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Comment by arinlen | Hacker News Reader

> It was later admitted by the Times that it was real.

No, not really. That opinion piece just refers to "Hunter Biden's business dealings", which is quite the strawman when compared to the original baseless accusations and conspiracy theories fabricated around hypothetical emails.

The bullshit propaganda fabricated around the laptop's conspiracy theory has bee extensively debunked and widely reported as being nothing more than propaganda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...

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From the wiki: As of 2022, Vox reported that no evidence had ever emerged "that the laptop's leak was a Russian plot."[12] In March 2022, The New York Times reported it had authenticated some emails "from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop."[12][13] Also in March, The Washington Post reported that two security experts authenticated thousands of the 129,000 emails, though the vast majority of the laptop contents, including most of its emails, could not be authenticated.[3] Among the emails that The Washington Post was able to authenticate was the Pozharskyi email that formed the basis of the New York Post's original article.[3]

Not trying to be a pain here, just trying to point out that there was some truth to the claims. I've been quick to dismiss such claims as conspiracy before so I was surprised to find some truth to them. I agree though that many outlets ran too far with the story and it was meme'd too much online. Also doesn't really seem to matter to the public discourse these days anyway with all the other problems the US and the world are facing.

That's the same trick used on the great replacement. Pick the most conspiratorial, unlikely version of it (evil Jews meeting in secret, plotting to cause immigration to turn whites into an oppressed minority in their own lands, and for no other reason), show that there is no evidence of that, the apply the label of "debunked" to anything that can be vaguely called replacement (relative demographic reduction of white population due to immigration policies enacted since the 1960s).

In other words, an offensive motte and bailey strategy. Attack the motte, then claim you've destroyed the bailey.

> That's the same trick used on the great replacement.

Are you also in the business of pushing far-right conspiracy theories?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement

You mean the Democrats' "demographics is destiny" strategy?

I'm just repeating the words of the current President of the United States (though he was not yet President when speaking them):

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4926142/user-clip-joe-biden-u...

You meant the bullshit propaganda about it being some Russian intel plant was debunked, I presume? Because the contents were confirmed as legit, which makes sense since the Bidens never once denied they were authentic. Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine are quite well known and relevant to current events. ;-)

The contents were probably laundered from an iCloud hack if you consider the shady backstory and forensic analysis. Somebody seems to have dumped the rest of it a couple months ago. Of course that got even less attention outside of right wing tabloids.

The iCloud hack was separate. They found plenty on the laptop hard drive. The new stuff mostly just reinforces that he’s a failson, so idiotic or damaged that he films himself weighing his crack. The other notables being that the president was listed as Pedo Pete or something in his contacts list.

>Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine are quite well known and relevant to current events. ;-)

They can't be well known and relevant to the war. Has to be one or the other unless and until Western policy towards Ukraine is changed.

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