All the news that’s finally fit to print

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WSJ A bit late, NYT admits Hunter Laptop is authentic  

Of course it would have been better to have fully examined the issue BEFORE the election  instead of hiding the Biden Family corruption.

Bur at least that is better than the intelligence officials of the Deep State who still won’t admit they were hiding the truth from the voters. 

PM Disgraced intelligence officials double down 

But hey, it will be in time for the mid-terms. 

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

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68 thoughts on “All the news that’s finally fit to print”

  2. The provenance of the materials on the supposed laptop was and remains fishy. That was the root of the skepticism. That skepticism is still valid. According to the Post these materials came into the possession of Rudi Giuliani in May. Steve Bannon knew about them in September. The NY Post broke the story as an October surprise shortly before the election. All very fishy.

    Given what we know about how hacked materials flow from Russia to Trump’s campaign it is far more likely that the source is not what was claimed. We also know that there is nothing in those emails that goes beyond what is already known. If there were such damning materials, they would have been spread everywhere starting in May and legitimate news organizations would have been allowed to look into them.

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    1. RE: “All very fishy.”

      Hardly. The new reporting from the NYT states, “Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.”

      So, unless one wishes to call NYT’s authentication a lie, one must consider the laptop materials and all they may imply to be valid. Which, of course, is the point that spin, now, can’t change.

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      1. Read with a little understanding. It won’t hurt. The New York Times is careful in its choice of words. In this case, they want to report on the emails but do not know their source. So, they use the words “appears.” That means that no one really knows the source.

        I did not dispute that the emails are authentic. I pointed out that their sketchy, hyper-partisan provenance was enough to make responsible people hold off endorsing them. No vast conspiracy required.

        A second point I made was – So what? There is no reporting of anything on them that has not already been reported ad nauseum. Hunter Biden traded on his family name and connections. Yes, obviously he did. Just like Ivanka, Donnie, Eric and Jared. He was a piker. He got a sweet gig. They got billions.

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          1. “The Emails are authentic and “the Big Guy” got his piece of the action.”

            The emails are authentic. How they came into Giuliani’s hands is what is suspect. Crazily improbable circumstances or yet another GRU Pro-Trump operation? I will go with Occam’s Razor until conclusive evidence is disclosed.

            The discussions and possible business deals discussed in these emails and the reference to “the Big Guy” occurred AFTER Biden was out of office. So, uh, where is the crime? Where is the scandal? Where is the “blatant corruption?”

            Those are rhetorical questions. Private citizens can discuss any business they want.

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          2. It didn’t bother you at all for the last administration. Cabinet members stealing from the taxpayers for family trips, directing overseas visits through Trump resorts, paying off pornstars with campaign funds, extorting election officials in several states, “wall” contracts to shady firms and collapsing structures, stealing from his own charities…

            Did Hunter trade of his father’s name? Probably. Was it wrong? Probably, but our laws are lax (Ivanka, et. al.) and it certainly wasn’t the first time political offspring invoke family connections. Billy beer, Bush’s Texas National Guard enrollment, probably half of Congress have kids that got preferential treatment, board seats, Ivanka (again) getting special market advantages and patents in China, etc.

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          3. You seem to have a problem understanding how corruption works.

            If you are successful and go into politics, and emerge poorer at the end of your service, that does not indicate corruption.

            But when you go into politics and you and your family emerge wealthy, in spite of no discernable skills or talents, there is corruption there.

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          4. So every pol who ever wrote a successful memoir or got on a speakers’ tour after his term in office, (or even in, for that matter) is corrupt.

            How about soliciting donations for legal fees while in office, but keeping the money for yourself. Is that corruption?

            Asking for a friend.

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          5. I was not aware that Biden, Hunter or Biden’s brother had written highly successful books that made them all millionaires.

            What are their titles?

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          6. You stated that any pol who left office richer is corrupt. I asked if books and speaking are included. And you cleverly segued to Biden.

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          7. Segued?

            Biden’s corrupt family was the subject in the first place. Hunter is the least qualified person in Delaware to do anything. But he has become rich trading on his Dad’s position while he had control of funds for Ukraine.

            So has Biden’s brother, who got a $1.2Billion no-bid contract to build housing in Iraq while Biden was VP, in spite of having no experience in the field.

            And there is no difference between money flowing directly to the pol and to his immediate family.

            Is every politician who gets rich in office corrupt? No, but absent a reasonable explanation not connected to political power, that is the presumption until proven otherwise.

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          8. Well, then according to your standards, Trump should be in prison.

            Money flowed directly to Trump and his whole family.

            You say he lost money. No one, except you, knows whether he won, lost or stole what he said he had and what he says he has now.

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          10. “You seem to have a problem understanding how corruption works.”

            You are wrong in every possible way.

            First your test for “corruption” is utter nonsense. By your test, the only non-corrupt politician EVER might be Jimmy Carter. And by your test the loser Trump is not “corrupt.” Even though he made constant documented efforts to cash in, the fact that they failed exonerates him. Ridiculous!

            Second, Biden left office after serving for more than four decades with very little more than his home and his government pension. The wealth came almost entirely from books and appearance after he left office.

            Third, you snidely slandered “the Big Guy” but ducked the relevant question – what was the crime committed by citizen Biden in discussing business deals AFTER he left office? Instead, you offer this lame definition of “corruption” and accuse Len of not knowing what “corruption” is?

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          11. “But blatant corruption doesn’t matter when it’s the chief of your tribe.”

            Hypocrite! You just described the Trump supporters, not the Bidens. No matter how badly you want it to be true, you dump on Biden and trumpet Trump.

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          13. Uh-uh. Don’t deflect form the fact that you are projecting TFG’s corruption on to Biden. You have provided numerous excuses for TFG for everything form misspeaking to because he lost money he can’t really be corrupt.

            Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. Don’t deflect it onto me.

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          15. …”the Ukrainian extortion occurred during the Obama administration, before Trump ran for President.”

            You got a court filing alleging that to is it the usual Dem hating rhetoric that spews so freely from your keyboard?

            All of the precious crap you have laid out has been debunked by the facts. Those pesky things you ignore when the head of YOUR tribe is caught.

            WRT TFG’s extortion attempt, its on tape.

            Hypocrisy, they name is Don.

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        2. RE: “I did not dispute that the emails are authentic.”

          No, you called them “fishy.” But we know now they are not.

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          1. “No, you called them ‘fishy.’ ”

            Read again.
            I said their PROVENANCE was fishy.
            That is quite different. Giuliani offered a very, very odd story of how these materials came into his possession. It was widely greeted with skepticism because it was very, very “fishy” and Rudy was very coy about discussing it or letting reputable news organizations in on it.

            It is far more likely, in my opinion, that these materials were another product of a GRU Pro-Trump operation. There is any number of ways that they could have been hacked from Hunter Biden or from the cloud and made to magically get to Trump’s campaign.

            Such a GRU provenance would be a far bigger scandal than the nothingburger in the materials. That may explain why Rudy sat on them for five months.

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          3. …”does it really matter how they became public”

            A violation of how material is come across IS important. If through nefarious or unconstitutional means, then anything that comes form it is “fruit from the forbidden tree”.

            And why, oh why has Rudy kept the laptop under wraps for so long? If it truly shows the corruption you claim, present it to the court and let the indictments fly.

            It is a nothing burger. Get over it.

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          4. Uh, in a criminal prosecution, the method the evidence is obtained can make it tainted FOR THE PURPOSES OF PROSECUTION.

            But it makes no difference when informing the voters, or preventing the informing of voters until after an election.

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          6. “If they are authentic, does it really matter how they became public?”

            Yes, it matters. Or do you like Russian meddling on behalf of your party?

            And, IF they were the product of a foreign intelligence operation then (a) crimes were involved and (b) serious questions are raised – help in exchange for what? Dismantling NATO, maybe?

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          7. They reveal corruption in the family of the President.

            If the Russians had a part in making them public, a thnak you note is appropriate.

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          8. “They reveal corruption in the family of the President”

            Not even by your screwy definition of “corruption” do they reveal any such thing.

            You state as a fact that Hunter Biden is not qualified to do anything. It is not a fact. It is a falsehood. Yet another one.

            Hunter Biden is a graduate of a quality university (Georgetown) and a top-tier law school (Yale.) He worked for many years in finance, venture capital and government. He served on the Board of Amtrak having been appointed by President George W. Bush. He also served in Board positions in several large charities. He is the founding partner of a substantial investment firms.

            His personal demons are well-known, but to say he has no qualifications for the position he was offered at Burisma is simply not true. He was an experienced wheeler-dealer with a name that added luster and credibility to the Burisma Board. You can scream “corruption” until you turn blue. You have NEVER provided ANY evidence other than things that you imagine might have happened.

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          9. He didn’t even speak the language.

            Are you claiming he would have gotten the job from Burisma, or the $3.5million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow were he not the VP’s son?

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          10. “He didn’t even speak the language.”

            All over Europe, English is the language of business. It is a language shared by almost everybody and it is neutral in most situations. Burisma’s Board had people of several different nationalities.

            The truth of your claim about the $3.5 million is questionable at best. Taxpayer money was used by Republicans in Congress to investigate and publicize the business affairs of a private citizen in order to hurt Joe Biden. Their report contained that allegation of such a payment but offered no proof of ANY connection to Hunter Biden nor any evidence that it was anything other than an investment.

            With that said, it is no secret that Hunter Biden’s whole career has been based on his father’s name. The seat on the Burisma Board likely was the result of that name as well. So what? THAT is not a crime. And none of you people have ever offered ANY evidence of ANY actual crime involving either Hunter or Joe Biden. None.

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    2. “Given what we know about how hacked materials flow from Russia to Trump’s campaign”

      What do you think we “know” about something that hasn’t happened.

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      1. “What do you think we “know” about something that hasn’t happened.”

        Something that hasn’t happened?

        The link between Russian hackers, Wikileaks and Trump operative Roger Stone has been widely publicized. None other than the Mueller report documented it in detail.

        https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6953307-LEOPOLD-FOIA-Mueller-Report-unredacted-Roger-Stone.html

        Is your manifest ignorance on a variety of well-established facts real or a rhetorical ploy? You think you can discredit well-known facts by pretending that YOU never heard of that?

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        1. RE: “The link between Russian hackers, Wikileaks and Trump operative Roger Stone has been widely publicized.”

          Well publicized and true are two different things. “Russian hackers” in particular were never verified.

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          1. And Wikileaks founder Assange directly said that was NOT the source. While he has published information he should have withheld, he has never had to print a retraction., something NYT cannot say.

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          2. Whether he had to or not is not the point. That he should have is. Actual news sources will print retractions when evidence shows previous information to have been inaccurate. Wiki has no ethical reason to do so.

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          3. “Russian hackers in particular were never verified.”

            You too are full of shit. It appears that all of you Putinistas share that trait.

            The FACT of Russian hacking of the DNC is both widely publicized, and it is true “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It is spelled out in the Mueller report linked to above AND as a matter of public record, the twelve GRU hackers were convicted in federal court for those crimes.

            So, yeah. Full of shit.

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          5. I don’t believe anyone has said “f**k you”, yet.

            Except for the recent eruption against me, but the only objection came from…nobody.

            Then, since the best the GOP can do is “Let’s Go Brandon”, I guess the right has devolved into what they seem to do best: whining and four letter insults that seem oh, so clever.

            Is that a plank, the only plank I suppose, in the Republican platform?

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        2. I’m not going to wade through 400 pages to see if you have some point to make.

          We all know Russia wanted Trump to win. Any rational world leader would want to keep warmonger Hillary as far from ‘the button’ as possible.

          If there is some evidence in there that shows active cooperation between Trump and Russia, tell us the page number, otherwise, so what?

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          1. So, you are not going to wade through 400 pages? That prove you once again are full of shit. Who can blame you? But, there is an TOC with page numbers. So no actual wading required.

            You state that something never happened that everyone knows did happen. You do not get much more full of shit than that.

            As an aside, you frequently whine that articles in the MSM are not convincing evidence. I provide an easy link to a definitive source and you whine. Your whining is obviously about reality bumping into your make believe facts.

            I made a simple, rational point. Russia hacked. The product of their hacking flowed to the benefit of Trump. Everybody knew that. That fact completely justifies the skepticism with which Giuliani’s October surprise was greeted and the skepticism was reinforced by the literally incredible tale of how such materials came into Giuliani’s possession.

            And once again, there is nothing in them that is new.

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          3. So what?

            Manafort gave campaign data to Russian intelligence. This is from the Republican majority Senate report. Marco Rubio presiding.

            “Senate report concluded, adding that “Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik, represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

            “Mueller’s investigation concluded that the Russian government interfered in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” and also “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign”.

            https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/manafort-ally-konstantin-kilimnik-gave-polling-data-to-russian-spies-in-2016-treasury-says

            Oh, oh, better stick to CRT and transgender. When will this war be over so the GOP can get back to issues that really matter? Maybe that is the real reason the right wants Zelensky to fold. It is a distraction.

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          6. “So, you didn’t read it either”
            That is a silly response and not a defense for your false claims.

            But of course, I did not read all 400 pages.
            I read the Table of Contents and went to the sections relevant to the discussion.
            I particularly checked the involvement of Trump’s campaign to make certain my memory was correct. It was. Roger Stone was the link. You know – the convicted stonewalling felon who was rewarded with a Presidential pardon.

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          8. “What was the page telling us Trump did something wrong?”
            Lame. Really lame.

            The skepticism about the provenance of the Hunter Biden laptop was a natural reaction given the fishiness of the story, the timing, the selective leaking, and the KNOWN history of Russian hackers working for Trump. You flatly denied there was any such history. I cited the Mueller Report to demonstrate how full of shit your denial was.

            Now you ask this totally irrelevant question. Laughable. But the answer is obvious – the entire report tells any objective person that “Trump did something wrong.” It was HIS campaign. They worked for him. They colluded with an enemy to advance their candidate.

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          12. NATO countries agreed to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense but none of them other than the US did so. Trump threatened to stop covering their failure to live up to their agreement.

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          15. “If other signatories t a treaty are not meeting their commitments, is it not proper to withdraw until they do?”

            Can you never get your facts straight? There was no obligation for any state to spend at any level. There was the goal of reaching 2% of GDP over time. Some NATO countries were moving in that direction quickly. Others more slowly. Then along came Trump trying to destroy NATO – for some reason.

            Putin’s war crimes have helped put it back together stronger than ever. Russia is now facing many countries far more serious about defense spending than they were. Germany in particular. Whoops!

            If Putin “wins” this war – a big if – it will become the dictionary example of a Pyrrhic victory.

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          16. NATO getting its act together (and they’ve had 60 years to do it and are just starting) would be a Pyrrhic victory f

            Otherwise, getting Europe to increase defense spending only improves Russia’s competitiveness.

            Trump recognized that NATO would never pay for its own defense as long as the US would pick up the full bill.

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  3. The corruption in this story reaches far and wide. The intention of the cover up by Biden, Hunter, the media and other actors was to save Biden’s presidential hopes which would have tanked had the truth been told to begin with. Massive fraud, corruption, lying, cover up, conflict of interest, real Russian and Chinese collusion on an epic scale don’t seem to bother lefties if a Democrat gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar. No, they start makung lame excuses and cheering for relection. Absolutely sick…
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2022/03/20/white-house-ignores-its-hunter-problem/amp/

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    1. “Massive fraud, corruption, lying, cover up, conflict of interest, real Russian and Chinese collusion on an epic scale don’t seem to bother lefties if a Democrat gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar. ”

      Trumpists have been doing the same thing over things that have been shown to be true about TFG.

      So, the projection by Trumpists is not surprising; they learned from the master. He is the King of Projection, telling the world that his opponents were doing or did exactly what he was doing or did.

      So take your faux, partisan hypocrisy and spread it on your lawn.

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        1. Noting again the hypocrisy of defending TFG. Take off the orange colored glasses and focus on what you are saying.

          Trump corruption good; Biden corruption bad.

          And no actual PROOF of corruption by Biden. Just the random speculation of a Democrat-hating dentist form Chesapeake.

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          1. Trump has nothing to do with Biden’s corrupt acts before Trump even entered politics.

            Confronted with the laptop emails and the direct threat to withhold aid from the Ukraine if Shokin were not fired to end his investigation of Burisma, only willful denial can evade the reality of Biden’s corruption.

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          2. ..”Shokin “..

            Who’s firing was called for by most Western governments because of his own corruption.

            You got a quoted email that says what you claim or are you just speculating and projecting?

            Try again.

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          4. “Trump has nothing to do with Biden’s corrupt acts before Trump even entered politics.”

            You are a real sucker for made up facts. The demand for the firing of the corrupt prosecutor Shokin was something that originated with the IMF countries that were to guarantee Ukraine loans. It did not originate with Biden or even Obama. It was not to stop any investigation; it was because he was failing to act against corruption.

            And, more to the point, Burisma was NOT being investigated. That is LIE. Sucker!

            https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happened-when-biden-forced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/3785620002/

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          5. Had you read the link I provided you would have seen that the push to oust Shokin originated with the Obama administration, and your own ink confirms that. He would not have been fired without the pressure from Obama/Biden.

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          6. The requirement that Shokin be removed before the IMF loan guarantees would go forward was the position of all the countries involved. I will not quibble about which member of the IMF took the lead. It is not important. The facts are clear. . .

            1. Burisma had already settled the corruption case with the Ukraine government.
            2. The corruption had occurred years before Hunter Biden joined the Board.
            3. The demand to remove Shokin was from multiple countries and the IMF.
            4. The demand was because he was NOT prosecuting corruption, not because he was.
            5. Biden was the messenger carrying out government and IMF policy.

            In short, the tale of Biden “corruption” around the firing of Shokin is a total fiction. It has been debunked over and over and over again. People who continue to spread it are simply not honest.

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