Item — HN Reader

A few months ago there was non-stop coverage of the president purportedly saying very mean things about soldiers. This was from an anonymous source. Even Bolton who is no fan of the president said that it didn't happen. It got 24/7 playtime by the media.

Now on the other day the NYPost has a narrative, with physical evidence, corrobrated by actual non-anonymous people alleging very bad things about a presidential candidate and what happens? Nothing. As usual 'the powers that be' have the media in the pocket.

how long till this comment gets disappeared? I hope I don't get fired!

2 comments

" the NYPost has a narrative, with physical evidence, corrobrated by actual non-anonymous people alleging very bad things about a presidential candidate "

Which is so obviously fake it isn't even funny. I'm getting very tired of the GOP's shameless tendency of creating controversies out of nothing. This is just another Benghazi or Hillary's Emails or Migrant Caravan.

is it fake or is it russian disinformation? I can't keep up with you types.

Who deleted your response to ZeteticElench? You, or the mods? Usually when they delete something, they include a comment that says "this comment was deleted because it violates our community standards" or whatever.

I don't think it's possible to delete your own comment on HN.

It's possible for the mods to "shadow delete" your comments: it still appears to you when you're logged in, but no-one else can see it. (To see if any your comments have been shadow-deleted, check out the difference between news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=yourusername when you're logged in and logged out.)

I think you can delete a comment shortly after it was made and if there's no answers to it yet.

Edit: for example, right now I have a delete button for this message

I absolutely did not delete anything. Maybe I got 'zucced'

Aren't those synonyms?

Fake? Didn't Biden's lawyer ask for the laptop back? If it was fake why did ask for a laptop that wasn't theirs?

"Didn't Biden's lawyer ask for the laptop back? "

Proof?

Where's the evidence that the data on the hard drives and laptop were fabricated? There's a lot more physical evidence behind the Hunter Biden Laptop Story (and its censorship) than there was behind, oh I don't know, the impeachment of the President last January.

I must assume you have personal possession of exculpatory physical evidence. Please share your physical evidence that discredits the physical evidence you don't like unearthed by the New York Post

Please downvote me if you have no evidence it was faked or know there's no evidence or want to see the NY Post story discredited because Trump should be replaced at any cost.

Also note: other news publications, like the Washington Post, claiming that the hard drive data is "not verified" without any evidence beyond their own reputation, which itself is long since forfeit, is not evidence.

After the Killian documents controversy, the onus is on the publisher to authenticate this type information before they publish it, not on the public to believe it until it is shown to be inauthentic. In that event, the Republican candidate was hurt by a forgery that then resulted in the resignation of Dan Rather, a very prominent news anchor.

In the impeachment case, that was not a case of the press digging up a document and making an accusation. It was the release of an accusation made to an inspector general. In and of itself, that is news. The fact that the white house was trying to prevent the release of the inspector general complaint to the Congress was also news. At that point, the veracity of the claim needs to be determined, and opinions clearly differed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy

Obviously fake? The Biden camp hasn’t disputed the authenticity of the materials.

How is it “obviously” fake? Especially since most of the media refuses to investigate it — even if to establish that it isn’t fake? The media had no problem running with the very obviously fake Steele Dossier that claimed Trump got a golden shower on a hotel bed Obama once slept in. There was zero corroboration or legitimacy for that, but that dossier was used as a basis to obtain FISA warrant and ultimately led to an impeachment.

It’s “obviously fake,” because it’s politically uncomfortable, not because it’s actually “obviously fake.”

John Paul "Mac" Isaac is not even remotely trustworthy and nothing about the story is plausible.

According to a Daily Beast interview, Isaac “switched back and forth” between saying that he contacted the FBI and saying the FBI contacted him. He also claimed that the FBI asked him for help in accessing the drive, though he didn’t indicate that the drive was encrypted or protected in any way.

There’s are several huge missing pieces in this story. For example, what did Isaac say to the FBI? “Hello, someone brought in a computer, and I think it belongs to Beau Biden.” If so, why would the FBI say anything other than, “Then give it back?” Why would Beau Biden dropping off a wet laptop cause the FBI to have any interest at all?

This, then, is the “official” story from the Post and Giuliani: A mysterious stranger drops off a laptop at a shop belonging to a legally blind Trump supporter who has said disparaging things about Biden. Nine months later, the FBI asks for that computer. Then 10 months after that, Giuliani hands over to the New York Post what he says is a copy of that computer’s hard drive. In between those dates, we have nothing. Well, nothing except for more Facebook statements from Isaac, who does devote some time to saying that Trump’s impeachment is a sham, but says nothing at all about Hunter Biden’s crack-smoking video that he found on a computer left at his store. And we have a lot of statements from Giuliani during this period, many of them essentially identical to what will eventually appear in the Post story.

He got to keep the laptop when Biden never returned to collect it (didn't pay for the work done). He found fishy stuff on it and turned it over to the FBI not after making copies of the hard drives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzCwiURwwQ

Ok, so the story about how they obtained the laptop is sketchy. Fine.

What about the actual contents of the laptop? The emails, text messages, photos, and videos?

Nobody from the Biden camp has come out and denied the authenticity of the emails or the text messages that have been published. Why not?

In fact, you have one of Hunter Biden's former business associates who has come out and confirmed the authenticity of some of the materials.

Trump lied in the very same sentence he denied the statement in. At this point if he says something didn't happen it's likely that it did.