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I would withhold any opinion that it is a "garbage story" until actually reading it...

by 1980phipsi 6y ago

dylan604 6y ago
I read that "garbage story" was meant as the decision of the editors who would have just finished reading the story to decide if the story was worthy to run and not the poster's personal labeling of the story.
ivalm 6y ago
It is about emails which have no headers, that are impossible to verify, that were “known to fbi” for a long time but didn’t produce any action (because likely fake), and that are specifically being pushed to change outcome of election despite, again, no real evidence of their veracity.
- starkd 6y ago
  Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. That's the way the first amendment works. There are reasons to not think its purely garbage storage, as many have pointed out. Not to mention a business partner, and someone who was sentenced to jail who has released their gmail account to the public.
  - thrill 6y ago
    The first amendment has nothing to do with activities outside Congress making laws.
    - watermelonhead 6y ago
      Lol, hiding under this rubbish argument to censor everything that you dont like. Incredible
    - starkd 6y ago
      huh? it's an inalienable right of us all. It either applies to all of us or it is meaningless.
      - throwaway2048 6y ago
        So if the intercept refuses to publish my story, they are infringing upon my first amendment rights?
      - ghaff 6y ago
        You might want to actually read the first amendment: Congress shall make no law [emphasis added] respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (In various ways that aren't very relevant to the current discussion, this generally applies to states as well.)
    - xref 6y ago
      You’ve gotten some downvotes so figure I’d paste the actual text of the first amendment here so people know exactly what you’re referring to: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. We learned this doesn't work all that well with the Comey letter eleven days before the 2016 election. "We've reopened the Hillary investigation" turned into "oops, nothing new" a few days after the election. "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
    - starkd 6y ago
      Biden could have addressed this story months ago. He knew about it. You'd think the democrats would have learned not to nominate a second clinton who refuses questions. They still think its easy to stomp on a story than address it.
      - ivalm 6y ago
        What do you mean he knew about it months ago? The point is that this is all just a fabrication, there is no story to address.
        noxer 6y ago
        You really hope it is dont you? I would suggest you to go and read some "news pages" from the dark side, the ones you dont agree with. The evidences are overwhelming. You can literally find Biden Hunter porn by now on the web because some stuff has leaked. Ofc its all fabricated by the people who fabricated the laptop and phones and 3000 emails and instant messages and what not. Must be Russia or China behind it except none of them have any interest in harming the Biden campaign.
        noxer 6y ago
        I get flagged what a surprise. HN once again shows is bias. Anyway the evidences are out there. Everyone who wants to see them can. The rest should enjoy their bubble for now. Its gonna pop sooner or later.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        > Biden could have addressed this story months ago. If the story is true. If it's a fabrication - as they allege, and given that Fox News passed on it (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/fox-news-hunter-biden-emails-story-new-york-post-giuliani-b1161800.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...) and the Post's reporter didn't want his byline on it (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-p...), seems reasonably likely - they didn't hear about it until last week.
  - tzs 6y ago
    > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. It's a non-tabloid newspaper. What I want and expect from such a publication is to only see stories for which the basic underlying facts have already been verified. There might still be disagreements over the implications of those facts and how to act on them, which I want and expect to see covered.
- pwned1 6y ago
  One could simply ask the people in the email if they are real. "Impossible to verify" is just lazy excuse-making. This is basic journalism.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    That's not how basic fact checking works. You don't just single source a story on the basis of that sources "trust me."
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      That's literally been the last 4 years of journalism surrounding this administration. Not only that, but the sources almost never are actually named.
      - rat87 6y ago
        It hasn't but people like to pretend it has Good journalists tend to not rely on on one anonymous source, they check with other sources and available evidence. The thing is this white house is extremely dishonest and corrupt and leaks like a seive hence a lot of anonymous sources
  - ivalm 6y ago
    So there is one shady person who says he is real but who can’t prove anything and other people in the emails deny them. Of course if the emails are fake then the forgers would include a confederate as one of the people in the chain.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      Is the shady person you’re referring to Tony Bobulinski? If so, he is the documented primary business partner in the suspected deals who has provided verified emails, he’s a US citizen with a history of military service who put his real name on the line. It doesn’t get less shady than that. Unless you’re referring to someone else.
- meowface 6y ago
  They should be treated with caution and skepticism, but you seem to be using motivated reasoning without an impartial look of the actual probabilities. There's no hard proof they're real and no hard proof they're doctored. This requires a rigorous analysis, not dismissal.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    “Facts” conveniently dropped right before election whose veracity cannot be proven and which were clearly placed to affect the election outcome should be treated as fake and not promulgated in public discourse. Otherwise it encourages release of outrageous lies right before election and degrades the whole process.
    - meowface 6y ago
      Will you change your stance on this, in a general sense, if it's all later confirmed to be real? And isn't it true that someone wishing to affect an election, and in possession of real information, would take the exact same action? You can't judge truth solely based on motive. That motive and action is consistent with the carefully timed release of either fake or real information. The same was probably true of the person who leaked Trump's tax returns before the election. Of course they were initially treated with caution, but the media worked to confirm their veracity. Here they won't even ask the question. I don't think the emails contain anything very damaging to Biden, as far as I can tell. I think the cover-up, lack of care about truth, and blind zealotry is way worse than anything in the emails. I do happen to think the emails are > 50% likely real, but the absolute refusal to consider them impartially is the actual problem, not the emails. It just shows neither pro-Trump nor anti-Trump give a single shit about truth. They just care about winning. Ideology trumps epistemology.
      - ivalm 6y ago
        I want to discourage anyone trying to “time dropping facts”, real or not. If you have real evidence then publish it when you get it. I disliked the NYT Trump taxes expose timing as well, although at least they put a bigger lead time to election. The problem with these timed attacks is that they fundamentally encourage lying to affect elections.
- Ancapistani 6y ago
  While I haven't seen Greenwald's piece, there is a lot more to the "Hunter Biden leaks" than some screenshots of emails allegedly recovered from a laptop.
- naiveprogrammer 6y ago
  You are nto following the story, cleary. Not only some texts have been verified, they have a former business partner going on record, verifying the messages along the way. What else do you want? People involved in the threads are claiming the messages to be true. What else do you want? And, by the way, I could care less for the video and photographic content of that laptop, to me that content is irrelevant --actually, I feel sorry for Joe Biden and I can't imagine how hard it must be to have a son who is a drug addict and a man child. But shouldn't that also corroborate the validity of the laptop content? Why isn't the media all over it? And, please, let's not pretend that several Trump stories came from anonymous sources with no audio or text evidence. And the mainstream media danced all over it. For instance, the (supposedly) anonymous senior administration who was part of the resistance. Not only did the NYT run stories on his unverified accounts (no audio/text/video to back it up), they also wrote a book with his accounts. And we just learned that this senior admin wasn't senior after all. How can you really read thsoe stories and not come way perplexed by the blatant bias? I understand why people hate Trump, but is it worth to abandon journalism standards? Where do we go from here?
- nightowl_games 6y ago
  We need to have faith in the general public that if this story comes out, along with the set of doubts that you just mentioned, that the public will be able to interpret it accurately. Keep in mind that _you_ are a member of the public. Your statement is counter to fundamental thesis of democracy. We must believe in the intelligence of the public to make an educated decision. Your statement is also counter to the fundamental thesis of capitalism. We must believe in the intelligence of the consumer to make an educated decision. If you don't believe in the sanctity of the public to make educated decisions, than what do you suggest we do to restore the fallen pillars of our society? You no longer believe in the capability of the public to perform capitalism and democracy. Rather, you believe that some subset of society should wield the power to influence the lower masses. Like rats in a maze. Now, that I have characterized this harsh dichotomy for you, you must face the question are you a rat in a cage or are you one of the puppet masters?
- TearsInTheRain 6y ago
  The emails have literally been verified by people on the emails and further their authenticity has never been denied by the Biden campaign. To claim that they are fake or disinformation at this point is either an act of extreme ignorance or duplicitous intent.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wistar 6y ago
    No denial other than Joe Biden saying, "I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life," during the 3rd Presidential debate. It's not Biden's to deny, it's Giuliani's to prove.
    - ganoushoreilly 6y ago
      To be fair, the implication in the emails isn't that he took money directly, but that his son held it for him. So the answer given above doesn't actually answer the question on enrichment of office. It's not only Biden's to deny, it's His brothers, His Sons, and the others named. Further, if the information wasn't true or not believe to be true, why is it being blacklisted / treated as it's true? Why was distribution banned? That's the questions being asked that are being shut down.
      - Wistar 6y ago
        Generally, unverifiable information is not given much airplay. Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this one. Making an outrageous accusation and then demanding that the accused defend themselves against it is an old Glenn Beck technique. Sort of like the question, "Are you still beating your wife?"
        blhack 6y ago
        >Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this one. Fox New's most popular show, and as far as I know the most popular cable news show there is, dedicated their entire hour to an interview with one of the people involved in this story, and has been covering the story extensively for the last week. What you are saying here is absolutely wrong. And I mean, just a quick google search also shows that WSJ was writing stories about this a couple of weeks ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hunter-biden-business-11602803121 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hunter-biden-business-11602...
- benmmurphy 6y ago
  I would say the most likely reason the FBI did nothing because there was no crime. What Hunter/Joe Biden are accused of doing is a very popular scam among politicians in most countries and unless you are dumb enough to explicitly put in writing a bribery scheme then there is very little legal risk. The scam comes about because it is fundamentally unfair to limit the employment opportunities of a politician’s family or the politician themselves after they leave office. So what happen is that companies will put a politician’s family members into positions of employment where there is a large gap between the value they produce in that position and what their reenumeration is. Alternatively, after the politician leaves office they will be parachuted into one of these scam jobs. In return for organising these scam positions the company gets some alternative value from the politician. There can be a whole range of value from impressing (helping to scam) third parties to actually getting favourable government action or policy changes. I feel like this is a very common arrangement for politicians and this is part of the reason there is a lot of pressure by the media to not cover this.
- hailwren 6y ago
  This argument is specifically, and repeatedly, addressed by Greenwald in his article. [1] > The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake. 1 - https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
- Karunamon 6y ago
  At this point I'm forced to conclude that there is more evidence pointing towards the authenticity of this information than pointing away from it. Consider: - The FBI came out and said there's no evidence of foreign disinformation. - As has the DOJ. - As has the director of national intelligence. - Hunter's lawyer contacting the shop owner to ask for the return of the hardware - The FBI's grand jury subpoena for the laptop - The Biden campaign's weak (those meetings weren't in our schedule), later walked back to non (they might have happened anyways), repudiation of authenticity - Travel mentioned in the emails matches up with Secret Service travel records - The absurd volume of pictures of Hunter Biden in compromising positions The argument against authenticity, at this point, falls deeper and deeper into conspiracy theorist territory. At the very least, it fails Occam's razor. The best argument I know of against authenticity is the lack of release of any raw messages with headers, but even that is pretty low-impact in the face of FBI/DOJ/DNI confirmation. I've collected what I found so far here, both arguments for and against, with sources where possible: https://www.kialo.com/are-the-hunter-biden-emails-as-released-by-the-new-york-post-authentic-41503?path=41503.0~41503.3 https://www.kialo.com/are-the-hunter-biden-emails-as-release... If the raw messages are later released in whole, and the DKIM is validated, that's the smoking gun. A number of media organizations are then going to have some very uncomfortable questions to answer. The same later applies to some of our three-letter agencies if they turn out to be bogus. That would mean our investigative and intelligence agencies are both tainted.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    As of this morning, a third party has verified the DKIM headers on at least one of the messages. https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/29/cybersecurity-expert-authenticates-hunter-biden-burisma-email/ https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/29/cybersecurity-expert-auth...
starkd 6y ago
You can't do that if its censored.
- skybrian 6y ago
  You also can't say for sure whether it's true or not if it's not censored. At best you can judge plausibility, but plausibility isn't truth. Most evidence can be faked. The chain of custody for evidence is important, and that's not a property of the evidence, but of its history. There's no substitute for trust in the person or organization reporting the news.
  - starkd 6y ago
    They can be cross referenced with the information that's in the emails. Many have already done this. A business partner, Bobulinski, and a gmail account of one of his partners serving in prison. This is a moving story. The non-interest in even trying to verify it, as pointed out by Greenwald, is very concerning.
- anoonmoose 6y ago
  It hasn't been, though. Private citizens of a private company opted not to publish it in their paper, and that's not the same thing.
  - dx87 6y ago
    And he says that they're threatening litigation if he publishes it anywhere else because it could make them look bad.
    - anoonmoose 6y ago
      Where did he say that? Towards the top of the linked substack, he says: "The censored article will be published on this page shortly." Edit: I dunno if I agree that this counts. "But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not only accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, but also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic outlet, and are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so (proclaiming it would be “detrimental” to The Intercept if I published it elsewhere)."
nojito 6y ago
If the entire editorial team and his peers rejected it, it seems pretty clear.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  I will reserve judgement until reading the article. Greenwald has certainly had his share of garbage takes, but also can have a quite refreshingly honest perspective.
- tomp 6y ago
  Vs someone with the history of journalistic integrity and clout as Greenwald, there's no doubt in my mind whom I'd trust more on their opinion (btw: it's not the New York editorial elite).
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Yep. Just like the entire team of conference organizers decided that there was a code of conduct violation. No doubt about it. He's guilty. I don't need to evaluate any evidence to know that. It's obvious.
- ping_pong 6y ago
  There was an almost mutiny from the NYT when they published Tom Cotton's article in their op-ed, which forced the editor to resign. They couldn't bear hearing from the other side, and this is just another example of the same mentality. This is exactly what Greenwald and Tabbiti have been reporting about, the fascist left censoring or wanting to censor the news to only those opinions that they want to hear. EDIT: For the record, I'm "center-left". When I say fascist left, I mean the extreme left who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy. Unfortunately this belief is spreading more and more amongst the left, but I still believe there are a lot of moderate, even-headed left but the conversation is being dominated by the fascist left.
  - ghayes 6y ago
    The use of terms like "the fascist left" makes it harder to appreciate the merits of statements like this. Also, the phrase is a bit oxymoronic as fascism is, specifically, a conservative ideology.
throwaway2048 6y ago
The poster makes no claims that the story is garbage, only that the editor though so.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Now that his actual article has been published it is super clear Greenwald’s story is pretty garbage. He has no evidence of anything and even states so plainly. It is purely conjecture that Hunter Biden’s big mouth statements might be connected to impropriety, with utterly no proof. Then it turns into a comically bad diatribe about bias in the press. Greenwald over the past 4 years has become an insufferable troll. This article adds nothing new in any way, and given the wildly unjustified harm it could do to an impending election, it is beyond doubt that the Intercept editorial decision not to run this was the right decision.

I would withhold any opinion that it is a "garbage story" until actually reading it...

I read that "garbage story" was meant as the decision of the editors who would have just finished reading the story to decide if the story was worthy to run and not the poster's personal labeling of the story.

ivalm 6y ago

It is about emails which have no headers, that are impossible to verify, that were “known to fbi” for a long time but didn’t produce any action (because likely fake), and that are specifically being pushed to change outcome of election despite, again, no real evidence of their veracity.

starkd 6y ago
Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. That's the way the first amendment works. There are reasons to not think its purely garbage storage, as many have pointed out. Not to mention a business partner, and someone who was sentenced to jail who has released their gmail account to the public.
- thrill 6y ago
  The first amendment has nothing to do with activities outside Congress making laws.
  - watermelonhead 6y ago
    Lol, hiding under this rubbish argument to censor everything that you dont like. Incredible
  - starkd 6y ago
    huh? it's an inalienable right of us all. It either applies to all of us or it is meaningless.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      So if the intercept refuses to publish my story, they are infringing upon my first amendment rights?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      You might want to actually read the first amendment: Congress shall make no law [emphasis added] respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (In various ways that aren't very relevant to the current discussion, this generally applies to states as well.)
  - xref 6y ago
    You’ve gotten some downvotes so figure I’d paste the actual text of the first amendment here so people know exactly what you’re referring to: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. We learned this doesn't work all that well with the Comey letter eleven days before the 2016 election. "We've reopened the Hillary investigation" turned into "oops, nothing new" a few days after the election. "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
  - starkd 6y ago
    Biden could have addressed this story months ago. He knew about it. You'd think the democrats would have learned not to nominate a second clinton who refuses questions. They still think its easy to stomp on a story than address it.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      What do you mean he knew about it months ago? The point is that this is all just a fabrication, there is no story to address.
      - noxer 6y ago
        You really hope it is dont you? I would suggest you to go and read some "news pages" from the dark side, the ones you dont agree with. The evidences are overwhelming. You can literally find Biden Hunter porn by now on the web because some stuff has leaked. Ofc its all fabricated by the people who fabricated the laptop and phones and 3000 emails and instant messages and what not. Must be Russia or China behind it except none of them have any interest in harming the Biden campaign.
      - noxer 6y ago
        I get flagged what a surprise. HN once again shows is bias. Anyway the evidences are out there. Everyone who wants to see them can. The rest should enjoy their bubble for now. Its gonna pop sooner or later.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > Biden could have addressed this story months ago. If the story is true. If it's a fabrication - as they allege, and given that Fox News passed on it (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/fox-news-hunter-biden-emails-story-new-york-post-giuliani-b1161800.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...) and the Post's reporter didn't want his byline on it (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-p...), seems reasonably likely - they didn't hear about it until last week.
- tzs 6y ago
  > Those issues could be addressed in the article. In open debate. It's a non-tabloid newspaper. What I want and expect from such a publication is to only see stories for which the basic underlying facts have already been verified. There might still be disagreements over the implications of those facts and how to act on them, which I want and expect to see covered.
pwned1 6y ago
One could simply ask the people in the email if they are real. "Impossible to verify" is just lazy excuse-making. This is basic journalism.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  That's not how basic fact checking works. You don't just single source a story on the basis of that sources "trust me."
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    That's literally been the last 4 years of journalism surrounding this administration. Not only that, but the sources almost never are actually named.
    - rat87 6y ago
      It hasn't but people like to pretend it has Good journalists tend to not rely on on one anonymous source, they check with other sources and available evidence. The thing is this white house is extremely dishonest and corrupt and leaks like a seive hence a lot of anonymous sources
- ivalm 6y ago
  So there is one shady person who says he is real but who can’t prove anything and other people in the emails deny them. Of course if the emails are fake then the forgers would include a confederate as one of the people in the chain.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Is the shady person you’re referring to Tony Bobulinski? If so, he is the documented primary business partner in the suspected deals who has provided verified emails, he’s a US citizen with a history of military service who put his real name on the line. It doesn’t get less shady than that. Unless you’re referring to someone else.
meowface 6y ago
They should be treated with caution and skepticism, but you seem to be using motivated reasoning without an impartial look of the actual probabilities. There's no hard proof they're real and no hard proof they're doctored. This requires a rigorous analysis, not dismissal.
- ivalm 6y ago
  “Facts” conveniently dropped right before election whose veracity cannot be proven and which were clearly placed to affect the election outcome should be treated as fake and not promulgated in public discourse. Otherwise it encourages release of outrageous lies right before election and degrades the whole process.
  - meowface 6y ago
    Will you change your stance on this, in a general sense, if it's all later confirmed to be real? And isn't it true that someone wishing to affect an election, and in possession of real information, would take the exact same action? You can't judge truth solely based on motive. That motive and action is consistent with the carefully timed release of either fake or real information. The same was probably true of the person who leaked Trump's tax returns before the election. Of course they were initially treated with caution, but the media worked to confirm their veracity. Here they won't even ask the question. I don't think the emails contain anything very damaging to Biden, as far as I can tell. I think the cover-up, lack of care about truth, and blind zealotry is way worse than anything in the emails. I do happen to think the emails are > 50% likely real, but the absolute refusal to consider them impartially is the actual problem, not the emails. It just shows neither pro-Trump nor anti-Trump give a single shit about truth. They just care about winning. Ideology trumps epistemology.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      I want to discourage anyone trying to “time dropping facts”, real or not. If you have real evidence then publish it when you get it. I disliked the NYT Trump taxes expose timing as well, although at least they put a bigger lead time to election. The problem with these timed attacks is that they fundamentally encourage lying to affect elections.
Ancapistani 6y ago
While I haven't seen Greenwald's piece, there is a lot more to the "Hunter Biden leaks" than some screenshots of emails allegedly recovered from a laptop.
naiveprogrammer 6y ago
You are nto following the story, cleary. Not only some texts have been verified, they have a former business partner going on record, verifying the messages along the way. What else do you want? People involved in the threads are claiming the messages to be true. What else do you want? And, by the way, I could care less for the video and photographic content of that laptop, to me that content is irrelevant --actually, I feel sorry for Joe Biden and I can't imagine how hard it must be to have a son who is a drug addict and a man child. But shouldn't that also corroborate the validity of the laptop content? Why isn't the media all over it? And, please, let's not pretend that several Trump stories came from anonymous sources with no audio or text evidence. And the mainstream media danced all over it. For instance, the (supposedly) anonymous senior administration who was part of the resistance. Not only did the NYT run stories on his unverified accounts (no audio/text/video to back it up), they also wrote a book with his accounts. And we just learned that this senior admin wasn't senior after all. How can you really read thsoe stories and not come way perplexed by the blatant bias? I understand why people hate Trump, but is it worth to abandon journalism standards? Where do we go from here?
nightowl_games 6y ago
We need to have faith in the general public that if this story comes out, along with the set of doubts that you just mentioned, that the public will be able to interpret it accurately. Keep in mind that _you_ are a member of the public. Your statement is counter to fundamental thesis of democracy. We must believe in the intelligence of the public to make an educated decision. Your statement is also counter to the fundamental thesis of capitalism. We must believe in the intelligence of the consumer to make an educated decision. If you don't believe in the sanctity of the public to make educated decisions, than what do you suggest we do to restore the fallen pillars of our society? You no longer believe in the capability of the public to perform capitalism and democracy. Rather, you believe that some subset of society should wield the power to influence the lower masses. Like rats in a maze. Now, that I have characterized this harsh dichotomy for you, you must face the question are you a rat in a cage or are you one of the puppet masters?
TearsInTheRain 6y ago
The emails have literally been verified by people on the emails and further their authenticity has never been denied by the Biden campaign. To claim that they are fake or disinformation at this point is either an act of extreme ignorance or duplicitous intent.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Wistar 6y ago
  No denial other than Joe Biden saying, "I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life," during the 3rd Presidential debate. It's not Biden's to deny, it's Giuliani's to prove.
  - ganoushoreilly 6y ago
    To be fair, the implication in the emails isn't that he took money directly, but that his son held it for him. So the answer given above doesn't actually answer the question on enrichment of office. It's not only Biden's to deny, it's His brothers, His Sons, and the others named. Further, if the information wasn't true or not believe to be true, why is it being blacklisted / treated as it's true? Why was distribution banned? That's the questions being asked that are being shut down.
    - Wistar 6y ago
      Generally, unverifiable information is not given much airplay. Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this one. Making an outrageous accusation and then demanding that the accused defend themselves against it is an old Glenn Beck technique. Sort of like the question, "Are you still beating your wife?"
      - blhack 6y ago
        >Not even Fox News or the WSJ would touch this one. Fox New's most popular show, and as far as I know the most popular cable news show there is, dedicated their entire hour to an interview with one of the people involved in this story, and has been covering the story extensively for the last week. What you are saying here is absolutely wrong. And I mean, just a quick google search also shows that WSJ was writing stories about this a couple of weeks ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hunter-biden-business-11602803121 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hunter-biden-business-11602...
benmmurphy 6y ago
I would say the most likely reason the FBI did nothing because there was no crime. What Hunter/Joe Biden are accused of doing is a very popular scam among politicians in most countries and unless you are dumb enough to explicitly put in writing a bribery scheme then there is very little legal risk. The scam comes about because it is fundamentally unfair to limit the employment opportunities of a politician’s family or the politician themselves after they leave office. So what happen is that companies will put a politician’s family members into positions of employment where there is a large gap between the value they produce in that position and what their reenumeration is. Alternatively, after the politician leaves office they will be parachuted into one of these scam jobs. In return for organising these scam positions the company gets some alternative value from the politician. There can be a whole range of value from impressing (helping to scam) third parties to actually getting favourable government action or policy changes. I feel like this is a very common arrangement for politicians and this is part of the reason there is a lot of pressure by the media to not cover this.
hailwren 6y ago
This argument is specifically, and repeatedly, addressed by Greenwald in his article. [1] > The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake. 1 - https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
Karunamon 6y ago
At this point I'm forced to conclude that there is more evidence pointing towards the authenticity of this information than pointing away from it. Consider: - The FBI came out and said there's no evidence of foreign disinformation. - As has the DOJ. - As has the director of national intelligence. - Hunter's lawyer contacting the shop owner to ask for the return of the hardware - The FBI's grand jury subpoena for the laptop - The Biden campaign's weak (those meetings weren't in our schedule), later walked back to non (they might have happened anyways), repudiation of authenticity - Travel mentioned in the emails matches up with Secret Service travel records - The absurd volume of pictures of Hunter Biden in compromising positions The argument against authenticity, at this point, falls deeper and deeper into conspiracy theorist territory. At the very least, it fails Occam's razor. The best argument I know of against authenticity is the lack of release of any raw messages with headers, but even that is pretty low-impact in the face of FBI/DOJ/DNI confirmation. I've collected what I found so far here, both arguments for and against, with sources where possible: https://www.kialo.com/are-the-hunter-biden-emails-as-released-by-the-new-york-post-authentic-41503?path=41503.0~41503.3 https://www.kialo.com/are-the-hunter-biden-emails-as-release... If the raw messages are later released in whole, and the DKIM is validated, that's the smoking gun. A number of media organizations are then going to have some very uncomfortable questions to answer. The same later applies to some of our three-letter agencies if they turn out to be bogus. That would mean our investigative and intelligence agencies are both tainted.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  As of this morning, a third party has verified the DKIM headers on at least one of the messages. https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/29/cybersecurity-expert-authenticates-hunter-biden-burisma-email/ https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/29/cybersecurity-expert-auth...

starkd 6y ago

You can't do that if its censored.

skybrian 6y ago
You also can't say for sure whether it's true or not if it's not censored. At best you can judge plausibility, but plausibility isn't truth. Most evidence can be faked. The chain of custody for evidence is important, and that's not a property of the evidence, but of its history. There's no substitute for trust in the person or organization reporting the news.
- starkd 6y ago
  They can be cross referenced with the information that's in the emails. Many have already done this. A business partner, Bobulinski, and a gmail account of one of his partners serving in prison. This is a moving story. The non-interest in even trying to verify it, as pointed out by Greenwald, is very concerning.
anoonmoose 6y ago
It hasn't been, though. Private citizens of a private company opted not to publish it in their paper, and that's not the same thing.
- dx87 6y ago
  And he says that they're threatening litigation if he publishes it anywhere else because it could make them look bad.
  - anoonmoose 6y ago
    Where did he say that? Towards the top of the linked substack, he says: "The censored article will be published on this page shortly." Edit: I dunno if I agree that this counts. "But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not only accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, but also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic outlet, and are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so (proclaiming it would be “detrimental” to The Intercept if I published it elsewhere)."

nojito 6y ago

If the entire editorial team and his peers rejected it, it seems pretty clear.

whimsicalism 6y ago
I will reserve judgement until reading the article. Greenwald has certainly had his share of garbage takes, but also can have a quite refreshingly honest perspective.
tomp 6y ago
Vs someone with the history of journalistic integrity and clout as Greenwald, there's no doubt in my mind whom I'd trust more on their opinion (btw: it's not the New York editorial elite).
jtbayly 6y ago
Yep. Just like the entire team of conference organizers decided that there was a code of conduct violation. No doubt about it. He's guilty. I don't need to evaluate any evidence to know that. It's obvious.
ping_pong 6y ago
There was an almost mutiny from the NYT when they published Tom Cotton's article in their op-ed, which forced the editor to resign. They couldn't bear hearing from the other side, and this is just another example of the same mentality. This is exactly what Greenwald and Tabbiti have been reporting about, the fascist left censoring or wanting to censor the news to only those opinions that they want to hear. EDIT: For the record, I'm "center-left". When I say fascist left, I mean the extreme left who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy. Unfortunately this belief is spreading more and more amongst the left, but I still believe there are a lot of moderate, even-headed left but the conversation is being dominated by the fascist left.
- ghayes 6y ago
  The use of terms like "the fascist left" makes it harder to appreciate the merits of statements like this. Also, the phrase is a bit oxymoronic as fascism is, specifically, a conservative ideology.

throwaway2048 6y ago

The poster makes no claims that the story is garbage, only that the editor though so.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

Now that his actual article has been published it is super clear Greenwald’s story is pretty garbage. He has no evidence of anything and even states so plainly. It is purely conjecture that Hunter Biden’s big mouth statements might be connected to impropriety, with utterly no proof. Then it turns into a comically bad diatribe about bias in the press. Greenwald over the past 4 years has become an insufferable troll. This article adds nothing new in any way, and given the wildly unjustified harm it could do to an impending election, it is beyond doubt that the Intercept editorial decision not to run this was the right decision.