It's (probably) not Russian disinformation
September 15, 2022 9:11 AM   Subscribe

The sordid story of Hunter Biden's laptop (SL: NYMag) A deep dive from New York Magazine on the whole messy affair. Serious questions are raised about bias in the "mainstream" press, as well as potential financial improprieties of the First Family. Please note that I am ONLY posting this because it comes from a fairly liberal publication, and is written in a tone sympathetic to the trials of the Biden family.
posted by Optamystic (84 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's an unofficial American tradition that the First Family has a member who's a fuckup in some way that the media is drawn to. Maybe they're just comical, like Billy Carter, or they have an axe to grind, like Obama's half-brother. But when it was the Trump family, their corruption was brazen and ongoing. Hunter is the black sheep this time around, but his problems, though large, have nothing to do with the Biden administration. It's not like Ivanka hawking Goya beans on an official White House account or Jared hiking up his pants and deciding to show the Middle East what's what.

The people who need to pay attention to this story are paying attention -- that is, the DOJ. The rest of us do not have the luxury of caring. Who wants a replay of But Her Emails? Steve Bannon for once is right: "we're in a war," he says. He knows that because he started it, but there you are. There's no good faith with these people. If any Republican is honestly upset that no one in the MSM can take the laptop seriously, then they have themselves to fucking thank for it.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:53 AM on September 15, 2022 [97 favorites]


Reporting these fantastical allegations with this much credulity is inexcusable. Might as well have tacked on some shit about Epstein's island too, because those "sources exclusively on the right" are also saying that.

Hidden inside the laptop, according to those (almost exclusively on the right) who have reviewed the data or who trust the word of those who claim they have, is a corruption scandal that implicates not just Hunter but other members of the Biden family, including the president. The laptop details Hunter’s involvement with a Ukrainian natural-gas producer that paid him millions of dollars to serve on its board — the relationship at the center of Donald Trump’s first impeachment. It shows how a Chinese energy company directed millions of dollars in consulting fees to Hunter and his uncle. It reveals White House meetings and slush-fund dinners and wheeling and dealing, from Romania to Monte Carlo to Cafe Milano. Most important, these people claim the laptop contains proof that, despite his denials, Joe Biden — allegedly referred to in emails as “the big guy” — was fully aware of, and looking to profit from, his son’s business activities.

The most serious allegations remain unproved.


Don't get me wrong, I think it's pretty clear Hunter on his various benders attempted (and successfully) used his family name to get payouts. But breezily saying without a shred of evidence besides the word of Steve Bannon et al that Joe Biden was involved and profiting?

I keep hoping traditional media will stop repeating conspiracy theories as "allegations not yet proven", but I keep being disappointed. Just willing patsies every damn time.
posted by malphigian at 9:58 AM on September 15, 2022 [63 favorites]


It's an unofficial American tradition that the First Family has a member who's a fuckup in some way that the media is drawn to.

And in some cases, like Dubya, the family member who's a fuckup just so happens to be the one in the Oval Office! Heyoooooo!

No, seriously, I have addicts in my close family - their self-destructive behavior causes no great deal of anguish, the sort when you see their name on a text or phone call and your instinctive response is not "oh great, it's X!" but "Oh God, what have they done now?" And my family is happily anonymous and the political Eye of Sauron rage machine has no interest in it.

In that spirit: I hope Hunter can get the help he needs, and I would not trade places with him in a second.
posted by fortitude25 at 10:03 AM on September 15, 2022 [20 favorites]


The money paragraph:

TL:DR version: If the laptop was useful as evidence, it certainly isn't useful anymore. Who knows what's been added to it?

Back at the office, following Maxey’s instructions, we booted up the external drive. At Apple’s familiar opening window, beneath the “Robert Hunter” golf-ball login icon, we entered the password Maxey supplied, which was “password.” The desktop no longer resembled the jumbled, porny mess that Mac Isaac says he first encountered. Costello said it had been cleaned up by the time it got to his house. (“I got a wife around here,” he explained.) There were also a number of new folders, with titles like “Salacious Pics” and “The Big Guy.” (“I made those folders,” Vish Burra said. “I put them all in a folder when I found them because I couldn’t email them to myself because there was no internet.”) The many alterations made the laptop all but impossible to trust. “The forensic quality of this thing is garbage,” says Johns Hopkins computer-science professor Matthew Green, a cryptography expert who examined the drive for the Washington Post. He told the paper that it was like a crime scene that previous detectives had left strewn with burger wrappers. Even so, there was no mistaking the identity of the body.
posted by Roentgen at 10:13 AM on September 15, 2022 [34 favorites]


> Hunter is the black sheep this time around, but his problems, though large, have nothing to do with the Biden administration.

Hunter's escapades in hedonism are not a scandal that relates to the President in any clear way, sure. I don't even think they should be a scandal exactly. But Hunter's lucrative position with Burisma is a definite overlap. Sure, there's no evidence of President Biden's involvement, but the only reason Hunter got the gig was his connection to the then-Vice President. The stink of corruption there is impossible to deny. It would be much better if the President's beloved surviving son didn't once have a sinecure gig at a company that created a clear conflict of interest for the man who would go on to become President of the US... The only reasonable interpretation of a 50k a month gig for a burnout with nothing to else to contribute besides his family connections is that the money was for access of some kind to the White House. To me, that's corruption.
posted by dis_integration at 10:27 AM on September 15, 2022 [19 favorites]


The only reasonable interpretation of a 50k a month gig for a burnout with nothing to else to contribute besides his family connections is that the money was for access of some kind to the White House. To me, that's corruption.

Sure, on the part of Burisma. Not on the part of Joe Biden or anyone who actually might have had influence on him.
posted by Etrigan at 10:35 AM on September 15, 2022 [28 favorites]


Sure, there's no evidence of President Biden's involvement, but the only reason Hunter got the gig was his connection to the then-Vice President.

That's basically how most corporate boards are staffed. You think they are only filled with those who have proved their worth through their resume?
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:36 AM on September 15, 2022 [60 favorites]


This isn't remotely responsible journalism. The topic, even when trying to rebut the actual allegations (which don't matter to right-wing disinfo) immediately assumes right-wing framing. NYMag, Nuzzi, and Rice should be a/shamed both personally and professionally because this isn't investigative, it's JAQ'ing off.
posted by mfu at 10:37 AM on September 15, 2022 [29 favorites]


This is a nearly 15,000 word article which spends quite a lot of time asking the same question, for which the answer is held within the article itself:

Q: Why isn't the mainstream media taking the story more seriously?

A: Because the only story here that has any truthful backing is, the DOJ and other government agencies are investigating. Literally every other aspect you could talk about traces back to a single source which has a chain of evidence so shaky that it would be madness to believe any of it is true without independent outside corroborating evidence.

It borders on journalistic malpractice to pretend this hard to not understand this.
posted by a faithful sock at 10:39 AM on September 15, 2022 [66 favorites]


That's basically how most corporate boards are staffed.

Not just corporate either . Most government boards are staffed with people who have various political aspirations, not because they are interested or uniquely qualified for the specific board they are serving on.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:40 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


If any Republican is honestly upset that no one in the MSM can take the laptop seriously, then they have themselves to fucking thank for it.
This should be everyone’s response: “It’s a shame that this wasn’t handled in a trustworthy manner which didn’t spoil it as evidence. The DOJ should see whether reliable independent sources can verify the important parts.”
posted by adamsc at 10:40 AM on September 15, 2022 [37 favorites]


The only reasonable interpretation of a 50k a month gig for a burnout with nothing to else to contribute besides his family connections is that the money was for access of some kind to the White House. To me, that's corruption.

Without denying that this stinks of and may even be a form of corruption, I'm going to play the devil's advocate a little here.

How do we prevent this in an even-handed sort of a way? What sort of work is the adult son of the sitting Vice President allowed to do? Because there is no industry that does not have lobbyists and that would not benefit from political connection. Should it be law that none of the children of the holders of certain offices are allowed to make a living for themselves? Only the adult children? How about the beloved niece or nephew? The longstanding best friend? Do we include estranged and/or disowned children here?

Setting aside the question of whether the law and the U.S. Constitution might allow for such a thing (which I doubt), it's not at all clear to me that such a prohibition can really be crafted.

I am emphatically NOT saying that there should be no ethics laws around influence peddling. But it's not at all clear to me that Hunter Biden taking this paycheck is ipso facto something that the law should prevent.
posted by gauche at 10:47 AM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]


Writing about it perpetuates it as a story.

Hunter Biden is a private citizen. He does not, and has not worked for the government in any capacity.

Why are we concerned about Hunter Biden at all, outside of the fact that he's the president's son?

Creepy people who steal laptops and diaries shouldn't get this much oxygen. It lowers the discourse.
posted by Chuffy at 10:48 AM on September 15, 2022 [40 favorites]


I appreciated the post and found the article interesting.
posted by Gadarene at 10:50 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]


I’m deeply disappointed that Olivia Nuzzi co-authored this.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 10:57 AM on September 15, 2022 [12 favorites]


It's an unofficial American tradition that the First Family of Democrats has a member who's a fuckup in some way that the media is drawn to.

FTFY
posted by Chuffy at 10:58 AM on September 15, 2022 [7 favorites]


Why are we concerned about Hunter Biden at all, outside of the fact that he's the president's son?

It's to prematurely debase the discourse in anticipation of when Trump's kids inevitably get caught auctioning off state secrets to Saudi Arabia. Then Republicans can say "This is just like when there was a witchhunt against Hunter Biden! It's all just politics!" and the media will have their false equivalency.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:00 AM on September 15, 2022 [40 favorites]


Ivanka and the Chinese patents though.
posted by aiq at 11:03 AM on September 15, 2022 [9 favorites]


Why isn't the mainstream media taking the story more seriously?

Also, the Washington Post did take it seriously once they were given access to a purported copy of the hard drive, and also reported on other Hunter Biden schemes.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:04 AM on September 15, 2022


This a bad article and a bad post and the authors and poster should feel ashamed.

Why should I feel ashamed about sharing a story on a topic that could have major electoral implications? If we (the political left) are to be prepared for the shit that’s going to bubble to the surface (rightly or wrongly) in the coming months/years, then we should probably be aware of the calibre of ammunition the other side will be firing. I don’t find doing one’s due diligence to be a source of shame.
posted by Optamystic at 11:05 AM on September 15, 2022 [30 favorites]


This summed it up for me: And if you believe the story told by some famously unreliable narrators…

Project Veritas may as well have broken the story as far as I am concerned. Sure there are some embarrassing things on there. That would be true of many (most? all?) of our digital devices. Some illegal things too; it is pretty well established that he has had problems with substance abuse. But beyond that there is nothing in the article that couldn’t be true of many people (say, Neil Gorsuch, for example). And of course, there are those pesky chain of custody issues, where pretty much everyone who touched the laptop from the day it was dropped off at the computer shop has an axe to grind against the Biden family. That should have been the lede, NY Mag.
posted by TedW at 11:11 AM on September 15, 2022 [15 favorites]


Frankly, as far as sinecures go, $600K/yr feels a bit on the low side.

I listen to a fair amount of Fox News radio (for research!), and I can say without a doubt, that there are no crimes alleged to be tied to the laptop. Sure, things may have been mentioned along the way, but they appear to not have been anything with legs. Not to say "but it's not illegal!" is a great ethic, but seriously, how much does Don Jr. make because I don't think it really matters what family your company belongs to, yours or someone else's.
posted by rhizome at 11:12 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I am emphatically NOT saying that there should be no ethics laws around influence peddling. But it's not at all clear to me that Hunter Biden taking this paycheck is ipso facto something that the law should prevent.

I mean, the problem is the presidency. The problem is rule by the wealthy. I think it's a problem that the president's kid - any president's kid! - gets all these perks and money on the theory that their parent will look kindly on the perk-provider. It's a problem with corporate boards and non-profits and, god knows, Congress and presumably the Supreme Court. I don't think it's a nothingburger; it's just something that the Democrats try to leverage when the GOP does it and the GOP tries to leverage it when the Democrats do it. We all make excuses for our guys. Some guys are worse than others, but no one behaves as we need them to behave.

In theory one could probably write some kind of very tight laws about the jobs that the president's immediate family are allowed to hold while the president is in office and some looser ones about what is allowable after the president leaves office. I think this would be reasonable, actually, since if you're the president you and your children are basically guaranteed employable forever and will have enough money forever regardless. It's not as though if you can't be on some corporate board or hold a particular kind of sinecure you won't be able to get another upper middle class job.

But to actually pass those laws, we'd need to have a much more democratic society, so it would probably be a better use of our time to just completely democratize the country so that we are not ruled by a bunch of unaccountable rich people.
posted by Frowner at 11:14 AM on September 15, 2022 [33 favorites]


Jesus, the term "Main Stream Media" is right-wing framing. Fox "News" is the leading media organization in the country. That is the main stream.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:15 AM on September 15, 2022 [49 favorites]


Writing about it perpetuates it as a story.

Ignoring misinformation has perpetuated it, as well. This is not an easy problem, either way.

As to the article, skepticism is not automatically good reporting, if it is done in a way that leads people to continue to spread bullshit — however inadvertently.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:16 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


If you like true-crime stories about mediocre guys who pay for sex, use their (deeply disappointed) daddy’s name to get perks they don’t deserve, and engage in shady business dealings, I have great news about a guy who was actually the president.

I’ve given up on understanding the doublethink that is endemic among TFG’s supporters, but it is not actually the Left’s job to pay lip service to bOtH sIdEs in response. That’s not “arming ourselves,” it’s amplifying their BS at our own expense.
posted by armeowda at 11:28 AM on September 15, 2022 [34 favorites]


~Writing about it perpetuates it as a story.
~Ignoring misinformation has perpetuated it, as well.


Nonsense. The laptop story is going to be endlessly perpetuated as a story by the right regardless of whether any "liberal" media pays attention to it or ignores it. No one on the right is going to be swayed by any exposing misinformation. It's a fool's game.

Writing about it gives the story a small sniff of legitimacy, however minuscule and tenuous, which the right will now leap upon howling "SEE?!?!? IT'S TRUE!!!"
posted by Thorzdad at 11:51 AM on September 15, 2022 [16 favorites]


It's possible to think that Hunter Biden symbolizes a deeply corrupt political system and that he's a total nothingburger who's only being talked about because every fucking journo on the planet is addicted to perpetuating some kind of "both sides" balance while loudly protesting that they alone know what a threat the right wing is.

While I hear a lot about the "far left" amplifying anti-Biden stuff in problematic ways, my experience with Hunter specifically is that it's more centrist Dems who've been taking this corruption stuff seriously. The more Bernie Bro crowd's attitude towards him has been a mixture of semi-ironic "this guy rules" with a dash of "oh yeah he's probably up to no good, but honestly, who cares?" YMMV, but that feels to me like a very healthy attitude to take towards the man.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:52 AM on September 15, 2022 [8 favorites]


That said, it feels inappropriate to insult other users for posting stuff to the front page.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:53 AM on September 15, 2022 [59 favorites]


In theory one could probably write some kind of very tight laws about the jobs that the president's immediate family are allowed to hold while the president is in office and some looser ones about what is allowable after the president leaves office. I think this would be reasonable, actually, since if you're the president you and your children are basically guaranteed employable forever and will have enough money forever regardless. It's not as though if you can't be on some corporate board or hold a particular kind of sinecure you won't be able to get another upper middle class job.

Sure, you could write them, and it would be administratively simple to just apply them to the immediate family. But at the end of the day you are saying that the law should automatically deprive one adult of their fundamental human rights due to the actions and choices of a different adult. In my view, the law should deprive or restrict people's fundamental human rights (e.g., to work; to speak including political speech) as little as possible and only when necessary to prevent harm. Thus, I don't think they should be prevented from taking a job; they should be prevented from using that job for corrupt purposes, which it is my understanding that HB has not credibly been accused of.

Moreover, even if you are less concerned than I about the fundamental rights implications of this prohibition, in practical terms it is likely to backfire. Preventing the adult children of an elected official from holding a career makes it more likely, not less, that they will have to turn to influence-peddling after the end of their prohibition period. A medical resident who has to take four years off, for instance, is going to have a hard time becoming a doctor. An academic who has to take four years off will virtually never get tenure. What can they do instead? The smart ones, anyway, the ambitious ones will spend those four or eight idle years making connections in DC or in international politics or international trade or whatever. You think you've got political dynasties now? Just wait.
posted by gauche at 12:20 PM on September 15, 2022 [10 favorites]


It's an unofficial American tradition that the First Family of Democrats has a member who's a fuckup in some way that the media is drawn to.

Indeed, I seem to recall even speaking Neil Bush’s name was enough to get you accused of hating America and somehow helping the terrorists win.
posted by Jon_Evil at 12:22 PM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]


Did the Saudi government give him $2B? Was that on there?

The entire story is that the family fuckup very successfully rain-made a corrupt petro-company. In their context, it was completely believable that the family black sheep is used for deniable access money. There is no reason to suspect that he delivered anything.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:33 PM on September 15, 2022 [7 favorites]


Moreover, even if you are less concerned than I about the fundamental rights implications of this prohibition, in practical terms it is likely to backfire. Preventing the adult children of an elected official from holding a career makes it more likely, not less, that they will have to turn to influence-peddling after the end of their prohibition period.

But what would be the point of saying they couldn't be a doctor or even a corporate lawyer? Saying that the president's kid can't be on the board of Monsanto during the president's term seems relatively uncontroversial and not a particularly slippery slope.

My partner had a particular but fairly ordinary job for a while where I could not do a small, well-defined set of things because they would have the appearance of conflict of interest. It does not strike me as that weird, but then no one was ever going to invite me to be on the board of Monsanto.
posted by Frowner at 12:35 PM on September 15, 2022 [10 favorites]


Have the libs been owned yet?
posted by Artw at 12:42 PM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


What would a republican fuck up even look like nowadays? They hold a responsible job and pay their fair share of taxes? They support gay rights and civil liberties without attempting a coup?
posted by Jacen at 12:53 PM on September 15, 2022 [27 favorites]


That the laptop's contents were likely first accessed months before the repair shop guy enters the narrative (H. Biden underwent addiction treatment at a "med spa and psychiatric clinic" run by Dr. Keith Ablow, a guy with connections to the Rogers [Ailes & Stone]) is interesting.

Re: the investment-related email allegedly found on the laptop, which "proposed a corporate structure in which Hunter would own 20 percent of the company, with another 10 percent 'held by H for the big guy.'”
Tithing, for sure.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:02 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


> What would a republican fuck up even look like nowadays? They hold a responsible job and pay their fair share of taxes? They support gay rights and civil liberties without attempting a coup?

see Denver Riggleman, "the only member of the Republican party to speak on the House of Representatives floor against QAnon", who was primaried and lost following his officiation of a same-sex wedding.
posted by glonous keming at 1:07 PM on September 15, 2022 [14 favorites]


It's an unofficial American tradition that the First Family has a member who's a fuckup in some way that the media is drawn to.

Eric and Don Jr. are Eric and Don Jr., George W.'s twins were drunks, George H.W.'s son was a cokehead, Nancy Reagan's astrologer told her to let Rock Hudson die, Betty Ford was yet another drunk, and we all know about Mojo Nixon.
posted by box at 1:09 PM on September 15, 2022 [8 favorites]


What would a republican fuck up even look like nowadays?

Legalizing it, partially.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:11 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


We fake protests in every city to embarrass them. We planted the files in Trump's home. We bribed the judge to get a warrant. We rigged a national election and bribed more judges to reject the evidence of this. We made fake videos showing violence on 1/6. We made sure antifa wore MAGA hats that day to make them look like insurrectionists. We trained amazing child actors from birth to pose as school-shooting victims, all to embarrass you. We created a fake virus and convinced all world leaders and scientific institutes to play along, faking millions of deaths - to make Trump look bad. We even used reverse psychology to confuse Trump into supporting the vaccine, which we use to digitally track every human on earth.

And all this is possible while being a senile geriatric and a crackhead.

Why are they so frustrated that no-one believes them? Is this the bullshit machine complaining that no-one wants to dine at their house?
posted by adept256 at 1:11 PM on September 15, 2022 [30 favorites]


It’s less I don’t believe them than I utterly don’t give a shit.

Anything real comes out of this an the Biden failson goes to jail? Good. See if I care.

Theses weirdos seriously think everyone else is invested in the same kind of dogshit cults of personality they are.
posted by Artw at 1:27 PM on September 15, 2022 [23 favorites]


How shocking to think that people who oppose the criminalization and demonization of addiction apply that value equally to all circumstances. Don't they know they're supposed to pick and choose based on their gut?

To the best of my knowledge, objections to the Trump family have less to do with their addiction and more to do with the flagrant corruption and cruelty. Hunter Biden's alleged corruption is unproven and not particularly provable, given the tainted evidence chain.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 1:54 PM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


My partner had a particular but fairly ordinary job for a while where I could not do a small, well-defined set of things because they would have the appearance of conflict of interest. It does not strike me as that weird, but then no one was ever going to invite me to be on the board of Monsanto.

Non-compete clauses are controversial as is and have in fact been found enforceable to some extent. Moreover, they are not the same as lifelong banishment from the workforce. Your agreement to not hold a conflicting job was entered into as an adult and with the knowledge that once your partner left that job, you could then enter any job you wanted. Do Sasha and Malia Obama never get to become lawyers? Any how far out does that desire for control extend anyway? Can I host an international exchange student if my sibling is in the FBI?
posted by beaning at 2:09 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I mean it's not funny that Don Jr. has a conspicuous cocaine habit. It's not funny that he is the byproduct of emotional abuse, or that a major chunk of his psyche appears to revolve around earning approval from his narcissistic father, who seemingly despises that he exists. In a vacuum, all of that is deeply unhappy, and I would love for him to get treatment and find a way towards being happier.

What's funny is that Don Jr. is a vicious amoral piece of shit who wants to abuse his wealth to make other people suffer, flaunt his family's ability to get away with crimes, and destroy an entire nation's democratic process while deriving pleasure from the people he oppresses, and yet he is publicly humiliated on a daily basis, receives no approval from the father whose umbrella he wants to cower under, and spends his time refusing to savor his privilege and wealth because some impulse in him compels him to try and pick fights with random people he barely knows, while whining about Instagram algorithms in front of an audience of the most pathetic Americans who have arguably ever existed.

Hunter is a byproduct of a very different kind of family tragedy, has a dad who loves him despite his many very public meltdowns, and doesn't seem to spend a lot of time trying to grind the poor and underprivileged beneath his polished shoes. His life seems chaotic in a very unhappy way, and people using it to play political football with him as the ball has got to suck. Even if he is corrupt, there is no schadenfreude in watching him suffer, because there's no real reason to give a shit about him in the first place, beyond the fact that he's a conspicuously suffering individual who's at the center of a brutal media circus.

Our political system is broken and nepotism is bad and it's also utterly laughable to compare Hunter to Don Jr, who commits lots of crimes and likes it when his fans murder libs.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:15 PM on September 15, 2022 [59 favorites]


I listened to Marc Maron's interview with Hunter, who described his work on various (many!) boards as "service".

Marc said that he read Hunter's book, and it left him "feeling worried" about Hunter, and I think Marc felt the same at the end of the interview. I sure did, it was a really wild listen and it was certainly the sanitized version of events. Hunter is very lucky to be alive.
posted by armacy at 2:18 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Do Sasha and Malia Obama never get to become lawyers?

If folks would read my original comment, I was suggesting that there could be some limits on the jobs held by the president's immediate family during and possibly after his term. Nowhere did I say "the president's children should be forever unemployable and they certainly can't work or do professional education during his training". Collapsing "the president's immediate family can't be on corporate boards during and perhaps immediately after his term" into "poor Sasha isn't even allowed to work at all" seems pretty weird.

Should senators' spouses be able to do high volume stock trading de facto based on the information they receive from the senator? Should there be any limits on revolving door jobs for senators, for that matter?

We live in a society of laws. In a lot of places, a homeless person can't even sleep under a bridge, for instance. But we're really, really concerned about the incredibly slippery slope involved in saying that the president's immediate family can't be on corporate boards or take certain other clearly defined lobbying jobs during his term. If we can ban homeless people from sleeping under bridges and society doesn't fall apart, we can make some modest requirements if your spouse or parent is currently holding one of the most powerful and indirectly well-compensated jobs on the planet.
posted by Frowner at 2:20 PM on September 15, 2022 [21 favorites]


How shocking to think that people who oppose the criminalization and demonization of addiction apply that value equally to all circumstances

But...they don't. A very large number of them don't. Just like the people who want dungeons and lifetime sentences for "druggies" but suddenly cry for leniency when the offenders are their own addicted friends, relatives and selves.

Hunter Biden's alleged corruption is unproven

Right. But with the acknowledgement that situations involving two different people will never be exactly the same, if I imagine that a Repub son had held the same positions and made the same "connections" that Biden has? I think there would be much less need for any allegations to be "proven."
posted by cinchona at 2:24 PM on September 15, 2022


And I'm saying I'm gonna need clearer citations on both of those grievances. I have yet to see someone who is a, how did you put it, "crusader against Cishet White Male Privilege" call for druggies to be imprisoned and then turn around to beg leniency for personal friends and family. I am also unclear on what provable positions and connections, exactly, are so compellingly and obviously corrupt that it's clear on the face that only being Biden's son protects his reputation.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 2:32 PM on September 15, 2022 [8 favorites]


If we can ban homeless people from sleeping under bridges and society doesn't fall apart, we can make some modest requirements if your spouse or parent is currently holding one of the most powerful and indirectly well-compensated jobs on the planet.

So another law that is only honored when it suits the enforcing entity?

Look I also would love to see corruption in the government stopped. But we already have such laws and Trump's children, as well as cabinet members Betsy Devos and Elizabeth Chao (among others) still made out like bandits during his term. Because the enforcing parties ignored the laws.
posted by beaning at 3:12 PM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]


And yes, if he had exactly the same history, but Trump parentage rather than Biden, these same people would be screaming for his imprisonment.

Wow, “these same people” sound like real assholes. And I’m sure you’ll be able to show us some really obvious examples, right? I mean, some shockingly apparent hypocrisy in the proverbial black and white, yeah? And I bet they’re all massively influential and not just Firstnamebunchofnumbers with six Twitter followers too?
posted by Etrigan at 3:14 PM on September 15, 2022 [9 favorites]


I have yet to see someone who is a, how did you put it, "crusader against Cishet White Male Privilege" call for druggies to be imprisoned and then turn around to beg leniency for personal friends and family.

I'm saying it's "the other side" who do this. The ones who think that white privilege/cis privilege/het privilege/etc. is "woke bullshit."

What I'm accusing many of the "crusaders" of doing, is making an exception for Biden. They typically hold up men of his description and record as evidence of inequality and call for them to face the same consequences that marginalized people do. Hunter, though? Poor thing, let's leave him alone, he's not an elected figure, he doesn't deserve to be scrutinized like this.

I am also unclear on what provable positions and connections, exactly, are so compellingly and obviously corrupt that it's clear on the face that only being Biden's son protects his reputation.

Point is that a lot of people's outrage against things like "corruption," "treason," and "inequality" is mostly or totally motivated by their politics and by other sorts of personal affiliations.
posted by cinchona at 3:17 PM on September 15, 2022


One of the kind of minor things that I dislike about Biden is that he has followed the typical political pattern of having a failson who always manages to fail upward into jobs with important sounding titles and big paychecks.

The Republicans were bullshitting and ignoring Trump's corruption, but the truth is that they were correct that Hunter Biden was getting serious money from entities tied to foreign governments and he was getting that money for no reason except who is father is. And that's bad and wrong whether Joe Biden is "our guy" or not. All the crap about a magic laptop with the McGuffin that will undo the Biden Presidency and restore President For Life Trump is just bullshit, but they're right about Failson Biden getting money for being Joe Biden's child.

So yeah, let justice be done though the heavens fall. Let the fucking failson be penalized if he committed crimes.
posted by sotonohito at 3:26 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


Ehh… weird loser rich people who are corrupt Nazis in the news every day calling for Nazi shit probably do get more attention than regular loser rich people, that’s just how it goes. The reasons why seem fairly obvious?
posted by Artw at 3:27 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Cinchona, Trump has a son with the same kind of problems already. Leftists are not asking for him to be put in prison for possession.
posted by Selena777 at 3:28 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


This kind of sensationalist crap seems to be Nuzzi’s stock-in-trade. I’m not a fan.
posted by borges at 3:33 PM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]


What I'm accusing many of the "crusaders" of doing, is making an exception for Biden. They typically hold up men of his description and record as evidence of inequality and call for them to face the same consequences that marginalized people do. Hunter, though? Poor thing, let's leave him alone, he's not an elected figure, he doesn't deserve to be scrutinized like this.

I don't see anyone here saying he doesn't deserve to be investigated for possible impropriety since it seems there now is some chance it may have occurred.

I have yet to see someone calling for the imprisonment of a Trump failson based on them being Horrible Druggies. I have seen them call for it based on well-supported charges of corruption. It would be useful if you could provide an example of what you seem to be asserting is a common attitude.

Point is that a lot of people's outrage against things like "corruption," "treason," and "inequality" is mostly or totally motivated by their politics and by other sorts of personal affiliations.

And yet, Al Franken has left politics, and men like Brett Kavanaugh remain.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 3:36 PM on September 15, 2022 [9 favorites]


I didn’t believe the laptop story from the start. So let’s see, the son of the currently most hated person of the right wing just happened to leave a laptop with incriminating information at a computer shop of a guy who just happened to know how to get a hold of Giuliani’s people? You’re gonna have damn high bar to clear to prove to me that this is legit.
posted by azpenguin at 3:37 PM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]


As for the apparently implausibility of Hunter Biden leaving a laptop full of embarrassing or illegal things at a computer repair store?

It's not only plausible, I'm surprised we haven't seen more stories like this. Despite seeing it myself up close and in person I remain flabbergasted that people will just take computers with incriminating data to more or less random computer people.

Around 20ish years ago I worked at a computer repair place where the person who brought in his computer for repair had actual child pornography as his WALLPAPER. Boot the computer and there's a felony on the screen. His computer went straight to the police, he went more or less straight to jail and I was left sitting there in awe at the utterly thoughtless disregard for any concept of self preservation the guy had.

So yeah, the idea that Hunter Biden dropped off three laptops filled to the brim with incriminating data isn't even slightly outrageous or unlikely to any person who's worked in computer repair. It's the most believable part of the story.

Policy at almost every computer place is that after X weeks left unclaimed after being notified to come get it that means the store owns your computer, it's written into the paperwork they have you sign when you drop the computer off. Because a surprising number of people will take a computer in for repair and then ghost the store, and you can't just leave them sitting around taking up stock space forever. The place I worked never had less than fifteen or so computers that had been unclaimed.

Most places will wait longer than the stated time before they wipe it and sell it. And I do think it's unethical to sift through a computer for data. My personal policy, and the policy of the place I worked at, was that on unclaimed computers being sold the hard drive gets wiped and we don't look at the contents.

That last is something I consider to be important. I don't know the actual legalities of it, but it is an EXTREME violation of professional ethics to dig into a client's data. You just don't do that. The degenerate with child porn on his computer almost certainly wouldn't have been caught if it hadn't been for the wallpaper. None of the people where I worked would have looked at his files, not even just the filenames. You copy the hard drive, which doesn't require us to actually see the files, and you fix the technical issue which also doesn't require us to actually see the files.

I dunno where the computer repair dude in this case stands legally, but I do know that he violated the number one clause in our unwritten code of professional ethics.

That said, if a computer repair person had gotten of one of the Trump kid's laptops filled with incriminating data I'd probably be cheering if he sifted through it to find juicy stuff to give to the press, and I wouldn't be focusing too much on the part where getting that info was an extreme violation of professional ethics. So... yeah. Maybe my ethics aren't as sound as they should be.
posted by sotonohito at 3:51 PM on September 15, 2022 [15 favorites]


Leftists are not asking for him to be put in prison for possession.

On this grounds, that's true, I guess there aren't many. But contrary to how they often speak of Hunter, they also don't characterize him as a poor delicate little wounded bird. And they definitely don't refrain from talking about how the racial and gender and wealth and sexuality privileges held by Trump and his adult sons have freed them from the consequences that others face for their actions.
posted by cinchona at 3:56 PM on September 15, 2022


the key to this is the laptop isn't admissible in court, especially seeing as we will never, ever, ever figure out what was really on it when it was brought to the repair shop

the republicans can't use this in court, so they're going to have the trial in public, in the media and if they get control of the house, congress, too

i'm not about to try to plum the depths of corruption in this country except to say there's a lot of it and it isn't just republicans

what i am sure needs to happen is that there needs to be a law that anyone working at a computer shop who goes through someone's private files for dirt has committed a felony and needs to be barred for life from the repair business
posted by pyramid termite at 4:40 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


If the laptop was useful as evidence, it certainly isn't useful anymore.

It was compromised as evidence the instant the computer tech unlocked his cabinet and started moving files around. The FBI might have something with the original drive that he gave them, but anything after that is "complete garbage" as Prof Green says in the article. Copies have zero value without proper documentation and professional assurances (chain of evidence or chain of custody it's called). All of it is completely useless from a legal point of view. All the "recovered files" unless really carefully documented are indistinguishable from complete fabrication.

When video and audio can be completely faked, let alone images, without corroborating evidence or people who are willing to be liable to the truth of the evidence and its handling, none of this means anything to a prosecutor.
posted by bonehead at 4:43 PM on September 15, 2022 [8 favorites]


What would a republican fuck up even look like nowadays? They hold a responsible job and pay their fair share of taxes? They support gay rights and civil liberties without attempting a coup?

Madison Cawthorn getting caught having gay sex, or faking it, or whatever that was, would be my answer to this one.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:44 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


All the "recovered files" unless really carefully documented are indistinguishable from complete fabrication.

I hear TFG accusing the FBI of planting things at his resort, and just think "every accusation is a confession."
posted by MrGuilt at 8:47 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Eric and Don Jr. are Eric and Don Jr., George W.'s twins were drunks, George H.W.'s son was a cokehead, Nancy Reagan's astrologer told her to let Rock Hudson die, Betty Ford was yet another drunk, and we all know about Mojo Nixon .

I'm really not comfortable with characterizing people as "drunks" and "cokeheads." Nancy Reagan: she was evil, yeah. And responsible for her evil.

But I know so many people, and we have so many people here at Metafilter (among the people who read and don't comment as well as those who do) who have problematic relationships with alcohol or drugs, or who are in recovery from addiction. I'd like them to feel they're welcome here, and valued as part of the community. I don't care what else these political-relative assholes got up to, but I'm not going to shame anybody or call them names for having a substance-abuse disorder, or having had one in the past. I'll call these Bush and Reagan assholes names that would peel the wallpaper, but I'm not going to call them names for having a common human failing or, as in the case of Hunter Biden and Betty Ford, recovering from it.
posted by Well I never at 8:49 PM on September 15, 2022 [31 favorites]


so, if it s not disinfo, this is at least another "Benghazi" spinning of nothing into a waste of time a brainspace
posted by eustatic at 8:49 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


I don't understand. If this post is meant as a negative example, why is it framed as if completely serious? I'm not sure how much I can say, but I guess you can read between the lines.
posted by blue shadows at 10:14 PM on September 15, 2022


If we can ban homeless people from sleeping under bridges and society doesn't fall apart, we can make some modest requirements if your spouse or parent is currently holding one of the most powerful and indirectly well-compensated jobs on the planet.

I agree with the overall sentiment, but I also think, as a society in general, we shouldn't necessarily focus on the US Code as the solution to all problems of misbehavior. Making something illegal is one particular way of discouraging antisocial conduct.

But writing laws isn't risk free, and it isn't cost free. It's expensive in the literal sense of the skilled people's time you need to craft the laws, and it's expensive in terms of opportunity cost: the legislative bodies tasked with passing laws only have so much time each term, and passing a bunch of laws that will only relate to a handful of people might not be the best use of time and political capital. And there's always the risk that the laws might not be written perfectly, and will either miss edge cases that should have been included (legitimizing them), or include conduct that shouldn't really have been forbidden (allowing the law to be wielded as a weapon against people it wasn't meant to target).

I think the more-ideal solution is that the voters should decide, and political parties would ultimately enforce, what sort of conduct—by themselves, by their immediate family, by their mistresses, work buddies, club members, bowling team, whatever—made someone a bad choice to hold office. And that's the process that seems to have broken down.

But I don't think Hunter Biden is really the example I'd reach for, of voters or the press ignoring potentially-questionable ethical decisions occurring in the orbit of a Presidential candidate, just because he's "their guy". I just feel like there are some more striking examples of that from the last few election cycles.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:09 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]


This thread, and the general topic of Hunter Biden, is teeming with false equivalence.
If we were to construe Hunter's possible criminal behavior as serious reckless driving, the actions of the vast majority of Republican officials is akin to crashing airliners into the Twin Towers on 9/11. Comparing the two situations is grotesque, or
posted by Metacircular at 11:34 PM on September 15, 2022


The laptop details Hunter’s involvement with a Ukrainian natural-gas producer that paid him millions of dollars to serve on its board — the relationship at the center of Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

There's the lede right there, buried.
posted by chavenet at 2:52 AM on September 16, 2022 [6 favorites]


A laptop exists. It may have belonged to Hunter Biden. I do not give a fuck about Hunter Biden (or, to be honest, Joe Biden.) I have no desire to protect either of them from the consequences of their actions. The laptop story, as it broke, was a transparent attempt to manufacture a scandal and influence the election, by people who had been shown to have ties to foreign disinformation networks, and who had been shown to engage in disinformation campaigns. This was just and reasonable cause for skepticism. That skepticism has mostly proved warranted: the details we know now do not support the initial claims. Claiming that this story was not misinformation is itself misinformation.
posted by Nothing at 3:21 AM on September 16, 2022 [21 favorites]


I read something long ago in the context of the Steele dossier about how disinformation works. The best disinformation contains enough truth in it to make the whole ball of wax believable. You include some true things that can be verified, some true things that are impossible to be verified, some false things that are impossible to be falsified, and little or nothing false that can be falsified.

And it's important that no actual laptop has surfaced. The only thing that exists outside the hands of Rudy Giuliani or the FBI is a copy of a harddrive which notably on inspection was definitely not simply a copy, but a bunch of files chucked on there by random people and then shifted around.

It seems true based on the WaPo review that many of the emails on this copy of the harddrive are real. But because chain of custody is fucked, it's impossible to verify them all. Everything smells a lot like somebody compiled this harddrive from various sources, which may or may not include a physical laptop, but probably also includes information lifted from hacking one or more of Hunter's accounts.
posted by Room 101 at 6:02 AM on September 16, 2022 [10 favorites]


The laptop affair was certainly an attempt to influence an election by manufacturing a scandal, and is an ongoing propaganda exercise by the political right. It doesn’t matter that the alleged contents are tainted for any legal purpose; it may actually increase their propaganda value.

I don’t know that this is was the best article that could have been produced regarding Hunter and his legendary laptop, but it seemed to touch all the bases in terms of what is in the content that could be problematic. I’m grateful for the article; could anyone suggest an alternate article?
posted by coldhotel at 6:08 AM on September 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


And it's important that no actual laptop has surfaced. The only thing that exists outside the hands of Rudy Giuliani or the FBI is a copy of a harddrive which notably on inspection was definitely not simply a copy, but a bunch of files chucked on there by random people and then shifted around.

Which, it occurs to me, is a more-or-less a plot point borrowed from the DS9 episode In the Pale Moonlight.
posted by gauche at 6:10 AM on September 16, 2022 [5 favorites]


As Douglas Adams would have put it, this is political Brockian Ultra-Cricket. The idea that there might be tangible evidence that Hunter Biden capitalized on his famous father to pursue hedonistic pastimes and make money (neither of which, I assure you, would surprise or startle a single person even remotely connected with reality) is far less exciting than the imagined belief that, behind a wall of secrecy and hearsay and unproven allegations, might well lie THE GREATEST SCANDAL IN AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY. As with Hillary's fabled email server, the fever dreams of what might have existed on it are far more useful and inflammatory than the realities of what actually was.

I do know that when I am taking notes on a goddamned criminal conspiracy, so to speak, I make sure that I am scrupulously careful to let no traces of tangible evidence escape for the public or law enforcement authorities to examine, except for one central source of it that is highly incriminating that I will dispose of in a careless and haphazard manner.
posted by delfin at 6:39 AM on September 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


The reality is that corruption in the form of highly paid bullshit jobs is absolutely pervasive at the highest level of the American government.

There are god knows how many Senator's daughters and governor's nephews who are placed in a much higher role than their merits deserve. The reason it doesn't usually show up is because the American system is really good at merit laundering by layering on these things.

So you first get into an Ivy. Then a good law school. In both cases, unprovably but definitely not entirely on your merits. You learn how to be an American elite. How to talk and write correctly and what kind of things you Do Not Write Down.

Then, when you turn up on the board of a German company that makes fasteners for the defence industry or a Canadian one that enriches Uranium, everything appears to be above-board. After all, didn't you go to Harvard and then to McKinsey? Didn't you go to Kellogg after that and work at Goldman as a post-MBA associate? Each unearned position makes the subsequent ones more plausible.

Hunter's sad, addict life means that:

a) He may well have documented things that "everyone" knows you don't write down.
b) May have "documented" things that weren't really true
c) Is such a titanic fuck-up that the plausibility layering doesn't work - you'd have to be a moron not to immediately spot that *of course* he isn't qualified to be on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, come on, man.

If any Republican is honestly upset that no one in the MSM can take the laptop seriously, then they have themselves to fucking thank for it.

Well, for one thing they don't want to cross the rubicon. Do you think that most senior Republicans *really* want to open this can of worms. There's a genteel convention that you can get a little cash out for the fam. just don't compromise the overall interests of the whole machine - i.e. Trump style nuclear secrets shenanigans.

But also, yeah. Sorry boys, you crossed all the lines already so now nobody cares about respectability.

Why are we concerned about Hunter Biden at all, outside of the fact that he's the president's son?

I mean, come on now. How many crack-pipes he smokes a day isn't really important but the fact that the answer is simultaneously "more than zero" AND he had a number of highly paid sinecures is surely not wholly unconnected?

Moreover, even if you are less concerned than I about the fundamental rights implications of this prohibition, in practical terms it is likely to backfire. Preventing the adult children of an elected official from holding a career makes it more likely, not less, that they will have to turn to influence-peddling after the end of their prohibition period.

But what would be the point of saying they couldn't be a doctor or even a corporate lawyer? Saying that the president's kid can't be on the board of Monsanto during the president's term seems relatively uncontroversial and not a particularly slippery slope.

My partner had a particular but fairly ordinary job for a while where I could not do a small, well-defined set of things because they would have the appearance of conflict of interest. It does not strike me as that weird, but then no one was ever going to invite me to be on the board of Monsanto.

I don't think this works.

First because, in the original comment it was noted that ... if you're the president you and your children are basically guaranteed employable forever and will have enough money forever regardless. It's not as though if you can't be on some corporate board or hold a particular kind of sinecure you won't be able to get another upper middle class job.

That's sort of circular though isn't it? It's ok that the president's kids can't get certain types of jobs because we all know... that they are guaranteed those jobs. That second part is the whole problem.

Second reason - hey, you said it. Nobody was every going to invite you to be on the board of Monsanto, but there are a lot of people of whom that is not true.

Third, it may be obvious *to you* that Monsanto is some kind of special bad company about which we must be really sensitive but I know someone on the board of Bayer (which now owns much of what was Monsanto) so I see that rather differently. Would it be ok for them to head up their local of a nurse's union? To edit a newspaper? A university department? This is ultimately a political choice.

Fine, there may well be a line that reasonable people could draw but I suspect that wherever you would have drawn it a few years ago would *not* have excluded "board of Ukrainian gas company".

George W.'s twins were drunks

Were they by the standards of American college kids?


Anyway, I come away from the whole thing liking both Hunter and Joe more. He's just trying to look after his sad fuckup kid after all.

By the way - doing your best for a fucked-up addict child is an experience that thanks to the opioid epidemic isn't exactly one that alienates American voters.

The polls are clear - when you delivery material goods for people like forgiving a fuck-ton of college debt, they like you, believe you, and will vote for you. People voted for Donnie who knew him to be scum because he promised them he would right wing loonies in the courts, and he delivered for them. People way back voted for Obama in large numbers, including notoriously people who described him in racist terms, because he said he would sort out their healthcare.

I think this will have no effect on voter behaviour.
posted by atrazine at 10:06 AM on September 16, 2022 [4 favorites]


(there's a quote error in my comment which is meant to quote both gauche and Frowner)
posted by atrazine at 10:21 AM on September 16, 2022


This all made me wonder about Amy Carter, because I never hear about her. When I looked into it, I was pretty impressed what she’s done with her life, because it’s so ordinary. She flunked out of Brown, which plenty of people do and go on to succeed elsewhere—as she did; she went to art school. But I know that some kind of soft power could have been brought to bear to arrange things so that that just didn’t happen to a president’s daughter. It wasn’t, though. She went to student protests; she got arrested; she got on with her life and went to work and raised her kids. I don’t think even politicians I like (for whatever “liking” is worth at this level) would accept such plain outcomes for their children.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:24 AM on September 16, 2022 [4 favorites]


If we can ban homeless people from sleeping under bridges and society doesn't fall apart, we can make some modest requirements if your spouse or parent is currently holding one of the most powerful and indirectly well-compensated jobs on the planet.

I was denied student loans and grants for the first two years of my post-secondary education because the Canadian government has laws about how much parents are expected to be able to contribute to their children's post-secondary education based on their wealth and income.

What the Canadian government did not have were laws requiring parents to actually make such contributions. So by mere dint of blood relation I had to be fully independent for two years before I could even qualify to apply for loans (by then grants had evaporated in the first wave of boomer ladder pulling). It also took my mother threatening divorce to get my father to sign the form that I was independent (he wanted to preserve "support" lie so I could sign over the the tuition tax credit that was of no use to me because I didn't earn enough to benefit from it).

If you wish for children to inherit legal restrictions by the mere virtue of their parentage then you had best legislate that the children also receive all the benefits you think they should receive as well. People assume all kinds of things about parent-child relationships based on perhaps their own experiences or some idealized Leave It to Beaver media archetype but the actually reality of people's messy lives is much different.
posted by srboisvert at 10:53 AM on September 16, 2022 [8 favorites]


But writing laws isn't risk free, and it isn't cost free. It's expensive in the literal sense of the skilled people's time you need to craft the laws, and it's expensive in terms of opportunity cost: the legislative bodies tasked with passing laws only have so much time each term, and passing a bunch of laws that will only relate to a handful of people might not be the best use of time and political capital.

I've written and passed four laws at this point (1 in CA for work, 3 in LA on my own time) and want to gently push back on this. The legislative process can be intimidating, but that's mostly because it's intentionally obfuscated and mystified to keep people out. It doesn't take any particularly specialized knowledge or skillset to engage once that curtain is pulled back, nor are legislative bodies particularly pressed for time in any real, physical sense. Regular folks can and should insert themselves into the act of lawmaking without worrying about meeting some educational standard or wasting anyone's time. I suspect that politics, not material resources, is the answer to why we don't have better ethics law.
posted by Corinth at 1:57 PM on September 16, 2022 [9 favorites]


The laptop affair was certainly an attempt to influence an election by manufacturing a scandal, and is an ongoing propaganda exercise by the political right.

This is known in the progressive blogosphere as "Zombie lies." Once "It's out there," the zombie lie never dies.

See:
The deficit, Vince Foster, tax cuts, tax and spend, support the troops, Kenyan birth certificates, Benghazi, global warming, butter emails, cut and run, Fauci, pizza basements, madrassas...I could go on for hours.

Someone makes something up. Someone on Fox "news" says someone said the thing. CNN picks up that Fox "news" said the thing, and from there, it takes on a life of its own. From an idea to a congressional investigation, depending on who controls the House...

ACORN was shut down, based on such a manufactured scandal, and was exonerated after the damage was done. It's pretty effective, since so many people are willingly ignorant of the truth.
posted by Chuffy at 3:10 PM on September 16, 2022 [11 favorites]


And to put it in stark relief: last Sunday was the 10th anniversary of Benghazi and I could find nary a peep about it anywhere on the right over the past couple of months.
posted by rhizome at 6:34 PM on September 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


This thread, and the general topic of Hunter Biden, is rotten with false equivalence.
If we construe Hunter's possible criminal behavior as serious reckless driving, the actions of the vast majority of Republican officials is akin to crashing airliners into the Twin Towers on 9/11. Comparing the two situations is grotesque to begin with and is ultimately overt fascist propaganda.
Any person who spends even a moment considering the guilt or innocence of Hunter Biden has fallen for fascist rhetoric and has been distracted from the ongoing crisis. Democracy in the United States experiencing an existential threat, and engaging with this nonsense makes things worse.
posted by Metacircular at 7:41 PM on September 16, 2022 [6 favorites]


His laptop is a meaningless right-wing metaphoric football, like Her Emails and crap like that.

But just the fact that he got well-paid sinecures from foreign businesses would have been a real scandal with actual political consequences if it had occurred a generation or so ago.

Now it's just more vague noise, compared with the many crimes that the previous president has openly broken and not faced any real consequences for so far. (yeah he's recently been caught red-handed doing treason, but at this point I've seen him weasel out of so much shit so far that I don't give a fuck what any govt lawyer says about how he's really gonna git it this time, until we finally see him in handcuffs, and then I'll stop holding my breath.)
posted by ovvl at 8:16 PM on September 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


Comparing the two situations is grotesque to begin with and is ultimately overt fascist propaganda.

Who can forget Mussolini's famous speech denouncing Churchill's laptop?
posted by atrazine at 11:32 PM on September 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


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