Hunter Biden Expose is "Fake News"

LostMarbels said:

One has a 47-year history in politics. The other a bit over 3. Most of what is alleged about Trump are hit pieces by people that never even accepted the 2016 election.

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You're forgetting the impeachment hearings which even managed to convince some GOP Senators that he did what he was accused of.

NPR's media reporter notes:

".......The pro-Trump New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a steady supporter of the president despite recently casting doubt on Trump's re-election prospects. The lead reporter was a former producer for Sean Hannity, Trump's best friend on his favorite news network, Fox News, also controlled by the Murdochs. And the story asserted the existence of a meeting absent any documentation that it actually occurred."

Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven by Ex-Hannity Producer, Giuliani

LostMarbels said:

This 'thing' here, with Joe Biden, is a spiritual battle.

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I keep seeing "Evangelicals" make this claim.
It's false and not at all backed by scripture.

wing2000 said:

NPR's media reporter notes:

".......The pro-Trump New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a steady supporter of the president despite recently casting doubt on Trump's re-election prospects. The lead reporter was a former producer for Sean Hannity, Trump's best friend on his favorite news network, Fox News, also controlled by the Murdochs. And the story asserted the existence of a meeting absent any documentation that it actually occurred."

Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven by Ex-Hannity Producer, Giuliani

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Well that's not a conflict of interest at all.

(Tongue-in-cheek)

wing2000 said:

I keep seeing "Evangelicals" make this claim.
It's false and not at all backed by scripture.

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Religious fundamentalism is one of the biggest evils in human history, and an issue that Jesus addressed often with the religious authorities of his day. One has to be very deceived indeed to not be able to see the anti-Christ spirit that surrounds Trump and his ilk. The fruit of the Spirit is very opposite of what he's thusfar produced.

LostMarbels said:

I claim the promise that whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses them will be cursed. I even ask it to be brought to remembrance that we have a president that honors Israel.

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I'll just say here that I don't agree with your interpretation of who that scripture is talking about and therefore, has nothing to do with this President's view of the secular nation of Israel.

I will also say that the secular nation of Isreal is our political ally and as a nation, we have made certain agreements with them and we should fulfill those promises as a nation.

Pommer said:

And you think that Donald Trump is the way to achieve this?
Mercy!

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Well I guess if one's god is the devil....

So, was it fake or not?

Kenny'sID said:

So, was it fake or not?

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Business Insider seems to believe it is. They posted this article: An explosive New York Post story that sent Trumpworld into a frenzy is riddled with holes and red flags; and all the major points in that article have yet to be addressed.

In fact, they "doubled down" on that article with this one, today: US spies say the Hunter Biden email controversy shows how 'exploitable' and 'grotesquely vulnerable' Trump and Giuliani are to Russian intelligence.

I find it interesting that we've heard nothing from the FBI about the hard drive, though this article states, "The FBI is investigating whether emails that were published by the New York Post related to Joe Biden’s son Hunter are connected to a possible Russian influence operation to spread disinformation, according to a person familiar with the matter." Sure, it is only an unnamed source but, the fact remains, the only source that seems to be tied to the FBI or the government is stating that they aren't looking at the hard drive/emails as evidence against the Biden's but as proof of a Russian disinformation campaign.

tall73 said:

Did you read the earlier quote that I posted which indicated they did not fact check it before limiting it?

And why would you trust fact checkers to determine what you see instead of weighing it yourself?

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The old style of letting things spread and then fact checking them is an abject failure. By the time the truth is shown, the lie has gone around the world a hundred times. By then the lie has already been heard endlessly and widely believed.

Temporarily holding things back until they’ve been thoroughly fact checked is an attempt to at least slow down this age of constant falsehoods and deceit. People are terrible at doing their own fact checking, a majority don’t even read articles they just read headlines. Expecting truth to have a chance in that kind of climate is naive at best.

Oh...it all true...and more to come. Unbelievable – Facebook’s Lead Executive on Election Policy Was Vice-President Joe Biden’s Advisor to Ukraine…

eucatastrophe said:

Oh...it all true...and more to come. Unbelievable – Facebook’s Lead Executive on Election Policy Was Vice-President Joe Biden’s Advisor to Ukraine…

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That doesn't look real good...for Mark Zuckerberg.

JohnDB said:

Contractual agreement...
Hunter signed it. I didn't say that it was actually a mechanic's lien... only that it worked similar to one.

Either way the rights to the computer were signed away... especially when it wasn't picked up and the repair bill unpaid.

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Is there any evidence that a claim was actually filed for this lien ? This should be a matter of public record with the dates/times the laptop was dropped off, to evidence of notices filed for request of payment along with a final notice of the lien.

§ 2712 Requirements of complaint or statement of claim.

(a) Every person entitled to the benefits conferred by this chapter and desiring to avail himself or herself of the lien provided for in this chapter, shall, within the time specified in this chapter, file a statement of claim, which may also serve as a complaint when so denominated, in the office of the Prothonotary of the Superior Court in and for the county wherein such structure is situated.

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According to your evidence, if I left my home keys in a car that got repossessed, does that mean the repo man gets to walk into my house, heat up my chicken wings, chill on my couch and watch the Sunday football game on my TV ? Or if the tech found banking credentials on my laptop that I sent for repair and didn't pay for, the tech can than use that to transfer money to himself/herself ?

JohnDB said:

Tucker Carlson: The Joe Biden story Twitter and Facebook don't want you to read

This story is laid out here...

Doesn't seem to be "Fake News".

And Facebook and Twitter are going to have to answer to charges of election interference.

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You do realize Tucker lies. Right?

Kentonio said:

The old style of letting things spread and then fact checking them is an abject failure. By the time the truth is shown, the lie has gone around the world a hundred times. By then the lie has already been heard endlessly and widely believed.

Temporarily holding things back until they’ve been thoroughly fact checked is an attempt to at least slow down this age of constant falsehoods and deceit. People are terrible at doing their own fact checking, a majority don’t even read articles they just read headlines. Expecting truth to have a chance in that kind of climate is naive at best.

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So you want people to control what you see before you ever have a chance to fact check on your own? I have no doubt that many will not fact check. But now you are just telling them to not fact check anything sent to you by the big tech gatekeepers. Don't you think that could go poorly? Some stories they let through turn out to be wrong as well. And some things they limit could be correct, but time sensitive.

There is always a need for the recipient to approach things with a skeptical eye, and to verify facts. I want to have all the info the fact checkers have, not be beholden to their view as it is the only one getting through.

eucatastrophe said:

Oh...it all true...and more to come. Unbelievable – Facebook’s Lead Executive on Election Policy Was Vice-President Joe Biden’s Advisor to Ukraine…

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In case folks want the information from a less biased source:

A Road Less Traveled: National Security Careers After Law School – Anna Makanju | NYU School of Law

Anna Makanju is a public policy and legal expert working at Facebook, where she leads efforts to ensure election integrity on the platform. Previously, Anna was the Special Policy Advisor for Europe and Eurasia to Vice President Biden, Senior Policy Advisor to Ambassador Samantha Power at the United States Mission to the United Nations, Director for Russia at the National Security Council, and the Chief of Staff for European and NATO Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She has also taught at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and worked as a consultant to a leading company focused on space technologies.

tall73 said:

So you want people to control what you see before you ever have a chance to fact check on your own? I have no doubt that many will not fact check. But now you are just telling them to not fact check anything sent to you by the big tech gatekeepers. Don't you think that could go poorly? Some stories they let through turn out to be wrong as well. And some things they limit could be correct, but time sensitive.

There is always a need for the recipient to approach things with a skeptical eye, and to verify facts. I want to have all the info the fact checkers have, not be beholden to their view as it is the only one getting through.

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I find this a tough question. For example, newspapers often "sit" on stories that they can't verify. People like to complain about "anonymous sources" but the fact is that there are other stories that reporters become aware of that they can't get anyone to comment about, with their name or without. Should newspapers report those stories -- regardless of who gets hurt -- and depend on their readers fact checking the stories themselves?

Additionally, there is the issue that most people don't fact check. What I tend to see, even here, is that if a story agrees with a person's preconceived perception then they tend to believe the story; if it doesn't they tend to be skeptical and hope more information is forthcoming.

This Biden story is one of those. I'm on a different message board that tends to be very conservative and are mostly college educated individuals -- and they'd found Biden guilty based on these emails. It doesn't seem to matter that the emails are unverified, that they come from questionable sources, they've decided they are true and that Joe Biden belongs in prison.

I studied the Ukraine issues earlier in the year when it became an issue, and Pres. Trump was impeached. What I found is that there was absolutely nothing to show the VP Biden had done anything wrong. His forcing out the prosecutor was a US government position, as well as that of our allies -- it was even supported by Sen. Johnson (Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee), as he wrote a letter in support of the policy at the time.

What we've learned about the Post story -- which does not have a great reputation in terms of the bias and accuracy -- is that it was given to them by Steve Bannon -- a convicted fraud who is one of those that talked, and worked, to make Trump President. We then find out that the Post got a copy of the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani, who was the target of a Russian disinformation campaign when he was trying to find evidence of Biden wrongdoing in Ukraine, and believed and disseminated Russian propoganda that was not true.

Tell me, if you found out had run a report on finding emails from one of the Trump children that proved the child had earned money from a foreign national to provide access to their father, the President -- that the reporter had been tipped off about the information by Webster Hubbard (who has ties to the Clintons and has been convicted of fraud), and that the hard drive the emails allegedly came from were supplied by someone that worked for Joe Biden -- would you trust the story? Would you object to social media sites blocking the information until they could get more confirmation that the story was accurate?

As I've posted, the little I've found about this story points to it being a Russian fabrication; though granted, there is little hard evidence either way. The best I can find is that the FBI has had this information for over a year and, rather than any sort of investigation into the Biden's, instead they appear to be investigating a Russian link -- that the hard drive and its contents originated in Russia, with the implication that is why it was not reported to the Senate Intelligence Committee's Ukraine-Biden investigation. It will be interesting to see what the FBI report is to the Senate as to why the hard drive was not turned over, if it becomes public (my thought is the FBI report may be classified, as it is part of an ongoing investigation).

I find that social media sites, who did allow Russian Propoganda on their sites in 2016 -- with some evidence it did effect the election -- have a tough job trying to police this as the truth is so difficult to distinguish from the lies. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people (from what I've seen) that believe the lies. I'll be honest, I don't know what the answer is -- I just know that in even attempting it, sometimes they will end up being wrong.

SimplyMe said:

I find this a tough question. For example, newspapers often "sit" on stories that they can't verify. People like to complain about "anonymous sources" but the fact is that there are other stories that reporters become aware of that they can't get anyone to comment about, with their name or without. Should newspapers report those stories -- regardless of who gets hurt -- and depend on their readers fact checking the stories themselves?

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They do not because it would hurt their reputation. But if they do publish it people can evaluate a story with no evidence or sources for what it is worth.

Additionally, there is the issue that most people don't fact check. What I tend to see, even here, is that if a story agrees with a person's preconceived perception then they tend to believe the story; if it doesn't they tend to be skeptical and hope more information is forthcoming.

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I am not responsible for most people. I am saying I want the information to evaluate.

Now you say most people don't fact check. But you are arguing for one step worse than that. Now people still are not fact checking, but a few people in key positions are removing even the possibility, so even those who are inclined to fact check won't have the information to evaluate.

This Biden story is one of those. I'm on a different message board that tends to be very conservative and are mostly college educated individuals -- and they'd found Biden guilty based on these emails. It doesn't seem to matter that the emails are unverified, that they come from questionable sources, they've decided they are true and that Joe Biden belongs in prison.

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I am not voting for Trump or Biden, and didn't last time. This has nothing to do with wanting the information about what is going on.

If you are worried about people being misled, why not worry about a few people having the power to mislead however they want because they control the information that people see?

Tell me, if you found out had run a report on finding emails from one of the Trump children that proved the child had earned money from a foreign national to provide access to their father, the President -- that the reporter had been tipped off about the information by Webster Hubbard (who has ties to the Clintons and has been convicted of fraud), and that the hard drive the emails allegedly came from were supplied by someone that worked for Joe Biden -- would you trust the story? Would you object to social media sites blocking the information until they could get more confirmation that the story was accurate?

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I would object to the story being blocked, because I can evaluate all of the above information and form a view.

As I've posted, the little I've found about this story points to it being a Russian fabrication; though granted, there is little hard evidence either way. The best I can find is that the FBI has had this information for over a year and, rather than any sort of investigation into the Biden's, instead they appear to be investigating a Russian link -- that the hard drive and its contents originated in Russia, with the implication that is why it was not reported to the Senate Intelligence Committee's Ukraine-Biden investigation. It will be interesting to see what the FBI report is to the Senate as to why the hard drive was not turned over, if it becomes public (my thought is the FBI report may be classified, as it is part of an ongoing investigation).

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Yet you don't want to even have the option of evaluating things as you just did above?

I find that social media sites, who did allow Russian Propoganda on their sites in 2016 -- with some evidence it did effect the election -- have a tough job trying to police this as the truth is so difficult to distinguish from the lies. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people (from what I've seen) that believe the lies. I'll be honest, I don't know what the answer is -- I just know that in even attempting it, sometimes they will end up being wrong.

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The answer is let people speak. Then let people evaluate. If you think all of the electorate is so incapable of making decisions that a group of elites must control what information is safe to give them, we disagree.

tall73 said:

They do not because it would hurt their reputation. But if they do publish it people can evaluate a story with no evidence or sources for what it is worth.

I am not responsible for most people. I am saying I want the information to evaluate.

Now you say most people don't fact check. But you are arguing for one step worse than that. Now people still are not fact checking, but a few people in key positions are removing even the possibility, so even those who are inclined to fact check won't have the information to evaluate.

I am not voting for Trump or Biden, and didn't last time. This has nothing to do with wanting the information about what is going on.

If you are worried about people being misled, why not worry about a few people having the power to mislead however they want because they control the information that people see?

I would object to the story being blocked, because I can evaluate all of the above information and form a view.

Yet you don't want to even have the option of evaluating things as you just did above?

The answer is let people speak. Then let people evaluate. If you think all of the electorate is so incapable of making decisions that a group of elites must control what information is safe to give them, we disagree.

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Let me disagree with one of your premises: the story wasn't "blocked." Yes, Social Media sites decided they didn't want to "advertise" the story -- but that only stopped the people who want to be "spoon fed" the news.

I learned about the story. Then again, I tend not to get my news from social media. I'm guessing you would have come across it, as well.

You can argue about the "elites" controlling the media -- that has been a valid concern, particularly as more and more of our "media" has started to be controlled by fewer people. At the same time, the rise of the Internet, particularly many of the various news sites and blogs have made getting out news in non-traditional ways more common. A small part of that is social media.

I think the issue is, what responsibility do "Media" (in general, to include social media) have to ensure every story someone wants published to be heard? For example, YouTube has determined they will not promote people who claim we live on a Flat Earth -- is that wrong, with science clearly stating we live on a spherical Earth, or do you think they are justified in not allowing things that is considered to be false?

Another example, Fox News has been known not to report on stories that are negative toward Republicans (or MSNBC stories that are negative to Democrats). Is that their right, to not report, or do you feel they should be required to publish all stories. What about a story that is from an "unidentified source," do they have a requirement to report that the story is out there, or can they (particularly if they believe it is false) just ignore it until more facts are available?

I think there are three issues here: First, what is moral -- and an argument can be made they should report all "reasonable" (where there is a reasonable chance it might be true) stories; giving both the pro (it is true) and con (it is false) information so that readers can make their own decision. At the same time, it can also be argued it is moral to refuse to print stories they believe are false.

Second, there is the question of what is legal. Are sites (both news and social media) legally required to create or allow stories reported by every other news outlet, regardless of if they believe the story is true or not. I think we both know the answer here is no.

Last, there is where morality and law meet -- what should the legal obligations be? That is I think where you get different opinions and there is no easy answer. Yes, it is good to spread news as widely as possible. At the same time, it is good to restrict the spread of false information (though it can be argued if it should just not be posted or "fact checks" attached). But also, there is the idea that the owner of a site should determine how they want to handle it for their site -- and does your right to "post" outweigh their right to control what is posted on their site?

tall73 said:

So you want people to control what you see before you ever have a chance to fact check on your own? I have no doubt that many will not fact check. But now you are just telling them to not fact check anything sent to you by the big tech gatekeepers. Don't you think that could go poorly? Some stories they let through turn out to be wrong as well. And some things they limit could be correct, but time sensitive.

There is always a need for the recipient to approach things with a skeptical eye, and to verify facts. I want to have all the info the fact checkers have, not be beholden to their view as it is the only one getting through.

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But I think solid journalism leaves little room for this.

LostMarbels said:

And people wonder why someone like myself doesn't fall for the whole selective moral outrage speils.

This dude can talk about blacks and poc anyway he wants to... doesn't even remember he is running for president not the senate, and we are supposed to take him serious? All that is going on right now concerning race... this is your guy... and we are to take all that seriously?

After already stating he likes kids sitting on his lap rubbing his hairy legs..... he can point to prepubescent children and state he wants to see them dance for him in four years??!!

And people will vote for him?!

Thank you, Christ, that our president is not like this man. Thank you, Jesus.

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‘I want to see these beautiful young ladies dancing when they are four years older too’. Are you being serious? In your mind this sentence means Biden is essentially a pedophile? What is wrong with you?