So my dermatologist has given me the all clear, and I have had time to read the opinion piece in the Hill you linked to above. Andrew McCarthy is certainly bright and has a good CV, and I agree with a lot of what he said generally about how evidence is and should be treated. After all, he is an attorney and knows the rules of evidence. Nothing very controversial in the preambulatory part of the piece. I will note in passing that he writes for the National Review and is a Fox News contributor. Peter Schweizer whom he refers to writes for Beitbart.
Then I read this paragraph:
"As we’ve noted, though, first and foremost in any authenticity examination is the item itself. Here, we have thousands of Biden photographs and videos that plainly appear to be real. The emails make contextual sense, and they fit what is known about Hunter Biden’s business activity (about which a great deal of investigative journalism has been done, most effectively by Peter Schweizer). According to Fox News, one unidentified participant in an email about Hunter’s Chinese business dealings has acknowledged the email’s authenticity."
He says "here were have", not that he has actually seen and reviewed, thousands of photos and videos and emails. And he further qualifies his statement by saying they "plainly appear to be". He also says Fox News has verified one of them, out of thousands. If he has seen them, say so. If someone told him they exist, who was it? If he has, or has access, to them, produce them. I would like to see the photos, videos, and emails. Seems like a fair request. Remember about the Trump pee-pee tape. I thought it was too far fetched. I really needed to see it to believe it. It never appeared. In addition, seeing the actual laptop and hard drive would help. The only things I have seen so far, at least that I can remember, are screen grabs of two emails, and a photo of the back of a napkin.
McCarthy is a lawyer, so I will use a trial analogy. What we have here is the prosecutor's opening statement, where he tells the jury all the stuff he's going to prove during the course of the trial. He doesn't actually show them any evidence yet, he just tells them what's he is going to show them later. Then the defense gets to make its opening statement, and tells the jury that all that stuff the prosecutor said, and said he'll show you, is a pack of lies. The judge doesn't give the jury the case after the opening statements; he waits until all the evidence has actually been presented. Then the jury gets to decide if it believes any of it, because everyone knows that lawyers will lie through their teeth to win a case, and all the witnesses are either being bribed or blackmailed. Not only that, it is so fucking complicated nobody could possibly ever figure it out anyway. So a lot of the time the jury decides that it is not sure the defendant really did it, but he looks like a snake, so they give him a three year suspended sentence. After everything is over, the lawyers put all their papers back in their briefcases, and shake hands, and say they hope to see each other again on another case. If it is the secret handshake, it's an agreement neither will appeal. And then there is a commercial for Geritol.
At least that's what happens on Perry Mason. What they don't show you on Perry Mason is what occurs before the trial even begins. It is called the discovery phase. The reason they don't show you the discovery phase is because it is so mind-numbingly tedious and boring and time consuming, that if they showed it to you, you would probably change the channel. If you have read much Kafka, you’ll have an inkling of what I am taking about. Anyway, what you do during discovery is obviously to try to discover stuff, often for years, so that when it's your turn, you can show the jury what you discovered. But the really bummer part about discovery is that each side has to show the other side all the stuff that they are going to use to prove what the defendant did or didn't do. And to add insult to injury, you have to show the other side all the stuff that actually hurts your case. That's so there are no surprises at trial. And that's the difference is between Perry Mason and real life. In real life, Paul Drake doesn't slink into the courtroom and hand Perry a slip of paper during cross-examination, and Perry doesn't make the witness break down and cry, and confess that it is all fake news. In real life, thanks to discovery, Perry already knows what is on that slip of paper even before the trial begins. Not only that, but in real life, Perry has been in training, practicing his witness badgering skills, so he is in peak condition when the trial rolls around. The other thing is, thanks to discovery, the witness also knows what's on that slip of paper, so when Perry starts down that line of questioning and is really going in for the kill, the witness cries uncle to spare himself the humiliation of breaking down and crying in front of everybody. When that happens, two scenes unfold in the courtroom: first, smoke starts coming out of Perry's ears because he's miffed that he spent all that time practicing his witness badgering skills and the witness wimped out on him, and second, the prosecutor starts grimacing and futzing with his paper clips, and chastising himself for being so stupid as to even call that witness to begin with. Experienced attorneys usually settle cases rather than try them because they get really tired of going through all of that rigmarole. But every once is a while you get a psychotic client who's really rich and is willing to spend millions of dollars to make that fast food joint honor his coupon for two for the price of one apple pies even though it has expired, in which case the only solace for the attorney is that he can now afford to buy that new Mercedes with all the bells and whistles he has been eyeing at the car lot down the street. And, really, it's not that much solace. Did I mention about Kafka?
I hate to break it to you, but we aren't even at the discovery phase. The prosecutor is trying the case in the press to try to taint the jury pool, and hoping and praying that all the stuff the private detective told him is true. And he is not sharing any of the evidence with the defense because, frankly, he hasn't had time to go through all the thousands of emails, photos, and videos to figure out if there even is any evidence because he just got the stuff a couple of days ago. So far, he's found screen grabs of two emails and a photo of the back of a napkin.
News Alert: The New York Post has just published two photos from its treasure trove of thousands. One is a photo of Hunter and Beau with their arms on each other's shoulders, smiling and looking like pals. The other is a photo of Hunter lying on a towel on the beach. He is wearing a really fetching pair of swim trunks. A woman in a bikini is giving him a kiss. I guess they are pals too. No word yet on whether the woman is Mata Hari. And, as best as I can tell, she is not an underage Chinese girl. But who knows? Maybe if I had a bigger magnifying glass I could tell she is in disguise.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.
I read quite a few Breitbart articles. For example, the Ian Hanchett article quotes White House spokesman Jason Miller as saying Trump is going to ask Biden about this stuff at the debate. Boy, there's a revelation. Won't Biden be surprised. Trump will probably fire Miller for showing his cards. It seems to me if you already have the stuff you would probably lay it out there and let everybody see it, and then say game, set, match. I doubt Trump is going to bring a briefcase full of the photos and emails, and a projector to show the videos, to the debate, so it will probably be a lot of "when did you stop beating your wife" kind of questions. The John Nolte article says Biden is hiding in his basement. Nothing new there either. Everyone knows Biden has been hiding in his basement hoping Trump will self-destruct. The strategy seems to be working so far so why change now? The Hannah Bleau article says that if Schiff is lying, he'll be in trouble, except that he is a congressman, so he won't. That's informative. It also says that Ratclliff, Trump's DNI, told Fox News the Biden story is not Russian disinformation. No surprise there. What would you expect him to say? He is Trump's lackey and doesn't have any intelligence experience, so he may not be the most credible guy on the issue. Has he actually seen the thousands of photos, emails and videos? I bet Fox forgot to ask him that. So maybe Schiff is lying or maybe Ratliff is lying. Fielder's choice. In the Jeff Poor article, he repeats the same story about Ratclliff telling Fox News that the story isn't Russian disinformation. So I heard. No reason not to repeat it for emphasis though.
In the Pam Key article, she says Ron Johnson wants to call the FBI in to testify to whichever Senate Committee he is on. That actually sounds like a good idea. I think Ron Johnson earlier said he was going to call Zuckerburg and Dorsey in. Fine by me. As I suggested before, Ron Johnson also might want to call in the computer repair guy since he is in a pretty good position to tell us all about what's on the copy of the hard drive he made, and all the rest of the stuff in the New York Post article, and in that hoax guy's blog you quoted here a couple of days ago. This one is kind of a headscratcher to me. Why not call the guy that actually knows something? And why not call in Giuliani? He supposedly knows stuff, and it will provide some comic relief. Have you actually ever had to sit through one of those Senate hearings? The senators on both sides of the aisle spend about a week with opening statements, and then spend about fifteen minutes asking the witness questions, which the witness says he doesn't understand and couldn't remember the answer to even if he did. In another Pam Key article, she said that Don. Jr. said that the Democrats and the media were suppressing the Hunter Biden story. Holy shit, did Don Jr. really say that? Remarkable reporting. Is a Pulitzer in the offing? The Matthew Boyle article said Hunter Biden's former partner who is in jail serving time for fraud gave Peter Schweizer access to 26,000 of his emails with Hunter Biden. That should be interesting when Schweizer gets around to going through them to see what, if anything, is there. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I could go through the rest of the articles but I really don't want to spend the time until the laptop, the hard drive, and the thousands of photos, videos, and emails are produced, and we actually have something to talk about. As Tom Cruise said in Jerry Macguire: "Show me the money." Until then, it's mostly gums flapping. Or is that lips flapping? I always get those confused.
As far as the commie/lib media goes, until the FBI releases the laptop, and the New York Post shares the hard drive, or at least the thousands of photos, emails, and videos, I'm not sure what there is to investigate. I remember that a while back there was this senator who said he had a list of communist sympathizers in his briefcase. Reporters asked him if they could take a look at it. He said no, the list was staying in the briefcase. So the reporters said okay, and went back to this pandemic story they were working on. Nevertheless, the senator issued a press release saying it was all a big media coverup. Then the senator held some rallies, and all of the senator's supporters went batshit crazy, and began chanting "lock them up". Everyone was having a grand old time until some of the supporters died because no one was wearing a mask. Hey, shit happens. It is what it is. Will history repeat itself?
I don’t know where this story is going. Perhaps it is all true. I just know that wherever it is going we are not there yet. We haven't even started. And there are only two weeks to go before the election. I'm pretty sure the commie/lib media can stall at least that long. And Biden only has to come out of the basement for one ninety minute debate. He won't have to come out at all if Trump bails again because Kristen Welker won't ask him any foreign policy questions. He is really itching to brag that he has achieved peace in our time because Israel has entered into some agreements with a couple of countries most people have never heard of and couldn't find on a map if their life depended on it. I mean if he can't brag about that, he is not going to waste his time on a debate. Even if it means he can't ask Biden when he stopped beating his wife. So I guess we will just see where all this goes.
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