From the Least Surprising News desk:
One might also note that in order for photos of pedophilia by Hunter to be discovered now, it would require that Giuliani and Trump - who had complete access to the laptop and every motive to share anything horrible on it with the whole rest of the world - chose to hide this information and protect Hunter.
The only motives that I can think of for them to do that are:
- They would have reason to worry that an investigation into Hunter’s pedophilic sources would lead to someplace uncomfortable for themselves (where “themselves” is, to be clear, Giuliani and Trump). They protected Hunter because they needed to protect themselves.
- Behind the scenes, they were using these materials as leverage over Hunter in order to get him to cooperate in a scheme to smear Joe Biden.
Now, the second of these two options doesn’t match history. The only person who ever got smeared was Hunter, himself, during the election; Hunter never came out against his dad; and no news source ever found any information (verified, falsified, or otherwise) against Joe.
So we’re basically left with the options that Hunter had information that was compromising to Giuliani and Trump, or that those photos didn’t exist.
Somehow, I don’t feel a strong need to find an answer on that question. Just asking questions, you know?
Or … that the pedophile stuff was in an encrypted file until recently, when an anonymous DOJ patriot, disgusted with Biden’s open borders and secret Zionist plan to create runaway inflation, hacked the laptop so the photos could be seen.
I think the biggest concern about Hunter (after any potential tax evasion) is that he would trade on his famous father to make massive amounts of money from foreign investors in return for some kind of favors.
In other, completely unrelated news, Jared Kushner just got $2 billion in funding from Mohammed bin Salman (who ordered the murder of a Saudi journalist and suffered no ill effects from it) and the Saudis for his new private equity firm.
I mean, this is really the explanation – Republican offspring get jobs and trade on their parents’ names all day long, so they accuse Hunter Biden of doing something shady using his father’s name. That’s the beginning and the end of the Hunter Biden “scandal”.
Rudolph Giuliani was the cybersecurity advisor in the Trump administration and Trump hires only - and yes, only - the best and most competent people for each and every duty.
I think that you can rest assured that an encrypted ZIP would hold no defense against their powers of discernment.
I had to look this up to confirm - yep, it’s true. “But, Hunter Biden’s laptop!..” The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
A bit of a hijack here, but . . .
I think it’s being discussed more in some other thread around here, but – real briefly: The deal looks throughly corrupt. Bin Salman’s own investment advisers recommended strongly against it, for a bunch of reasons, all along the lines of what a sleazy deal it seemed to be. See:
Because someone whose staff had no compunction about killing and dismembering a critic has such a high reputation to protect, of course.
Well, maybe, but mainly because it looked like such a bad investment if they were actually hoping to make any money from it.
Is Hunter still, legally, a private citizen, or has the constant bullshit by the RW media rendered him public somehow? AIUI, he ability to sue for defamation depends upon him being a private citizen.
He’s both a private citizen and a public figure. Public figures can still sue for defamation, but the standard (“actual malice”) is much higher.
I feel that in the era of people like MTG spewing their nonsense on every possible medium, proving they’re acting maliciously should be much easier than ever before.
The problem with proving actual malice is that you have to show what the offender knew and didn’t know. Short of a confession, that is sometimes impossible.
I wonder, is it a defense in such a lawsuit if you say, “I was told what I said wasn’t true, but I didn’t believe it?”
For values of someone that include the so-called mainstream media (not Fox).
Depends on circumstances, particularly on who’s doing the telling. Could be considered reckless disregard, in which case, it would only go to prove actual malice. In other cases, it might not be.
Well, that’s kind of my point.
Back in the day, publishing was a much slower process, and determining the truth or falsehood of any particular statement was also much harder. A one-time printing of a falsehood could be reasonably explained by, “At the time, I thought it was true.”
But now we have patterns of repeatedly publishing the same lies, over and over again, long after they have been proven to be lies. And often proven to be lies by just the slightest amount of effort with regards to fact-checking.
At some point, it has to be reasonable to conclude that the liar knows they are lying, even absent a confession.
Hell, we use the standard, “ought reasonably to know” for other issues, like sexual harassment. Would we let a guy off because he claimed he “really believed” that the waitress wanted him to slap her on the ass? So why let these people get away with lies, that any reasonable person should know are lies, just because they claim to actually be stupid enough to believe the lies, even after being repeatedly told that they are lying?
At some point, some judge needs to step up and finally call bullshit on this.
The standard for actual malice specifically goes beyond what a reasonable person might believe. It’s written that way on purpose.
In short, if you’re famous, you should expect people to say pretty much whatever they want about you. Doubly so if you’re a politician.
Hunter Biden isn’t a politician. What is he famous for? Seems to me he’s famous for being attacked by people who are defaming him . Do you become a public figure just by being attacked by your dad’s political enemies, so then there is a higher standard to prove they’ve defamed him?
Yup. At least, you can.
Should Hunter file a defamation claim, the court would determine whether he is or is not a public figure. They will almost certainly decide that he is.