I was a paid subscriber to taibbis Substack (now cancelled), and he has done some excellent work in the past. Since the “twitter files” thing though, and his adoption of shellenberger into his company, Matt has been consistently tending toward everything being a conspiracy, and this is a loss to journalism . Ie Shellenberger seems to be a full scale tinfoil hat guy and it’s rubbed off.
*****We all know, or should know, that the Hunter Biden laptop story turned out to be true.******
.
This statement demands clarification.
Therr is no single "Hunter Biden laptop story." Many of the stories, accepted as true, are actually or plausibly deceitful narratives concocted and promoted in the much the same way and spirit as the were the deceits from Shellenberger and Comer that Mike shared in this very essay.
The reporting from Marcy Wheeler ("Emptywheel") is indispensible. An example post is at the link below.
I am familiar w Marcy but I'm not talking about all the rabbit holey second and third order claims. Basic truth: Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at a Delaware repair shop. FBI acquired it. It has many embarrassing and incriminating photos though nothing that directly implicated the president. NYP original story was right. Maybe not their spin on every implication but they got the facts right. It wasn't Russian disinformation. Hunters legal team and federal gov't all acknowledge this under oath.
Well maybe Renee's possible involvement or knowledge of Hamilton 68 puts her in the category of censorship. Here a few excerpts to that effect.
"We know from other correspondence that Starbird pays attention to episodes like Hamilton 68, whose dashboard was designed by New Knowledge CEO Jonathon Morgan in conjunction with GEC contractor J.M. Berger. Back in 2018, just after New Knowledge was caught in a crazy scheme to create fake Russian Twitter accounts and have them follow Alabama Senate candidate Doug Moore, Starbird wrote future Graphika chief Ben Nimmo:"
"The research director at New Knowledge during the period of both the Alabama and Hamilton 68 episodes was Renee DiResta. Nimmo’s Graphika and Starbird’s Center for an Informed Public would both go on to team up with DiResta in the 2020 Election Integrity Partnership. Apparently that discussion of “boundaries” of “ethics” involving “offensive” information operations didn’t judge the latter too harshly."
Hi, Renee here. I was NOT the research director at NK during the period of either Ham68 or Alabama. My LNKD work timeline makes this very clear. I have pointed this out to Taibbi and requested a correction and he has not made one.
That's from a paywalled Taibbi post right? It doesn't get at what I wrote about. I'm not here to get Into The weeds of every aspect of DiResta's life. I don't mean that as an evasion it just muddies the waters and gets in the way of what I'm arguing. a) she's not a CIA operative B) shellenberger knows this c) Shellenberger constantly smears her unfairly d) there's no evidence of DiResta censoring true info. Ham 68 is its own thing. I does seem to have labeled regular bad opinions as Russian disinformation.
Im convinced Taibbi and Shellenberg really don’t know sh*t about the State Department and are really just suffering from audience capture. It’s all for the clicks and subs, baby!
I dont know what they know about State, and I tried to center my objections to Shellenberger bc what he did was more nakedly objectionable. But you do get the impression that if they yell CIA !!! it absolutely drives more interest and engagement .
As one of your loyal readers/listeners, this piece is just discouraging. How does a regular person, going to work every day, taking the kids to soccer, worrying about aging parents … all that, and then wanting to be a responsible informed citizen …
How does one avoid just disengaging in despair at last?
We have to recognize what's going on, reject the partisan lens, but also reject the knee jerk anti-partisan lens, and be guided by truth and accuracy. Also keep in mind, these disinformation campaigns aren't especially effective. This column is a who will watch those who watch the watchmen type recursivity, but its valid I do believe.
I was a paid subscriber to taibbis Substack (now cancelled), and he has done some excellent work in the past. Since the “twitter files” thing though, and his adoption of shellenberger into his company, Matt has been consistently tending toward everything being a conspiracy, and this is a loss to journalism . Ie Shellenberger seems to be a full scale tinfoil hat guy and it’s rubbed off.
Mike wrote:
*****We all know, or should know, that the Hunter Biden laptop story turned out to be true.******
.
This statement demands clarification.
Therr is no single "Hunter Biden laptop story." Many of the stories, accepted as true, are actually or plausibly deceitful narratives concocted and promoted in the much the same way and spirit as the were the deceits from Shellenberger and Comer that Mike shared in this very essay.
The reporting from Marcy Wheeler ("Emptywheel") is indispensible. An example post is at the link below.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/06/06/how-to-think-about-the-hunter-biden-laptop/
I am familiar w Marcy but I'm not talking about all the rabbit holey second and third order claims. Basic truth: Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at a Delaware repair shop. FBI acquired it. It has many embarrassing and incriminating photos though nothing that directly implicated the president. NYP original story was right. Maybe not their spin on every implication but they got the facts right. It wasn't Russian disinformation. Hunters legal team and federal gov't all acknowledge this under oath.
Well maybe Renee's possible involvement or knowledge of Hamilton 68 puts her in the category of censorship. Here a few excerpts to that effect.
"We know from other correspondence that Starbird pays attention to episodes like Hamilton 68, whose dashboard was designed by New Knowledge CEO Jonathon Morgan in conjunction with GEC contractor J.M. Berger. Back in 2018, just after New Knowledge was caught in a crazy scheme to create fake Russian Twitter accounts and have them follow Alabama Senate candidate Doug Moore, Starbird wrote future Graphika chief Ben Nimmo:"
"The research director at New Knowledge during the period of both the Alabama and Hamilton 68 episodes was Renee DiResta. Nimmo’s Graphika and Starbird’s Center for an Informed Public would both go on to team up with DiResta in the 2020 Election Integrity Partnership. Apparently that discussion of “boundaries” of “ethics” involving “offensive” information operations didn’t judge the latter too harshly."
Hi, Renee here. I was NOT the research director at NK during the period of either Ham68 or Alabama. My LNKD work timeline makes this very clear. I have pointed this out to Taibbi and requested a correction and he has not made one.
That's from a paywalled Taibbi post right? It doesn't get at what I wrote about. I'm not here to get Into The weeds of every aspect of DiResta's life. I don't mean that as an evasion it just muddies the waters and gets in the way of what I'm arguing. a) she's not a CIA operative B) shellenberger knows this c) Shellenberger constantly smears her unfairly d) there's no evidence of DiResta censoring true info. Ham 68 is its own thing. I does seem to have labeled regular bad opinions as Russian disinformation.
Im convinced Taibbi and Shellenberg really don’t know sh*t about the State Department and are really just suffering from audience capture. It’s all for the clicks and subs, baby!
I dont know what they know about State, and I tried to center my objections to Shellenberger bc what he did was more nakedly objectionable. But you do get the impression that if they yell CIA !!! it absolutely drives more interest and engagement .
Totally!!!!
As one of your loyal readers/listeners, this piece is just discouraging. How does a regular person, going to work every day, taking the kids to soccer, worrying about aging parents … all that, and then wanting to be a responsible informed citizen …
How does one avoid just disengaging in despair at last?
We have to recognize what's going on, reject the partisan lens, but also reject the knee jerk anti-partisan lens, and be guided by truth and accuracy. Also keep in mind, these disinformation campaigns aren't especially effective. This column is a who will watch those who watch the watchmen type recursivity, but its valid I do believe.