^ This is a key point to raise b/c that’s how Russia’s information warfare apparatus operates to discredit its enemies, foreign and domestic. Russia kills political opponents as a last resort; it adopts the Stasi approach of simply discrediting and jailing them, making them people that ordinary folk don’t want to listen to or hang around. Putin learned his trade from the Stasi, which honed its craft from the KGB (now FSB). East Germany was as effective as any of the former Eastern Bloc countries when it came to controlling and manipulating its subjects, and info warfare was how they did it.
Does he strike you as someone smart enough to be Russian spy?
After four years of the Trump circus, it’s boot lickers and useful idiots all the way down.
And that’s how misinformation basically ‘works’. The story is eventually discredit, but the volume of stories that are put out into the public sphere for millions of people to consume makes it such that people begin to distrust normal or conventional channels of information. This is why the assumption that the information will compete in the marketplace ideas and that the superior ideas and truth will ultimately prevail over the fringe elements is a miscalculation on our part, and a dangerous one.
What Russia’s intelligence services want (and to be fair, what China and Iran also want to some degree as well) is for Americans to lose faith in their system of governance. Russia wants this outright; China and Iran are probably somewhat hopeful that regime change might help their cause, which is why, unlike Russia, they’re not going to help Trump do his dirty work. Things could conceivably change if Biden gets elected and they’re disappointed that Biden isn’t all that helpful either.
“…No concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation.”
I’d agree with this to the extent that Russia is not the only party interested in using disinformation to its advantage. It’s not just Russian trolls that are distorting the truth; there’s a pretty impressive home-grown troll sphere here, too.
I’m leaning towards home-grown bullshit crap for this laptop story.
Mainly because of how stupidly it was done. I mean it’s completely inept. I would not be surprised if the creators of this bullshit recorded themselves concocting the plan in a meeting in Trump Tower.
Ever since the “climate gate” that wasn’t, it’s clear to me that the media trolling machine was in force years ago. It is now mostly the right wing media that is falling for it. It is not obligatory for that machine to be foreign.
Paraphrasing Dr. Strangelove (the movie, not the poster) “the technology required is easily within the means of even the smallest trolling power or group. It requires only the will to do so.”
Well they’re quite small, actually.
The laptop is a baby Mimic.
Don’t eat it or you’ll turn into a chest?
One (possibly dumb) question. Who keeps their emails on the hard drive of their laptop? Isn’t it stored on the email server?
And what about the business ethics of this “rando” computer repair shop? Do you want somebody digging around the content of your computer when you take it in for repair?
That’s a very good point. I wonder why it didn’t occur to anyone on Giuliani’s staff?
Local copies of emails are stored on the laptop so they can be accessed offline. Outlook stores them on *.ost files (as opposed to downloaded emails which are stored in *.pst files).
Didn’t fit the narrative.
Most mail clients store copies locally, unless you are using a web based mail program. Outlook, for example, stores your E-mails locally in .pst files.
So, the laptop is Russian disinformation. The Director of National Intelligence says it isn’t, so clearly he’s a Russian agent too.
But wait… The FBI and the DOJ both say it isn’t Russian disinformation. Who knew the FBI and DOJ were so filled with Russian agents?
Then there’s Hunter Biden’s ex partner, who says the E-mails are real and that ‘The Big Guy’ mentioned as getting 10% of shares in a Chinese company is Joe Biden, whose shares were to be held by Hunter so they couldn’t be traced to Joe.
Clearly, the partner is a Russian agent. One that has given a written statement to the FBI and is willing to testify under oath.
I had no idea the Straight Dope had become so filled with John Birch society members.
For the record, I thought the way the laptop was ‘found’ was sketchy as hell. That kind of scheme is a classic way to ‘launder’ evidence so that it can’t be traced.
But that doesn’t mean it’s fake. It could just as easily mean the laptop is real, but the means by which it was acquired was illegal. Someone steals laptop, pretends to be hunter and takes it to a repair shop, waits until the return time has expired then calls a Republican like Guliani and gives him the heads’s up.
How it was acquired is not really relevant if the material on it is true. And it appears to be true, as the Biden camp has actually not denied any of the specifics as far as I know, and multiple checks with recipients of emails have validated every time.
Ok so More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have said it is kremlin based, and the FBI - who works for trump- sez it isnt. Maybe it is GOP based fake shit.
In any case, it is fishy as all hell. from my cite above:The owner of the shop was later revealed to be John Paul MacIsaac of Wilmington. He is an avid Trump supporter and has been repeatedly changing his story about what exactly occurred. He initially said that he wasn’t able to identify who dropped off the laptop because he is “legally blind.” MacIsaac then said that the customer had identified himself as Hunter Biden. The shop does have two cameras, but MacIsaac claims that the footage from that day was automatically deleted before he realized how important it was. He’s given conflicting accounts of how he came into contact with the FBI and says he initially made a copy of the hard drive for personal protection, citing the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton’s associates had killed a DNC staffer for leaking information. MacIsaac has generally been cagey with the press about his dealings with Giuliani and what he found on the hard drive.
Even if the laptop is real, emails could be planted easily.
And it appears to be true, as the Biden camp has actually not denied any of the specifics as far as I know,
That is a old political trick, getting people to deny bogus stuff. Joe is too smart to fall for it.
There is a story in politics, commonly attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson, about how LBJ wanted to circulate a rumor attacking his opponent in a Texas election. Johnson, it’s said, wanted to spread the story that his opponent liked to have sex with barnyard animals. One of LBJ’s aides said, “We can’t prove he’s a pig f----r.”
“I know that,” replied Johnson. “I just want to hear him deny it.”
At least one part is specifically untrue. The Chinese deal (which you referred to in your previous post, and which had that random press conference yesterday) never happened. Here is a link discussing it: WSJ Newsroom Found No Joe Biden Role in Hunter Deals After Reviewing Bobulinski's Records
The whole “Big Guy” getting 10% thing never happened.
Secondly, you claim the Biden campaign hasn’t denied any specifics, but they have. They have denied that Joe Biden took any money from any foreign entity, either directly or through Hunter Biden (or any other family member). The quote containing the specific denial is in the same Newsweek story link to above.
There is a reason that only the Opinion page of the WSJ will report on this story. It’s sketchy as hell, and completely unverifiable.