4 ms·

Your extended analogy likewise doesn’t fit either. It would be more like if John Bolton sent an email that said, “we should get the big guy to wear a Hunter Bi

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

Your extended analogy likewise doesn’t fit either. It would be more like if John Bolton sent an email that said, “we should get the big guy to wear a Hunter Biden costume ha ha” and then everyone starts demanding, based on nothing but extrapolating from this email, that Trump in fact has to deny it all and some investigation should be launched. I think you’re wrong in your last sentence because there is nothing for Biden to deny or refute. The emails are real, probably sourced in a scammy way by Giuliani, but still real. They just do not contain any content that suggests or corroborates any wrongdoing or questionable behavior in any sense other than Hunter Biden has a big mouth and is a bit immature, that’s it. What aspect of it would you expect needs to be denied or investigated? No part proves or suggests Joe Biden had anything to do with it or had any meetings or any business dealings related to it. No part suggests or proves Hunter Biden leveraged any political promises or power of his father for any profit. I cannot see what aspect of it you believe is open to investigation. One person ran their mouth about their political figure father and .... nothing. That's all. We cannot pretend like that requires journalists to devote attention to it - in any other situation they utterly would not. That’s a nothing story 8 days a week. It’s only being inflamed this time because it is politicized to subvert an election.

jMyles 6y ago
> The emails are real, probably sourced in a scammy way by Giuliani, but still real. Agreed - and to be clear, I count Giuliani as the scum of the damn earth (and I say this as a New Yorker). But do you think that you can say, on one hand, that the emails are real, but that "The entire spectrum of details around the Biden emails has been roundly debunked"? > They just do not contain any content that suggests or corroborates any wrongdoing or questionable behavior in any sense other than Hunter Biden has a big mouth and is a bit immature, that’s it. It shows that convincingly, yes. But, we also know that he received a $600k salary as a result. Isn't it worth investigating why? What did he do to be worth this salary?
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  > “Isn't it worth investigating why? What did he do to be worth this salary?” No, it really, really isn’t. The FBI already did and found nothing worth prosecuting. There is no reason to even loosely speculate it has a connection to Joe Biden. It is a 100% non-story, period. Unless some vast new source of information was obtained, there is nothing in it. “This info contains no wrongdoing and no indication of Joe Biden being involved” is not at all valid pretext for “but shouldn’t it be investigated?” If that were true, all possible facts that are ever gathered showing no wrongdoing would be justification for constant investigation. Every time someone with noteworthy parents spouted off some immature nonsense, it would be the pretext for never ending persecution by investigation. This situation truly, truly is not noteworthy. Hunter Biden did some business deals and ran his mouth. In doing so, there is no evidence of anything questionable or illegal. Why would go around opening up big investigations into pieces of information that don’t prove, corroborate or even suggest wrongdoing?
  - jMyles 6y ago
    I simply do not trust the FBI. I do not think that the FBI, throughout its history, has earned our trust, and it has done many awful things to betray it. I see no evidence that this entity is materially different than it was when it attempted to gaslight Dr. King into suicide. I think that this does warrant an investigation. We have the son of a powerful career politician offering to sell access to his Dad's office. We have a foreign corporation cutting a generous check on that basis. We have emails outlining these details in an archive that has been verified in part by one of the people in the "To" field, who was indeed a business partner in an earlier venture. We have an official decision being made during this time, by Joe, which is favorable to the corporation in question. None of these facts are in dispute. It seems the only dispute is whether they warrant an investigation by someone with more integrity than the FBI (ideally, a lot more).
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      While I don’t agree with you, and I believe wide distrust of established justice offices like the FBI is conspiracy theory behavior inflamed by Trump, I at least grant you that if this is your position, I guess it makes sense to also believe all the disinformation around the Hunter Biden emails. I just feel so sad for the US that it is such a deep epistemological divide. Almost half the country appears to believe true knowledge no longer derives from fact or observation, but instead derives from speculative conspiracy theories that use lack of evidence to reinforce themselves to the point of being essentially unfalsifiable religious beliefs, like QAnon, Pizzagate, disbelief in basic institutions of justice, refusal to acknowledge or accept whole classes of humans, like trans people, through denial of rights and continued discrimination. Anyone seeing this and not realizing it is a full on existential threat against basic human rights and decency just isn’t paying attention.

jMyles 6y ago

> The emails are real, probably sourced in a scammy way by Giuliani, but still real. Agreed - and to be clear, I count Giuliani as the scum of the damn earth (and I say this as a New Yorker). But do you think that you can say, on one hand, that the emails are real, but that "The entire spectrum of details around the Biden emails has been roundly debunked"? > They just do not contain any content that suggests or corroborates any wrongdoing or questionable behavior in any sense other than Hunter Biden has a big mouth and is a bit immature, that’s it. It shows that convincingly, yes. But, we also know that he received a $600k salary as a result. Isn't it worth investigating why? What did he do to be worth this salary?

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
> “Isn't it worth investigating why? What did he do to be worth this salary?” No, it really, really isn’t. The FBI already did and found nothing worth prosecuting. There is no reason to even loosely speculate it has a connection to Joe Biden. It is a 100% non-story, period. Unless some vast new source of information was obtained, there is nothing in it. “This info contains no wrongdoing and no indication of Joe Biden being involved” is not at all valid pretext for “but shouldn’t it be investigated?” If that were true, all possible facts that are ever gathered showing no wrongdoing would be justification for constant investigation. Every time someone with noteworthy parents spouted off some immature nonsense, it would be the pretext for never ending persecution by investigation. This situation truly, truly is not noteworthy. Hunter Biden did some business deals and ran his mouth. In doing so, there is no evidence of anything questionable or illegal. Why would go around opening up big investigations into pieces of information that don’t prove, corroborate or even suggest wrongdoing?
- jMyles 6y ago
  I simply do not trust the FBI. I do not think that the FBI, throughout its history, has earned our trust, and it has done many awful things to betray it. I see no evidence that this entity is materially different than it was when it attempted to gaslight Dr. King into suicide. I think that this does warrant an investigation. We have the son of a powerful career politician offering to sell access to his Dad's office. We have a foreign corporation cutting a generous check on that basis. We have emails outlining these details in an archive that has been verified in part by one of the people in the "To" field, who was indeed a business partner in an earlier venture. We have an official decision being made during this time, by Joe, which is favorable to the corporation in question. None of these facts are in dispute. It seems the only dispute is whether they warrant an investigation by someone with more integrity than the FBI (ideally, a lot more).
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    While I don’t agree with you, and I believe wide distrust of established justice offices like the FBI is conspiracy theory behavior inflamed by Trump, I at least grant you that if this is your position, I guess it makes sense to also believe all the disinformation around the Hunter Biden emails. I just feel so sad for the US that it is such a deep epistemological divide. Almost half the country appears to believe true knowledge no longer derives from fact or observation, but instead derives from speculative conspiracy theories that use lack of evidence to reinforce themselves to the point of being essentially unfalsifiable religious beliefs, like QAnon, Pizzagate, disbelief in basic institutions of justice, refusal to acknowledge or accept whole classes of humans, like trans people, through denial of rights and continued discrimination. Anyone seeing this and not realizing it is a full on existential threat against basic human rights and decency just isn’t paying attention.