The Biden campaign on Wednesday rejected a New York Post report...
The word used in the headline and the first line of the article is "rejected." Not "denied." That seems to indicate that they know the material isn't fake and they simply don't like the report.
... about Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter that the nation’s leading social media companies deemed so dubious that they limited access to the article on their platforms.
"Dubious" means it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously (presumably partly because we're hearing this so late that there's too little time for the Biden campaign to respond).
The report, appearing just three weeks before the election, was based on material provided by Republican allies of President Trump who have tried for months to tarnish Mr. Biden over his son.
That is, the report is dubious because it is coming out so late. Trump supporters have wanted to get Biden over his son Hunter all year, so why is this only coming out now? It looks like a last-ditch effort, resorted to because Trump is losing, done to cause damage by being difficult to refute at the last minute.
It claimed that the elder Mr. Biden had met with an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden served. A spokesman for the Biden campaign, Andrew Bates, said that Mr. Biden’s official schedules showed no meeting between Mr. Biden and the adviser, Vadym Pozharskyi.
That's not to say there was no meeting, only that the official schedules showed no meeting.
“We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” Mr. Bates said.
Would Bates know that there was no meeting if there were but it was left off the schedule?
The Post story cited an email Mr. Pozharskyi allegedly sent to Hunter Biden thanking him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” and to spend “some time together.” The authenticity of the email correspondence cited by The Post could not be independently verified.
So it could be completely fake?! It's awfully convenient, and it's so precisely the smoking gun the Trump campaign would want. That's why I held back from blogging the NY Post story all of yesterday (and only posted about the Twitter/Facebook suppression at the very end of the day).
Hours after the Post published its article, Facebook said on Wednesday that it had decided to limit the distribution of the story on its platform so it could fact-check the claims. Twitter said it was blocking the article because it included people’s personal phone numbers and email addresses, which violated their privacy rules, and because the article violated their policy on hacked materials....
The NYT is making the Twitter/Facebook suppression sound reasonable. Why didn't the NY Post present a cleaner report of the newsworthy portion of the email? Did it want to provoke the censorship?
Both Bidens have said that the two did not discuss Ukraine with each other. An investigation by Senate Republicans — and significant scrutiny of the issue over the last year — found no evidence that Mr. Biden, the former vice president, engaged in wrongdoing over his son’s business dealings. Asked about the prospect of even a brief encounter with Mr. Pozharskyi, a Biden campaign official said that was “technically possible” but very unlikely.
That's a good defense. Denial that there was a meeting, but an explanation ready in case there is proof of a meeting, assuming the meeting would turn out to be small enough to be characterized as a forgettable trifle. It might mean a lot to the Ukrainians to get to Joe Biden at all and be worth a lot to Hunter Biden to make that happen and, at the same time, seems like nothing at all to Joe Biden. That's the story, I suppose, if the email turns out to be true.
The official said there was “no indication at all” that such an interaction had happened, and that regardless, Mr. Biden would not have discussed anything tied to Burisma....
It didn't happen, but if it did, it didn't matter. The story is in place.
The Post report described a circuitous and unusual path by which the newspaper had obtained the email correspondence that involved two of Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies: Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and a former New York City mayor, and Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser. The article said the emails were part of a trove of material on a laptop computer that was dropped off for repairs at a shop in Delaware, Mr. Biden’s home state, and never retrieved....
That's all quite strange!
The Post reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had seized the computer and the hard drive in December but did not specify what the authorities might be investigating....
If they've had it since last December, why has nothing come of it? Why is it coming out now through Giuliani?
The article also does not explain any connection between the store owner and Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert J. Costello, or why the owner would give a copy of the hard drive to him.... Initially, when no one came to retrieve the hard drive for 90 days, Mr. Costello said, the source examined the contents, believed they were troubling and then called the F.B.I. After the documents failed to emerge in the Trump impeachment hearings, the source grew agitated and began reaching out to lawmakers who failed to return his messages, Mr. Costello said. It’s unclear why it would take over nine months, however, for the person to reach Mr. Giuliani in September....
From the WaPo story:
The Washington Post was unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged emails and other correspondence that the New York Post published Wednesday and said had come from the younger Biden’s computer and hard drive. Neither Giuliani nor Bannon responded to multiple requests to review the hard drive and other materials for verification, nor did they respond to phone calls and emails on Wednesday seeking interviews. An attorney for Giuliani responded to an email on which he was copied to ask what outlet the reporter represented. There were no further replies....
This forefronts the possible fakeness, and next comes the idea that if it is true, it's not important:
The report Wednesday did not markedly advance what is already known about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, other than to suggest that at one point he gave Vadym Pozharskyi, a Ukrainian business colleague, “an opportunity” to meet his father....
Back to the potential fakeness:
Thomas Rid, author of “Active Measures,” a book about disinformation, said hacking, forging and leaking information selectively are among the most effective disinformation methods, and raised suspicions about the material the New York Post published. “Usually when emails are leaked, what investigators look for is the actual email file, and we don’t have that here,” Rid said, raising alarms that the emails do not include metadata, which can be used to verify the date, sender and recipient. When an email is presented without the metadata, he said, “then you become suspicious.”
We get background on the repair shop owner:
John Paul MacIsaac, who said he owns a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Del., told The Post on Wednesday that the laptop in question was one of three damaged computers brought to his shop in April 2019. Repairing it required an involved process, he said, so he continued working on it using the password the customer provided.
It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop. He gives this treasure trove, with the password, to the shop owner to futz around in? An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.
[MacIsaac] said he determined the data could be moved to an external hard drive and asked the customer to return and provide a hard drive, which he said the customer did. MacIsaac, who described himself as legally blind, said that he was almost certain the customer was Hunter Biden.
That's just so convenient.
“I’m 99.9 percent sure it was him, but because of my visual impairments I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I can’t be 100 percent sure.”
Well, many people do have a hard time recognizing faces. I think I wouldn't be 100% sure I was looking at a particular celebrity if I didn't know him personally. How often have you seen someone and thought, hey, I think that might be _________? How many stories do you know about someone who is mistakenly recognized as a celebrity? Personally, I know my father was greeted as if he were Frank Sinatra, and I once had a restaurant dinner intruded on by an ecstatic woman who needed to hug my friend "Bruce Springsteen." All I'm saying is, it's normal — legal blindness or not — to fail to know if a person is or isn't a celebrity you don't personally know. It's possible that a fake drive was created and this legally blind computer repair person was selected to launder the fakeness into something that could be taken as true.
MacIsaac said that he made several attempts to get in touch with Hunter Biden, but that after the equipment was still in his hands 90 days later, he became curious. (MacIsaac said his standard contract gives him possession of a device after 90 days.)
Those facts fit a theory of fakery: MacIsaac was used.
MacIsaac said that he saw some of the contents, including what he described as multiple files, and contacted at least three members of Congress, whom he would not name. He also said that he contacted the FBI using an intermediary, whom he also would not name. He said the agents initially told him they didn’t want to take possession of the hard drive and instead made a copy of it, but returned later in the year with a subpoena to take it....
In late 2019, before he handed the equipment to the FBI, MacIsaac — who says he is fiscally conservative and socially liberal — made a copy of the contents of the hard drive. He grew frustrated that the contents of the laptop hadn’t become public, and over the summer he decided to contact Giuliani, who had been traveling to Ukraine and attempting to find compromising information about the Bidens. ...
I'm now convinced of the dubiousness of this material. Should it have been allowed to fly all around the world yesterday? The effort to stop it was damaging to the reputation of Twitter and Facebook and it didn't even work to stop the virality, since the suppression effort independently and strongly demanded attention.
The article ends with an appeal to the reader's empathy:
As recently as the Sept. 29 presidential debate, Trump ridiculed Hunter Biden, which led his father to make an emotional defense of his son that acknowledged his past drug addiction. “My son, like a lot of people at home, had a drug problem,” Biden said. “He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him, I’m proud of my son.” Biden has been adamant that he was unaware of his son’s business dealings and took no part in them, telling reporters in September 2019 that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” He also pledged last year that his family would not engage in any foreign business activities if he is elected president.
Between Joe and Hunter there's a fierce love and a reliable wedge — that's the feeling WaPo wants to leave us with.
My position: Cruel neutrality. What you see above are my genuine reactions as I read the 2 news articles in real time. Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election.
Posts
170 comments:
If you don't vote, you don't cancel out some man's vote for Trump, so it's really a casting a vote for Trump. Men favor Trump, women oppose.
Thanks for doing the work and sharing your reasoning, professor. Whether the Post's assertion is genuine or not (if false, it seems far more artfully crafted than the Steele dossier at this point), this assures that Hunter Biden will be at the center of discussion for the next few news cycles at least.
What is it with these ancillary characters and their wayward laptops? Whatever you do, don't you dare think of Anthony Weiner right now.
My thought? The machine always fails at its weakest point.
Now, take a time machine back to 1970 and explain all this to your parents. What a world.
"That's a good defense. Denial that there was a meeting, but an explanation ready in case there is proof of a meeting, assuming the meeting would turn out to be small enough to be characterized as a forgettable trifle."
Did they talk about golf and grandkids? That's what Loretta Lynch tried when she met with Bill Clinton aboard her private jet in AZ. It is a good thing that local news team blew the whistle on that.
On another topic, I can't believe you are copping out on this election. At least you won't offset Meade's vote, whichever way he goes. This is serious, even if Trump and Biden aren't. On the brighter side, last time you voted for Hillary, so...maybe not so neutral...maybe in first gear. Wait till the hate brigade from Team Donkey catches up with you. I want to assure that all of us on Team Trump love and respect you, and we'd appreciate your vote.
I love the ass covering that the press does for the BIdens. Like this from ‘Factcheck’.org
In December 2013, Hunter Biden and one of his daughters flew on Air Force Two with Joe Biden to China, where the elder Biden was on a diplomatic mission. Hunter Biden’s attorney, George Mesires, told the New York Times that Hunter Biden went along because his daughter had been invited and needed a chaperone.. [LOL!]
Although Hunter Biden told the New Yorker he conducted no business while in China, he did arrange for a photo op with Li and his father, Joe Biden, in a hotel lobby.
So there was a ‘photo op,’ they couldn’t deny that because the photo existed, but no meeting? He got two extremely powerful and busy men together to take a photo with him and nothing else? A photo that demonstrates how connected Hunter was, and could be used to drum up business for his fund? Or was it for his private scrapbook? We all know the kind of shit that he keeps there, maybe he only intended it to help him score chicks?
But according to Hunter Biden’s attorney, Hunter Biden derived no financial benefit from the deal at that time. He was acting as an unpaid director advising investors in the fund.
The whole factcheck is a joke, and damaging to Biden, another example of the Streisand Effect.
Then the “fact check” links to some whataboutism about Trump as if these were equivalent:
The president’s attacks also come after a string of controversies involving members of Mr. Trump’s extended family and China, most of them unfolding after he was elected. A company run by his daughter Ivanka has been awarded dozens of potentially valuable trademarks by the Chinese government. A real estate company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, tried to sell its troubled investment in a Manhattan skyscraper to a prominent Chinese firm. And Nicole Meyer, Mr. Kushner’s sister and an executive in the family firm, invoked her connections to the president when she pitched Chinese investors in Beijing to buy into a development in New Jersey. - New York Times
OMG! All having to do with legitimate business in which the family members were qualified for the jobs they were doing and in businesses they were already in before Trump was elected. Oh, and the sister of a son in law?
This is so true:
“It gives the politically connected class enormously tempting opportunities for self-dealing, the sort of thing that is blatantly illegal in almost any other context,” Schweizer wrote, adding that Biden landed a deal in China that “he was apparently unqualified to score save for one thing: his father.”
The ‘fact check’ paints a picture of the Biden family as self-dealing graft chasers. I don’t think it ever mentions Joe’s brother, who got that 1.5 billion dollars for rebuilding the homes in Iraq he voted to bomb to smithereens. They think that by pointing out that this kind of influence peddling is not *illegal*, I think that were he a Republican, prosecutors might have some theories about that, and that Trump claimed he made “millions and millions” which his lawyer denies “at this time."
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/trumps-claims-about-hunter-biden-in-china/
Trump world is desperate as he goes down in flames.
I try to be cynical, but I can’t keep up. I never would have thought that the New York Times would cede its power as national news gatekeeper to Twitter.
Yet there is a video of Biden boasting about getting the prosecutor fired. Very few reports on these emails reference that bit.
...this brings the dubious camp members to a head count of around...three. Which makes it rather dubious.
"Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
Such courage.
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. China? None of the Burisma revelations are surprising, which is a problem for the defenders. Who didn't think Biden actions were corrupt?
The FBI had the hard drives since 2019, and did NOTHING. Luckily, the owner of the Computer repair shop copied the hard drive and got it to Guiliani. The FBI is complicit in the cover up of the truth and going after Trump for no reason. Time for heads to roll.....WHY did the FBI not do anything?? Why were they covering up for Joe??? To cover up for Obama. Period.
As far as why Hunter would bring a computer there....HE was a CRACK WHORE. He probably doesn't even remember...which just brings up the question, WHY would anybody pay him $80,000 a month when he had no experience, was a drug addict, and was son of the vice president of the United States of America?? (there's your hint!!)
."I'm now convinced of the dubiousness of this material. Should it have been allowed to fly all around the world yesterday? The effort to stop it was damaging to the reputation of Twitter and Facebook and it didn't even work to stop the virality, since the suppression effort independently and strongly demanded attention. "
Sort of like the fake PEE PEE Dossier that Hillary bought????
I'd say I was disappointed, but the truth is that I expected no better. The portion of women who possess real courage, as opposed to an interminable ability to rationalize away spinelessness, may be 1 in 50. An ACB versus an entire goon squad of harpies.
Which is also why Donald Trump correctly dispenses with appealing to the clever urbanite crowd. Let them drown in their own consequences. No matter how obvious the Dem fraud is, people know the truth. And are psyched up either way.
If they've had it since last December, why has nothing come of it? Why is it coming out now through Giuliani?
Because the FBI is a corrupt agency. Just as J. Edgar Hoover was appointed to clean it up in 1921 (1921!), we need to bring in a reformer to clean it up 100 years later.
An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid..
Why not? The apple falls close to the tree and his daddy is no candidate for Mensa.
You are abstaining? Coward!
Ann, help me understand the abstaining approach, which my father is also adopting, and I imagine many others of your generation will too. One of two outcomes is inevitable, so abstaining makes sense only if the candidates are identical. But both are uniquely bad, and each will set us on completey different courses. I don't see how abstaining from your voting obligation is taking the moral highground. Vote third party if anything.
If they've had it since last December, why has nothing come of it? Why is it coming out now through Giuliani?
Because the FBI is a corrupt agency. Just as J. Edgar Hoover was appointed to clean it up in 1921 (1921!), we need to bring in a reformer to clean it up 100 years later.
An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid..
Why not? The apple falls close to the tree and his daddy is no candidate for Mensa.
You are abstaining? Coward!
I'm now convinced of the dubiousness of this material.
Stuff that makes Trump look bad: Fair and accurate.
Stuff that makes Biden look bad: Fake and racist.
Article doesn't discuss it, but isn't the point of the pictures that they prove that the story is genuine? Is there some other source suggested for the pictures?
I'm guessing that the Post included the pictures for that reason, not because they were salacious. Unlike some famous actress, no one cares to see pictures of Hunter Biden and his friends.
So it’s “last minute”, except for the minor point that DJT brought it to everyone’s attention in December 2019 and got impeached for it, and has been talking incessantly about it ever since. The evidence is right there and has been all along; it’s the ass-covering press that looked the other way.
The argument that he wouldn't be so stupid about the computer is not convincing. We aren't talking about a professional public figure like Hillary Clinton. Most of us don't think about this kind of stuff till it's too late.
"If they've had it since last December, why has nothing come of it?”
Yes, they had it before impeachment, they had it while Mueller was persecuting Trump for something Hillary had clearly done, which was solicity foreign interference in our election. Why wouldn’t they produce exculpatory information for Trump? Why was it left to Trump’s lawyer to dig this stuff up?
"Why is it coming out now through Giuliani? “
Giuliani is Trump’s lawyer. Yes, for that reason he has been targeted for vicious and completely misleading smears by the New York Times, and political prosecutions by the SDNY. But as Trump’s lawyer, he is the person one would go to if one had information that fell into the right hands.
It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop. He gives this treasure trove, with the password, to the shop owner to futz around in? An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.
On the hard drive were pictures of Biden passed out with a crack pipe. He is a known crackhead.
You don’t usually do this, but it’s kind of instructive to see you post rationalization after rationalization to get to the conclusion you want to draw. “It’s hard for me to believe” despite the evidence, I guess, is not rigorous reasoning.
Thanks God that this fell into the hands of somebody who wanted to bring it to the attention of the American people. Biden is an influence peddler, and he has been his whole career, and his ne’er-do-well son is one of his bag men. Just like his brother James.
“I’m 99.9 percent sure it was him, but because of my visual impairments I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I can’t be 100 percent sure.”
My Cousin Vinnie comes to mind, but the guy seems pathologically honest to me.
It's possible that a fake drive was created and this legally blind computer repair person was selected to launder the fakeness into something that could be taken as true.
It’s one heavy lift to create a fake email file with 10,000 entries, all of which has to be internally consistent down to checksums and timestamps. If it’s fake, the FBI knows it’s fake, it doesn’t seem like Biden himself is denying that these are authentic.
"So it could be completely fake?! It's awfully convenient, and it's so precisely the smoking gun the Trump campaign would want. “
So it can’t be true? That’s crazy, none of Biden’s denials of aiding his son’s business by peddling his influence as VP hold up, and many of them are directly contradicted.
“Your honor, my client can’t get a fair trial because there is video evidence of him committing the murder.”
You are worried about how the left will react to a loss, but you don’t worry about the FBI and CIA and Federal prosecutors with political agendas controlling our elections?
I guess Shakespeare said it pretty well “Thou art woman."
"“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” "
That itself seems terribly irresponsible.
“Should it have been allowed to fly all over the world...?”
Allowed?
Really?
What else should we not be allowed to hear about?
AA sez: "Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
Fair position to take. I think that's where Bay Area Gal is - doesn't like Trump, but doesn't like Antifa & BLM looting under Figurehead Joe.
I thought AA always made a decision to vote A candidate or B candidate? True, there are exceptions to most rules.
Slow Joe is the Potempkin Village candidate. Indeed, he's the Mayor of the Potemkin village - or perhaps, just the Villiage idiot. Either way, he doesn't deserve the Althouse vote and he ain't getting it.
Giuliani evidently has the entire copy of the hard drive. There will be a steady stream of info released from it for the next two weeks. There is zero chance the Dem operatives can suppress all of it. Even the low info voters will be deluged with it.
Quite the wagon circling campaign. And I find it interesting that the chosen media attack line is that the validity of the emails has not been demonstrated, something even the Biden campaign itself is not claiming. They only claim that they don't have a record of the meeting tasking place (a non-denial denial).
But then, the Times, Post, etc. is often happy to do the Democrat's dirty work unbidden so the Dems can stay nice and clean.
NYT and WAPO's whole stock in trade for four years was a fictitious dossier paid for by Clinton and likely Russian disinformation. Their "hook" was an unverified report published in Buzzfeed.
Just thought I'd mention that.
If the questionable sourcing justifies ignoring the story (or actively suppressing it) as the left media claims why didn't they react in the same way to the Steele dossier which wasn't just questionable but paid for by the Clinton campaign?
This incident reveals essentially all the left media [except Greenwald] function as left wing political operatives rather than journalists.
Got it. Democrats can release Trump’s pussy tape—recorded in 2005–less than a month before the 2016 election and it’s totes legitimate, but the Republicans (if it even is the Republicans) can’t release this information, which certainly speaks to Biden’s fitness for the office he’s running for, in the same time frame for the 2020 election.
Also, the idea that the FBI has had the laptop since last December and has done nothing with it is sadly believable. They could put this story to rest quickly if they just said, yeah we have it, we looked at it, it’s fake, just like they did with Weiner’s laptop.
Oh, wait...
The best argument that this story is all true: the immense effort to suppress it.
It was nearly a year ago that Trump brought up this issue. It wasn't just with 3 weeks to go.
This information has been around for a very long time. These emails have also been around for some time, but the story of Burisma, Hunter Biden, Joe smiling broadly as he tells the tale of getting a prosecutor in another country who was investigating his son fired- have all been around for a long time. The idea that this is just coming out now- 3 weeks before the election is because our news media sat on it for a few years. Seriously- if the NYT or WaPo committed any real reporters to investigate this, instead of waiting for texted leaks from Obama team members or FBI employees, to bring down the President, they could have been deep into this months ago.
"It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop."
The most brilliant woman we've ever been fortunate to have in our government, Hillary Clinton, kept her email server unsecured in her bathroom, while she was Secretary of State, emailing the most important information to world leaders. You can be sure everyone from China to Russia, Iran to Brazil, Canada to Israel were reading Hillary's emails on Sunday mornings.
Hunter Biden was/is a crack addict. He has a long history of horrible judgement- smoking crack and having hookers romp with him while working on backroom deals that involved his daddy- the Vice President- is only a glimpse of it. You think Hunter would not drop off his computer to a local computer shop because he's thinking clearly?
"Does it want to provoke censorship"? So you're all in on censorship? Good to know.
This meeting wasn't on Biden's official calendar, neither was the coup meeting with Obama in the Oval office or Clinton's meeting on the tarmac with AG Lynch. The corrupt "meetings" go on and on.
He grew frustrated that the contents of the laptop hadn’t become public, and over the summer he decided to contact Giuliani, who had been traveling to Ukraine and attempting to find compromising information about the Bidens. ...
Guliani was in Ukraine looking into the obvious foreign interference in the 2016 election that came out of Urkaine, both as a response to the Mueller Report and impeachment. This is what he has said on the record, which the New York Times or WaPo, I don’t know which that excerpt comes from, chooses to reject, despite it’s utter plausibility. Here is an example of Ukraine election interference published in the New York Times in August of 2016. The ledger was made up, and it was provided to tne New York Times by a Ukrainian politician who had previously met with Biden in the White House.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/what-is-the-black-ledger.html
Why wouldn’t Trump’s lawyer be investigating election interference from foreign nationals as part of Trump’s defense, which he was never allowed to put on, BTW. Yet you take at face value the statements of Biden’s lawyers. And “wrongdoing” is one of those words that you could drive a truck through. It means nothing “illegal” but we all know about prosecutors now, and how they can twist the law with extremely tenuous theories that may never have to go before a judge. Like if Trump slowed down the weapons money for Ukraine for even two weeks, even though he met the statutory deadlines, he has broken the law, or that “sexual preference” is now hate speech, stuff like that. My favorite example still is how “extreme carelessness” is not illegal and “gross negligence” is, so the FBI found that Hillary was only guilty of “extreme carelessness” so there was no "wrongdoing.'
Face it Althouse, the fantasy of America that you hold is just that, I held it too until Trump turned over all of the rocks, it makes me sad to know it was a lie. You cling to it.
Mark - Trump might go down in flames.
Sad that your entire party had to burn down the nation and our formerly free press to do it.
the modern democrat party is corrupt.
I guess Biden using the fine people hoax to launch his campaign isn’t as bad as the author stated earlier.
When I read about this story in the NYP I first thought that it was unnecessarily cruel of the reporters to include the photos of Hunter Biden and the details of some videos that were found on the laptop. Seemed just as salacious as the Steele dossier with those inclusions. But after reading the professors comments I think those features of the report show her assumption of “dubiousness” is unwarranted. Certainly anybody could have concocted the specific emails which reveal the Biden corruption, but no one except Hunter Biden could have put those features of his personal life on the hard drive.
Those emails, they’re real. And they’re spectacular.
When I read about this story in the NYP I first thought that it was unnecessarily cruel of the reporters to include the photos of Hunter Biden and the details of some videos that were found on the laptop. Seemed just as salacious as the Steele dossier with those inclusions. But after reading the professors comments I think those features of the report show her assumption of “dubiousness” is unwarranted. Certainly anybody could have concocted the specific emails which reveal the Biden corruption, but no one except Hunter Biden could have put those features of his personal life on the hard drive.
Those emails, they’re real. And they’re spectacular.
The email could be fake, but the pictures of Hunter with a crack pipe are definitely real. Apparently, there's also a twelve minute video of him smoking crack and having sex.
Someone could have stolen information and planted the email, but they've definitely got Hunter's stuff.
More evidence than most of the Trump Russia stuff. Twitter and Facebook made it worse by censoring.
I want to thank the social media companies for forcing everyone's attention to this story. It wouldn't receive the prominence it has without their sterling efforts.
I think this deserves an attaboy.
Let's not pretend the media wouldn't plaster Don Jr with a crack pipe in his mouth at the top of every news website in the world.
"The report, appearing just three weeks before the election, was based on material provided by Republican allies of President Trump who have tried for months to tarnish Mr. Biden over his son.”
Yes, I remember all of your objections when the sentence could just as easily have read:
"The secretly recorded private conversation with a then non-politician Donald Trump, appearing just three weeks before the election, was based on material provided by Democratic allies of Secretary Clinton who have tried for months to tarnish Mr. Trump.”
No, your reaction was to take the bait and swallow it whole. “Women do not like to fuck stars! Who could ever believe such a thing!” was maybe your reaction.
It’s amazing to watch how the Times coaxes you into these positions by bypassing your intellect and appealing to your emotions.
Ah, so metadata is needed to accept the authenticity of a digital document. I see. But I don’t see this point ever being made concerning Obama’s PDF of his supposed birth certificate that, if one was skeptical of proved one was a bigot.
I’m no longer able to take the double standard. It’s more than appalling, it’s immoral.
Cause EVERYONE knows that unverified material from Trump allies is not nearly as "solid" as unverified material from the DNC and Russia!
HOW DARE those "Trump allies"!
Move along, nothing to see here...
Go ahead, sit this one - the one for ALL THE MARBLES - out.
Your neutrality only seems cruel in this instance because you had to contort yourself into a painfully unnatural position to get there.
The story is the corruption.
Normal people see through the smokescreen.
Althouse sees it.
But I doubt she wants to.
Democraticals care about power and nothing else.
The corruption and graft are happy byproducts.
resorted to because Trump is losing
Sorry lefties, there's reams of data suggesting Trump isn't going to lose. This story is just adding to the pile...
The Post gets in trouble because it gives the reader the information to be skeptical of the story. Imagine how well the NYT would launder Guiliani's identity if he was Anti Trump: A former law enforcement official with ties to the FBI was contacted by the store owner...
Why hasn't Hunter Biden said, "I've never been to this computer shop and I have never dropped one off to have the hard drive repaired. I don't know what he's talking about"?
The authenticity issue seems pretty well settled by the Bidens themselves--it's authentic. Which tells me that all of this musing about authenticity, no matter how reasonable seeming, is just misdirection.
All this could have been avoided if the Post had said the information was form anonymous sources. Then Twitter would find it totally credible...
This is a skirmish. I would have to believe it's something like a dry run for the release of additional damaging information. Trump's allies got the big tech companies to show their tactics, and the pushback on those tactics is damaging to the tech companies. The next round of damaging information will likely be more damaging, and the tech companies will have to be more moderate in their response, or face an even greater backlash. As to whether the info is fraudulent, maybe, but why? It's completely obvious that the Bidens are entirely corrupt. The provenance of this particular material is strange, but the notion that the FBI taking no action on it suggests it's fake is probably backwards. If this was something of a trap laid for the big tech platforms, it may also be the same for the FBI. This is very interesting, but it is also disturbing in that we slide deeper into hostilities. It's getting warm in here.
"Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
Such courage.
Now now. Abstention is a viable position. Personally I'm happy Ann's not voting as she would likely pretzel out in her brain some excuse to vote for Biden.
A scene from yesterday's Senate hearing of Amy Coney Barrett
Imagine how this story would play if we had an independent press in this country.
Why would the FBI sit on it?
JKLOL
Bruce Ohr, the senior Justice Department official whose conduct in the Russia case spurred significant controversy, has retired after being informed that a decision on disciplinary action was imminent, the department announced Wednesday. Ohr's decision will spare him any potential punishment for his role in providing information to the FBI about Christopher Steele's dossier at the same time his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for the same firm as Steele — Fusion GPS, run by Glenn Simpson.
It was OK though because Ohr’s bosses approved!
Here's video for you, Ms Cruel Neutrality --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY
Joe Biden brags about getting Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating Hunter Biden.
The FBI has had the drive since December, and the computer store had it a minimum of 90 before that. That is on the record by named sources.
Who thought in Sept 2019 that Joe Biden would be the candidate? Is this a "sleeper" bomb that Trump supporters placed for potential future use? Did they place other sleepers for all the other candidates? Where is the sleeper for Kamala?
We have Biden on the record bragging about his influence with Ukrainian government. This is all consistent with the worst, and most reasonable, interpretation of that on-the-record brag.
Not dubious.
Dumb Lefty Mark: "Trump world is desperate as he goes down in flames."
Crackhead from completely corrupt democratical political family that lived like royalty on public servant wages makes a typical crackhead mistake and Dumb Lefty Mark blames Trump.
Yes, that sounds very "on brand" for Dumb Lefty Mark.
By the way, it should be noted that every lefty at Althouse blog, without exception, still believes passionately that Trump paid hookers in Moscow in a non-existent Presidential Suite to pee on a bed.
Dubious? Because a ne’er do well man did not do something well?
This outlines what led to Biden’s famous admission that he extorted Ukraine officials with OUR taxpayer dollars, one Billion of them, btw, to fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma. Burisma paid for this via their $5 million investment in Hunter Biden.
I’m curious if Obama knew about this racket, too. Biden implied so in that bragging admission.
“An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.”
never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
We have reached the point where Hunter and Dementia Joe could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in front of a live global audience and lefties like Dumb Lefty Mark would complain about republicans noticing it right before the democraticals impeached Trump for what the Bidens did.
Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election.
Ha! I told you months ago there was no way Althouse would ever vote for Trump. It would just be too damaging to her sense of superiority to admit the deplorables were right about Trump.
She would rather tacitly support the the bullies, haters and destroyers than admit Trump did a good job in his first term.
A Trump supporter was executed in cold blood in Colorado by a fake security guard, hired by 9 News, with ties to radical left.
The corporate media silent
No curiosity whatsoever.
The most interesting and enlightening thing about this Press Event: Compare the press dissemination of the Post allegation to the press dissemination of the Atlantic "Trump dissed the military" allegation -- later somewhat retracted by the Atlantic. How many "The NY Post reports that..." stories have swamped into the Twitterverse on Biden? Nope. It's all generic stuff on why this story might not be reported.
Conclusion: If it's bad about Trump, full speed ahead. If it's bad about Biden: Whoa Nellie! Let's not be too hasty here! Just another example of the press coddling Biden and his campaign.
REPUBLICANS POUNCE.
Whenever Dems are caught doing something criminal, it is always the Republican reaction that is the news story, not the Democratic perfidy.
If this weren't so boringly predictable, it would be an indictment against the press. As it is, they have nothing left to lose, and deserve the fate that awaits them - ignominious lack of attention from the public.
Prof,
You disappoint. The issue is not whether one likes Trump - one does not - but whether one views the sustained attacks on the Bill of Rights (at least 1A and 2A but 4A will follow, trust me) as serious enough to vote in their defense. You can sit at home and say "Don't blame, I voted for neither" and so on but, given the tenor of the political discourse and the serious damage to Western Civilization that the Biden acolytes pose, are you really going to stand down and not fight? Do you not believe that the danger posed to 1A and 2A by this post-modern anti-humanity nonsense is serious or are you just resigned?
Our liberties are eroded by both parties but only one clearly poses a permanent danger.
This might sound crazy, but someone could at least ask Hunter Biden if that was his laptop.
Now do a "if the shoe were on the other foot" exercise. If the story was about Donald Trump Jr do you think the NYT would be trying to convince us of the dubiousness of the story?
NYT reader believes the NYT because that's what she wants to believe.
NYT hasn't found evidence of Antifa so there's no such thing. Project Veritas video of democratic party official claiming to be Antifa doesn't show up in the NYT so there's still no Antifa.
NYT doesn't think Obama and his FBI may have spied on Trump, so it didn't happen.
It goes on and on. The NYT is not a reliable news source.
"It's awfully convenient, and it's so precisely the smoking gun the Trump campaign would want."
What smoking gun? As you've pointed out already, it has built-in deniability. A true smoking gun would talk explicitly about a quid pro quo, with some connected fact that's in the public record (e.g., Cohen's trip to Prague that proved to be the wrong Cohen).
I don't know if there's a laptop with 10,000 emails on it. If so, these things take time fabricate, even for a state actor. It also takes money. Who would begin in probably 2018 to fabricate this type of collection to ding Joe Biden, and then drop it off in April 2019 with the expectation that the emails would surface somewhere? Who?
I recall a news story reported Hunter Biden left a rental car somewhere in the Southwest unattended and the cops were called because someone found a badge of Delaware G Beau Biden's in the car. And some illegal drugs or drug residue. A philly radio show host said the otehr day, he was told Hunter Biden left a bag i a NJ hotel and it contained a bunch of "toys". So Hunter has a history of being f-ed up even though he's what now 50 years old.
Seems like the key question here in terms of authenticity is whether Hunter, in fact, brought his computer into that guy's shop. Has he denied this? If it's his claim that he DIDN'T bring his computer there, then that should be the focus of their response. Clearly, if they can establish that it wasn't HB who dropped off the laptop, then it's easy to argue to argue that the whole thing is a fake. But so far they don't seem to be denying that HB actually took his laptop in to that shop to be fixes.
If Hunter DID drop off the laptop with the blind guy, it's a helluva lot tougher to explain this away as some kind of conspiracy to frame him and his pop with fake emails. How would the conspirators know he was planning to bring the laptop in for repairs? How would they know when and where he would drop it off? How did they keep HB from coming back within 30 days to pick it up, or know that he wasn't going to? It strains credulity to think that HB just sort of randomly happened to create for the conspirators a scenario whereby they could gain physical access to laptop that they could load with fake emails they could show to the world.
Hunter Biden left a baby in Arkansas. I have no doubt he could leave a laptop in Delaware.
Hunter Biden can be "that stupid." We've got some Special-Counsel worthy material in play now. Pop better hope the dems keep the House if he's elected.
The treatment of this story is ridiculous by these major media outlets. This is a story able to be verified because it has NAMED people - the computer store owner, the Ukrainian, hunter biden, joe biden. THE ONLY "response" to the story is what the campaign manager/spokesperson says in that they looked at the 'official schedule' and the meeting wasn't there. Seriously?
We know Hunter Biden has been paid exorbitant funds by major corporations and people connected to questionable foreign governments to include Russia, Ukraine, and China. And it's certainly not for any expertise he has. Meanwhile he has chronic drug abuse issues, has fathered children out of wedlock with - at a minimum - strippers. Has fought against providing child support.
Sure, it was timed for maximum political impact. Wasn't the Times Trump tax story? Or is that different because shut up?
Just ridiculous treatment of this story. Report it, work to verify it, or actually debunk it by showing the people involved most directly - Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian - can disprove it.
No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election.
So you think! If you are a registered Democrat*, you likely have already voted by mail, you just "don't remember"...
* also applies if you are independent, dead, in the country illegally, a pet of a registered Democrat, or once lived anywhere other than where you currently reside.
Drago,
Start your own blog, or join SocialGalactic. I guarantee there are people who would read you unfiltered.
Other things impossible to believe: Anthony Weiner would send a dick pick from a laptop with classified emails on it
John Podesta would enter his password in a phishing scam.
And yet
"It's awfully convenient, and it's so precisely the smoking gun the Trump campaign would want."
True, but that doesn't mean it's false.
There's more to this than there was to justify the Mueller Investigation.
In true Project Veritas style, the New York Post has an article this morning concerning another Hunter project concerning China.
Read it here:
https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/emails-reveal-how-hunter-biden-tried-to-cash-in-big-with-chinese-firm/
Expect a third in a day or two. Maybe more.
Here's a story based on Hunter Biden's text messages which says that the Biden brood were expected to kick 50% of their graft back up to daddy Joe... https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/15/members-of-biden-clan-expected-to-give-half-of-their-earnings-to-pop-hunter-biden-text-reveals/
I recall a news story reported Hunter Biden left a rental car somewhere in the Southwest unattended and the cops were called because someone found a badge of Delaware G Beau Biden's in the car.
You are correct sir!
The solution to free speech is more speech, unless the New York Times tells you it’s not. Imagine the damage they could do to the Trump campaign by demonstrating that this is actually false, instead of insinuating it without proof.
That is, the report is dubious because it is coming out so late. Trump supporters have wanted to get Biden over his son Hunter all year, so why is this only coming out now?
Remember how the FBI handled Weiner's laptop? Total coverup until Comey finally spilled the beans.
The FBI has it so Giuliani would be taking an awful risk to lie about the contents of these emails.
When the NYT publishes some Trump dirt from unnamed sources, every other media outlet on the planet publishes the unverified dirt by saying “The NYT reported this morning that ...”. Facebook and Twitter have no problem linking to those stories. But nobody is writing or broadcasting stories saying the “The NYP reported this morning that Hunter Biden’s emails show ....”
This is what we get when the Marks of this world are running the show.
- Krumhorn
"Here's a story based on Hunter Biden's text messages which says that the Biden brood were expected to kick 50% of their graft back up to daddy Joe.”
Already been debunked because the payments are not on Biden’s financial disclosure forms, and the idea that he might have an offshore account is unthinkable. Althouse would never believe it, that’s for sure. I guess we are going to have to discuss this in the cafés because Althouse looks like she is goingn to give this story a good leaving alone without looking into it further.
AA - Thank you for your openness on 2020 pres decision.
Just curious, reflecting back 16 years and 8 years, which was easier for you to decide, W vs Kerry or Romney vs O?
boatbuilder said...
So it’s “last minute”, except for the minor point that DJT brought it to everyone’s attention in December 2019 and got impeached for it, and has been talking incessantly about it ever since. The evidence is right there and has been all along; it’s the ass-covering press that looked the other way.
10/15/20, 6:59 AM
Ding, ding, ding...thread winner!!!
BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
Mark - Trump might go down in flames.
Sad that your entire party had to burn down the nation and our formerly free press to do it.
the modern democrat party is corrupt.
10/15/20, 7:22 AM
Mark is as delusional as old Joe!!
The scumbags like the Biden’s and the complicit leftmediaswine are behaving as expected. It’s who they are. The people who tolerate and enable their unprincipled behavior and are prepared to turn the country over to them are beneath contempt!
BleachBit-and-Hammers: "A Trump supporter was executed in cold blood in Colorado by a fake security guard, hired by 9 News, with ties to radical left.
The corporate media silent
No curiosity whatsoever."
There is no need for curiosity on behalf of the corporate media when the corporate media, NBC 9News in Denver, actually conspired and colluded and coordinated with the antifa goon non-security guard "Security Guard" (similar to Not-a-doctor "Dr" Jill Biden) to setup and then murder the Trump supporter.
Nobody seems to talk about the 42-year-old Navy Ensign named Humper Biden, he was thrown out of the Navy after 9 months because......cocaine!!
An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.
And yet Clinton was stupid enough to run an email server in a bathroom, Abedin was stupid enough to store her emails on her feckless husband's laptop. Rather and Mapes were stupid enough to think they could pass off an MS Word document as a decades-old typewritten order.
As the man's mama always said, stupid is as stupid does.
friscoda said... 10/15/20, 8:32 AM
Yes. It is not the Trump or the Biden/Harris for whom one is voting, it is for the underlying political policies for which that choice will provide a veto pen or a supporting leadership.
Trump is unafraid to confront the left; Biden is ... to say confused in general, but especially confused in his political policy preferences is being generous, and Harris is whatever will promote her to higher position.
I do not want the radical left of an AOC and Harris, and/or the lack of a Biden backbone, to take this country any farther into the deepening morass of socialist policies. I do not want my grandchildren to come to adulthood in an American image of Venezuela or Cuba, where all is of the state, by the state, and through the state.
So, yeah, Trump.
friscoda said... 10/15/20, 8:32 AM
Yes. It is not the Trump or the Biden/Harris for whom one is voting, it is for the underlying political policies for which that choice will provide a veto pen or a supporting leadership.
Trump is unafraid to confront the left; Biden is ... to say confused in general, but especially confused in his political policy preferences is being generous, and Harris is whatever will promote her to higher position.
I do not want the radical left of an AOC and Harris, and/or the lack of a Biden backbone, to take this country any farther into the deepening morass of socialist policies. I do not want my grandchildren to come to adulthood in an American image of Venezuela or Cuba, where all is of the state, by the state, and through the state.
So, yeah, Trump.
Face it Althouse, the fantasy of America that you hold is just that, I held it too until Trump turned over all of the rocks, it makes me sad to know it was a lie. You cling to it.
Nicely stated. To be fair, Althouse clings to Democrat lies with cruel neutrality or some such self deluding bs.
If my comment double-posted, apologies. It was impossible to see if it uploaded or failed.
Republicans pounce.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.
“I love you all but I don’t receive any respect, and that’s fine, I guess,” Hunter wrote. “Works for you, apparently. I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for thirty years.”
Giuliani explained that the younger Biden was paying for everything in the family “because he was getting the money and they were keeping it from Joe so he wouldn’t have to report it.” As an example, he claimed that Joe Biden paid his half sister’s entire college education.
In his text, Hunter added, “It’s really hard, but don’t worry, unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.” - American Greatness
The FBI has the laptop, unless the subpoena is fake, and what was the subpoena in relation to? The shop owner legally owned that laptop and everything in it. This seems really easy to demolish if it’s all fake.
One thing is that I was planning to “abstain” too, but now I am going to drive back to Florida just to vote. Incidentally, my ex-wife’s Florida ballot got mailed to the wrong address and now she won’t be able to vote. So out of the two of us, that’s two ballots screwed up. I got a live ballot for Vermont left in the rural mailbox of my vacation house. I haven’t voted there in many years. Unless they can demolish this story credibly, this is going to ramp up Trump turnout.
The “half you salary” bit sure explains a lot of stuff. Bag men all. What about that 1.5 billion dollar contract Joe’s brother got to rebuild the houses Biden voted to bomb? Seems like there would be a lot of profit in a deal like that.
The FBI needs to come clean.
"Mark is as delusional as old Joe!!”
Mark is just another fifty center, just like the ChiComs use to disrupt comment threads they don’t like. He believes in what he is doing and in his tactics because he cares more about the Democrat Party than he does about America.
tim in vermont said...
I recall a news story reported Hunter Biden left a rental car somewhere in the Southwest unattended and the cops were called because someone found a badge of Delaware G Beau Biden's in the car.
You are correct sir!
10/15/20, 9:17 AM
Days before the election, Hunter Biden, son of 2020 Presidential hopeful Joe Biden, returned a rental car to an Arizona Hertz location in the middle of the night. Inside that car police discovered a used crack pipe, two DC driver's licenses, multiple credit cards, a Delaware Attorney General badge and a US Secret Service business card belonging to Hunter Biden https://kprcradio.iheart.com/featured/the-pursuit-of-happiness/content/2019-05-20-crack-pipe-found-in-hunter-bidens-rental-car/
Now Twitter has banned the Trump Campaign’s official account.
I think that Trump is fighting asymmetrical warfare, and all of these bans only help him. Twitter pretends that there is no right of center ecosystem to get the word out, if they can just shut down facebook, but they are wrong. It’s kind of like Antifa’s strategy to get the cops to overreact. “Alinsky, you beautiful bastard, I read your book!"
Althouse’s non-vote is a half-vote for Trump. All Dem voters from 16 who opt out are half-votes. Trump will have few half-votes go against him. He’ll win the election by the half-votes. It’s also known as the enthusiasm gap. Crowd sizes matter.
What is the grand jury that subpoenaed the laptop? New York Times doesn’t care.
Abstaining is perfectly sensible. I expected to back Jorgensen until this. Now I think whoever Facebook and Twitter oppose might be the best choice.
This story is going to keep dribbling out like Joe's cream of wheat and the media will keep trying to spoon it off his chin.
presumably partly because we're hearing this so late that there's too little time for the Biden campaign to respond
it's NOT like this is an Oct report of a 20 year old drunk driving charge, is it?
it's NOT like this is a Sept report of a 40 year old letter, written on Microsoft WORD, is it?
I mean; you got down on your knees, and swallowed THOSE... But this isn't like them!
"No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
That's a Pontius Pilate position. Let the crowd decide while I wash my hands. I believe the Professor knows this is all true. Lot's of hand wringing and washing in the dance around post disguised as "cruel neutrality". After voting for Hillary, and realizing one's support and being duped by such deep corruption, I'd imagine it will take a lot of therapy to understand how a person ever supported such a criminal enterprise.
I LOVE this blog, but have never been so disappointed with the author. Not really a Rosa Parks moment here is it?
"No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election." - Ann Althouse
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" - Neil Peart - Rush, Permanent Waves, 1980 "Freewill".
How absolutely disappointing.
Nobody has a right or an obligation to vote.
Without question Ann has desperately looked for some excuse, any excuse to vote Biden, but it’s just not there. Which is nice.
So that’s one less vote for whatever democrat candidate is on a ballot. There are more, probably a lot more and we all know it. I know nobody that voted for Donald Trump that will not vote for him this time. I know a whole lot of people. Then there’s guys like me who didn’t, amd now would crawl across glass to vote for him. Fortunately I didn’t have to do that yesterday. I just walked across Roswell road.
Remember when Hillary Clintons’ campaign manager had 75K shares of Gazprom stock awarded to him for services rendered, I guess? Good times. The New York Times was all over it.... JKLOL!
An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.
That's what I thought about Mike Nifong and the Gang of 88. It turned out not only were they that stupid but academia and media both support that level of stupidity.
“Remember how the FBI handled Weiner's laptop? Total coverup until Comey finally spilled the beans.”
I don’t think that Comey did it out of honesty, but rather did it to protect his agency. FBI CD DAD Peter Strzok was actively trying to run out the clock on the Weiner/Clinton emails, claiming that he didn’t have the resources to devote to both MYE (Clinton) and CH (Trump) investigations, and CH was higher priority (despite his having been briefed, along with Comey, earlier that month by CIA Dir Brennan that the Russians had said that they were collaborating with Clinton, and not Trump). In any case, it appears that the FBI in their NYC Field Office were near open revolt over this, and the rumors were that several were ready to leak if Comey didn’t do anything. Indeed, I remember discussions here during that period of time about just that.
"Face it Althouse, the fantasy of America that you hold is just that, I held it too until Trump turned over all of the rocks, it makes me sad to know it was a lie. You cling to it."
I grew up in a town 2 miles outside the beltway in the 80s.
I delivered, and ...read the washington post, in 8th and 9th grade to over a 100 homes 80-90% were federal employees.
My friends parents growing up were all Gov/Mil.
Our Country was fundamentally infected by the 1947 reorganization of intelligence and all the the consequences that have branched out from having AGENTS work in SECRET.
Away from the law.
Hidden from the public.
Unaccounted and Unaccountable.
Until this hypertrophy of illicit power is revoked there will be internecine warfare committed by AGENTS on the People and other's not in their faction.
Kate said...
The best argument that this story is all true: the immense effort to suppress it.
10/15/20, 7:16 AM
Exactly. If it's obviously fake/madeup/drivel and what not, why not just allow it to be shown to people?
Ah, yes, people are idiots, too, so they can't trust their own lying eyes.
Althouse says she won't vote for Biden or Trump, however, I can see her voting D on all of the other races. Which will be a big problem for the state of Wisconsin.
This story is like a messy thumb nail sketch to remind us of the scene. We already know about Hunter's outrageous salary from Burisma, the firing of the prosecutor at Biden's demands, even some of the back story with the Ambassador Yovanovich, who allegedly blocked Ukrainian officials from traveling to the United States to hand over evidence of Obama-Biden misconduct during the 2016 election to President Trump. Not to mention the $1.5 billion Chinese investment in Hunter's company and their connections to buy US parts companies. You might say there is a pattern of corruption. The myth of Joe Biden's "goodness" has been punctured.
The only problem I have with the abstaining choice is that it appears to be a corollary of "white privilege." No matter what happens to the country or the direction one candidate might take the country versus the other candidate, there are some people who are completely insolated from care or harm because of their positions and affluence. Declaring that sense of secure entitlement seems arrogant or perhaps unconscious or irresponsible. I can understand a kid not voting out of self knowledge of being completely unprepared to evaluate and make an educated decision, but an adult, not really.
"Kate said...
The best argument that this story is all true: the immense effort to suppress it.”
Kind of like the lengths they went to during the “impeachment” to prevent Trump from presenting a defense. The best defense is a good offense, but now they are playing defense, and I think they have overestimated their own strength.
Unlike the pee tape, the problem for Hunter is the emails/texts within is entirely believable.
It could well be disinformation from a more sophisticated operation that got his real photos and mixed it in with faked emails and texts. Disinformation is always more effective with a sprinkling of truth.
But again, there is independent verification of the following:
1) Hunter is a cocaine addict. Therefore smoking crack is part of that.
2) He had a pretend job with Burisma.
3) Joe Biden got a prosecutor associated with a case against Burisma fired by threatening to withhold $1B in aid. Otherwise known as extortion.
4) He recently got dunned for child support for a woman he impregnated who happened to be a stripper. He also was involved with his brother's widow.
Those facts lead to the following unproven, but understandable conclusions:
1) He's a drug addict prone to stupid decisions like dropping a computer off somewhere and forgetting about it
2) The only reason he got the "job" was to leverage his dad.
3) He did leverage his dad.
4) He is lacking in any moral character.
In a potential hoax, I always ask myself this question- "Would someone fabricate this exact story if they had the opportunity to create some other, more believable and practical one?" The details here seem a bit too extensive to be completely fabricated, and they include details that can be authenticated, such as the FBI taking possession in 2019. What is especially damaging to the "dubious" narrative are the photos of Hunter Biden- they are clearly Hunter Biden, so are they fake? So far, the Biden campaign hasn't claimed the photos are faked- this is a tell to me- if they aren't faked, then where did they come from if they didn't come from some computer device owned by Hunter Biden or an acquaintance of Hunter Biden?
The computer shop is in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe Biden is literally the most famous resident of Delaware and has been for more than than 30 years. If I owned a shop in Wilmington, I would literally know who "Hunter Biden" was, and if he dropped off the computer, you can be damned sure a real name was probably used at the point of transaction, and if a fake name was used in 2019, then it is all but certain that the shop owner recognized him immediately. The shop owner's story about the poor vision is more reasonably explained by his desire for some leeway if he had misidentified someone as Hunter Biden- in short, he did think it was Hunter Biden, but he can't actually prove it now.
Personally, I think it likely the hard drive is authentic. I am not convinced we have the full story about how it came to Giuliani's hands- it could have been stolen from Biden and then given over to Giuliani, but that doesn't really matter for whether or not the NYPost should have published the story- remember- Trump's tax returns were stolen and leaked just a few weeks ago to the NYTimes; and Twitter and Facebook did nothing to try to suppress those stories, did they?
For me, the truthfulness of the e-mails and photos comes down to how the Biden campaign has responded- no unequivocal denials, suggestions that the material might have been hacked material- again, irrelevant to whether or not the material is authentic- and, also, claims that the material might be fake, not that it is fake. This suggests strongly that the Biden campaign knows the material is authentic, but they are hoping it can't be demonstrated, but they are in the position of not knowing what else is in the NYPost's hands. Were I the reporter with this material in my hands, and I would dribble the material out in several stories, and hold back the authentication material until the Biden people state their own claims on the issue. That may or may not be what the Post is doing, though.
Is it plausible this is a hoax? Yes, of course it is, but like the Trump tax return story, the absence of firm denials is a tell- I thought the tax returns really were the one's from Trump and his corporate entities, and I think this hard drive is Hunter Biden's, too. My only firm doubt is about how Giuliani got the hard drive, but in the end, I don't give a shit about anything other than what is in the material itself and whether or not it is authentic. Remember, Giuliani and his lawyers could have just as easily said he received this anonymously in the mail- why create this cutout story in exactly this way? You could have just easily, Althouse, have written, "Would Giuliani have been this stupid?"
Somebody should make a video of those Hunter Biden pics from the Post as a montage with the song “ooh that smell.”
https://youtu.be/J4j7ggZqbiU
Whiskey bottles and brand new cars
Oak tree, you're in my way
There's too much coke and too much smoke
Look what's going on inside you
Ooh, that smell...
I believe this echoes Ms. Althouse's commentary in the past:
1) Biden's only campaign message is "I'm a normal guy, Trump is not" or essentially Harding's "Return to Normalcy" campaign of 1920. Since Biden is practically 100 years old, it's natural.
2) The Trump campaign realizes that. That's why he was trying to goad Biden to lashing out like he has done throughout his career yet it somehow gets laughed off ("Listen, fat"...."I bet I have a higher IQ than you" etc etc). The more and more that's revealed that Biden is a jerk and his family is absolutely not normal, the better for Trump.
3) As mentioned above, a non-vote for Biden is a vote for Trump generally speaking as Trump voters are more enthusiastic and will vote for him no matter what. Biden voters are not enthusiastic and if his only advantage (appearing "normal") is lost, they won't bother to vote for Biden. They might not vote Trump, but they might just sit it out. Never mind that most Biden voters were Hilary voters in 2016.
If you want the most plausible version of this story- it is this:
Hunter Biden did take the computer to the shop for repair. The shop owner recognized Hunter Biden since since the shopowner lives in Wilmington, Delaware where the Bidens are the state's most famous residents for over a quarter of a century. The shop owner, being an anti-Biden voter decided to copy everything he could from the hard drive and made up the story about Biden failing to return to claim it. He then tried different avenues of getting it into the media- first giving the material to the FBI, then when that failed, giving it to Giuliani. He might well have distributed it to other people who also failed to act on it in the interim- maybe even gave it to the NYTimes for all we know and they buried it months ago.
What's amazing to me is that the NY Times and WaPo should know better - more information to be dropped daily/weekly - now the Chinese connection. They are just delaying this data to favor their candidate - Biden.
Tim in Vermont wrote:
"I think that Trump is fighting asymmetrical warfare, and all of these bans only help him. Twitter pretends that there is no right of center ecosystem to get the word out, if they can just shut down facebook, but they are wrong. It’s kind of like Antifa’s strategy to get the cops to overreact. “Alinsky, you beautiful bastard, I read your book!"
I don't know that this is a strategy or not, but you are correct about the effect.
MikeR wrote:
"Article doesn't discuss it, but isn't the point of the pictures that they prove that the story is genuine? Is there some other source suggested for the pictures?
I'm guessing that the Post included the pictures for that reason, not because they were salacious. Unlike some famous actress, no one cares to see pictures of Hunter Biden and his friends."
This! No claims, either, that the photos are fake- the photos include interior shots of specific locations. It should be easy on that basis alone to prove they are fake if they are. Is it possible that that the laptop was stolen by a pregnant stripper at one point? Yes.
I'm not surprised by Ms. Althouse's stance on this issue.
She's a superior being.
All superior beings support their fellow superior beings.
Hunter, Hillary, Antifa, BLM - it's all good.
Well, it's for a good cause.
They never want to hear about sausage ingredients.
It harshes their mellow.
Too icky.
Forward!
Equal outcomes for all!
Animal Farm
Bipedal pigs.
"Dubious" means it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously (presumably partly because we're hearing this so late that there's too little time for the Biden campaign to respond).
Three weeks is a ton of time, if the story is false.
A fake hit like that, you drop the weekend before the election.
Remember Al Gore's team dropping the "Bush Druck Driving" conviction the weekend before the election in 2000?
Please, refresh my mind: was the focus on how sleazy it was for the Gore Camp to do that? because that's not how I remember it.
The report, appearing just three weeks before the election, was based on material provided by Republican allies of President Trump who have tried for months to tarnish Mr. Biden over his son.
That is, the report is dubious because it is coming out so late.
Hmm, please, refresh my memory. When did the "Access Hollywood" tapes come out? How long did the Clinton camp have those?
Again, was the focus on how sleazy and unfair it was for them to bring out this hit so late in the campaign? Because, again, I don't remember that being the focus.
Trump supporters have wanted to get Biden over his son Hunter all year, so why is this only coming out now? It looks like a last-ditch effort, resorted to because Trump is losing, done to cause damage by being difficult to refute at the last minute.
Why is it coming out now? Because it's late enough that the LIV will be paying attention, and early enough so that it could be proved false, if it was false.
Which is what you do when you know your story is true.
It claimed that the elder Mr. Biden had met with an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden served. A spokesman for the Biden campaign, Andrew Bates, said that Mr. Biden’s official schedules showed no meeting between Mr. Biden and the adviser, Vadym Pozharskyi.
That's not to say there was no meeting, only that the official schedules showed no meeting.
...
Would Bates know that there was no meeting if there were but it was left off the schedule?
Well, that depends. Was it normal for Vice President Biden to let his sons get payoffs in change for setting up meetings with him? in that case, as just one in a long line of corrupt meetings, it might be easy to forget.
The Post story cited an email Mr. Pozharskyi allegedly sent to Hunter Biden thanking him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” and to spend “some time together.” The authenticity of the email correspondence cited by The Post could not be independently verified.
So it could be completely fake?! It's awfully convenient, and it's so precisely the smoking gun the Trump campaign would want. That's why I held back from blogging the NY Post story all of yesterday (and only posted about the Twitter/Facebook suppression at the very end of the day).
The Atlantic's "suckers and losers" story could not be "independently verified." In fact, it was independently dis-verified, as people who were at the meeting said it didn't happen.
This did not stop the NYT et. al. from running with it, and didn't cause Twitter or Facebook to block its distribution.
So this justification for not spreading teh story is clearly utter garbage.
Hours after the Post published its article, Facebook said on Wednesday that it had decided to limit the distribution of the story on its platform so it could fact-check the claims. Twitter said it was blocking the article because it included people’s personal phone numbers and email addresses, which violated their privacy rules, and because the article violated their policy on hacked materials....
The NYT is making the Twitter/Facebook suppression sound reasonable. Why didn't the NY Post present a cleaner report of the newsworthy portion of the email? Did it want to provoke the censorship?
The NYT illegally obtained, one might say "hacked" the Trump tax returns. For some reason Twitter and Facebook didn't do anything to stop the distribution of that story.
Gee, I wonder why?
If I was Trump, I'd have called Christopher Wray this morning and said this:
1- By 10AM today, you are to deliver that laptop to AG Barr.
2- By noon today, I want a written report of who touched or knew of this laptop and where it has been since it was taken from the store owner in December 2019. The report must have the names of every FBI employee who was aware of its existence. And what has been done in investigating the info on the laptop.
Deep Plunger? WaPo, NYT, Twitter, Facebook are kneeling in the residual muck of Water Closet.
I really don't care about the substance---Hunter had a $50K+/month sinecure with a Ukrainian company for no reason but influence peddling, and Joe knew about it even if he and Hunter hadn't talked about it (which I don't believe, te Bidens as a group have never been scrupulous about the truth, but even if so the known facts speak for themselves). I don't need no smoking gun to know what was going on; I don't have to convict Joe Biden in a court of law to know what he and Hunter were doing and draw appropriate political inferences.
The big story is the censorship by Twitter and FB, and the burying of it by all the others. It is better sourced than were the Russiagate and Ukrainegate hysterics of 2016-2020, at least there IS a named sourc in this instance. It may be dubious, but not as badly as what all these outlets shoved in our faces for over 3 years, which had no attribution at all..
"Am I for Biden or Trump? No. I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
A vote for Hillary I could understand. It fit your preferences.
Abstaining now I don't understand. What has Trump done that you object to?
Judges who might be skeptical about Roe and Casey, OK. If abortion trumps everything, as it has historically, that's a reason not to vote for Trump. Though still a bad reason: overturning is unlikely, and in the "worst" case throws the issue back to the states--most of which will legalize choice anyway.
But other than that, what? What in the world offends you about his economic or foreign or defense polices, the tax cuts or the First Step Act? He has governed as a moderate Republican, and he is liberal on the issues on which you are liberal--except, in his public stance anyway, abortion. And he has been the target of an outrageous hoax and impeachment that damage the polity--scandals you have followed in detail, and that occasionally stirred your outrage. Wouldn't that, by itself, justify a vote for Trump?
I take it however, that you now do not give much weight to your clever rationalization of a vote for Biden, namely that it would rein in the left.
I really don't care about the substance---Hunter had a $50K+/month sinecure with a Ukrainian company for no reason but influence peddling, and Joe knew about it even if he and Hunter hadn't talked about it (which I don't believe, te Bidens as a group have never been scrupulous about the truth, but even if so the known facts speak for themselves). I don't need no smoking gun to know what was going on; I don't have to convict Joe Biden in a court of law to know what he and Hunter were doing and draw appropriate political inferences.
The big story is the censorship by Twitter and FB, and the burying of it by all the others. It is better sourced than were the Russiagate and Ukrainegate hysterics of 2016-2020, at least there IS a named sourc in this instance. It may be dubious, but not as badly as what all these outlets shoved in our faces for over 3 years, which had no attribution at all..
1. I see others have caught on. The pictures and videos can't be faked. That leads me to conclude the laptop story is entirely true.
2. Ann says Hunter couldn't be that stupid. Yes, he could be. And he's a crackhead to boot.
Look at these scandals.
1. The VP's son gets millions from foreigners. The VP does favors for these people. According to Hunter's email, Joe got half.
This is HUGE. Joe should be indicted.
2. Hillary pays for the Steele garbage. It leaks. The FBI uses it to spy on the Trump campaign. Hillary destroys her emails. Nothing happens to Hillary. Trump has to deal with fake Russian collusion story for 3 years.
Hillary should be indicted.
3. What did Barack know about 1 and 2? What was his cut? He is, after all, from Chicago.
Is it likely that the FBI shared this info with the House Dems/ Adam Schiff and he kept a lid on it?
Rape allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that did not include the month or the year or the location:
Althouse thinks credible.
Videos and pictures and E-mails from Hunter Biden:
Althouse cannot make a decision about credibility?
Trump world is desperate as he goes down in flames.
No. We're pissed. Pissed that we have to adhere to the rules you leftist thugs can ignore.
But don't be concerned when we finally flip the 'on' switch, Mark.
I mean, nobody would dare come knocking on your door.
Hunter Biden left a used
CRACK PIPE
in a rental car that he returned.
But Althouse thinks he would be more careful with a laptop?
Is Althouse on the stuff too?
The Bidens are Clintons in disguise. No more, no less. Bidens even have a pedophile senior citizen just like Dollar Bill Clinton.
At least Chesea isn't so obvious on taking Ruskie money.. but then she was big in the Clinton Foundation so who knows.
I don't think I've ever left a comment on your blog, but I can't stop thinking about the last few sentences you wrote on this post. I have so enjoyed reading your thoughts over the years because I feel that you're a liberal in the classical sense of the word: a person who is willing to consider ideas from every side. I have no problem with your "cruel neutrality," and I find it interesting to hear different viewpoints on a topic, even those with which I don't necessarily agree. It's one of the wonderful things about being human, to really think about words and issues and weigh them in the balance to see which ones hold up best. But in all honesty, it was a deep disappointment to me to see that after all the lovely discussion that you've held in this online space, all the ideas you've considered and dissected here so carefully, you've chosen to abstain from voting. Somehow it feels like a betrayal of all for which this blog stands. Shouldn't we take the information you've posted here and use it (along with every other bit of material we've gathered) to make the best choices we can on the voting ballot? Even if we find out later on that we wish we had voted differently or that things didn't turn out the way we hoped, isn't there honor and self-respect in exercising our rights as citizens with free minds? To abstain, even for what seem like principled reasons, feels uncomfortably similar to members of Congress who talk endlessly about issues but are unwilling to actually put their name down in a vote as being for or against something because they're afraid of it being used against them later on. And if we insist on nothing but neutrality without ever choosing one thing over another when we have the opportunity to exert influence even to the smallest degree, what does that say about us? Do we really want to analyze the choices of other people without ever making choices ourselves? It's true that the decision to abstain is also a choice, but it seems like such an empty one. There's no doubt that you have the right to do nothing instead of something, but it saddens me that you of all people would choose that option. I truly hope you will reconsider
So the prosecutor who issued the subpoena will not “confirm or deny” that there is an investigation, leaving them free to refuse to confirm or deny whether they even have the computer in their position, meaning that the laptop is now well buried, like the Ark of the Covenant in that movie.
More evidence it’s true.
Several good arguments made here for believing in the veracity of the Biden e-mails. Abstention from voting, whether based on "cruel neutrality" or a "pox on both their houses" is more lacking in courage than it is a flag of intellectual honesty.
Sorry Ann, I greatly admire your blog, but this attitude is just posing. I hope you have left yourself room to change your mind.
I want to vote for democrats
If Trump is the better candidate, then I won't vote
So Hunter did the legwork and kicked 50% up to his Capo.
This is pure Mafia stuff.
And yet, Politico's article about the outrage of the Biden-Harris campaign over the NY Post article includes a walkback from the campaign as to whether or not the meeting occurred. The article has a brief section describing the walkback:
"Biden’s campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi, which wouldn’t appear on Biden’s official schedule. But they said any encounter would have been cursory."
Based upon this admission from the campaign, how on earth can Facebook or Twitter justify their censorship?
Ann says Hunter couldn't be that stupid. Yes, he could be. And he's a crackhead to boot.
And he got a stripper pregnant, then denied parenthood. JFK would have quietly had her aborted or killed. That's what smart Democrats do. Teddy would have taken her for a drive.
And yet, Politico's article about the outrage of the Biden-Harris campaign over the NY Post article includes a walkback from the campaign as to whether or not the meeting occurred. The article has a brief section describing the walkback:
"Biden’s campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi, which wouldn’t appear on Biden’s official schedule. But they said any encounter would have been cursory."
Based upon this admission from the campaign, how on earth can Facebook or Twitter justify their censorship?
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...
"I want to vote for democrats
If Trump is the better candidate, then I won't vote"
Votes have consequences... and not voting has consequences to... like you are stuck with what is served.. like it or not.
Go ahead and abstain from voting in the presidential race, Althouse. Perhaps the crocodile will eat you last.
OGH wrote: It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop.
Hunter Biden is a crackhead. Why is it so hard to believe that a crackhead would do that?
A telling juxtaposition of presumed guilty in witch hunts, warlock trials, and protests, and presumed innocent or protected. #HateLovesAbortion
"Perhaps the crocodile will eat you last."
Tough but fair.
I'll allow it.
"It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop."
People like this have things done for them. They don't poke around on websites for computer recommendations, someone brings them a laptop already set up. If it breaks down, they give it to someone to look at it. If it's full of crack lifestyle material, so you don't want to give it to the usual fix-it person who might tell dad, you might just take it to some random shop.
Althouse can’t believe Hunter Biden could be so stupid as to have left his laptop. Yet Joe was so stupid he boasted in front of at least dozens of international think bots, and on tape, how he extorted Ukraine into aborting the investigation into his and his son’s corruption.
Actually, I don’t think it necessarily stupid by either Hunter or Joe. It was really the arrogance by both of believing (correctly, as it turns out) that they are above the law.
Now if you want truly stupid, imagine a person who watches the center of her town get destroyed, and local monuments which have meaning to her attacked, who is labeled a racist because of the color of her skin, and who buys a weapon out of fright, yet decides she cannot vote to stop what is happening. That’s true stupidity.
Maybe she’ll get lucky and they won’t come for her. We hope so, but it certainly won’t be our fault if they do.
Meanwhile, who here has been personally harmed by a ferocious, gauche, mean or otherwise not nice tweet or utterance by Orangeman? How many personally have benefited from any of his actual policies? How many personally have been harmed by progressive democrat policies? I’m thinking about the lives destroyed by democrat lockdowns for a start. How about by Obamacare? Democrat tax grabs?
So, yeah, great choice you’re making, AA.
so … cruel yes neutral no
professora objects to George Floyd being called porn star.
professora objects to Trump being able to grab them by the pussy.
professora does not object to Biden being able to threaten Ukraine to stop investigation.
"Biden’s campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi, which wouldn’t appear on Biden’s official schedule. But they said any encounter would have been cursory."
-------============
in books i have read and some movies that i have watched? - deals go down when guys are taking a piss while their guards watch out.
"I am abstaining in the 2020 election."
I am Woman. Hear me roar.
donald said...
Nobody has a right or an obligation to vote.
Without question Ann has desperately looked for some excuse, any excuse to vote Biden, but it’s just not there. Which is nice.
So that’s one less vote for whatever democrat candidate is on a ballot.
----------============
why would you take this woman's word on that : same woman who said Biden is disqualified for lying about his wife's death and blaming the other driver?
"I'm now convinced of the dubiousness of this material."
L O L
It's hard for me to believe that — if the computer contained the material the NY Post said it did — Hunter Biden would entrust it to what seems like a random computer shop. He gives this treasure trove, with the password, to the shop owner to futz around in? An argument in Biden's favor is that his son can't be that stupid.
I guess you haven't known many drug addicts.
Ann, if you had not been premature about Biden’s Charlottesville hoax, you could have done a bit of this sort of fisking and be able to support him. Now you are left with this Tofu like claim in your last sentence.
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