There is no doubt that the WikiLeaks release of stolen emails have damaged Hillary Clinton's campaign. She may be leading Trump in the polls despite the leaks, but she would have a much greater lead had the DNC not been hacked.
But just how much should we rely on the WikiLeaks emails in evaluating whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump should become president? There are three points to consider when evaluating the email dumps.
I wrote a column last August for the Ithaca Journal calling on Congressman Tom Reed to rescind his endorsement of Donald Trump. I pointed out that Reed had repeatedly criticized his opponent, John Plumb, and President Obama for being soft on Russia and that he could not logically maintain his endorsement of Trump while insisting we resist Russia's aggression in Ukraine. Reed has yet to rescind his endorsement despite this inconsistency with respect to Russia and despite Trump's bragging about grabbing women by the pussy.
Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democratic system. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for the death of America. I don't make this claim lightly. Let me explain.
That Donald Trump has a long history of misogyny is beyond dispute. However, recent events have revealed that that Trump's misogyny may well have crossed the border from mundane chauvinistic piggery into the realm of sexual assault.
Hillary Clinton was mostly right in her characterization of Donald Trump's supporters as deplorable or disillusioned:
Donald Trump seems to be almost as good at dodging taxes as he was at dodging the draft. We already knew that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 1978, 1979, and 1984. We also knew that Trump paid $0 or close to $0 in federal income tax in 1991 and 1993. We should have sympathy for Trump in the early 1990's--he was was having tough times during those years as his casinos were going bankrupt and his creditors forced him to live on only $450,000 a month income. (That’s right. That’s not a typo.)
What is it with the Trump campaign and technology? Donald Trump was noticeably sniffing during much of the debate as can be seen in the following supercut.
Trump supporters have been pushing a meme recently that Hillary Clinton has epilepsy, Alzheimer's, or some similar disease. Rudy Giuliani promoted these medical rumors when he said, “Go online and put down ‘Hillary Clinton illness,’ take a look at the videos for yourself.”
That's an interesting way of diagnosing Hillary's medical condition. Just for fun, go to Google and type in "Rudy Giuliani child molestor" and see what comes up.
By now you've probably heard about how Trump apparently called for Hillary Clinton's assassination if she appoints Supreme Court Justices who favor gun control.
Nate Silver recently tweeted
Don't think people are really grasping how plausible it is that Trump could become president. It's a close election right now.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 23, 2016
