At a time when we hear a lot about false narratives and bogus conspiracy theories, we seem to be getting a prime example from the media itself. But before uncovering Hunter Biden, a little perspective is in order.
You will remember that media narrative that the Trump campaign had conspired with Russians in their meddling in the 2016 presidential election. For four years, there was no objective reporting on left-leaning media. Every report proclaimed the certainty of the accusation. It was all prosecutorial.
Reporters and panelists often referred to Trump as an asset or even an agent of Vladimir Putin. With fingers crossed, California Congressman Adam Schiff stated that behind closed doors he had seen the hard evidence of Trump’s criminal conspiracy with Putin. That turned out to be a real nose-grower when Special Counsel Robert Mueller – after a $35 million two-year investigation – declared definitively that the accusations were untrue – that no American had conspired with the Russians.
That particular conspiracy theory turned out to be a huge whopper that was carried on the platforms of the major news media without proper investigation, foundation or balance. It should not matter what one thinks of Trump to appreciate that this was a vicious campaign carried out by a corrupted news media. It was – as Trump would say – fake news.
We seem to be witnessing yet another grand false narrative. It is based on the assertion that the riot on Capitol Hill was part of a pre-planned grand conspiracy to overthrow the American election and install Trump as an autocratic leader – and the plot continues to this day at the hands of political cultists, according to the propaganda.
That bit of disinformation is beginning to come apart at the seams. Almost no one has been – or are likely to be – indicted for insurrection – any more than those rioters in Portland were charged with insurrection when they attacked government buildings or the occupiers of the commons (including a police headquarters) in Seattle. A senior New York Times reporter was caught by Project Veritas admitting — no, bragging – that much of what he and the Times reported on the Capital Hill riot was … well … bull droppings. As preposterous as the insurrection claims may be, many are choosing to believe them. Like the Russian conspiracy theory, when debunked there will be no corrections, admissions of error or any apologies from those who, with malice aforethought, spread the lies.
The dust has yet to settle on that one. So, stay tuned. But we now have an example of how the media abuses its position as the provider of fair and balanced information to protect its partisan interests. It is the affairs of Hunter Biden – or the “Case of the Stool Pidgeon Laptop.” In this case, the story – the facts – were not hyped, they were buried … denied … censored … canceled and otherwise ignored.
Since the information was generally blocked from view at the media level, allow me to put some historic perspective on the issue.
Hunter Biden takes his laptop to a repair shop – and basically forgets about it. The owner of the shop, in working on the computer, finds a lot of scandalous and very incriminating stuff. First, Hunter made himself the leading man in a number of porn videos. He also engages in illegal drug use on camera. (Yes, I used the salacious image to head the commentary for obvious reasons. Sex sells. And after all, we have seen gazillions of photos of Hunter attired.) Let us now move on from the salacious stuff.
Hunter Biden had a laptop. The existence of which – and the contents – were first confirmed and reported by the DailyMail.com. Their coverage was ignored by most of the major media outlets – justified by a bogus cover story.
Among the things of public interest on Hunter’s laptop were hundreds of communications that essentially exposed what appears to be questionable activities of a financial nature with foreign adversaries – some very politically damaging and some downright criminal. Some emails referred to the involvement of “the big guy” (Papa Joe Biden) in the distribution of ill-gotten gains – millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains.
That bit of information put the lie to Papa Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business affairs. Actually, the senior Biden was not only aware, but he was also deeply involved in promoting them – and apparently profiting from them.
The disclosures reported by the Daily Mail would have been enough to sink the Biden campaign, so they had to be kept from public exposure. Rather than putting this story in the headlines or the top of the hour news reports, the major media – conspiring with Democrat leaders – buried the story. They conspired to create a false story of Russian mischief.
The Bidens and the media alleged that the entire laptop deal was a phony. Conversely, lack of proof did not prevent the media from carrying the phony Trump Russian conspiracy accusations.
The media falsely reported that the entire laptop issue was a fake story trumped up by … (you’re not going to believe this one) … the Russians. In other words, the real laptop with real information was deemed to be the work of Putin. The phony dossier against Trump was given maximum credibility without a scintilla of evidential support — and knowing it was based on information provided by … (guess) … Russian operatives.
The effort to bury the laptop was so extreme that it involved even the social media companies. When the New York Post ran a front-page story on the Hunter laptop, the story was booted off by Facebook as fake news. Imagine that. A legitimate story published in a major reputable newspaper that runs contrary to the left-wing narratives is censored … banned … by social media – as were any other references to the story by others. It was deemed to be a lie – even though the media mavens had every reason to know that it was true.
Weeell … the truth tends to be persistent. In this case, confirmation of the existence and the legitimacy of the Hunter laptop ironically came from the New York Times – one of the news outlets that originally had buried the story.
When asked about the Times story, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki ducked, dodged and denied in a rather testy manner. While she was more than happy in the past to call the Hunter laptop story fake news — and a Russian disinformation campaign — she now takes the position that she cannot comment because Hunter is a private citizen.
When the left-wing’s “newspaper of record,” as they call the Times, places its imprimatur on the story, one might expect the rest of the partisan press would jump on it. But Nooo. Virtually zero coverage from MSNBC and CNN.
You can put the Hunter laptop story alongside the surging of migrants at the southern border … the epidemic of crime sweeping America … and the God awful Iranian nuclear deal into which Biden is about to enter … as topics that the left-leaning media will not report to the American public.
We can only look forward to Republican control of Congress – at least the House – to get the kind of honest and complete investigation the laptop needs. In terms of Hunter Biden, there is a lot more to see – so to speak.
So, there ‘tis.