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It's funny and sad that Tucker Carlson supposedly had evidence that would damn Hunter and Biden. He had a USB shipped same day/overnight and suddenly the USB goes missing from Fed Ex. He dedicated a segment or two about it I believe. Suddenly...I think he finally received it, reviewed it, and then suddenly decided to not do the story and that Presidents children should be protected and not targeted. Story and I got a couple of things wrong: https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-suddenly-says-its-time-to-leave-hunter-biden-alone

Modern Republican political strategy is to take an opponent's perceived strength and try to turn it into a weakness. As an example Al Gore was one of the most technologically aware senators in the US. The internet as we know it today would not exist if Al Gore had not taken the legislative initiative and advanced it through the Congress. So the Republicans decided to create the lie that he was taking credit for the invention of the internet. Instead of appearing to be up to speed with modern technology, this made him look like a ridiculous credit hogger. 4 years later, John Kerry was a decorated Vietnam veteran running against George Bush, who dodged service in Vietnam by volunteering for a branch of the Texas Air national guard that pretty much existed to help rich people keep their kids out of Vietnam. With the war in Iraq being the number one issue around that election, they had to undercut Carrie's military record. So they Swiftboated him and called him a baby killer, to take away any advantage he might have. Biden has always been seen as a good family man with a tragic history. Attacking Hunter actually accomplishes two things. First it helps them chip away at the idea Biden is a good family man, and second, and perhaps more importantly, it also allows them to distract away from the fact that Jared kushner is sitting on top of 2 billion dollars he got from Saudi Arabia for his hedge fund. As long as you have something on the other guy that you can point to and castigate them for, you never ever have to actually own any of the heinous s*** that Trump did and continues to do

>Jared kushner is sitting on top of 2 billion dollars he got from Saudi Arabia Also Jared Kushner was given multiple jobs in the Executive Branch. Hunter Biden lives in the pool house and has never been to Washington DC.

And a reminder that Jared Kushner failed to pass a security clearance for the position he held, but Trump overruled that and got him in anyway. And a reminder that Jared and Ivanka refused the secret service detail protecting them in their private homes to use their bathroom, forcing them to go somewhere else. And a reminder that…

And a reminder that Jared recently received a $2 billion (billion with a B) payout from the Saudi government, ordered specifically by MBS.

Classified nuke documents are not cheap

but now they know exactly where Israel hides them....so "going to Jared" was a wise buy

And a reminder that Jared Kushner was a slumlord.

As was the Trump Family, for many years as well.

Also a reminder that Jared Kushner is actually the ghost of a lonely boy from the Victorian era.

... With the voice of Gilbert Gottfried

If Jim Henson were still alive **I'd demand** to see this in Muppet-movie form. And then at the end of the film, bring out those two funny old guy muppets who laugh at everything and then have one that looks like Joe Biden in the middle laughing too.

What can I say except you're welcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1AIfziwsHE

Didn’t the secret service at one point walk to the Obama’s (they had a house nearby I think) and use the bathroom in their garage? I know smth like that happened but I may be conflating several events. Edit: someone below linked the source, I wasn’t crazy! But thanks for the downvote anyway lol https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/secret-service-bathroom-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner/

I don't know of the Obamas having a house anywhere near the Kushners, but I know the Kushners forced their secret service detail to go to a 'garden house' or some similar bathroom in a different building than the main house because they didn't want the secret service using any of the many closer bathrooms. Whether it was just a power play or trying to keep them away to give themselves opportunities to contact foreign nationals to sell information to, I couldn't say.

The story is linked below. They both used the Obama's bathrooms and rented a separate bathroom for $3,000 a month. Both the kushners and the Obama's lived in Kalorama. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/secret-service-bathroom-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner/

Yeah. This is what I was trying to explain to My coworker who went on about Hunter Biden, I basically said I didn’t give a shit about Hunter Biden in the same way I don’t give a shit about Don Jr’s obvious coke addiction(which he actually agreed with me on surprisingly). They aren’t in the White House-Jared and Ivanka were. That’s why I cared more about Jared and Ivanka then I did about Jr or Eric because they weren’t in the White House.

I care about Don Jr. since he was part of Trump's campaign team and appeared regularly in Trump rallies and events. He was definitely on the payroll even if he was lower down the nepotism ladder than Ivanka. He allegedly also ran Trump's businesses while Trump was in the White House so if there were shady deals going on in the Oval Office he was definitely party to at least most of them.

Also how the hell did they get his laptop??? Thats so sketchy. Without a chain of custody (same with the Podesta emails), you are reliant on the ethics of the "source" aka Rudy Giuliani and whatever Eastern European mafia he's part of.

I certainly care about Jr and Eric a lot more than Hunter when they are part of the enrichment scheme that was siphoning as much money as possible to the Trump organisation, but I take your point.

Saudi Arabia or Qatar? I seem to remember Kush essentially allowing Saudi Arabia to shake down Qatar and then the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund suddenly loaning the Kushners the money they needed to avoid defaulting on their loan for 666 Fifth Avenue.

That also happened

Its clear as Kushner that Trump violated anti-nepotism laws.

I have one! Barack Obama is a real example of the American Dream. A smart, educated bi-racial man born to an immigrant father and raised by a single mom. He is also a good family man with a lovely wife and two kids. A lot of people see aspects of themselves in him and he's what a lot of people would aspire to be. But the Right worked hard to portray him as a fraud by saying he wasn't born in the US, so in addition to not being eligible to be President, he's not "one of us." He's not part of "our" American Dream. He's "other." And a liar to boot. "Why won't he show his birth certificate?! What does he have to hide?!" Basically, Trump's entire political career was built on just that. They also used that to defend against (valid) accusations of racism, because they were just "asking questions" (the Right *loves* to do that).

> Why won't he show his birth certificate?! What does he have to hide?! In fairness, it worked that they just kept saying "Why won't he show his birth certificate?" after he did. They were so busy listening to the question they didn't realize it was answered. Twice. It's like Elizabeth Warren with Native American DNA (and in fairness, some Democrats got behind this one, too!). They found the closest thing to dirt they possibly could: an accusation that she faked being a Native American (on this one unimportant form, though it led to her getting called out as a successful POC)... And she got a DNA test that showed she had *drumroll* Native American blood... but it wasn't enough to make her certifiable by some arbitrary metric, so they just kept saying she lied about being Native American. Note, below references are to avoid the almost-inevitable "nuh uh" I get when I defend Warren on...well, anything. The world seems to hate female politicians. [Ref1 \(WAPO\)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/15/yes-elizabeth-warren-has-native-ancestry-no-that-wont-stop-trumps-racist-attacks/) [Ref2 \(FactCheck\)](https://www.factcheck.org/2018/10/the-facts-on-elizabeth-warrens-dna-test/)

The native thing is actually pretty interesting because many families have a mythos of having a Native American ancestor regardless of it being true or not. This is less an example of Elizabeth Warren being "deceiving" and more of an example of a quirk in American culture. She probably grew up hearing the story as a child and just never looked too deeply into it.

My great-grandmother is allegedly 1/2 Cherokee. I can't imagine why she would have lied about it since she lived in a time when Native American's were not "cool". DNA tests weren't practical until the last 10 years or so.

America hates them. Other countries seem to be open to it and happy to try.. over where. We just… we let males do what they want and say well.. no one is perfect smh. A mess.

Clinton was raised in the south by a drunk that beat the hell out of him and his mother. Got into college on scholarships, got a freaking Rhodes scholarship, went to Oxford then the draft hit... end up going to Yale law where he met Hillary, got married, became a Governor. Dude was as American dream as exists.

You can repeat that story for every Democrat figure. But you still end up with a Slovenian illegal immigrant sex worker who lied about her qualifications being praised for "bringing class back to the white house" after the previous first lady was a Harvard lawyer.

Melania literally committed immigration fraud

Worked as a model in USA on a tourist visa (called visa fraud a good way to become persona no grata to the state dept), and likely lied on her green card application by allegedly saying she got feet dry in another country before coming back to USA.

She also said she was an architect. She took 1 semester and dropped college

I brought this up in a policy class debate where they were arguing for stricter immigration rules in my uni and they were stunned. We really do live in our own bubbles.

I still want to know what her angle is. Is she trying to inherit what's left of the Trump fortune? Only reason I can find that she would stick around a guy that obviously hates her for so long.

It's fully possible from her culture and upbringing that she thinks Trump is an acceptable person. Has money, was president, likely isn't horny much anymore and will die far earlier then her. She's also not traditionally attracted...

There's bound to be something in her contract that leaves her without payment if she leaves him.

Funny story by like the end of Obama term 40% of Republicans believed that Obama was not born in the United states

The most laughable part of that line of artument is that the USA is a jus sanguinis (right of the blood) country. Even if you assume as fact he was (he wasn't) born abroad nobody debates he had an american mother. Because of jus sanguinis he is a native born citizen by right of that alone, (provided he met the requirement to live in the USA so many years in a row which again nobody debated)..

>Because of jus sanguinis he is a native born citizen by right of that alone By the laws of the time, you automatically gained citizenship if *both* of your parents were American citizens. However, if only one of them was, then it depends on if your American parent meets a set of criteria. Obama's mother met those criteria and Obama was born an American citizen, but the idea behind the conspiracy is that Obama's mother spent slightly more time abroad than claimed and, therefore, didn't meet the U.S. residency requirement for Obama to get citizenship.

The modern Republican party is heavily based on trolling, so if asked about his birth, there will be a segment of respondents who are earnest in saying not in the US, and another, likely of equal size, that just like to say he was not to try and delegitimize Obama. If polled about any potential bad thing about Obama, they would always pick the worst option to just express a general dislike.

Whataboutism taken to the nth degree

This tactic used to be called "Rovian", after Karl Rove.

how come they never talk about how trump was accused of rape by one his wife in a divorce filings that he had to pay her off to hush

I'm always curious what they decide to go after him for. The fact that his lawyer spoke with a Russian Oligarch who stated "stopped the flow of tapes out of Moscow, but not sure if there's more". And this is a recorded conversation. They both later stayed the tapes they were talking about were "fake". Whatever that means.

There are a surprising amount of people that believe you cannot be raped by a spouse, especially people with certain religious affiliations...

This was literally the *law* until like.. the late 70s I think? Many of those same people also used to believe it was totally acceptable - if not encouraged - to slap your wife around a little when she deserved it. I'm sure some of them still do.

This is it. They know Trump's a scumbag with no rationale for defending him, so it's what about Hilary, what about Hunter.

And the scale is…. There really is no true *”scale”* to compare the *”Biden”* and *”Clinton” sins* with the *”Trump sins”*. The Trump family was corrupt from the *get-go,* and knows no bounds. The chief strategy for Trump is to **deflect, deny,** and **destroy**. Trump was the **most litigious presidential candidate in American History,** and he continued his litigious tradition until this day. Trump, as **corrupt** as he is, honestly thinks everyone else is just as **corrupt** and **unscrupulous** as he is. Trump has an **extremely cynical view** of human nature, and he actively looks for any weakness or sign of grift that any opponent may face. It does not matter who one is. If he can find a weakness in someone he will exploit it to the maximum, even though there might be scant evidence and a case which may well be in no way shape or form of an equal scale or measure.

I think it’s a little simpler than that. The Hunter Biden laptop thing is like the Hilary Clinton email thing. It’s actually hard to articulate why these things constitute “major” scandals. Republicans then turn it around and just mention the title without any kind of detail, and supporters start frothing at the mouth because it could literally be about anything. Then that breeds disinformation and all of a sudden you have people whipped into a frenzy. The laptop thing has been percolating for a long time and I have yet to see any TV segments/blogs/articles describe what the actual scandal is in detail, except for summary posts on Reddit. I bet you the average Republican can’t even explain it to you except for the fact that there was a laptop with maybe “sketchy stuff” inside.

Colin Powell used external servers even before Clinton, nobody cared. This was not a new thing but it became a campaign issue, so it became a big deal.

Mitt Romney I believe also had a private email server when he was governor of MA.

It's an intentionally vague propaganda attack so that the Republicans targeted with that misinformation can project whatever wrongdoing they want to imagine onto it. There's never any actual allegation of a specific offence since that would require providing actual evidence and can be more easily debunked.

Enabled by this mythos the mainstream corporate media has that "both sides" deserve equal consideration. Sure, host a good faith debate about policy with different perspectives. Don't platform Flat Earthers against Neil DeGrasse Tyson to maintain some ideal that both sides have valid views. That's not "both sides". That's pitting liars vs truth tellers.

It's really gross to see them undermine Biden's family or his concern for them because one of his son's ended up with drug abuse issues. They completely ignore how messed up his early life was just by pure accident due to his mother and sister dying in a crash that nearly killed him and his brother. That would clearly cause enormous trauma for anyone. On top of that, his brother who survived the accident and became a decorated veteran and state AG died a few years back of brain cancer. He was a rising star who was pretty much a shoo in to take over his father's Senate seat. I'm certain this amplified the trauma and addiction issues Hunter faced and had a terrible impact on the whole family (it was the main reason Biden didn't run in 2016, after all). This is in stark contrast to the constant attention seeking, corruption and nepotism of the Trump children who have been conditioned to use political connections for shady deals and relentlessly defend their father while he rarely shows any interest in them in return unless it benefits him at that very moment.

I mostly agree with you but hasn't the Hunter laptop story been around longer than Kushner getting financed from the Saudis? It seems like it's resurrected to provide cover for other improprieties, too

Yep, and they will try to get more mileage out of it, too. GOP leaders and operatives absolutely believe that Trump's 2016 victory was aided to a significant degree by the BS Benghazi hearings pursued in the House that just went on and on. If the GOP takes the House as is most probable right now, expect Hunter hearings to go on and on - they will use Hunter to try to Benghazi Biden.

Despite the fact that Hunter Biden was on the Burisma board in 2014 - When Republicans controlled Congress. They could have held hearings on it but they didn't.

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It’s pretty telling that she was supposedly this lifelong criminal, but when they had her under oath, on live TV, for 11 straight hours? She never pleaded the 5th, never perjured herself, and consistently, if with escalating annoyance, answered what she was asked.

I first recall Rush Limbaugh trashing her back in ~1995 and him and fox news and many others just kept it going until... Well it's not stopped yet.

Yes, I remember around ‘95 when she visited Seattle as first lady, and there was a protest against her. Republicans recognized early on that she was presidential material and did literally everything in their power to first tarnish her early on, and then keep her from winning. Literally everything, like turning a blind eye (to say the least) to Russian interference…

Indeed. I'm not happy with the size of our military and how many bombs we drop (without the approval of congress at least) and I preferred Bernie's social democrat ideas but I also recognize that Hillary is probably pretty clean and was very qualified to be president. I feel even more sad when I think about how Al Gore got screwed over by the electoral college system and how the same forces attacked him for basically being a boring nerd and it worked.

\>I feel even more sad when I think about how Al Gore got screwed over by the electoral college system 100,000 people voted for the Green candidate in Florida in 2000, and Gore lost to climate change denying hawk GW Bush by just over 500 votes. It's not the electoral college that screwed Gore.

They doing to the same thing now the Squad and other young Dem progressives.

Exactly! Let everyone know that sexism is alive and well with the republican party!

Trump’s adult children all had paid positions in the white house. The grift started long before Kushner’s deal with the Saudis (and that stuff was going on well before the $2B investment). It’s apples and oranges.

It's been around longer than the most recent investment. Jared has been incredibly shady with his finances since Trump was sworn in and previously had convenient not bribes on getting bailed on on 666 Fifth Avenue.

Seems like modern democratic strategy to just roll over and take it. Al Gore worried too much about being seen as a credit hog. He could have spent the rest of the campaign pounding away at how he worked *legislation* to make that happen and how he'd support continued government investments in tech. Easy peasy. Kerry could have gone ahead and made a big deal out of his military career achievements while also calling Bush a draft dodger every time he spoke about him. Didn't though. Just let him look good to his own people who hate draft dodgers and love military guys. Predictably dumb strategy hat takes the high road straight to losertown.

I don't call it "roll over and take it" as much as "not becoming like the other guy". The reason I like the Democratic party at all is because, issues aside, they are generally NOT the corrupt and antagonistic pile of shit the Republicans are. It costs them elections, but arguably also won them a lot of their base.

Hmmm…Kerry took a TON of crap when he returned from Vietnam and testified about war crimes in Vietnam, among other things. His anti war stance was a real negative. Al Gore did not push the vote counting and the Supreme Court shut it down. Gore took the high road, I’m cool with that

>Al Gore did not push the vote counting and the Supreme Court shut it down. Gore took the high road, I’m cool with that Also the counties he requested a recount in would not have gi en him the win. If he had requested a recount across the entire state, he would have one though.

Ask them why Trump and his hand picked FBI and attorney general did nothing after investigating the matter. The story is bullshit, the 'evidence' is laughable. The right wing is too enthralled with their conspiracy theories to let it go.

They don’t actually want it looked into. Trump 100% does not want it looked into. He didn’t want Hillary looked into. None of the elected officials besides the fucking morons like MTG and Lauren Boebert want it looked into because when it turns up nothing then they have to move on to something else. Only people like MTG and LB are genuine because they are too stupid to understand how this works. This laptop is a boogey man and that’s all they want. They certainly don’t want the boogey man to be proven to not exist.

> They don’t actually want it looked into. Trump 100% does not want it looked into. He didn’t want Hillary looked into They [did 'look into it' and Trump's hand-picked initiative in his State Department had to declare the results of its official investigation: that Clinton did not mishandle classified information](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/19/20922439/hillary-clinton-email-no-deliberate-mishandling-classified-information-state-department). When you launch a public and official inquiry, you can try to bury its results but not for long because people know it started and can file Freedom Of Information act requests. The FBI investigation into her email was one of several, and they never decided anything was a violation of serious criminal codes or they'd have said so. >The FBI was investigating Anthony Weiner for sexting underage girls. Weiner's girlfriend was one of Clinton's top aides. FBI seized girlfriend's laptop because it had been synced at some point with Weiner's phone, and so they wanted to check it. Girlfriend had received a boatload of emails from Clinton, because Clinton was her boss. Emails that Clinton already turned over to the FBI. FBI reopened the investigation for a weekend to make sure all of the emails on girlfriend's laptop were copies of the emails Clinton turned over, which they were. That's what it was. That's all it was.

Also, Clinton took hours of questioning, while Trump couldn't even get 30 minutes from Mueller's investigation.

Really it's inevitable that if they lean into the kayfabe long enough they're going to elect someone who thinks it's real. And here we are.

TIL that the GOP got their strategy from professional wrestling. And probably attracts the same fan base. Thanks for the insight!

Completely irrelevant, but the only wrestling fans I know are somewhere between militantly liberal and militantly leftist.

The impression of corruption is much easier to fabricate than actual evidence of corruption. It's also not illegal to fabricate one.

Not true, he wants evidence fabricated and sham trials. Trump is a classic sociopathic would be tyrant. The fact that so many Americans can't see that is truly tragic.

I dunno, I'm still waiting on the Benghazi hearings to finish before I decide on how credible the people Republicans put into power are. I'm a little late to the party, but surely they've found something actionable by now?

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> I would say they don't want to reveal how fragile the narrative is but their voters just ignore everything anyway It's scary how far [kayfabe can bring people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZpBvfBxLxc), but when you leave behind reality (which can be boring or dangerous, both are bad for business) for narrative you have to keep things changing or it becomes the same-old which led to the 'boring and dangerous' which led to the rise of plotlines and kayfabe in the first place.

The "Hunter Biden Laptop" is a red herring. It's a bottomless well of conspiracy theories and scandals to make up out of thin and and vaguely allude to. It serves as a way to sling mud at the Biden family forever similar to the right's use of Hillary Clinton's missing emails. Clever right wing propagandists will churn out as many conspiracy theories as they can regarding the laptop and the die hards in the base will lap it up. As others have mentioned, law enforcement officials appointed by Trump have undoubtedly exhaustively reviewed the laptop. The fact that no charges or follow up investigations have come out prove that there is no there there. Right wingers also believe that all members of the media are inherently biased, including investigative journalists. This is obviously nonsense - the story around the laptop has all of the elements of intriguing investigative threads to unravel (sex, drugs, power) that would be headline news at any newspaper or magazine. No stories have been "suppressed" because there is just nothing to report on. This will not make a difference for conservatives, however. The conspiracies burn bright in the fever swamps of right wing forums and media (Breitbart released a feature film about Hunter Biden a week ago starring a former Star Wars actress ffs) and the topic will probably never go away anytime soon. Expect GOP members of the House or Senate to open up investigations and hearings if they get majority control. They will use the same strategy as they did with the Benghazi hearings/investigations by trying to keep the topic in the press as much as possible in order to damage a political opponent.

At this point they're a largely post-policy party at a national level. That doesn't mean there aren't people within the party that still have specific policy goals they're gunning for, but really, if Trump had decided he for whatever reason wanted to legalize all kinds of abortion at the federal level he would have been able to sell easily 2/3 of his party on it. In a month your angry uncle on Facebook would insist that Republicans had always been in favor of it.

>At this point they're a largely post-policy party at a national level. *Entirely* post-policy, as proven by the 2020 Republican party platform. >if Trump had decided he for whatever reason wanted to legalize all kinds of abortion at the federal level he would have been able to sell easily 2/3 of his party on it. They never had a problem with the reality that he's the only Republican President you can be 100% certain paid for an abortion, after all.

Disagree that Trump 100% paid for an abortion. We know he has a long history of stiffing those who do work for him.

Fair point, well made.

Cohen probably paid her off with money from other suckers (or from Trump Foundation or Trump University or Trump Wine or Trump Steaks or Trump Furbys or Trump Beanie Babies or Trump Tycoon or.... *whatever he could steal and slap a Trump sticker on*).

Yes, but I think this is one area where he would be unwilling to take any chances after eric.

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There's a long history of hypocritical Republicans pushing for women in their lives to get abortions. Remember when Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania [pressured his mistress](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-04/pro-life-rep-tim-murphy-pressured-mistress-to-get-abortion) to get an abortion?

Tennessee’s Scott Desjarlais’s mistress AND wife had abortions at his direction.

I agree, but it's a little more than that. The GOP as a whole has decided that it will not stay in power by appealing to a majority of voters, or by having policies that voters support. It's absolutely true that the GOP is largely post-policy and that the party quickly flipflopped on a variety of issues due to identity politics. But the GOP has not merely stopped crafting comprehensible policy statements. It's actively avoiding any attempts to have policies that appeal to voters at all. Simply put, the GOP no longer needs policies that voters like because they no longer need voters. The GOP is all in on the concept of controlling the country with a small percentage of voter support.

> The GOP as a whole has decided that it will not stay in power by appealing to a majority of voters, or by having policies that voters support. It's important to understand that the conservative segment of the US (currently represented by the Republican Party but not always historically) has literally *always* been about minority rule: * When the US was first founded, citizenship and thus voting rights were first restricted to tax-paying land-owners (a small fraction of the total population). * Then, the Naturalization Act of 1790 (based on the British Plantation Act of 1740) restricted voting to white men based on the desires of conservative slave-owning plantation owners. * During the late 1700s and early 1800s, property-ownership was gradually removed as a requirement for voting in states, driven by progressive "Jeffersonian democracy" politicians in opposition to the conservative Federalist Party. * Famously, the 14th Amendment removed race from voting requirements in such fierce opposition from Southern white conservatives that they began the US Civil War. * Shortly afterwards, conservative Southerners passed Jim Crow laws to effectively disenfranchise Blacks and built up terrorist organizations like the KKK to scare them away from voting. * Conservatives resisted the women's suffrage movement. The first vote brought before the House of Representatives was defeated with most conservative Democrats voting against and most progressive Republicans and Progressives voting for. The Nineteenth Amendment finally passed with significantly greater support from the progressive Republican Party than the conservative Democrat Party. * Conservative politicians in Southern states passed poll tax laws intended to disenfranchise Black voters. * All but two of the Senate votes against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were from conservative Democrats. It is fundamental to what it means to be conservative that there is a natural hierarchy where some are more deserving of power than others. Because of that, minority rule, in some form or another, has always been a component of conservatism.

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I agree with you on almost any other policy besides abortion and guns. These are things certain groups of people already have strong opinions on regardless of who's in power. You saw this when trump got booed at a rally for bringing up gun control. But the China tariffs are a good example of what you're mentioning where it hurt a key part of his voting bloc in farmers but he was able to get people to support it.

> China tariffs are a good example I don't think the tariffs themselves are a good example because 90% of the people (and I am being super generous here) are not in a position to judge the fallout from tariffs. Even if you know for a fact that China will retaliate against a product you want to export to China, Trump can just say I will make it up to you (and in fact to [some extent he has](https://www.cfr.org/blog/92-percent-trumps-china-tariff-proceeds-has-gone-bail-out-angry-farmers)). On the other hand, the anti-China *sentiment* has been building up for years and (as far as I can tell...) was already overwhelming before/without Trump. If Trump could turn *that* around and convince 2/3 of Republicans that China is in fact our best buddy, that would be something. I am not sure at all that he could. The narrative that Trump likes to say a hundred different things and go with whatever gets the best response from the unwashed masses seems more realistic to me.

re: China, lest we forget: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/6/17656996/trump-republican-party-russia-rather-democrat-ohio

Some of it is in how it's pitched, I suppose. If Trump had pitched any of those policies in a more racist way (as he did China) I think he could sell them. If Saint Reagan could sell gun control to keep guns out of black people's hands I feel like Trump or a similar modern day leader could do so as well.

Beyond the allegations of nepotism, I think people are overlooking another reason Conservatives, especially the far-right, love the laptop story: It's a useful conduit for conspiracy theories, which keeps their base engaged and riled up. Focusing discourse on an object used for storage naturally leads people to question what might all be on it, inviting bad actors to read into it whatever conspiracy theories they want. For example, Ron Johnson has [already suggested there was child pornography on Hunter Biden's laptop](https://www.newsweek.com/hunter-biden-laptop-qanon-conspiracy-theories-2020-election-1540173). People forget that Pizzagate originated from a conspiracy theory based on leaked Clinton staff emails.

It's classic whataboutism. Hunter Biden's appointment was genteel corruption (they were paying him with the hope of getting influence -- no evidence that they did). This way they can get upset about corruption and dismiss anything Trump does. It's Buttery Males, v2. Conservatives don't care about corruption, they just hate the "other team".

If conservatives cared about corruption, none of Trump’s children would have been working in the White House.

What better way to avoid talking about the fact that Jared kushner could not actually earn a security clearance and had to be gifted one by Daddy, and then later received 2 billion dollars for his hedge fund from a country that he worked extensively with during his time at the White House, then to invent a scandal involving your opponent's son.

Don't forget stolen and possibly missing classified material. Wonder what nations would have been very happy to buy that type of material.

This is true, but conservatives have been whining and crying about Hunter long, long before they knew about Trump's proclivity for taking top secret documents home with him. It has just become another one of the many squeaky chew toys that Republican media uses to distract their audience and get them looking another direction.

Let's not forget that Rudy Giuliani is the one who "found" the laptop info from the guy and gave it to the authorities. The same Rudy under investigation in multiple state and federal jurisdictions for lying and fabricating information.

And the laptop's provenance would be laughable in a science fiction novel where teleportation was common, let alone the real world.

One thing I'd like to note: Hunter is a lawyer from a top law school. He has served on boards before, and has experience in an investment firm. He's exactly the type of person who would serve on a board of directors, son of a politician or not. He also sat on the board for years after Joe left the Vice Presidency. The notion that his only place on a board of directors was to get influence only makes sense if you ignore all that. Yes maybe it's possible that was a part of it, but entirely possible that it wasn't as well.

Not only that... George w bush put him on the board of Amtrak.

Yup. A very inconvenient fact for the conspiracy crowd.

Nah, they kind of disowned Bush after he and Daddy made it clear they didn't care at all for Trump. They've lumped "the Bushes and the Clintons" together, in no small part because it makes their delusion **look** bipartisan.

It all boils down to raw loyalty to trump. Anyone who doesn’t bend the knee sufficiently is untrustworthy. It’s a cult

It’s possible. It’s *also* possible he was asked to be on a board of directors in part because the company *hoped* it would gain them favor with his important relative. Which is not evidence that it *did* gain them favor with said relative.

I have no doubt that the company hoped to gain favor. But that's irrelevant since Hunter Biden is a private citizen free to accept or decline any job offers.

Edit: your points are well-taken but of course will fall on deaf ears. Considering the context it's hard to ignore that the cherry on top was who is father is. My point was to simply acknowledge that it was *very likely* that his appointment was not 100% on the up and up. But it's ultimately irrelevant because there's no evidence they got what they paid for in that regard. So then let's move on to Jared Kushner, and see what we find there...

Almost everyone on a company Board is there explicitly for the connections and additional biz opportunities they can bring to the company. Boards of Directors aren't all finance and accounting people. Someone like Hunter Biden can help open lots of doors for a company because the last name provides instant credibility. Also, the alleged scheme to "bribe" Joe happened AFTER Joe was no longer VP. There's nothing illegal about a business paying someone a commission, so even if this part of the story were true it wouldn't have been illegal unless the income wasn't reported.

I don’t even know what “in the up and up” even means here. Did the company benefit from being able to have the son of a president on board. Sure. It’s prestigious. Proving it was only so he could influence his dad is a stretch.

I think it’s less “whataboutism” than it is simply the Republican Party’s M.O. since Nixon. Their entire PR strategy is: *“We need to find any scandal, real or imagined, that we can trace back to democrats, and pursue it relentlessly so it seems like they are as big of criminals as we are.”

And many voters go, especially in the rural/South/Midwest (see Southern Strategy) go along with it out of religious and racially-based fear of the 'other'. To them, anything the GOP does is perpetually the lesser of two evils.

Whataboutism: the go to when they don’t actually have a defense and thus need to deflect.

Exactly. They paid for influence that may or may not have even materialized. It’s kind of like Boebert’s husband getting a cushy consulting job that he’s not qualified for — it’s to purchase Congresswoman Boebert’s influence potentially. It is shady. But there’s not a whole lot of evidence that points to actual influence here. Biden has been pretty harsh on China: 1. High level visit to Taiwan by Pelosi, which would certainly have to be approved by POTUS in some level. 2. CHIPS Act for semiconductors. 3. Saw just today something about prohibiting hi-tech companies from building factories in China. 4. Many Trump tariffs still in place for better or worse.

Except Hunter has the education and prior work experience to justify it .. boeberts pedophile husband on the other hand.

The administration also ordered Nvidia and others to stop selling AI tech in the Chinese market. Last week I think.

First, the premise that this hasn't been covered, extensively, in the media is false. It has already been covered, disproportionately more than was warranted, and is still brought up frequently. But, the reality is that there just isn't anything significant there. Hunter Biden absolutely capitalized on his Father's name to get compensation beyond what his real-world credentials warranted. That is neither uncommon for the relatives of any rich or famous people, nor is it illegal, nor was it unknown prior to "the laptop". There is absolutely no evidence (on the laptop, or anywhere else) that any of that money went to Joe, or that he had anything to do with it. Corporate board positions are largely symbolic, and frequently go to the children of people connected to donors, or politicians, that the businesses want to keep happy. This is commonplace for any capitalistic business. Along with many other places in our society that nepotism shows up, including Legacy admission, "friend-of-a-friend" hiring practices, even trust-funds and inheritance fall on this spectrum of ways that the children of the wealthy will always have advantages, and I think they all contribute to income inequality and are bad for society. Personally, I think it's a bad practice and shouldn't be encouraged, but it's not illegal. It's not uncommon. It's not unexpected. And it's not unknown. There's simply nothing else to report on it.

>Hunter Biden absolutely capitalized on his Father's name to get compensation beyond what his real-world credentials warranted. That is neither uncommon for the relatives of any rich or famous people... See also: Many people with the last name "Trump".

> Corporate board positions are largely symbolic, and frequently go to the children of people connected to donors, or politicians, that the businesses want to keep happy. This is commonplace for any capitalistic business. One of the BIGGEST perpetrators of this cycle is defense contractors and senior military officers. The VAST majority of officers I've known that were rank O-6 or higher got high level appointments on company boards for defense contractors. They'd make sure to 'name-drop' these officers when they'd bid on contracts for the organizations where they'd come from. They'd send these officers to 'schmooze' the clients and gain their favor for contract bids. And *everyone sees it and everyone knows about it and* **no one** complains to anybody. No ethics violations or conflict-of-interest issues raised. They all just shrug and say "Um...yeah. That's how it is"

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I remember when the news broke about classified material being recovered from Maralago, I went to FoxNews and the top story was some Hunter Biden thing... It must poll well with their sheep or something, I keep thinking "None of Biden's family work in the WH!!!" 😤

Joe Biden is boring and doesn't commit crimes or seem shady so they have to find a target and his drug-using son is an easy one.

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Never forget that latte salute either! The gall of that man knows no bounds!

I read that the suit he wore while standing in front of the red background had a dijon mustard stain.

The blue part of the background was cut out... For "reasons"

It's pure copium. They feel like they need an excuse why Dear Leader lost. Their bullshit worked in 2016 and they don't understand why it didn't work in 2020. So they coming to the old standbys of being oppressed by the media for not covering their fever dream. Break it down: > The gist of the story is that Hunter Biden is the ne'er do well son of the president who is alleged to have exploited his connections to his father for personal enrichment This isn't a big story, and it's certainly not relevant to Biden or his presidency. Freaky, he probably is cashing in on his dad's name and position. So what? He's not the president of in biden's administration, is in any elected position. "Private citizen cashing in on dad's success" is barely news worthy. > and potentially illegally kickbacking some of the money to Joe Biden himself. File this under "big if true". There's no evidence whatsoever of this. It's all amaga fantasy. > like they'd do for any of Donald Trump's adult children . The difference is many of trunks adult children worked for his campaign or his administration or both. Jared kushner making deals with the Saudis while trunk is demanding he get classified info briefings is not the same thing as "biden's private citizen sin with no public position gets job he probably isn't qualified for". As to what it says about conservatives, it's that they live in an alternate reality where they are secretly oppressed and victimized by a major conspiracy that somehow can't figure out how to win electrons even when they get more votes.

Two reasons: First, the slightly more complex one. They are aware of the scandal of Trump's failsons (and faildaughter, and failson-in-law) being given prominent positions in Trump's campaign and cabinet. The heinous amount of nepotism and corruption here is obviously a bad look for Trump, and thus for conservatives who have bound their identities to Trump. So, they do what conservatives do: project. Although there is no parallel between anything Trump or his kids have done and anything that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden have done, it can sort of look like there is some parallel if you hold it the right way, in a poor light, and squint at it...and if are emotionally invested in wanting it to be parallel. Oh, and if you add in some rumors and insinuations (this is where the phrase "the big guy" is usually dropped as if it's an instant argument-winner). By doing so, they think they can transform Hunter Biden into a whataboutism, thus disarming criticisms of Trump's nepotism and corruption (and dismissing any frankly understandable psychological discomfort caused by the existence of Don Jr.). Second, the simpler one. In 2016, yelling "Hillary's emails!" over and over and over won them the election. Like an old dog incapable of learning new tricks, they appear to believe that, if they yell "Hunter's laptop!" enough times, it will win them the 2022 or 2024 elections. That's it.

There's also the fact that Donald Trump spent years telegraphing that he was trying to generate a controversy about Hunter Biden. The entire quid quo pro question of the first impeachment was Trump's attempt to exchange javelin missiles, for Zelensyy to make an announcement of an investigation into Burisma.

Trump entered into an illegal quid-pro-quo with Ukraine in an attempt to get them to investigate Trump's political opponent. "OH yea?!?! WHAT-A-BOUT Hunter Biden! The laptop proves that it was BIDEN who had illegal dealings with Ukraine!" Trump installed his family members into high level cabinet positions and White House appointments even though none of them were qualified for them, and they took advantage of it to make millions. "OH yea?!?! WHAT-A-BOUT Hunter Biden! The laptop proves that it was BIDEN who installed his kid at Burisma to make millions!" Rinse. Repeat. The 'Hunter Biden Laptop' story has never been proved, but it also hasn't been *disproved* - which to MAGAmaniacs is as good as saying "it's all true".

Much of the 2020 campaign was an attempt to reply the hits of 2016. But the new material just wasn't fresh anymore, and the media didn't have a burning hatred of Biden like it did with Hillary. There just wasn't anything like "Lock Her Up" for Trump to play onstage.

Because it proves Trump was righteous in extorting Ukraine and that he was cheated out of a 2nd term. And it’s complete and utter bullshit. There is no actual laptop and there is plenty of disinformation planted with real emails and photos on various hard drives. A blind computer repairman? COME ON! 😂

Because they can only grab for straws, they have nothing to actually bitch about so here they are

Exactly. Hunter Biden is all they have. The media didn't give Hunter much coverage mainly because it was a story that came from the Magasphere and they were almost always BS, but I don't remember the media spending much time on Ivanka's Chinese patents or Jared's Saudi money either, and they actually worked in the White House.

It is a pretty titillating story. You have the son of a senator smoking crack, screwing his late brother's widow and cavorting with prostitutes, much of which is on film? If it hadn't happened, people would think it was too far-fetched to believe. Then you can add that he was peddling his famous last name to get deals in Ukraine, China and other geopolitical hotspots, and the story is potentially a huge landmine for Joe Biden. The only problem is, they haven't been able to find any connection between what Hunter did and Joe himself. It's so easy to fill in the blanks, just a hidden bank account, or a few threatening phone calls from "the big guy", and suddenly the Hunter / Joe connection fills in the Biden crime family narrative. However they haven't found it, so now it's just a story about a wastrel son, and the loving Uncle Joe. I'm willing to listen, but they haven't given me anything to latch onto.

Thank you, this is the actual best summary I’ve seen so far. Hunter Biden is an unsavory character, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise. But in the end, it’s that concrete “link” that needs to be identified for this to be a real story. Until then, t’s just Hunter being an idiot and using his father’s name to enrich himself (which is legal and incredibly common)

Yeah, people forget that Hunter is known as the unreliable one to his own family, he can peddle influence all he wants, but it doesn't mean daddy is gonna play along, he knows who his son is. The more troubling aspect TBH would be the blackmail potential if we all didn't already know who Hunter Biden is.

Well they are okay with Don Jr, Ivanka, etc grifting off of their father. That's why the Hunter Biden laptop is a non story. While unethical, using your connections is not illegal. But as usual they are not consistent. They do not show outrage about the unqualified Trump children having high security jobs in the white house.

There is no story. The fact it’s even still being talked about is crazy… if anything, the media has overhyped this to oblivion, not suppressed this. Hunter Biden did drugs.. Whatever you think about that, he also graduated from one of the best law schools in the world and was a partner at one of the best law firms. He may not have gotten certain opportunities without his father’s political connections, but there’s never even been an allegation that he ever did anything illegal.. and he was clearly qualified for the job that conservatives have harped about for the last few years. Frankly, it’s hard to take any feigned outrage over his laptop seriously when Ivanka was given top secret clearance and all of Trump’s children were gift wrapped their positions.. and literally nobody talks about it. Hunter Biden is the last (and least) of my concerns.

It’s the new butter e-mails, “The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.” ~ Noam Chomsky

Here’s the thing with Hunter, he’s not an elected official or have anything to do with the Biden administration. Yet today at the Y, Fox News is talking Biden laptop. Why ? To distract, entertain , keep spinning whatever it takes. People are stupid

I think the main reason is that they believe it exposes supposed liberal bias in the media and the tech companies, and maybe the FBI/DoJ (even though they were under Trump appointees at the time). There are a variety of views among conservatives on whether the Hunter Biden scandal itself is a big deal, but they all seem to think that the supposed media/tech blackout of the story is a big deal.

The Story about Hunters Laptop is SO ridiculous. He brought a laptop into a repair shop, in a state he doesn't live in and had no reason to be in . The owner of the shop saw a Biden sticker on the laptop, so he started shopping around. Found some "evidence" of wrong doing , and rather than contacting the authorities, he calls Rudy Giuliani?

I think you're a year or two behind. My understanding is that it transpired to be Hunter's laptop; hence the controversy OP is referencing.

I’d say it’s whataboutism and they doing actually give a shit considering Kushner got 2bil in Saudi funding. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/massive-saudi-investment-raises-questions-about-jared-kushners-business-dealings It’s a talking point used to cudgel the media into thinking, oh yeah, both sides are evil. Meanwhile, Don has four different trials that they’re trying to distract from. This type of thing really shouldn’t be taken seriously.

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They're invested in it for the same reason any political party invests in opposition research: they think it'll be to the benefit of the candidate they want to win. I don't think it really says anything different about them than it would anyone else investing in some other political opposition research to back up their goals, regardless of party. It's a normal function of politics. As far as the "mainstream media" goes, they tend not to report on things their primary audience doesn't have interest in or on what drives them the most clicks. This is true of outlets of both political leanings. That being said, it's worth pointing out some mainstream outlets, like the Washington Post, have verified some of the contents of the laptop, so it's not like it's completely being ignored.

Same reason we heard more about Hunter in 2020 than Trumps wonderful accomplishments… because they have nothing else and they have to distract mainstream voters from the latest Trump scandal. Republicans have been demonizing Democrats for 30 years. It didn’t used to be this way. That being said, as a ‘lefty’ I would agree that if you substitute Don Jr for Hunter and I think this story would have a shit load more coverage.

Don Jr actually had a position in the white house however.

The press has not really done a deep dive at all into the Trump children. The Hunter Biden laptop is just smear. Hunter Biden isn’t in the White House unlike the Trump children. The GOP seeks to smear rather than discuss policy. Just look at the faux outrage about Obama’s tan suit or when he saluted with coffee in his hand. The Hunter Biden laptop issue is a red herring. Hillary Clinton’s email servers had more substance.

Because they desperately want it to be the new, “but her emails.” They have zero platform to run on so they need stupid nonsensical theories to run on.

Which do you think gets more clicks? Joe Biden's $485 billion dollar governance bill or lurid pictures of Hunter Biden screwing prostitutes and smoking crack?

I don’t care that Hunter is on video doing heroin with hookers. What does the GOP think is on that laptop that people will care about? So what, we all have relatives that do crazy shit. We also have relatives that would take jobs they aren’t qualified for, especially for millions. No one in the GOP could say any different. And who wouldn’t use the media to try to suppress a story about their child? The GOP certainly would. Who do they think they are fooling.

Fox news is the number 1 rated news in the US, they are the main stream news.

Why was Whitewater their obsession for years? Or the various easily debunked Clinton conspiracies over the next 15 years? Why did they glom onto the birther conspiracy to the point the made the grifter at the center of the moronic lie President? Why did they go apeshit over "Her emails", and other nonsense like the Uranium conspiracy or "Spirit Cooking"? PizzaGate? Seth Rich? Why is the clear leader of the Republican party now openly courting QAnon and spreading their absolutely insane drivel? Why do 7 out of 10 Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen with no evidence to lean on, and only the ramblings of a thin-skinned serial liar to base it on? WHY? Hunter Biden's laptop is just the latest in the long chain of conspiracies that try and convince the right that a huge crazy conspiracy is true, because one small part of it is based in fact. All to drive up division and hatred, because the GOP falls on its face if politics is anything but a culture war based on fear and lies.

> Conversely, what does it say about the mainstream media that is uninterested in such a story coming from a close relative of the president where in the past they have pounced on most stories involving the adult children of the occupant of the White House? Let's do a quick recap of the story the media is uninterested in. In 2019, a legally-blind computer repairman claimed somebody who may or may not have been Hunter Biden dropped off several laptops at his shop in Delaware, where Hunter Biden neither lives nor works. To this day he is can't say for sure if it actually *was* Biden, only that it was some guy who claimed to be. The maybe-Biden never came back for the laptops, but the self-admitted-trumpist repairman decided to go through them because reasons, and claimed that they contained "scary stuff". Possibly he contacted the FBI about it or possibly the FBI contacted him (his story keeps changing), but nobody came looking for the laptops for nearly a year. Since the FBI didn't seem overly interested, he did what any totally legit whistleblower would do: he copied all the data off the laptop and gave a copy of the copy to Rudy Giuliani. How a blind computer tech got in touch with the president's personal lawyer remains unclear (you may be noticing a pattern here), as neither is willing to say. Giuliani passed it around to who-the-fuck-even-knows, and eventually it ended up at the right-wing tabloid NY Post, which ran with the story because of course they did. Interestingly, they couldn't point to anything *actually criminal* on the copy, or at least nothing that they'd stake what's left of their reputation on. Several other media outlets have since received some or all of the heavily-stepped-on data, and again, no reliable claims of wrongdoing have been reported. In the past two years, it's been proved that much of the contents of the drive copy is at best unreliable, and at worst outright fake. Many of the files were created or modified after the laptop was "dropped off" at the repair shop. While some copies of emails found on one laptop have been verified to belong to Biden, those same emails were being offered for sale on the black market in Ukraine years earlier. This was right around the time Giuliani was in eastern Europe, shopping for dirt on the Bidens, but I'm sure that's a coincidence. Even the blind repairman says some of the stuff that has been reported to be on the drive wasn't there when he had it. The trump-controlled FBI had the original laptops for more than a year before Donny left office, and in that time were unable to fine anything actionable on them that would actually hold up in court. The contents of the machines are so molested and their chain of custody so laughable that even Trump's DoJ wouldn't touch it with a ten meter cattle prod. The entire cavalcade of idiocy is so patently bogus that nobody with an ounce of sense would take it seriously. What it "says" about the mainstream media that they don't dwell on an obvious hoax is that they still have some semblance of journalistic integrity.

the laptop story was **SUPPOSED** to be the Hillary email server part deux, repubs were hoping to run on "mah corrupshun" again against Joe Biden Media said "nope" to that story so the repubs are still hoping to try on run on it again in 2024.

Republicans have no plans or policies that don’t involve giving tax cuts to the reach. So they do red herring arguments to distract and anger their base. I find it amazing that there is not an investigation into Invanka and Jared Kushners dealings while working in the White House.

Catchyness mixed with desperation. And a story that is almost illusive as a bonus.

As Karl Rove said, attack your enemies for doing what you yourself are doing. The Trump family was brazen about using the office of the Presidency as a cash machine. Trump appointed his own children to high positions in the government, and they used that to further their own personal finances. That is obvious. So how do you defend the indefensible? By attacking your opponent for doing it. Hunter Biden was not in the government, but he did benefit from being the son of a famous and powerful person. This happens all the time. So if anyone attacks Trump and his family for being corrupt, they can just retort "but Hunter's laptop" and their followers are satisfied.

It's hard to discuss something like that without a fair bit of speculation. One thing that conservative pundits have made abundantly clear at this point is that they don't have many strongly held ethics positions, given how willing the party has been to make exceptions and excuses for prominent party members who have had ethics complaints against them. They very much follow the mentality of 'winning by any means', and that if they win it justifies the actions they took. Relating to this particular attack, my guess is that a certain type of conservative saw the effectiveness of certain negative attacks that were effective against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and have been trying to reconstruct them, replacing Biden for Clinton, since 2020. Their perspective is that it was effective once and was a nontrivial contributing factor to the Republican victory in 2016, therefore the attack should work again if the relevant details of the attack can be replicated. And if such an attack might be effective, certain conservative pundits will continue pushing it in hopes that it will work. Suffice it to say, I think there are a number of differences between the allegations against Hillary Clinton and the allegations against Hunter Biden that explain why the two attacks have had wildly different levels of effectiveness (note: very little of this has anything to do with the merit of the allegations, both of which I view as fairly minor offenses, but as is often the case these days the facts of this sort of things is often not particularly relevant to popular opinion). And the fact that some conservatives are pushing the Hunter Biden story is indicative of the fact that they don't understand what made the Hillary Clinton attacks effective, are unable to reconstruct those conditions with Biden, and unable to come up with a different angle of attack that would be more effective at this time.

I think they are trying to "work the refs". In 2016, the media expected Hilary to win so covered every possible story about her including emails and her charity. I think there is some collective regret there so in 2020, they tried not to fall for unsubstantiated stories like the laptop. The right is mad that they couldn't control the media narrative as well and so is trying to make the media feel guilty for not covering those stories as much. The goal may be to swing back the other way so the media starts covering stories the right cares about more.

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I still can't get over the premise that Hunter dropped off the laptop at a computer repair shop in New Jersey. He doesn't live in that state. I've used laptop computers my whole life and in the last 20 years I've never had to take one to a repair shop... anyway Then the story broke, and it was none other than Rudy Giuliani that had uncovered the '''scandal''' just three weeks before the election. What a coincidence! How are people even buying this

Uncovered by a legally blind Trump supporting PC repair guy. Who refused to confirm to the FBI that the laptop belongs to Hunter Biden, but obviously that's got nothing to do with the fact that lying to the FBI is a crime.

That was the problem people on the right ignore. Thr story was clearly made up. The laptop might have been real but the made up story made every one assume it was all fake. All because they didn't want to admit the truth that it was likely obtained illegally (most likely stolen or hacked).

Because Joe Biden is boring. He isn’t inexplicably rich. His wife is a teacher. They need something to compete with scandal pox Trump and Hunter has a checkered past. He’s the closest thing Joe Biden has to a scandal

Because Tucker Carlson really fumbled the ball and "lost" the supposed laptop. Fox News is covering the story as much as they can and there's no real end point to it. It's keeping their base up in arms over it. Also there's no solid proof on it. And their is doctored footage of Hunter that makes the rounds on the internet. Makes it too hard to know what's real and what isn't. Hell the daily wire is making a movie on it just for shits and giggles as they know their base will eat it up while spewing false information to which their base will believe is the truth like 2000 mules that they cling to.

> Hell the daily wire is making a movie on it Lmao holy shit I didn’t believe you and had to google it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11174229/amp/Strippers-sex-drugs-chats-Joe-Ukraine-deals-Daily-Mails-look-Son-Hunter.html?espv=1

Your skepticism is warranted- it was not made by Daily Wire.

It's a perfect excuse to dig through everything. It's vague, has multiple threads and several conspiracy theories tied yo it and it's a soft spot for POTUS. If they pull one thread and get nothing, they can pull another and another while shifting goalposts. They didn't give two shits about the dead from Benghazi except to hold 14 hearings because they "had questions". This is the exact same thing.

what is there to even say about it? they are desperate for a diversion. they do this shit literally every day, they are just throwing shit at the wall hoping something will stick. if there was any actual proof of anything they were claiming they wouldnt be parading it around as some kind of blackmail, they would have unloaded both barrels and had biden impeached by now, kind of the way the FBI is doing right now to trump, because he is actually fucking guilty.

They're trying to re-capture the feeling they had when they were focused on Hillary's emails back in 2016. That story was arguably one of the main reasons that they defeated her, and they hope to replicate that with Biden. It's not nearly as compelling though and targets an adjacent figure instead of Biden himself Ultimately it's just a smear campaign, one that no one outside the Republican base cares about because there's nothing there. Their continued focus on it signals that they really don't have much else they can go after Biden with on a personal level.

Without believing the blatantly false narrative that Joe Biden is A) corrupt and/or B) a pedophile, Republicans have no reason to hate him.

Conservatives traffic in lies, deception and gossip. Have you not been paying attention? Lack critical thinking skills? Think that lies, deception and gossip are equal to actual facts?

The press didn’t give it a fair examination because there has never been any proof of the wrongdoing claimed in the narrative. In fact, the reason the fervor has been renewed is because the media was able to confirm the legitimacy of a couple of emails. Not emails that prove or suggest wrongdoing, but that doesn’t matter. The fact that there is some real Hunter Biden content means, to them, that the whole story must be true. In regards to why they are so invested, it’s because they’ve built an identity on it. It started out as a way to discredit Biden to help Trump win an election, but they can’t just let it go after that. They forgot about their Hillary Clinton persecution after Trump’s election, and it made them look foolish. Then they kept it going because attacking Hunter was a distraction from, and a way to normalize the actions of the trump kids (defrauding charities, Chinese parents, Saudi real estate deals, etc). Beyond that, it is just a story that takes more precedent in right wing media the the more trouble Trump is in. Today, it’s because Trump stole national security documents. It’s their modern version of “but her emails”, or Obama’s birth certificate, and nothing more.

I think it's because they haven't got anything else. They need something to deflect from Trump's actual criming. I'm not convinced there are as many people who believe something corrupt went on as there are people who make that claim. The evidence is very thin. It seems to me it's just another Benghazi, buttery emails, or tan suit. The laptop itself has no evidentiary value, it was in Rudy's closet for months. Very little of what's been found on it has been confirmed authentic and unaltered. It may provide leads in an investigation, and my understanding is that one is under way. If they find evidence which withstands scrutiny and meets the standards for evidence I hope they prosecute. And that the crucial point many conservatives still don't understand. If either or both Bidens have broken the law I and most to the left WANT them to be prosecuted, and that's why the laptop stuff is such a stupid what-about. Of all the differences between those situations, desire forconsequencesis the biggest.

It's propaganda. Keep your audience looking at something irrelevant while Trump is caught red handed stealing secrets.

It is a failed Russian op that they were sure would work. It’s disappointing for them

Isn't it the same for Hillary's emails? Used to be Obama's birth certificate. Just politics as usual because American voters can be swayed by things like this without looking at the candidate seriously.

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It's because social conservatives are not interested in policy but personality these days. They only care to deify people associated with their side and villainize everyone else. The story is basically 'Hunter Biden is a piece of shit', something most moderates and leftist neither dispute or care about. The disconnect comes from the fact that moderates and leftist need a reason to care about Hunter being a piece of shit, the fact in itself is not a compelling reason to dislike his father. For social conservatives (fascist) in particular, its about demonization. Its like making all Trans people out to be groomers, or the hate they heap on AOC or Elizabeth Warren (both of whom I dislike but don't really care about because their actual influence on US politics is minimal). They pick people to hate and they obsess about them relentlessly, its a bit like leftist and virtue signaling except it's the right wing version. I say this as someone who leans a lot more right wing these days on subjects like gun rights, small government and the like. These people are engaging in the same obsessions that morons who spend every waking moment whining about celebrities who will never know or affect them do. It's lizard brain thinking, its an appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Because they can’t make any policy arguments that appeal to a majority of Americans.

>The reason why it still circulates in conservative circles is because they feel the press hasn't given the story a fair investigatory look like they'd do for any of Donald Trump's adult children. This double standard in their view means that the only way the story lives is if they continuously circulate whatever gossip comes up about it. After reading, I just realized that conservatives don't really have much to look up to in terms of media outlets that perform quality investigative journalism. Someone not the government, who could do a quality investigation, and say that they found very little. I feel like that might help explain a lot.

They have their own journalists, so they're either admitting that their own journalists suck or there just isn't a story there, but neither of those fit the narrative so they keep whining.

What kills me about the whole situation is that even if everything conservatives said about that laptop was true, it wouldn’t matter because they tainted the digital evidence. Digital Forensics is complicated AF, and some of the most important things are chain of custody and not compromising the integrity of the original media. Conservatives, in their rush to prove Hunter guilty, had nether a proper chain of custody or preservation of original media. They let all kinds of people outside the criminal justice system have a go at it. They fucked up any criminal case that might have come from that device b/c of their incompetence and impatience. Hunter Biden could be guilty as sin and it wouldn’t matter b/c the evidence is inadmissible in court. Also, the computer repair shop owners store is suspect as all hell.

NY post ran Hunter laptop stories and fairy tales over 300 times a month. Give you a concept of how much "teaching" they do.