "nasty woman" insult and turned it into a compliment VOX

As insulting as the "nasty" comment may be, it’s not especially new for Trump, whose demeaning comments about women have become a gasp-inducing flashpoint in the home stretch of the election. The man has bragged about grabbing women by their genitalia. In response to allegations from multiple women that he sexually assaulted them, he has called his accusers ugly liars. And now, on a national stage and as part of his campaign to be elected leader of the free world, he has insulted his opponent in a crass and gendered way.

What Trump did in that moment is a microcosm of the behavior politics that women are routinely subjected to in all areas of society — the idea that if women don’t behave in certain way, or if they behave the way men do, they will be called "shrill," or a "bitch," or, in this case, "nasty."

And as soon as the debate ended, Trump’s "nasty woman" insult morphed into an empowering phrase. The hashtag #NastyWomen began trending on Twitter. Someone has purchased the URL NastyWomenGetShitDone.com and set up a redirect to Clinton’s campaign website — perhaps as a sly, smirky remix of Saturday Night Live’s 2008 Weekend Update sketch about Clinton "Bitches Get Shit Done":

WikiHillary for President by Thomas L Friedman The New York Times

As today's newspapers announce an arrest on Oct. 5 in the WikiLeaks case, the esteemed Tom Friedman says "those speeches are great!" Yes, after reading her speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks, Friedman concludes " They show someone with a vision, a pragmatic approach to getting things done and a healthy instinct for balancing the need to strengthen our social safety nets with unleashing America’s business class to create the growth required to sustain social programs."

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have made global trade dirty words, writes Friedman. He asserts -- and I agree -- that global trade has brought more people out of poverty over the last 50 years, than ever before in human history.

Do we need to make adjustments so the minority of the U.S. population that is hurt by freer trade and movements of labor is compensated and better protected? You bet we do. That’s called fixing a problem — not throwing out a whole system that we know from a long historical record contributes on balance to economic growth, competitiveness and more open societies.